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Warrior Church Home Fellowship Study
Dr. Kevin L. Zadai
God Wants You To Catch Him
"We get into this mode that we got to find God. Then, once we find Him, we can't really catch Him"
~ Dr. Kevin L. Zadai
After you watch the video and read the study notes on this page, answer these questions here on the Blog mentioned above:
I run straight for the divine invitation of reaching the heavenly goal and gaining the victory prize through the anointing of Jesus.
—Philippians 3:14 TPT
DISCUSSION:
In the course of my relationship with the Lord, He showed me that He wanted me to catch Him. I had been pursuing Him like a military person, and I would tell Him that
I would pray for so many hours a day and fast, but I expected certain things to happen by the end of it. I had it all structured, and I would get frustrated if I didn't get to pray in tongues or if I came up short. I’d feel bad if I began to feel weak and I had to eat. There are all these demands we place on ourselves, but Jesus said to me, “You've been pursuing me, and you've been very diligent.” He said, “What if I let you catch me?” It took me back a bit, and I thought, we get into this mode that we have to find God, and then once we find Him, we can't catch Him. We get born again, but then we want to pursue Him, and it's as though you're never going to catch God. In your mind, you're thinking, I can never understand God. Jesus surprised me and said, “I want to let you catch me, and I will let you catch me.” Suddenly, the works that I was doing that I didn't realize had snuck in dissolved in a moment. I realized I was like a little puppy chasing my tail. There was no reason for me to think I would change God's mind and like me or love me more because I had been giving up all these things; that was for my benefit. It wasn't for the use of getting God to listen to me or do what I asked Him to do. This is a very special subject. If God wants you to catch Him, then it must be doable, and if He's inside of you, you've already caught Him, and He's caught you.
Philippians 3:14 is saying that Paul is running in a straight line towards a divine invitation. Therefore, wherever Jesus is standing, He’s inviting Paul to come to Him, and if you do the word study, the language signifies this meaning. In other words, He has an invitation to reach a heavenly goal. The goal is the victory prize. “Gaining the victory prize” is what the translation says.
THE VICTORY PRIZE
Matthew 6:33 TPT: So above all, constantly seek God’s kingdom and his righteousness, then all these less important things will be given to you abundantly.
You’re running towards an invitation, but it’s all in a straight line. When you get to the place you're being called, it's a heavenly goal, and you gain a victory prize. Your whole purpose is to obtain the victory prize by going in a straight line toward the point that you're being invited. Paul understood this because he was caught up and saw all these things. Sometimes when he talks, it's like he's talking in a mystery. Essentially what Paul is trying to describe is what he saw in Heaven, and he wants to help people understand it down here. The Passion Translation is very effective at describing this more easily.
Matthew 6:33 once again is saying; So, above all, constantly, (not just one attempt), to chase after the realm of God's kingdom and His righteousness that proceeds from Him, then all these less important things will be given to you abundantly. Paul had revealed this to all the churches.
Jesus told me that if you will do these two verses and focus on me, I'm going to let you catch me. Then He said, what are you going to do? That disarmed me again because I'm thinking, Okay, God's allowing me to catch Him, but then He's asking me, what do I do if I catch Him? I never planned on catching Him. When you begin to pursue God from a position, He stops to let you catch Him. Then when you run into Him, it becomes a relationship.
What does a relationship with God look like to you?
WHAT IF GOD CAME TO YOUR HOUSE?
People say that they wished Jesus would come to their house, and my response to that is if He came to your house, would He be comfortable? Are you going to watch your favorite show tonight? If He comes to your home, then what about all the items you have in your house, the ones that look like false gods? I'm just asking, and I'm kind of joking, but I'm not. I hear pastors say that if Jesus came to our town, He would be attending our church this morning. My question is, would He? Or would He be flipping the tables in the back, or what would He be doing? In other words, we need to be prepared to receive what we're asking. Do we realize what we're asking, and are we asking for it rightly? I would encourage you that when you pray, you should expect God to answer you, and you better expect to receive what you're asking. You better be able to accommodate God on His terms and not yours. In other words, do you prepare for God to come, or are you just seeking Him to say that you're seeking Him? Many other religions in the world do things outwardly to show they are dedicated to God. They take a vow of poverty, or I've seen priests walk on their knees for a long-time up the temple stairs just to impress their God. I've seen people do chants in Christian circles; they repeat things numerous times, thinking that they're going to receive what’s spoken after the five hundred and first time. They believe they’ll receive what they spoke because they’ve said it over five hundred times.
THE WAY TO PRAY
Jesus said to let your words be few and that you don't have to pray all these wordy prayers (Matthew 6:7) Your Father knows all your needs already, and He is willing (Matthew 6:8) He prayed a very simple prayer, and He said, “This is how you pray” (and He prays the Lord’s prayer). He takes care of the birds, and He's going to take care of you (Matthew 6:26)
Remember that in all your pursuits of God, your plan is that you obtain the victory prize, that you do it in a straight line, and you run toward the spot where you're invited, which is finishing your race correctly. All these other things you need will be provided for you because you kept your focus on God's kingdom. The Lord said to me after He told me to pursue Him, “What if I let you catch me?” It made me think, and then I realized I was doing many things in the works mode, just trying to impress God, which I can't impress God.
If I want to impress God, I should act like Him. It’s a big compliment when someone says they want to be just like you when they grow up. One of the biggest compliments to God is when you would want to be like your heavenly Father and be an imitator of Him. Paul said this in Ephesians five; “Be an imitator of God, as dearly loved children.” He said, “I’ll let you catch me”, and my response was, “But what if I start to pursue you, and then I spend the rest of my life chasing after you?” He said that goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life (Psalm 23:6) When He said it, I realized that different translations say, Goodness and mercy will run after you, overcome you, and tackle you.
