08 December 2019 Keeping Score or Glory Revealed Part 3 Ps John Bendixen (WTB)
Scripture Reference: 1 Corinthians 16:8 (MSG); 2 Corinthians 2:12 (MSG); Colossians 4:2-5 (MSG)
Praise the Lord. It’s really, it’s really something we’ve given a lot of thought to, and we’ve put a lot of work, a lot of design and effort into making this as easy to use as possible, as friendly to use as possible, and we really do want you to engage with the ministry through the platform because it’s a way of us communicating with you any place, anywhere, anytime.
This is also the chosen way that we are going to touch people in Africa and the rest of the world, actually. So, as we, as we progress for example, there will be, you will have availability to Brother Jerry’s, some of Brother Jerry’s teaching materials online, so that you can watch and do his programmes online. That’s the idea. You certainly will be able to do some of our courses that we are doing, for example, Prayer School, coming soon. So you’ll be able to do a digital version of the Prayer School, Leadership School, Business School, many other things. You’ll be able to do those things on the website or through the portal of the website, so that you’ll have access to all of those things. It’s a new world we live in. Amen.
So that allows us and enables us to touch a lot more people in different ways than we’ve ever touched them before. But of course, our primary focus and the thing that we are going to maintain our level of commitment to, is that we are a church. We believe in relationships and we will continue to develop our ministry based on relationships, not on programmes and not just on things that people can get access to. It’s about relationships. Amen. Hallelujah.
It’s an interesting thing that if you speak to rich people, powerful people, political people, any people that have kind of so called, had great human status in their lives, and you ask them, you know, “What is your, what is the one thing you would prefer to have done or would have done differently in your life?” Almost always, and without almost exception, people say, “I wish I’d given more focus to my relationships.” It’s an interesting thing that even when people have lots of things, it’s the relationship thing that comes out. Because that’s what’s really meaningful, that’s what’s really powerful; is relationships. In fact, we as Christians would not be serving Jesus, loving Jesus and in relationship with Jesus if He wasn’t in relationship with us. Hallelujah.
I feel I’ve got to just flow with the Holy Spirit here and just speak on this for a moment. Relationships are something that people treasure highly, but it is the thing that people are almost always most vulnerable to. And so, because you treasure relationships highly, it also makes you most vulnerable. People then have this real challenge about having a relationship, but yet becoming vulnerable so that you can have the full benefit of the relationship. Because the more vulnerable you become, the more you open yourself up to getting hurt, and the more you open yourself up to getting hurt, the more, the greater the hurt potentially is when and if you do get hurt. People then say, “Well, I’m not going to become vulnerable in relationships, because I don’t want to get hurt. My vulnerability is going to be guarded and I’m going to put barriers around my vulnerability”.
Guess what? You can’t really enjoy the relationship because your vulnerability becomes a defense mechanism. You become defensive about things in your life so that you don’t reveal your vulnerability, and your defensiveness then impacts the relationship so that the relationship can never reach its full potential. As long as you are defensive and not open and vulnerable, that’s the limitation of your relationship. And isn’t it interesting that people crave that kind of level of relationship and yet they want to protect themselves against it. That’s exactly what happens with us and God, you know. We’ve a lot of defense mechanisms against having a relationship with God and primarily our vulnerability is, and our defense mechanism is to protect ourselves from ourselves. It’s not to protect ourselves from God. We let ourselves down, so we put up barriers to kind of resist having this intimacy with God because we’re going to let ourselves down in that intimacy. Then we become hurtful to ourselves and so then we become defensive about all matters concerning God, because we turn and point fingers to ourselves. Right?
The thing about relationships is, and you know the relationships that I’ve talked about if you’ve been with me for any given period of time that every relationship must have this kind of structure to it; first you touch each other intellectually, with words and sometimes with affection, a handshake, you know. If you know each other a little better, you can hug each other, bump each other, do whatever your status in life allows you to do, you know. But you touch first. You can’t have any relationship unless you touch, you know. You got to engage, it’s another word; you’ve got to engage. So that’s the foundation of any relationship.
Then once you touch then you’ve got to begin to integrate ways. If you integrate ways that means you’ve got to start to learn something about each other. And when you learn something about each other then I must learn how I can interface with you in such a way that my interface with you is to your benefit, and if it’s to your benefit, it’s to my benefit. So integration of ways doesn’t mean to say; I demanded that you actually learn my ways and become like me. It means you integrate ways. Once you understand that there’s an integration that must happen, then you begin to get to the next level which becomes available to every relationship which is strategic intentions.
