Each week on earth I walk in the anointing of the Holy Spirit and from the moment He draws near till the time my head hits the pillow my life has a good healthy dose of peace and joy about it.
When I walk with other prophets, Jesus often comes and walk with us so clearly that we can identify the colors of his clothes and often he will join in the conversation and speak to both of us or one of us through the mouth of one of the prophets.
Living this sort of life is possible and it all comes down to five fundamental tips that I am going to share with you, but a tip is only a tip, it's no good to a punter if he doesn't get his money out and risk his time and money for a reward.
These tips are not rocket science to understand.
Just like Jesus parables they are often easy to understand on the surface but once you start to search deeper you find the parables are very deep and rich with wisdom indeed.
I know few people who know Jesus like I do, who can have a two hour conversation with him and ask him any question about anything.
I know these people exist as my good friend can talk to God like me, and I know the church of believers has them scattered all around the world, yet personally I am so weird that I often don't bring up what I experience with the Christians that I know.
Okay.
Tip 1 Read your Bible The Bible has an anointing.
To many people, sadly many Christians, the Bible is dry and it simply does not speak to them.
People try and read the Bible like they are told to do and they find as soon as they pick it up they get tired.
I heard of one Asian man who had a sleeping problem and couldn't get to sleep each night and a visiting pastor knowing his wife was a Christian and this man was a staunch non believer under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit gave this man the medication that would heal his sleeping problem.
He told the man when he wants to go to sleep simply pick up his wife's Bible and read it.
The man did it and never had a problem with sleep again.
I am not sure if he is saved yet! When I pick up the Bible the Bible is rich to me.
Everywhere I turn the passages are leaping of the page and the Holy Spirit is speaking to me.
I write a lot of articles on scriptures and these are simply a way of me being able to digest what the scriptures are saying to me.
I write what I feel the scripture is saying and write an article and I get taught by the process.
I only have to spend half an hour in the Bible and I have three passages to preach a five page sermon/article on.
Different to a preacher putting a message together each week over many hours, I sit down with the passage and under the influence of the Holy Spirit I share my heart with my readers and an hour later I am proofreading it as best I can and uploading it.
So how could you get to a stage where in half an hour of reading you have got enough insight from the Holy Spirit that you can write fifteen pages on what you have seen? Well first you have to be a person God wants to share His secrets with.
First you have to be a person that He knows He can trust with His hidden knowledge and wisdom.
And building trust with God comes from tip 2 but a tip that has to be firmly in place before a strong abiding presence will come.
Tip 2 You have to be set apart.
Let me share three scriptures with you briefly.
2 Timothy 2:3-4 3 You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
4 No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.
What is this hardship in being a good soldier? Well the affairs of life are not the hardship, struggling with death, jobs, relationships and all the hard things of life that come to the unsaved also are not the hardships.
In reality few believers are good soldiers and fewer still have any idea what it takes to be a good soldier.
Unless you are prepared to lose your mother, father, wife, child, friends, houses and possessions to serve Jesus you are not worthy to be a soldier.
I have lost all of the above to get where I am.
I am happy where I am and unless God had taken all these things from me I would not be as effective as I am being now and I would not have the anointing in my life.
Sure it hurts not to have these people in my life, some of them might return in God's timing, but like Abraham I have been called to another land with a promise.
Can you live with a lesser house? Can you live with cheaper jeans? Can you live without the best model phone? Can you spend more then 20% of your income on projects for God? If God wants you to study the word of God will your turn off the TV? Would you vote against your party preference because God told you to? Would you leave a church you love if God told you to as he wanted you to join a church down the street struggling and he wants you to help them get healthy? Would you forgo restaurant meals and have cheaper meals and invite poor people to your home? God wants every part of you to be different to the world.
That's you watching only movies approved by him, only TV shows he approves of, only reading books he leads you to and only mixing with people that are on fire for him.
He wants you to withdraw from the world and all the good things and turn around and serve Him and his narrow road.
I am appalled to hear that over 50% of people in the USA pray each day, but such gross films do such high returns at the box office.
I am appalled at how many Christians who could offer free material online to people don't offer it free but charge people.
Every book I ever write will have every chapter of it free here online to read.
It makes sense, more people will be encouraged and the more people that read a free article like this and apply it the better the body of Christ will be.
It makes no difference to me if you buy my first book, it will only make a difference to you if you spend the time to get to know me through my articles and you go on and live a more productive Christian life then me.
Having sixty plus articles in a book that you can read in your favourite café and on the bus on the way to work just makes it more convenient.
Jobs, cars, houses, books, tapes, technology, people you know should all be possessed by you in the light as how can I use these to better serve the Lord.
I can tell you a good car that is $7000 less then the better car is better for you and God when you use the saving to buy 1000 Bibles for China.
When you walk with Jesus like I do everything revolves around how you can better impact the Christians in the world and how you can reach the lost, Nothing outside of this is important to you.
And there lies the rub.
