My name is Bernard Bougie, I live near Niagara Falls, Canada with my lovely wife Cindy. We have been married 43 years and God has blessed us with 3 wonderful children and 6 beautiful grandchildren.

Today, Cindy and I minister to hundreds on the Instagram site - “SANCTIFIEDGRACEMINISTRIES”.

On April 16, 1979, I was radically and eternally changed from the inside out by a divine encounter with Jesus Christ. Friends and family thought I had lost my mind, but my relationship with God has lasted 43 years and expanded to the place of abiding in His sanctifying Presence. 

Months after my initial conversion, I became intensely drawn to the idea of alleviating sickness, disease and pain in people’s lives through the miracle working power inherent in the mighty Name of Jesus, the Name above all names.

In 1984, my wife and I started a Word of Faith church in our home town. Over the next 8 1/2 years, hundreds of signs, wonders and miraculous healings took place, as God was confirming His Word with signs following. Ultimately, a women was raised from her deathbed, and it was boldly published on a full page in our local newspaper. Thinking that this would surely produce a major revival and awakening in our town, I was shocked when it didn’t happen. I cried out to God according to Jeremiah 33:3 - “Call unto Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things that you do not know”. As plain as any spoken voice, I was told “2 Timothy 2:20,21” - unless a vessel is sanctified, it is not ready for the Master’s use. God interrupted my life and set me on a path where the ultimate goal was walking exactly as Jesus walked. 

In the church today we desperately need the reality of God’s ultimate grace, the sanctified, love union with God in Christ that was provided for us on the Cross. The world is groaning to see the reality of Jesus in us - His love, His joy, His peace, His faith and His willingness to obey, that sanctifies and perfects us once and for all (Heb. 10:7-14). We must begin to soar like the eagles that we are into the fullness of Christ’s Own perfection (Eph. 4:13) and earnestly content for the faith once delivered unto the saints (Jude 3). The church is too noisy to hear what God is saying and too busy to see what He is doing. We need to learn to become still and know that He is God (Ps. 46:10) if we are to see the works and greater works of Christ in demonstration. 

I know the Bible prophesies of darkness in the last days, but it also speaks of great glory and revival. The church shall be “just like Him”, a spotless, perfect, holy, glorious bride. All enemies shall be made His footstool. Nations and kings shall come to His brightness (1 John 3:2, Eph. 5:27, Heb. 10:13, Is. 60:1-3).

It’s time for the church to reveal to the world the mystery of the universe -“Christ in you, the hope of glory”. It’s time we become the overcoming church that Jesus talked about in Matthew 16, that breaks down the gates of hell, that roars and commands revival - “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).

MESSAGE ON ABIDING

Jesus and the Apostles, throughout the New Testament, revealed to us the importance of abiding in Christ (the True Vine) and He in us. In the context of abiding, Jesus said that without Him, we can do nothing (John 15:5). The promises of abiding are outstanding: we will bear much fruit; every prayer will come to pass; we will walk as Jesus walked; we cannot sin (1 John 3:6,9); when we stand before the glorified Christ, we will not be ashamed and shrink away (1 John 2:28).

We are told that to abide in Christ, there is something we must do. It won’t happen on its own. We must move beyond the theory of abiding into truly practising Christ’s Presence within. We must learn how to set our soul (mind, will, emotions) into the dimension of the Spirit. Your soul is not evil. Like a sponge, it soaks up and becomes whatever it is placed into. We unplug our soul from the world and the five senses and replug it into God and His Kingdom within. We are told in Galatians 5:16, that if we walk in the Spirit we shall not fulfill any of the lusts of the flesh (sin). “Walk in the Spirit” can only mean the turning of our soul into our spirit, where the Bible tells us over 400 times that the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and, in fact, the entire Kingdom of God (Luke 17:21) are within us right now. 

When we’re abiding, we are drawing our life source from the resurrected, perfect, divine life of Christ. In John 6:57, Jesus wonderfully reveals that if we live from His life within, as He lived from His Father’s life within Him, we will walk “just as” He walked. Living with God on this level truly simplifies the definition of Christianity. Our only effort is to abide in the Vine. Every other aspect of the Christian life will naturally work out when we get the inner life right. We make no independent movements and have no independence from the Holy Spirit.

We begin walking in the reality of Galatians 2:20 - crucified with Christ, dead to ourselves and living by Jesus’ Own faith, just as we are to live by His peace, His joy, His love and His willingness to obey (Heb. 10:7-14). We attain to complete deliverance from “self” - the root cause of all sin and bondage. We walk free from the cares of this world, the cares for tomorrow and take no soulish burdens that men try to put upon us. Our entire being is focused on living in the present moment with God, seeing only what our Father is doing right now. We walk continuously in God’s perfect will with unending contentment and indifference to our own desires and plans. We want nothing. We are afraid of nothing. Nothing bothers us. We no longer have our own likes and dislikes.

“Abiding” means “union” - oneness with God. This is not something that the New Age invented. Hundreds of years before Buddha, God’s covenant men were being still, quiet, meditating and communing with Him in their spirit (ie. Gen. 24:63; Ps. 4:4; Ps. 46:10; Hab. 2:1). Our mind, will and emotions are a bridge between the flesh and the spirit. Quietness with Christ causes us to be transformed (“metamorphosis” in the Greek - Rom.  12:2), the same word used for Jesus’ transfiguration on the mount,  in Matthew 17.

We become a “no stress zone”, without any self-imposed standard of performance. We have the mind of Christ and every thought is brought to the obedience of Christ. “Prophecy” is when God thinks your thoughts towards a situation or another person (His prophetic Word). When God is continuously thinking our thoughts, we are abiding in union with Christ. We must allow the Holy Spirit to take possession of us (Romans 8:11). We are to walk by faith and not by sight (the senses). Faith perceives as real fact what is not revealed to the senses (Hebrews 11:1 - Amp.). The senses lose their power to control us, and our faith increases. 

In conclusion, if you hunger for more and desire to walk in the highest place that Jesus’ Resurrection has provided, the revelation on how to do it is right here. I invite you to join me on this quest to “walk as Jesus walked”, that “as He is, so are we in this world”. God bless you!