Strategic intentions inevitably mean that the relationship has got to a level where you can cooperate in life together, and you can cooperate in things together that add a lot of value and can create and develop things. Other relationships, other people, other things. I don’t want to get too specific about it today, this is not why I’m here to teach on this today. And then once you have strategic intentions, then there’s a, from a Christian perspective, what I’m teaching is also, if every business runs their business on this platform, they will actually be very successful in managing their people. But after that you get divine productivity or you might want to say, the highest level of productivity in an organisation, but you get divine productivity after you can go through the strategic intentions. And then afterwards once you get to that point, you get into covenant. Now, the reason I’m saying this to you is that along this spectrum, you know, you have this desire to want relationship, but you have these barriers that prevent you from becoming vulnerable.
What a lot happens in this world today is people go from touch to the most high level of intimacy in a very short space of time. So they skip integration of ways, they skip strategic intention, the ability to grow, they skip all this divine productivity stuff, they skip it all and they go from touch to intimacy; complete covenant.
If you do that, if you skip that process, then it is extremely damaging so this is not my intention today but this is the reason why for example pornography is so damaging, is because it skips everything, it goes from touch to the highest level of intimacy. When people give themselves to that level of Intimacy it deeply impacts them and it deeply affect them and they don’t know actually what impact it’s having on them, but it is having a very deep and very profound impact in the way that they can communicate with other people, the way that they see other people, the way that they can live with other people and the way they can value other people.
It’s having a much greater damage in the world out there than people realise. But I just wanted to say to you today, and I felt led of the Lord today that if, you know my definition of intimacy is, you’re into me you see. You’re into me you see. That’s what really people are after. They want someone to really be into them. I’m really interested in you, I’m interested in who you are. I’m interested in what you are. I’m interested in what you want to become. I’m interested in helping you become what you want to become. And people are really interested, and they really want you to be interested in them. But, so what happens are you get into this whole thing of, I want you to be interested in me, but I’m not going to be interested in you. I want you to keep being interested in me, give me everything you’ve got and I’ll be very limited in what I give you. Why? Because I’ve got all these defense mechanisms. But I really want intimacy but if you don’t give somebody something then they’re going to feel there’s a defense mechanism going on here, so I can’t give you everything because if it’s all one sided, then I’m becoming all the vulnerable person here and nothing is coming back.
If you look at marriages inevitably what begins to break down in marriages is there is an expectation of people being into me you see. So this is what happens when people date, and when they date, they are really interested in each other because they’re interested in what you are, who you are, what you’re becoming, what you want to do, how you want to do it, because I want to get to know you. And there is this intense focus on getting to know each other, and actually it’s fulfilling a great desire in people. Then when they get married, they shift from being into you, into being responsible. So they focus more on the responsibility of life than into me you see. And so when you shift into the responsibility gear, then you all become about responsibility and you stop becoming intimate. I’m not meaning just physical intimacy. I’m saying that you’re interested in and you care about what happened in your day. You’re interested in your emotions and your thoughts and your things that happened in your day. And the outcomes of your day, and what did it do to you, and how did it do it to you? So, you stop having those conversations and the conversations you have is all about, well, “So what happened to you in your day today?” “Well, I sold this and I went there and I talked to this customer and I did that and I made this deal and I made this money and I did that.” So it’s all about responsibility. And so you say, “I’m having a relationship.” No, you’re not. You’re talking about what you’re doing in life not what you are, what you’re becoming, what you want to become, where you want to go, what all of your desires are. And so because you stop doing that, your relationship goes nowhere. It just becomes about managing responsibility. And so then pretty soon,\ people begin to feel there is this hole in your life and I’m deeply dissatisfied in my marriage because you have all this, into me you see stuff and now I don’t have that anymore. I just have responsibility stuff. And then someone else shows interest in you, then you think this is what I want. Then you become unhappy with the other person that you’ve been connected with. O gaats, all fall down. Right?
And so again I have to say the same thing happens with Jesus. You have this thing with Jesus I want to know Him, I want to know more about Him, I’m born again, I’m saved, I’m a Christian, I want to get to know Him. Then it shifts from being who you are in Jesus, to all about church life and about corporate church and what you can do in church, and who you can connect with in church and what you can bring with your gifts and your callings and your talents to church. So it shifts from the relationship with Jesus Christ to what church life is. And I’ve said this to you many times; if I’ve got to shut the door on the ministry, so that we can develop the relationship, and not have the function of the church, I would rather do that than make it all about what you can do in the church. Because if we can’t be the church to each other and we can’t have a meaningful relationship with Jesus then we ought not to have church. And if you’ve been around me any length of time you will know I live and breathe this stuff. Because to serve God is not what God wants. It’s like saying, “I’ll sacrificed my time, I’ll sacrifice my money, I’ll sacrifice my talents and everything and I’ll give You sacrifice,” but He’s not looking for sacrifice, He’s looking for obedience. Obedience is about relationship, it’s about intimacy, it’s about hearing His voice and it’s about working with Him in life, being productive in Him. It’s not about what you do organisationally that makes the difference. That’s why, you know, I don’t want anybody coming and saying, “I’ll do my organisational stuff.” When you do your organisational stuff what’s happening in you? And if I find that there’s a marriage that’s suffering or there is a relationship that’s suffering or that there is something that’s going on and the church is getting in the way of the relationship with Jesus, I’ll say, “Stop. Take a break. Just stop, get your relationship right, get your marriage relationship right, get your stuff right. Let’s help you get it right because working in the church is not as important as what you are becoming in Christ.” Sho, I’m preaching good today all led by the Holy Spirit. I didn’t intend any of that, to talk about that today. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus.
