Pastor Stephanie
Jesus sent to us a Helper who is a Person. He is not a robot or AI. There is One Person who is the 3rd Person; the Holy Spirit.
He will guide us alongside with us. Even closer to the closest person. As our Comforter and to confirm us if we need to. He is the Holy Spirit who will turn things for us without fear and feel we are alone.
God never want to leave us alone
Holy Spirit is the One who open us to understand Him.
His Word is spirit and spirit will speak to our new spirit. He does not speak to our body. He speaks to our inner man. The hidden Man of the heart.
Today let us open our heart and let the Holy Spirit talk to us.
Why immerse in water and in Holy Spirit fire?
There are two experiences for someone to experience when they come to know Jesus.
Immerse in water and holy spirit fire.
Immersion (Baptism of water)
Conversion (Being born again)
Immersion (Baptism of Holy Spirit)
The Hebrew word Tevilah means to totally immerse in water
A mikvah - body of nataural water such as river
The mikvah means Womb and grave and rebirth
Tevilah (full body immersion) marks a change of status from being tamay to tahor - ritually unclean (impure to be in the presence of the Lord)
Anyone who come into the presence of God must come tahor (pure)
Ritual cleaning of sin wnd symbolising death to the self
Rebirth - new spiritual life
We have spirit soul and body.
Most people pay attendtion to body because we can only see the body
Water baptism for believer
Know why you go into the water or mukveh
Know why we go into the water
You don't go into mikveh to join a church
You go into the water as an outward manifestation of an inward work that has happened in your life
A change in your life in your heart or innerman
Inside me when i receive Jesus
Lord Jesus i recognise You and I believe You are a Son of God and I ask you to come into my heart
When your heart believe and your mouth confess there is a change in your heart
John explained the reason he was baptising people in water.
John 1:30-31
This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.”
After rapture, He will turn to the Jews who rejected the Messiah
Mikvah - Pre-wedding preparation of the bride and groom
Christianity is NOT a religion, is a relationship
A muslim who received Christ, she wrote a book called "I dare to call Him Father"
Call Father knowing and realising He is our Father. (Relationship)
Offer the bride, not force
Agree to marry Jesus, not agree to go to the church
Personal relationship of husband and wife
In the 5 senses we want to see Jesus
But God is not in 5 senses.
When you marry the son, the father becomes your father in law.
Your father is now their father
We can now have this wonderful father daughter relationship
if your life as a Christian does not have this relationship, you are seeing christianity as a religion
White signifies purity
Significant of mikvah is for spiritual cleansing
“because of their disobedience of long ago. For during the time of Noah God patiently waited while the ark was being prepared, but only a few were brought safely through the floodwaters: a total of eight souls. This was a prophetic picture of the immersion that now saves you—not a bathing of the physical body but rather the response of a good conscience before God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,”
1 Peter 3:20-21 TPT
We are sinful by nature, this cannot be erased at all.
We try to pay for clear conscience. But we cannot. It has to be Jesus Christ who is without sin to pay once and for all ! We don't have to keep on asking Him to pay
A crime cannot be punished twice.
We have been made the righteousness of God in Christ
We don't work FOR our salvation
We work OUT our salvation
Comes from our inner man.
Now God has cleansed and given us clear conscience. This is God's grace. We don't deserve it.
““Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols. And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.”
Ezekiel 36:25-27 NLT
All of us are stubborn
Stubborn rebellious heart
God is a righteous Judge. He has to punish sin. He don't want man and woman to go to hell to be punished. He sent His own Son, Jesus Christ.
Divine exchange. This is the heart of the gospel.
Jesus took the hammer. He took the blame. He took the scapegoat
Who took the blame? Jesus took the blame!
At the cross He took all our blames. Today we can love one another the way He loves us.
We can love Him and love one another because we have a new heart. Jesus came and He took our old heart and give us new heart
God's heart is inside us. A new heart. We have God's heart inside us.
Born again is Jewish's term
Born again must be circumcised and immersion. Women only need to be immersed.
John 3:3
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
John 3:4
“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
For bis jewish perspective, Nicodemus asked "how can I convert to Judism if I am already a Jew"
John 3:5
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.
Jesus now come and confront a Jew
Conversion is a matter of heart
Receive Jesus in our heart
A conversion of spiritual condition is necessary for salvation
Emerges into mikveh sympblised born again into new life
When he comes out of water he becomes a new creation in Christ
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Romans 6:3-4
Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Jeremiah 17:13
O LORD, the hope of Israel,
All who forsake You shall be ashamed.
“Those who depart from Me
Shall be written in the earth,
Because they have forsaken the LORD,
The fountain of living waters.”
God is known for fountain of living water.
Hope is the same 3 letters.
In Dhrist is our hope
Mikvah - Hope of a new life
New begining in Him
New beginning in Christ
This hope is Jer 29:11
Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
An attachment, an expectation of good
Qoof is a sun rising on the horizon.
It carries the concept of Arising
The sun rising carries a concept of hope in and of itself
Jesus is the Sun of righteousness
Kingdom life! Don't live in the life of natural only.
““I’m baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. The real action comes next: The main character in this drama—compared to him I’m a mere stagehand—will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.” *”
Matthew 3:11-12 MSG
“One day when the crowds were being baptized, Jesus himself was baptized. As he was praying, the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit, in bodily form, descended on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.””
Luke 3:21-22 NLT
“Those who repent I baptize with water, but there is coming a man after me who is more powerful than I. In fact, I’m not even worthy enough to pick up his sandals. He will submerge you into union with the Spirit of Holiness and with a raging fire!”
Matthew 3:11 TPT
Upon you and in you
Make disciples and not babies only!
Matthew 28:19-20
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.