MESSAGE HIGHLIGHT:

Preparation, Celebration, Separation for Integration Part 9 – Ps John Bendixen (JHB)

Scripture Reference: Hebrews 12:18-24 (NLT)

The right preparation for Brother Jerry: We need to have the right heart in preparation for Brother Jerry.  It’s really special that Brother Jerry can preach whatever he wants from our pulpit and I’m trusting and I believe that God will lay it on his heart to speak about the apostolic ministry. Something very significant to me is; he set aside two Sunday services and part of his ministry was about the apostolic calling and the apostolic mandate that was upon him. He then invited the church to pray for him and he gave his itinerary of where he was going to preach for the next three months and he asked the church to pray for them.

Prayer to prepare: The Lord sent us to do a Prayer Conference at Brother Jerry’s church last year and prayer has already activated things in Brother Jerry and in his ministry and it’s already brought about a change where Brother Jerry says, “Now you can begin to pray for me as you have never prayed for me before.” We got to be a part of that, church.

Who is God to me? Who is this God that we serve, that demands our time, that we serve and has the right to ask us for anything? Who is this God? Does He not know, this God, that I am me. I am supposed to be able to do anything and everything I want to do. So who is this God that would place any kind of requirement on me? Who is this God?

He Is the Source of life: Perhaps this God is the reason why everything exists, He is the source of life. He is the same God that caused you to be alive here, today. He chose and permitted every living thing to be here so that He could be a part of it. Who made the sunrise and who makes the sunset? It’s the same God. He spoke it once and it obeys Him forever until He decides it must change. Who declared that the sun would rule over the day time and the moon would rule over the night time? Who declared that? It’s this same God. Every day the moon shines because He declared it once and so every day it must obey Him. Every cycle must obey Him.

God spoke and forever it will be: God has chosen a biological process for people to be born into the earth. He spoke it into being and so whenever biology works that way, a child gets born. It obeys Him in our physical bodies because He spoke it once and so it will forever be so. Man has tried to undo the effects of the biological process that God put in place because they want to enjoy one part of the equation without the consequences of the same thing. And you will find everywhere you go where man is, man is trying to undo the consequences of something that God spoke into being once and the consequences will remain forever.

God ordered it:  The same God that breathes your life into being from the very essence of who He is, breathes life into biology and the foetus conceived in the womb has the life of God, the life of God is there. That happened because God spoke that spirit into being. So, whoever is on the earth comes into being because God ordered it; the beginning and the end of all life is the God who now speaks.

You have a choice: Who is this God that requires my time, my talent, my energy, my money, my worship, my ideas, my thoughts, my life? Who is this God that demands anything from me? On the contrary, He said, “I want to make you so that you can be my family on the earth. In order for you to be like Me, I have to give you a choice that you either want to be with Me or you don’t.” You have a choice to give Him no time or give Him all time. You have a choice and He doesn’t interfere. But He spoke into earth consequence and so the choices that you make always have a consequence. And He phrased it like this, “I put before you life and death. Therefore, choose life.”

Choose life: If you don’t choose life, you’re automatically choosing death because life and death are not a matter of whether you’re breathing or not. Life and death is a matter of whether you’re choosing His life because life is about His presence. He promises if you choose life then all these blessings will come upon you because in Him, in His life, there is no death, there is no sickness, there is no poverty, there is no fear in Him. When you don’t choose Him the consequences of not choosing Him is that you choose to walk a path that moves away from His life and therefore you allow and permit a death cycle into your life.

Life is a vapour: Thinking about the pre-existent time of God and all of the generations of millennia and eternal decades that can’t be measured with time, He was there. When we get born into earth and we live our lives into old age and we think that’s a long life and in His eternity it’s just a vapour. He’s given us a chance to choose Him and everything that happens in eternity becomes a foundation of that choice. When you’re in Him, all life is a source of joy. So even though you are on assignment with Him, and you have purpose, your life is full of joy because He is the beginning and the end of joy. Sadness doesn’t belong in God it’s an emotion that came as a result of separation.

18You have not come to a physical mountain, to a place of flaming fire, darkness, gloom, and whirlwind, as the Israelites did at Mount Sinai (Hebrews 12:18 NLT). The children of Israel came out of Egypt and into the desert and were set free by this God that they couldn’t see, couldn’t hear from, this God that they didn’t really know. He was so powerful that when Pharaoh chased them, He opened the Red Sea and they walked through it and then the Red Sea closed and killed an entire army.