And let me tell you the world is hungry for this stuff. The world is desperate for a relationship. They say social media, you know, is about connecting people. It’s actually about disconnecting people. But actually people are so hungry for some form of relationship that they’ll try anything to try and get it. So social media has become about, you know, look at my life, look at the people I’m connected to, look what’s going on but actually there’s nothing real there. There’s nothing real there.
So Pastor John, why do you have a ministry Facebook? You want to know why? Because I would rather have you connect with us in that way than not connect with us. And by the way, there’s going to be somebody out there that is going to be on the platform that is going to be a ministry, that’s going to want to connect with you. And then before long you’re going to be connected with them and they’re going to be telling you stuff about the organisation and about how to serve them and how to give to them and how to do all kinds of stuff and it’s all about the organisation. So if I’m not out there, then I’m opening the door for someone else out there to communicate with you. It’s not because I believe social media is the next best, greatest thing. Heyta. Praise Jesus.
If you were not here yesterday, I want to recap and very briefly just say that there are many things that God is doing and has done in our ministry in the last 12 months, and the reason for it is to give glory to Him. It’s not about bringing a focus and attention to us. It’s about giving glory to Him. And I can’t go through everything that I ministered yesterday, but you’re welcome to go back and get the stuff so that you can listen to it if you were not here. It’s about giving glory to Him.
But I do just want to quickly read to you, because we’re going into 2020, and 2020 is a significant year for us because it means Pastor Sharon and I have been pastoring for 20 years. I’ve been in the ministry my whole life, but I’ve been pastoring for 20 years as a pastor of churches. And so we’re celebrating 20 years next year, and so that’s why we’re going to go to Clarens and we’re going to have a blowout spiritual party. We’re going to, all the guys that want to go there with motorbikes are going to go there with our motorbikes, we’re going to go there with our mountain bikes, we’re going to go with our bicycle road bikes, we’re going to go with our hiking boots, we’re going to go with everything and then in the evenings and some other times of the day we’re going to set times apart to do some praying and to do some stuff. But essentially we’re going to celebrate through relationships and through just hanging out together. Hallelujah.
Next year is a big year and it is a year that the Lord has spoken through our spiritual leaders that there will be a new door that is opening and that there will be supernatural increase in whatever we do. You know, I’m fully expecting my marriage to increase. I’m expecting my relationships with all of you to increase. Not to decrease but to increase. I’m expecting many experiences in my life next year, that I haven’t had before because there’s new doors I’m going into which will bring an increase in my capacity, in my ability, in my vision, in my everything and I’m expecting financial increase. Supernatural increase.
I just want to read it out to you very quickly what God has done this year. This is amazing to me what God has done. What happened in this ministry in this one year, literally would have probably taken ten years.
We launched an album; Walk in the Light, our first music album. To this time, not one cent has come to us, all of the money has gone to Brother Jerry as a first fruit seed.
We bought new TV cameras and lenses. We prepared for TV and we’re now on TV three days a week and we’re looking to more days and more time. We built a new TV and sound studio. We installed new air conditioners in the auditorium and ministry workspaces and in the studio. Thank you, Waldus and Angie and the kids, for coming through. We significantly enhanced our digital ministry and communication platform. We received Bill and Ginger Horn and formally established Chariots of Light in South Africa as a ministry. We did three missions Chariots of Light tours or rides and ministered to people. We completed a missions trip in Botswana, Zambia and Malawi. So I must just remind you; were you there? [Congregation: Yes, Pastor John.] You were there? I know you maybe didn’t go there, but your money went there and your prayers went there. And so where they went and whatever impact we are having in those nations, you were there. Praise the Lord.
And I was blessed to accompany Brother Joe and others from JSMI to Ethiopia and we delivered and started a Jerry Savelle Ministries School there, but they have requested that our Heritage of Faith Bible Institute Bible School go to Ethiopia and I’m expecting some of their senior leaders to be here at our graduation ceremony when Brother Jerry comes in February, and then to launch the school in Ethiopia next year. We received Pastor Justin and Annette Bridges and they had an impartation of what we do as a ministry here in prayer and they ministered to us. We were invited to, and completed a prayer conference in Heritage of Faith, Crowley and foundations for a house of prayer have been laid and corporate prayer has begun. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
We have had the largest intake of Bible School students since our charter class which was in the year of 2002, we’ve had the largest class since then, this year. Corporate prayer has increased and intensified in the ministry this year. The technical quality and delivery of our music ministry has substantially improved and I believe it is going to be improving even more. Hallelujah.