Warrior Church Home Fellowship Study
Dr. Kevin L. Zadai
That’s an aggressive way of putting it, but goodness and mercy are not like two little puppies following you around.
Based on my conversation with Jesus, how might you change how you pursue God and deal with God?
THE PHASES IN A CHRISTIAN’S LIFE
When I first had the visitation with Jesus, He said there are three phases in a Christian’s life. There's the phase of revelation, the phase of visitation, and then the phase of habitation. He said this happens on an individual basis and, it's also for the corporate body. Paul expounded upon revelation, and he sent the letters out, and we’ve read them. The way you will encounter these phases is when the word spoken by the Apostle or the prophets goes out, you receive revelation, and it causes you to be visited. The spirit begins to visit you and change your environment. Visitation happens in the spirit realm, but it affects you physically and mentally. Then once you have the visitation, it becomes a manifestation. The next step is a habitation, and the church has yet to encounter this. People that go into habitation become the people that are heroes in church history. People who have habitation have books written about them, and they became part of history. We think to ourselves, oh, if I could have just met that person, if I could have just had that person lay hands on me, and you read about them. These are people that God took over and made them a dwelling place, but it's supposed to be for everybody. It's supposed to be for the whole body. When we get together, the Lord's ultimate desire is for us to have habitation, not just revelation.
We have revelation because the Spirit is doing that with the Word, but it would have been nice for the breath of God that came over me a few moments ago to happen for everybody here. People might be feeling it right now, but it won’t stop there. It’s God's will to come in and inhabit us right now to the point where none of us can do a thing except worship. All you will see for the next part of this program is seeing us face down, worshiping, shaking, crying, and encountering God’s habitation. It’s different than visitation or revelation. Habitation produces a deeper relationship.
THE PURSUIT
The pursuit is what happens when the other person in the relationship begins to pursue you more than you're pursuing them. There is a pursuit to attaining the narrow way. God pursues a person, and they overcome to a point where people observe and see favor. It's unexplainable, and it’s because God chooses to flip it and start to pursue the person. Then it's even greater than Habitation because it becomes corporate. It grows on a larger scale because that person is being pursued, and they can't stop the favor of the Lord from happening, and it affects everyone. Everyone begins to participate in it.
Jesus told me that I find people irresistible, I can't be without them. That’s what happened to me, and the story is too long to share, so I'm just going to tell you that He appeared to me, and He said to me that I had fulfilled my purpose. That was a couple of years ago, and He told me, You've done everything I've asked you to do, and it's time to come with me. It fell in line with what He had told me when I died on the operating table, and He told me some information. The Lord said that He could not be away from me any longer. He said, “I've come to take you, and I said, you can't take me because it's in public right now, and everyone knows I'm a Christian.” I was on my airplane working, and I was eight miles up in the air, serving the people. Everyone disappeared as I held my tray, and He was standing there talking to me. He suspended the whole airplane not in the air because I don't know if that happened, but nobody saw me talking to Jesus even though I was in front of everybody. He stopped everything, and it froze for about four minutes. He told me, “I just want you to be with me.” He said, “I can’t be without you any longer. You've done everything. It's time.” I negotiated with Him, and said, “well, if You'll work with me and help me start a ministry and if You'll guarantee me that You will send people to me that I can minister to, and I will always have a place to minister, I'll stay.” I gave Him information, and He gave me information, and He just walked off. Then I went back to doing my job.
Nobody appeared to know that three or four minutes were missing because it was in full view. Jesus walked up to me just as real as any person. He told me this information, but this is the way Jesus feels about everybody. He chose to favor me, and that was His choice; it was nothing that I did. He was pursuing me, and it appeared that it wasn't fair. He gave me this phrase, and He said, Kevin, favor isn't fair. It isn't fair to many people observing it because it's God's decision, and He can do what He wants. He can choose to favor you, and people would be upset because it wouldn't be explainable. I tell people, and I don't even understand it myself. I can say; it's not me.
Discuss the three phases and how they lead into the pursuit.
God is represented as a person who could be very upset with you if you don't do what He wants. That's the way God is represented to most people. I grew up thinking that He is very moody, and you better be ready for anything. I even thought that I could never please God. I had given up as a teenager at ever pleasing God. It seemed like He was mad all the time. When I got born again, things changed. It's hard for you even to imagine that God would want to pursue you and let you catch Him, but this is the way the gospel is. This is the way Paul writes, and it’s how it was when I was in Heaven, and that’s how it was explained to me. My assignment was to be sent back and tell these truths about God. Jesus wants to sit and talk with people, and He wants to win you over. He has to work through all the false ideas we have because of the amount of rejection we deal with. I’ve heard God say things that made me cry.
I can't imagine anyone would be so kind as to say those things. I would say, “Lord, I depend upon you. I need you. I depend upon you, and one day I heard the Lord say to me.”
God said, “Kevin, I can depend upon you. I can depend upon you. He said I trust you.”
I'm thinking, the God of the universe trusts me. God said, I'm dependable, and it just softened me. I just believe that this kind of mentality is going to set in, that we're going to start thinking about the fact that we were made in God's image so that He can look at us and smile. He did this for Himself but didn't do this because He had to. He did it because He wanted to.
DISCUSS:
1. Are you pursuing God, and are you doing it for the right goal?
2. Discuss Philippians 3:14 and Matthew 6:33.
3. Discuss how it might not be in a straight line, but Paul said it's a straight line.
4. What if God lets you catch Him, and what if He starts to pursue you What would that look like?
