MESSAGE HIGHLIGHT:

Search and Switch Part 2 – Ps John Bendixen (WTB)

Scripture Reference: Genesis 3:2-5 (AMPC) 

I want to show you something that happens to you and me every single day (many times a day). When you focus on wanting to do God’s Word there is an alternative thought process that comes to you, “Why do you want to do it God’s way? Just do it your way”.  

God has placed in each one of us a desire to search instinctively for more of Him. The strongest desire inside of you is for your heart to be filled with God (His love, His presence, His life). Jesus is the way of full life and He wants us to pursue Him.

We fill our lives with many things that we search for and they’ve become substitutes for searching for Him. If you had to spend your whole life in the presence of God, you would become immediately aware of so many things that are going on in your life that actually God has been wanting to show you, “Don’t go there, it’s not good for you”. (Don’t cross the line, opening up a behaviour pattern that He wants to protect you from). 

The enemy of God’s tactic is to take that desire to search for life and deceive, manipulate and influence you to choose another form of life that you think might be a better option. For the most part people don’t realise that the choices that they’re making have such a destructive pattern in their lives. The enemy comes to show you in the lifestyle of other people, that it’s okay to compromise (it’s not really going to hurt and harm you). The enemy presents you with many different alternatives and many different options for you to choose something that is not God. And of course he is not showing you the end result of what you have chosen (to be your downfall).

When I searched for God’s life in my marriage, I had to put myself out there and give my wife all of what I was. You may have boundaries inside of you that say, “I will not give all of myself to my partner, because I’m afraid of being hurt”. The only thing that you can do is let God change you so that no longer do you live by fear, but you live by the confidence that is in God.

My primary function of helping people in relationships is closing the gap, because this world’s system is designed to bring gaps.  Eve’s thought process was designed to bring a gap between her and God. Satan used Eve’s very desire to search for more life to bring a gap with life. God has designed relationships to be something wonderful for us – including our relationship with Him. If you want to change something in your life, when it comes to relationships, you got to change what is happening between you and Him.

There is nothing you can do in your own strength to close the gap with God. What you’ve got to do is allow Jesus in you, to actually pursue Him. He will give you the desire to search for Him and close the gap between you and Him.  When you’re doing something wrong, you can have this confidence that God has already chosen to close the gap with you and that there is nothing that you can do that is big enough to separate you from Him. God’s whole world is designed to close the gap with you and have fellowship with you. 

Don’t let your personality keep you back. If you let your natural instinct (phlegmatic, sanguine, melancholic, choleric) separate you from God.  God has already paid the price so that you don’t have to flagellate yourself in your own mind and emotions (get down on yourself, pay the price all the time to get back to God). You can’t get yourself good enough to present yourself as being good. Just trust in Jesus and say, “Jesus, here I am with all of my stuff. I’m just here and I want to worship you and I want to praise you and I want to give myself to you.”  

We feel like we’ve got to prepare ourselves to connect with God. You will be tempted to try and let go of things before you come back to the presence of God. Too many times Christians make commitments and then can’t live up to the standard that they’ve set for themselves (which normally involves giving up a whole lot of bad habits) and consequently let themselves down in their walk with God.  I’ve got news for you, it is not God who’s trying to make you feel bad about yourself, it’s the devil who is using the thing that God placed inside of you to search for Him, to make you feel bad. We also carry a performance thing as part of our culture that says, “God can’t take care of our needs unless we do something”. 

God wants to help us with everything He’s got to live that higher life. How else are we going to get rid of stuff (example of Brynn’s smoking habit), if the strength of God, Who is our most personal Helper in life, can’t help us to get rid of it? Brynn accessed the life of God that was there to help him and that life got so big on the inside of him that it overcame even his desire to smoke and he was free. That is the way we’re supposed to live with God, not – I’ve got to get myself  better so that I can have a relationship with God. Go to God and let Him help you with the stuff you’re trying to get rid of (or with stuff you can have better). 

God has put that search inside of you so that you can switch from those things that are trying to take you into a world system.  You can count on Jesus all the time, every time, in everything. He’s got you covered. He’s got your back. When you feel like you failed again He says, “I am with you. I haven’t given up on you. Don’t beat yourself up now. Stay with Me, don’t go away, stay with me. Stay centred, stay straight, stay strong here. It’s alright, just stay with Me. My power will deliver you. My power will obliterate everything that’s keeping you back from a better life.” 

You may be searching in so many different places, in so many different ways to have the life you want – and were created to have.  Whatever it is that you’re pursuing to try and find and fill that thing in your life, you will get to a point one day where you will say, “It is not as grand as I thought it was.”

Praise the Lord, because He is the One that satisfies everything!

Pray this prayer:

Jesus, with this simple prayer I ask You, to come and just be real to me. Come show Yourself as my Saviour, as my Helper, the Life Giver. I thank You, Lord, that from this day onwards, I’m going to live with You, I’m going to live in that help that You’ve given me and I’m going to do the best that I can, just to connect with You every day. I thank You for that Lord, in Jesus’ Name. Amen

Just connect with Jesus more than you’ve done before – it will change your life and the whole way you see the world. Psychological games will happen, things will hit your emotions, mind, your world/reality. It doesn’t matter what happens to you, God heard your above prayer, He’s with you, He’s not quitting on you. He knew you needed to hear this message. He wants to help you and strengthen you. He wants to be your Lord, to you. 

God is so personal about His walk with you and your walk with Him.