So you will see that we’ve installed quite a lot of sound panels already in the ceiling, but during the course of this week we’re going to be installing the rest of the sound panels which absorb sound, and we’re going to paint the walls and put other sound things up which will probably happen by the middle of January, sort of timeframe. We are wanting to be as excellent as we can, and produce the highest quality that we can. Amen.
But when you come in next weekend you will find a very different church, inside, different. Thank you, Empie. It will be painted different colors or a different color and it will be a very different looking auditorium. Amen.
Our staff compliment has increased and it has enabled my A-team to be more effective and productive and many other people who have willingly given time and energy to help grow the ministry. And so I just want to use this opportunity to say; everybody that’s helped, that’s involved in helps ministries, everybody that’s helped in any way, shape, fashion, or form to make this ministry become more effective, more productive, more available to the rest of the world, I say thank you. From the people that help with greeting people at the door, from people that take up the offering, count the offering, from people that do the music ministry, from people that do anything and everything, I say thank you. The Lord Jesus says thank you, really. Amen.
God has used faithful tithers and those called to ministry of finance to provide the substance needed to fulfill assignment. The children in children’s ministry have been introduced to spiritual legacy and are being taught the same principles and content as the adult church. And like Sagrys said yesterday morning, and God blessed us with a new pastor in the church, namely Pastor Garth. Hallelujah. Who came into the church as a pastor this year.
So it has been quite a year, an eventful year, a lot of things have happened this year. Amen. So, I’m done with that. We did a lot more yesterday which I think will be on video at some point, but we did a lot more yesterday in terms of we showed pictures and things like that, but I wanted those people that didn’t come, I wanted you to just get a sense of what God has done, because in 2020, we are going to do a lot more, a lot more, because this year we have created the foundation of many things so that we can build on it next year. Amen.
So, the Word of the Lord to us, and again yesterday I spoke a lot about obeying what the Word of God says as the written will of God, before you start obeying what God says as the interpreted will of God. But when you become a body of believers like we are, and you’re doing the Word of God in your life, then the prophetic word or the interpreted word, brings direction and it brings clarity and it brings encouragement and exhortation and it allows us to be fully aligned with our assignment. So we have an assignment and we become fully aligned with our assignment. Amen.
The Word of the Lord to us for next year is that the Lord is going to open a new door, and that we are going to experience supernatural increase as well as we should not forget, that we are going to experience marvels and wonders and extraordinary manifestations of the greatness of our God, which we certainly have experienced this year.
I want to talk to you a little bit about that this morning, and I want to say that a door, actually comes from, its origin has a Germanic and Dutch origin originally way back. I suppose this dictionary says it also comes from an Indo-European root, which literally means gate or door. The word that they initially used to describe moving in and out of a place, was either a gate or a door and they used the same word to describe that, I suppose in early days it did the same thing.
If I read Wikipedia to you on door, what does it mean to have a door? A door is a hinged or otherwise movable barrier that allows ingress and egress into an enclosure. Ingress means entry and egress means exit. Entry or exit into an enclosure. The opening in the wall can be referred to as a portal. A door’s essential and primary purpose is to provide security by controlling the portal. Conventionally it is a panel that fits into the portal of a building or a room or a vehicle. Doors are commonly made of material suited to the task of which it is to perform. Doors are commonly attached by hinges within the portal, but can be moved by other means such as sliding or counterbalancing. Doors often incorporate locking mechanisms to ensure that only some people can open them. Doors can have devices such as knockers or door bells by which people outside can announce their presence, and summon someone either to open door for them, or give permission to open and enter. Apart from providing access into an outer space, doors can have the secondary function of ensuring privacy by preventing unwanted attention from outsiders, of separating areas with different functions or of allowing light to pass into and out of a space, and it also controls air and noise.
I wanted to share that with you today because when the Word of the Lord says that we are going to have new doors open to us, so you know, we must understand that when a new door is open to you there is a reason a new door is opening. It’s not just opening because there’s a door. For most of us on any given day, the doors that we walk in and out of, are doors that we are used to. So I would guess to say to you today that when you got up this morning, you went from your sleeping space which would be a bed, I guess, of some sort, and you would walk through a door to go to a bathroom, or a cleaning room of sorts, or you would use a door, and or use a door to come out of your living environment into the world, then you would get into a door of a car or a vehicle and get out of that door, and you would come into the door of the church and then leave the church by the same door. Which pretty much means that every door or portal that you went through is familiar to you. I would go so far as to say, I’m sure none of you actually entered an unfamiliar portal today. You went through familiar portals and entered into familiar spaces that the portal allowed you to go into. Agreed?
