As I write this, I'm looking back on my first 70 years and am appalled at how slow I have been to learn things - and put them into practice. I have no one to blame for this, but given my mind always rated highly and before my stroke I used to be quick on the uptake, I am, in the words of Yes Minster, appalled. Three lessons in particular have transformed my life in the last few years. There have been other lessons such as Your God is too Small, but that came out of the first of these three.
The first is God NEVER stopped talking with people, except at their choice. When Israel asked Moses to act on their behalf, God accepted that, but it was never His number one choice. If you want to talk with God, you can. You don't have to be a Christian or follow any rituals - just talk.
The second is the Bible as we Westerners have taken it for 2,000 years is NOT the Bible Jesus knew (Old Testament) nor what His followers would have understood. When I became a Christian, I grew up in a tradition where the Bible was taken seriously with much debate around words and versions and so on. I've recently come to accept an alternate view. I heard the guy speak, and when he talked about the decade he spent documenting his understanding and then finding and fixing inconsistencies, I was particularly intrigued.
There are other areas where this happens, but it's the first time I heard of "the Bible" being inconsistent (apart from the old OAC street presentations. I now understand that our Western mindset (from Plato and Aristotle) is quite different from the Hebrew mindset (which happens to be nearer the Maori mindset if there is such a thing). The book that describes this is:
Systematic Theology for the New Apostolic Reformation - and exposition in Father-Son theology.
You can of course find negative views about it - as you can about other material I review. I only review material that has helped me. Often this means I have to risk it conflicting with my past views. At my stage of life, I have found the risk of being in error with new understandings is less than the risk of staying in error, It took me almost a year to work through the three volumes of this book before I could willingly accept it, and another year and a half to publish it (with minor changes - mainly US language) - and no copyright (hence this is not available to the public). If you want to make up your own mind, check here:
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That will join you up with a chat group but does not allow you to chat. It simply allows you to read (not quite finished yet so don't go too fast. The only messages going out from this group are two per day as the final articles are published). Note I have generally changed spelling and grammar from the US to Kiwi, but the main thing to note is I have not included diagrams or the many notes.
The third big thing is something God (I believe) is showing me through a book we're just working through. It's called "Unlocking Kingdom Power: Five Keys to Divine Healing" by Tom Loud. The five keys don't just apply to healing, but he's chosen healing as an obvious example of something different happening.
While we wait to experience healing (one of the main signs of kingdom power), this book has given us new insight into verses we're always reading with blinders on. This book has no new or hidden secrets - it's just that our "training" limits our thinking. When I read the book, whole passages previously apparently not to be taken literally suddenly became real.
Tom Loud has many videos on YouTube - and even one video of each of the five points. He learned from a couple of others who also have their own YouTube collections. Pete Cabrera Jr was the one who helped Tom break through. The other guy is Todd White - a man who Reinhardt Bonke had a big influence on.