Because most Christians have things that ARE more important to them then those two things.
Verse two.
James 4:2-4 2 You lust and do not have.
You murder and covet and cannot obtain.
You fight and war.
Yet] you do not have because you do not ask.
3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
I have a hundred and fifty articles of which to this time 32,000 people have read them.
I have had ten people give me feedback on this site via a comment and about six people email me that have read an article.
Have I earned a cent from this? No! Do I care if my book sells for the money that will be made, no not really.
I only care that people take the time to read many of my articles and it's easier to read a slab of them in a book and then a book can be leant to friends and shared.
This whole world runs on people lusting after the things of the world.
That's called free enterprise by the world, God calls it death.
You know even the richest never have enough to make them happy.
People spend so much time praying for a better job so they can afford a better house and better car, but how many more people are going to be in heaven because they have a better house and a better car? Jesus said to store your riches in heaven.
He said where a person treasure that is where his heart will be.
Most people don't know how to store riches in heaven.
One way would be to use your money to buy Bibles for China.
Another would be to take the courage to email this article to five of your friends.
You would build up treasure for God if one of those friends applied these tips.
God says that he that loves the world is his enemy.
And the sad fact of the matter is that most Christians think they love Jesus but they love money more.
If this was not true Christians would be tithing 10% at church instead of 2%.
People's eyes fill with tears and the Lords love pours down from heaven and bless people at churches every week and yet these people don't give God their last penny like the widow but like hypocrites they go home thinking they are righteous.
You want the manifest presence of God, start giving him money for his Gospel.
Read forty of my articles which titles interest you, take a breath of courage and start to email them to your friends.
Go one bigger, buy a copy of my book when it is available and bless a friend with it and ask them can you borrow it when they have read it.
I think I have made my point so we won't go into the third scripture in detail, I'll just quote it.
1 John 2:15-17 15 Do not love the world or the things in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life-is not of the Father but is of the world.
17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.
Tip 3 Show grace to others One thing that makes God very happy is when his people are Christlike.
Jesus healed all that came to him even when by doing so he would get in trouble.
So you might not heal, but next time you are asked for money by a beggar in front of your Christian friends reach into your money bag and give them a couple of dollars.
If you can't bear them using it for drugs or drink ask them on the spot can you take them to the nearest shop and buy them something that they can chose.
I dare you.
Go and do it and you will be treated like Jesus when he healed on the Sabbath by good Christian folk that you are walking with.
Or perhaps you can really obey Jesus.
You can go and get that poor man and take him out for dinner after church with you and your Christian friends.
Buy him anything on the menu.
Or perhaps you can be even more radical and be like the good Samaritan.
You can take the man home, back your car out of the garage and give the man a house in your garage and enough money for him to get public transport back into the city each day so he can beg.
These are not just suggestions by Jesus in the gospels.
These are all things I have done and do.
My house mate was homeless when I met him and he lives in my spare room and has done for 10 months.
And he even pays me half the rent these days, while I pay all the bills.
He tells me there are good spirits in my house as he has felt them.
He isn't a Christian yet but he is a great man.
How else are the dying world going to know Jesus unless they meet him.
Most people I know can't even hear Jesus speak to them in their heart, how is a non Christian ever to know God unless you go and give them an example of grace.
If you keep giving of your grace, God will start answering your prayers and the Bible will come alive.
Tip 4 Chat to God and pray and listen People can be really funny how they pray.
I am not going to go into it.
Jesus wants us to communicate with him.
He loves us just to come to him and let our hair down and speak into the air like a chat with a good friend.
He knows how you feel and everything you are going through, he just wants you to sit down with him and unburden your heart.
I pray like a normal person sometimes but most of the time I just have two way conversations with God and Jesus.
I lay in bed at night and wind down and go over the day, then I say good night and roll over and go to sleep.
When I wake up the Holy Spirit comes to me and we start to walk together for the day.
When you pray listen to God and let him speak a thought into your mind.
You'll be shocked you do all of the above for a while and God will start talking to you.
Prayer is essential no matter how you do it to maintain the manifest presence of God.
If you have a good friend an essential part is communication, So communicate more often.
You can have a pray in five seconds at work just with Help me God as your boss walks you into their office.
There are books and books written about prayer.
Most of them have put me to sleep.
When you go to pray your mind will fill with many thoughts all of a sudden.
Don't worry persist in prayer and brush the thoughts off one by one as they come.
Tip 5 Apply what Jesus taught in his commands.
John 14:21 21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me.
And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.
" Jesus will manifest his presence in your life if you obey Him as this scripture promises.
If you apply the whole lot of the tips, you might with prayer see Jesus in a vision like I do each week.
Many people don't know the fifty commands of Jesus.
You can have a list of them and their scripture references by going to my article, "The commands of Jesus" at the link down the bottom of this article.
Go to it.
Apply the five tips and you will see great things happen.
Feel free to ask me questions via email and send this to your friends like I have suggested.
With Love Matthew