There is this scripture that I read yesterday, I’m going to read it to you again today. 1 Corinthians 16:8 in the Message Translation, 8For the present I’m staying right here in Ephesus a huge door of opportunity of good work has opened here, there is also mushrooming opposition (1 Corinthians 16:8 MSG). Okay, I’ll get back to that in a minute. 2 Corinthians 2:12 in the Message Translation says, 12When I arrived in Troas to proclaim the message of the Messiah I found a place wide open, God had open the door, all I had to do was walk through it (2 Corinthians 2:12 MSG). In Paul’s mind in both the city of Ephesus and in the city of Troas when he arrived there he perceived that a door or a portal had been opened to him, which he referred to as an opportunity, and that God had opened this opportunity for him to come and minister. Typically what would that look like? If you can imagine the Apostle Paul, and I’m going to just speak about him for a minute that he arrives with all of what he knows about God, with all of his callings, all of his gifting’s, all of his spiritual perception and insights, he arrives into this location called Troas and or Ephesus. As he arrives there, he begins to sense this is the right place, this is the right time, this is the right moment that I must speak. You have to go back to my messages yesterday about me talking about speaking, and about words and about the power of words.
Almost always if you are going to enter into a new portal, a new place, a new environment where there are opportunities that are going to open, you are going to have to begin to speak, and you are going to have to speak what God wants you to speak as you are transitioning from one space to the next space. Bearing in mind that if I am going to walk out of this auditorium, I have a space in the back of the church which is my space where I come in and it’s my working space during the week, but on a Sunday it is my space where I’m just, I might have a cup of tea there, I’ll get myself prepared, I put on my microphone and I’m quiet and I am ready, and I’m not speaking to too many people because I want to be ready to speak to you. Okay? So, that is my space. Now when I leave this auditorium and I go back into that space, I’m going to leave what’s in here, and I’m going to walk through that door at the back there, and it is a portal to me. Right now, it is closed to me and if someone locked that door I would be unable to enter a new space because it is locked. Even though the space is my space, if it locked I can’t go into it. Right? When you go to bed at night you lock doors on purpose, because while you’re sleeping you don’t want an intruder coming into your space that comes and wants to be there illegally. Right? So you lock your portals so unwanted things don’t come in. Okay. In order for me to transition from this space into my other space, I would have to go through portals, doors. I can’t walk through the wood, or the iron or whatever material the door is made out of. I can’t walk through it, it is got to get open for me. Because we are in a formal moment in the church, that door remains closed. If I wanted to go through the door out of this formal moment, I would probably say to Empie or one of the ushers, “Would you please open the door,” because maybe I want to go through there quickly, or I wanted someone to come from my space into this space and they need to open the door for that person to come in, because the formality of the service requires that that door remain closed for now. I would have to communicate with words to open that door. Amen. Now when the formality of the service is over, it will become a part of the process that is established in the order of the service that that portal door, that door, that portal will get opened, so that I may exit this space and enter that space. Let’s just talk about that for a moment; what I’m leaving behind, is all of you, I’m leaving the chairs, I’m leaving the lights, I’m leaving the formality of the environment. I’m leaving this behind, and I’m entering into a space that is more casual, more personal, less people and whatever I’m walking into, there are things there waiting there for me. Right?
If the Lord has spoken and said there is a new door that is being opened for us then it means there is a portal that’s being opened and we are going to have to move from one space into another space. What that means is that there is an environment that I’m used to, that I know about, that I’m going to leave behind and I’m going to go into a new space. That doesn’t mean to say I leave the old environment alone and behind completely forever, it just means for a while I’ve got to move into a new space to explore what’s in there, because whatever is in that space is going to impact what I do with my old space. Hallelujah. I got to get into an attitude and a frame of mind that says that there are doors, portals are beginning to get opened in the spirit realm for me and that I’ve got to have this attitude that it is an opportunity. It’s not something I must be afraid of, it’s not something where there are hidden traps for me, it’s an opportunity.
Now, I did read you that scripture that Paul said as he opened then walked into the opportunity there was mushrooming opposition. It has been my experience that anytime you walk into a new opportunity there are always going to be things that need to be managed because you don’t know how to deal with the new thing. Right?
I’m going to use my own personal self as an example for a moment. Don’t you think that it’s much better that I’m ministering on the platform without glasses on? For television, for looking at you, communicating with you, I don’t have shadows under my eyes, I don’t have all kinds of barriers and lights on my eyes. Don’t you think? About five years ago or eight years ago maybe, I can’t remember exactly how long ago it was, I tried contact lenses and I found it extremely difficult to get them in, get them out and all the hassle that goes with getting contact lenses working for me getting them in and out. I basically made a decision; it’s not for me. I’m not going there and I invested in prescription glasses. Until I went to Ethiopia and one of the ministers that came out of America, I discovered he was wearing contact lenses and I began to talk to him and he said he’s been wearing contact lenses since high school. That means he’s been doing it for 20, 25 years. He’s been wearing contact lenses all the time. And I mean straight away I just had this thing that came out of my spirit you know, in my heart like, well, if he can do it so can I.