God chooses to communicate: On the Mountain of Sinai God sets rules. Those rules are described in (Hebrews 12:19-21 NLT). Moses had only encountered God at the burning bush when God spoke to him and said, “Take your sandals off and because the ground that you are standing on is holy”. Why? Wherever God shows up with His manifest presence it is impossible for anything that is corrupted to stand in the presence of God. When God speaks, the first instinct that man has is to tell God, “Stop speaking to me because it’s convicting me,” because when you come into the presence of God He will not permit you to stay the way you are because His great love cannot permit you to remain corrupted. We were made to live in the presence of God eternally, powerfully with glory.

The face of God is the purity of His holiness: The corruption factor in us cannot stand when the manifest, holy presence of God comes near you because anything that is corrupted, His holiness must immediately judge. The closer you get to the ultimate presence of God, the fire of God-the burning judgement and vengeance of God must come into play. That’s why the Bible says no man can see the face of God and live because the face of God is the purity of His holiness.

His purpose for you: Everything that God birthed in you is to have a purpose to do His purpose, that gives glory to Him eternally.  His love is the power of the force that drives Him to continuously speak to you and yet the first instinct of man is to say, “Stop speaking,” because it convicts me. It burns me. It’s a terrible voice to me because it reveals that I choose myself. And He says, “I know you choose yourself, I know the very essence of what you were born into-that sin nature. You always want to choose yourself but I’ve got good news for you; I’ve shed the Blood of Jesus that gives you the power not to choose yourself but to choose God and the more you choose God, the less you’re going to choose yourself”.

22You’ve come to Mount Zion (not to Mount Sinai) to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem and to countless thousands of angels in the joyful gathering. 23You have come to the assembly of God’s firstborn children, whose names are written in heaven (Hebrews 12:22-23 NLT). Do you understand that you are part of the assembly of God’s firstborn children?

Heaven’s book, our names are written with The blood of Jesus: When you made Jesus the Lord and saviour of your life, He wrote your name in heaven’s book as saved. A Christ one. That’s why when you’re born again, your spirit man cries to God because your name is written in the book of Heaven. That name calls eternally to your spirit because it is written in His Blood and His Blood will call eternally to your spirit to be more like Him.

(Hebrews 12:23-24 NLT). When Cain took the life of Abel and spilt his blood in the earth, God ordained for eternity that any blood spilt must have vengeance and justice executed on it. In the same breath, He says; but Jesus’ Blood was shed and when His Blood was shed in the same unjust manner that Cain took Abel’s life, so Jesus’ life was unjustly taken by the devil. Justice came to the earth because Jesus’ Blood was the judgement.

The Blood of Jesus: drives my will, and I say, “Jesus, I am weak in my corruption but Your Blood gives me strength to become everything You called me to be.” When you stand behind the Blood of Jesus, you can rest assured that the Heavenly Father will take care of your needs.

Don’t work against God: The biggest reason why tithing doesn’t work is not because of the 10% that you put in the offering. It’s because of the other part of Malachi chapter 3. It’s that your words are against God. The 10% you put in the offering keeps working but when your words work against God blessing you then it’s the words that prevent the blessing from coming even though you’ve given the 10%.

His name is in us: The Blood of Jesus speaks for us every day and speaks for us eternally. Our name’s are written in the Lamb’s Book of life. When God breathes a spirit into the earth, as He breathes that spirit out of Him into being, His name is in it. His name encapsulates all of his talents, all of his ideas, all of his skills, all of his everything. So you may know me as John, in Heaven, I might be known as ‘Ghwoa’ (‘Ghwoa’: a representation of a name Pastor John might be given in Heaven by our heavenly Father. A name that includes his exclusive identity, gifts and skills as a person). And there is no other sound like my sound in Heaven because He never makes two people the same.

God speaks through human vessels: God has always chosen to speak through human vessels and it is a wonderment and an amazement to me that I am one of those vessels. I speak out of my spirit, words that are going to touch your spirit. And I stand in fear and trembling before God many times and say, “God, what if I get it wrong?” And then He reminds me every time, “It’s got not much to do with you, John, just speak. Because when I touch them with My Spirit the words that you speak, I make life in them that you can’t do.” It doesn’t make it less valuable that He chooses a human vessel, it just makes it more wonderful.

Put your hand like on your heart. I am a son of God. Because I’m a son of God, I stand behind the Blood of Jesus and none of my corrupt self can prevent me from completing and fulfilling my assignment that God has called me to do in Jesus’ Name.