If you’re a Christian, you give your life to Jesus, you have a real opportunity in life that Jesus is your Savior of all boxes. Don’t you want the saving power of Jesus to deliver you from boxes and put you into a whole new world that He creates for you?
I recognised that as the Word of God began to become a revelation to me, that I could be in a box. When I married Pastor Sharon, I realized that if I started getting educated on how to communicate properly with my wife – in such a way that our physical intimacy and our financial directives were an open, honest conversation – who’s giving me this information? Anybody that’s coming to give me information, if they themselves live in a box, they’re just transferring the box knowledge to me so that my box changes. And so, you end up running your life by those boxes because they are the ‘specialists’. They are the people who have the education to tell you how big your box can be. So I decided I was going to live the Word of God in my life.
And believe me, when I started to love Pastor Sharon that way, everything inside of me began to scream, “I’m not sure that I can do this.” In fact, on many occasions, I said to the Lord, “This is not fair. I’m the one who’s doing all the work here.” And every time the Lord would answer me, “John, I didn’t tell you it would be fair. I just told you to obey Me.” I didn’t know at that time that He was taking me out of a box completely.
There was a time when I began to realize that I had been in an education box. I wanted my sons to have the best education because it’s the best advantage you can give your children in life. We endeavored to give them the best education to discover that the education institute is very, very flawed. If I had it over again, we would do homeschooling because that way, you’re not trying to reimagine a system. You’ve got an opportunity to train your kids in a way that is so uniquely different and so powerful and so creative and so Godly that they would have the best advantage in life.
God’s Word came to me a second time – do not allow strife into your relationship because where strife is, all manner of evil abounds. What does evil do? Steal, kill, and destroy. What I had to do was I had to say, “I’m not going to let strife into my marriage. I’m therefore keeping evil at bay.” Where there’s no evil, what fills the space? Glory.
As evil was outside of my box that God was creating, glory filled it. God’s power filled it. Where two adult people are trying to live together, if a clash of wills needs to be resolved, then we turn to the will of the Father. We say, “What is Your will, instead of competing wills?” Now this might seem like just the small things, but if you can take out strife and contention in a will clash in marriage, you resolve most of the problems.
I can tell you that if I was serving a God who only wanted to be affectionate to me on His terms when I was only in His will, not my will, I would never feel His love. He chose to say to me, “I will always be there with My presence. There is nothing you can do that will remove My presence from you. You might not enjoy My fellowship because you’re not in a place to enjoy it, but I will never withdraw it from you.” Because if He did, then His love would be conditional. And His love is unconditional. If God can love me with that level of unconditional love, then it’s possible that I can access all of His love to love her (Pastor Sharon) that way.
A lot of men don’t like it when I talk like that because it challenges them to not live in their will. “Your standard is too high, Pastor John. It’s unrealistic to live like that. Who can live like that?” I’ll tell you this, if I could do it, you could do it.
Do you think God wants to subjugate you to His will? God wants you to choose His will so that in partnership, you live life to all of His potential life that He can give you. This is the way we climb out of all of the boxes that the devil has tried to bring into our world. And lest you and I forget, the devil has come to steal, kill, and destroy all of humanity and kill and destroy and steal everybody’s life force that God gives us.
Do you think that money gives you a rich and satisfying life? Some of you might say, “Until you don’t have it, then you realize that money can give it.” I promise you – it doesn’t matter how much money you’ve got. You will always have an emptiness that cannot be filled, and so you will try and find bigger, more radical, more success, more ambition, more something to try and fill the hole in your heart. But only God, He created us to pursue Him.
So don’t look at someone that’s out there that doesn’t even serve God that mafia, gangs, corporate raiders, economic bullies are seemingly so wealthy and say, “Look how successful and prosperous they are.” They live in boxes of their own making. Their boxes might be huge and everybody might look and say, “We wish we could have those kinds of boxes.” And the Bible says, “Don’t look at their boxes and think – “that’s prosper.”
The Passion Translation says, 3 Keep trusting in the Lord and do what is right in his eyes. Fix your heart on the promises of God and you will be secure, feasting on His faithfulness. 4 Make God the utmost delight and pleasure of your life, and He will provide for you what you desire the most (Psalms 37:3-4 TPT). If you are putting your trust in Him and you desire to be part of what He’s doing, then what’s in your heart? All of the desires that He wants for you.
The world wants you to live in the box that you have to work to get houses, clothes, and cars. And that you are measured by how many clothes, houses, and cars you have. That’s the size of your box. I’ve got news for you. They want you to live in their boxes. Until you get a little bit older enough and maybe God has prospered you and you realize, “What’s this all about money? I want quality of life.”
In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus talks about, “Don’t serve mammon. Don’t serve money. Don’t serve the gods of this world. Give God all of your firsts. Because once you do that, you won’t have to think about what you’re going to eat, what you’re going to wear, what you’re going to drink, what you’re going to do. Because your heavenly Father knows you have a need for these things, and He will provide all of these things.” If you seek Him first.
“Well, Pastor John, then how are you going to get money? How are you going to do that stuff?” He’ll lead you and He’ll guide you. He may cause kings to come and put deals in your hands and say, “Please handle this business because we can’t.” Now you’re working in the order of God, not so you can get money. Changing the box.
God doesn’t want you to live in the boxes of this world system. He wants us all to live in His grand, grand creation plan. When He made man on the earth, He gave them a command. “Have dominion. Dominate, don’t be dominated.” Let me tell you, boxes confine you, constrain you, control you. God said, “Don’t be controlled. Don’t be constrained. Don’t be intimidated by those boxes. I’ve told you to dominate.” “Well, Pastor John, you’ve got a domination fixation.” Absolutely.
This is profound because God has given us a way to remind us every day how we can delight ourselves in Him because you can take thoughts that the world tells you to think, and you can put them inside yourself, and your soul will process it. And God is saying, “Whether you choose to eat My Word or the word of the soul of the people of the world that want you to live their way, it will process it in your soul the way it knows how to process. And it will either kill you or it will give you life.”
This should be an encouragement and a motivation for you that when you start going for God, He’s harvesting your life. When you delight in Him and you give your ways over to Him, the harvest will never stop. He will keep giving you all of the stuff that you desire in your heart because your desire is towards Him.
We are getting out of the box. I’m not going to be contained and constrained by the world system. I’m an out-of-the-box man. You know, call me John Change Bendixen. You can also call me John Out-of-the-Box Bendixen..
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