So then that is a barrier that I must deal with, because if this man can do it then I can do it. It wasn’t a competitive thing, it was an encouraging thing to me because it hit me doing it and it’s so easy for him to get used to doing it in his life, then it’s a matter of learning a new thing and overcoming the challenges that present themselves in learning a new thing. Right? I made an appointment with the optometrist and I said, “Talk to me about why this guy,” and I told the optometrist my story and I said, “Why is that this guy could do it so easily and why was it so difficult for me?” The optimist explained to me about nerves in my eyeball and how to do it and if you do it like this and you do it this way and showed me a technique about how to put the contact lens in. For some reason the other optometrist hadn’t taken the time to explain these things to me from years ago. They said, “And we will give you contact lenses to try and test out, free of charge.” I said, “Well, that sounds like a good deal. Let’s do it.”
They tested my eyes free of charge again, make sure that my prescription was up to date and they ordered contact lenses for me. Ones that last 30 days and they ordered ones for me that last one day only but it can stay in your eye for a longer period of time. Here I found myself now, I’ve got to cross a barrier. I’ve got to cross the threshold because while you’re sitting in the optometrist and they’re helping you put the contact lens in your eye, it’s like someone’s talking to you. Someone’s guiding you and it seems like it’s easier but when you get home and you take that contact lens out and you’re sitting by yourself now and there’s no professional specialist sitting there telling you how to do it, now you’ve got a barrier to cross. Part of that barrier is your own internal feelings of, I wonder if I’m going to mess it up? And I really want this thing but what if I mess it up? Hey, come on now. And so then you kind of you know, and it takes you minutes and minutes and minutes and I’ve got it, got it, I’ve got it. Hey, I’ve got contact lenses in. And then you kind of, I did it. It doesn’t matter that it took me fifteen minutes or whatever it was the first time around, you know. At least I did it you know, and then I came later on they told me you’ve got to build up, you know. So the first time I only wear them for two hours, then wear them for three hours, then waiting for four hours and let your eyes get used to the contact lenses. Don’t just go from wearing no contact lenses and then wearing them all day because it will hurt your eyes and there are things and you know, okay.
I didn’t mean to give you an eye lesson today. I’m explaining to you that when I came two hours later and I started to try and get the contact lenses out I found it harder to get them out than get them in. Got stuck in my eye and then I got to try and find it. Now I’ve got half glasses on, half glasses off because I can’t see, you know. I’m trying to do things. I can’t get the contact lenses out and eventually I’ve got the contact lenses out. That was a mission, I don’t know if I want to do that every day, you know, because it felt like a mission because it was only two hours later. I said, “But hold on a minute, I really want this. Let me press through the new things I’ve got to learn so that I can have this new opportunity.” You know, so the next day I tried again, it went a little bit quicker. I still had problems getting it out but it was a little bit better. And every day I tried it; a little bit longer and a bit quicker and a bit longer and every now and again I still struggle and I can’t tell you why. I think it’s just a matter of learning but I’ve been doing it now for about 60 days. Hello. And this morning it took me probably about 30 seconds to put both contact lenses in.
Yesterday I didn’t have electricity and I was in a hurry and then I found out, I’ve discovered that one of my eyelashes got in the way and then the contact lens was half out of my eyeball and I had to look for it again and put it back in the solution and then try again. And then my eye was, you know, all dry from the holding it open like this and you know, I had to take a moment to break and you know, get my eye fixed again and try again and well, meantime you guys are waiting for me here at church and I’ve got to try and put the contact lens in, you know.
Here’s what I’m trying to say; whenever you go into something new that offers new opportunities, and it creates new things for you, there are going to be challenges but they’re not challenges that you need to fear, they’re not challenges that you can’t overcome, you just have to be determined enough to go through the things that you’ll face in the new time, in the new things. And if you need to go back to the specialist, and so I phoned the specialist a couple of times and I said, “I really like these contact lenses that last for a day, especially when I’m doing sport because I don’t feel like I’m going to harm my contact lens through the sweet and the saltiness that’s coming out of my face into my eyes.” And they said, “That’s exactly why they are there. They’re used for that so that if they do get contaminated you throw them away for that day and you don’t have to use them again. But they are more expensive so you know, it’s a good idea to have a balance of both one that you use for 30 days and one for”, and I’m learning all these things that I am learning how to use them and when to use them and when not to use them. And wow, a whole new world has opened to me and I find out I can buy shades. I don’t have to buy prescription shades. I can just walk into a store and say “I like these sunglasses, I’ll buy them, please.” New things. Come on now.
I’m using a very basic example of a portal that opened for me, a door that opened for me, and when I saw it was revealed in someone else’s lifestyle, their pattern, their behaviour, and when I saw it I say, “I think I want to enter into a new opportunity for me that will give me better visibility, it will give me a better experience, it will give me more mobility, it will give me things that are good for me that I really want in my life, that glasses are a hindrance to me.” That is why I tried it eight years ago, or however long ago it was. Now I’ve pressed through, now it’s becoming a part of my life and my routine, and for the most part just about most of the times when I do it, and I’m not under some kind of pressure, if I do it, it takes me around 30 to 40 seconds to put my contacts in, and it takes me about the same time to take them out. Because I got used to it now, it’s a practice, it’s a pattern. It’s like when you wake up in the morning and you walk through your door to your bathroom, you don’t have to worry about whether this door is, you just know this door is there. It’s open, you walk through it, there is no danger there, but it has a different experience for you.
Here is what the Word of the Lord said was that as you go through the new door, or the new door experience is going to create super natural increase. I used my eyes as an example for you today because it’s created an increase for me. What increase? It’s created an increase in mobility, it really does, you know. If I can use it this way, if I have to work on my bicycle, to prepare it to like loop the chain or to you know, just do things, and you’ve got glasses on, you know, you have the tendency of hey, glasses off. They can fall off especially if you’re hot and sweaty. I don’t have to deal with that anymore. When you go into new things, it creates new opportunities for you, it creates new things for you that are to your advantage, it creates increase for you. Amen.
2020 is a year, new doors are going to create new things for us. New opportunities are there for the taking. I want to just show you this powerful example and then I am going to be wrapping up today. Colossians 4 verse 2-5 in the Message Translation says this, 2Pray diligently. Stay alert, with your eyes wide open in gratitude. 3Don’t forget to pray for us, this is the Apostle Paul speaking, that God will open doors for telling the mystery of Christ, even while I’m locked up in this jail. (Colossians 4:2-3 MSG). So he is saying, “Pray for me that there are doors of opportunity that will open for me to preach the mystery of Christ even while I’m locked in jail.” Ha. 4Pray that every time I open my mouth I’ll be able to make Christ plain as day to them. 5Use your heads as you live and work among outsiders, those who don’t know Jesus. Don’t miss a trick, make the most of every opportunity (Colossians 4:4-5 MSG). So here is Paul, he is in jail, he is in physical chains, and he is incarcerated, he is in prison, and history tells us that actually those days often, they would actually chain him to the wall, depending on your status as a prisoner, and in some instances Paul was regarded and did have the status of being a political prisoner, and so they would chain him to the walls, and other times he was just locked in jail. While he was in jail, he is writing to them and said, “Pray for me that God would open doors of opportunity for me.”
I am wanting you to see that even though you may feel like your life is constrained, that right now you might feel like you’re in a financial prison, you might feel like you’re in a lack of education prison, you may feel like you’re in a relationship prison, you may feel like there are many things that are holding you, and constraining you, Paul is showing you that if you have eyes to see, if you have a vision to be able to see, you can have opportunities, new doors that can open for you that you will see in the Spirit and then you will be able to take those opportunities regardless of your current condition. Hallelujah.
I want to encourage you to begin to speak, and you have to go back to my message yesterday, but you’ve got to speak what God’s Word says about your future, so that you can have a hope for your future, that you can have new things in your future. I think one of the greatest prisons that people are putting themselves in today, especially young people, young people have created a cultural language that talks about many things in a very negative, very hopeless scenario. They don’t even know how hopeless their language is, but as they talk words of language that idolise some people, that run other people down, that make them feel special and exclusive, because everybody is looking for that wanting to be unique, the words that come out of their mouth are actually locking their opportunities out of their lives for them. Because it’s more important that I can talk the language of my friends, so that I’m not excluded from my friendship circle, so I will talk my language of my friends, rather than talk a language that will create a future.
And so the enemy of God, and I have said this many times before, he who controls the language controls your culture. Controls the culture, so if I can control your language of your life, I can control your future. Ja, nê. Hallelujah.
And so I find it very powerful that the Apostle Paul had a vision that no matter what his circumstances are, he would see opportunities. Right? So, 2020; when you go to an optometrist and they talk to you about 20/20, what are they talking about? Perfect vision. So 200; it’s the year for perfect vision. 2020 is the new opportunity to see things that you couldn’t see before. Things that you couldn’t begin to believe possible before. 2020, let’s go from having glasses on, at the very least to having contacts on. No, let’s believe God for 20/20 vision that whatever we need to see as we look for the open door, because each one of us there will be a corporate open door that’s going to open to us, I believe that. Corporately as a church, as a ministry there’s going to be a door that’s going to open to us. But I also believe personally each one of us is going to have an open door and you’re going to need to see it. Hallelujah.
And so you need to believe God that you can see that open door, and your language needs to begin to speak, “Thank You, Lord that I see the open door, that new door that you can open for me. The new door, I can’t see it right now, but I pray that when the new door presents itself, I will have no fear about it, I will not be timid about it, I will not hold back about it, I will be bold and I will be strong, I’ll be very courageous and I will not be afraid and I will go after what You’ve got in store for me in a new space, in a new place. And as I walk into that space, there will be things to manage but I will have Your wisdom, I’ll have Your guidance, I’ll have Your ability, I’ll have Your supernatural intelligence so that I know what to do, when to do it, how to do it, so that I can maximise my opportunity that You’re opening for me in the new space that is available to me.” Hallelujah. And as I speak it out, I speak out all those things and if you want to add relationships into there, you can add relationships into there. If you want to add finances into that, you can add finances into that. If you want to add whatever you want to say, “I have the ability, I have the resources, I have the relationships, I see them, I receive them, I work with them, they’re all coming to me and I’m able to see them when they come to me, when it’s available to me.” Hallelujah.
It’s a new door season. And if you couple that with marvels and wonders and extraordinary manifestations of the greatness of our God, and if you take that you say, “I’m walking with marvels and wonders, extraordinary manifestation of the greatness of God into the new door.” Wow. Hallelujah.
I could also talk to you about, you know, and you can coin it however you like but you can go 2 by 20 or 2020 or whatever you want to but just keep this, I have a vision. I see the new door. I see, I see it. I’m ready to walk through it. I see it and it’s a portal and it’s open. God has opened the door and so now it’s time to recognise it and walk through it. And so don’t worry about what’s behind you, rather go into the new place with boldness, and then what’s behind you, you can say, “Hey, I don’t even need that, let this door close on my past because I’m just about the future now.” Because it could be such a good space that you don’t want anything of the old space. But if the old space is good and you want some of it, take it with you, leave the door open and go back there and come in and out. Hallelujah.
God is an awesome God. He is a mighty God. He is a miracle God. He is a wonderful God and He can do anything and everything with this word to us for 2020. Hallelujah. You want to hear more about this? Ja, you’ve got to keep coming to church next weekend, next public holiday. Ja, nê? I know holiday mood has kicked in with some of you already, it’s like, I want to go holiday. We’re all going on a summer holiday, summer holiday. No, not yet. I still got some preaching to do. Hallelujah. Because 2020 is around the corner. Well, if you’re going to have a summer holiday feeling well, just bring that feeling with you to church, doesn’t matter, just come and have a good time in church anyway. Praise the Lord.
Won’t you stand with me, please? Praise the Lord. You remember what I said a couple of weeks ago? I’m a son of God. Say this with me, “I’m a son of God.” I would like you to say this, “I’m a son of God and I have everything that a son has.” Hallelujah. I’ll tell you what, if you wake up every day and you say, “I’m a son of God and I have everything that a son has”, watch it begin to change your world, watch it begin to change your world. “I leave all my past behind, and I walk into a new future, because I’m a son of God.” Hallelujah. “Nothing from my past can stop me from having in my future, in Jesus Name.” Hallelujah. “Because I’m a son of God.” Glory to God. Do you believe that? Hallelujah. Me too, me too, me too. Glory to God.
I’ll tell you what I get up in the mornings and it’s all I can, my feet want to start doing this, you know. It’s like, it’s a new day, it’s a new day. I’m the son of God today. Whatever happened yesterday, it doesn’t matter today, today. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. I dare you to wake up in the morning when you throw your feet off the bed, nê? And your feet touch the ground, you know, tap your feet, just tap your toes on the ground like that, and then you speak to your toes and you say, “Toes dance today, dance today, dance in the Lord today, be happy feet.” There you go; be happy feet. Be happy feet today. Huh? I mean listen, it’s December, it’s holidays, it’s Christmas; be happy feet, be happy feet. And tell them to dance and say, “I’m a son of God, be happy feet. I’m a son of God, be happy feet.” Before you get out of bed, so when you get out of bed you watch your feet they’ll be ready to work with your words, you know and suddenly you find like, “Hey, this is good, this is good.” Turn to someone and say, “Have happy feet. Son of God have happy feet.” Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
I just want to pray for you. Let’s pray together. Lord, I just pray that Your Word and the Blood of Jesus will protect Your people, and if this is the last day for some of them to be in church today, I pray that as they go on leave and holiday wherever they’re going to travel that no weapon formed against them will prosper, that they’ll be safe on the roads. You surround them with Your angels and we give Your angels to charge over them, Father, to protect them. And I thank You, Lord, they’re blessed going out and blessed coming in. And I thank You, Lord that as they get up every day they will have a new vision, a new ability to see and the desire to have a new door open for them in 2020 with supernatural increase, in Jesus Name. Do you agree with that prayer today? Say, “Amen.” Thank you for coming to church. Bye julle.
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