MESSAGE HIGHLIGHT:

Search And Switch To Who We Are – Ps Garth Bendixen (WTB)

I want to encourage all of you to access the transcriptions of Pastor John and Sharon’s messages and just highlight what the Holy Spirit illuminates to you.

In this church there is no excuse, but to put our foot in the message.

My ministry is straight from Pastor John’s message Search and Switch.

Genesis 1:14-31 (AMPC); Genesis 2:7 (AMPC)

God’s desire for man was to bring the entire earth under cultivation using all its vast resources (in the service of God and man).  Man and woman wanted for nothing. The only thing they wanted to do, was to fulfil this purpose and this desire that God had given them; to be fruitful, to multiply, and subdue the earth and use all of the vast resources in the service of God and man.

Your want is your worship – what you want is what you worship.

When Adam and Eve were disobedient to God (and partook of the knowledge of good and evil) their natural eyes were opened and they saw self. They became self-conscious and was filled with fear and insecurity. They searched to rid themselves of self-consciousness and find a way to clothe/provide for self.  They had a war inside of them of two wills competing (now self had a need to provide for self). Part of self wants to serve self (and use vast resources for self) and part wants to serve God (and use vast resources for God). This was the war that entered into mankind.

War in its very nature is the absence of peace. Competition and comparison had never existed in man before this. Life in God was all about working together toward a common purpose and helping each other to be fruitful. Competition does not exist in God. Adam and Eve’s language had been affected by the war going on inside them. The Spirit of Glory had left them and they were driven by instinct and the need to survive and provide for themselves. They began searching and asking questions they were never meant to ask: What do I do now (with my time, with my life)? What do I want? Everything in this life is the war of words. God has always been after our words. Our words are also our worship and what we worship we attract.

God always has a plan – Revelations 13:8.

Genesis 3:16-19 (AMPC); Genesis 3:19-19 (TLB)

In the severe consequences for man after the fall (Proverbs 15:10 AMPC), God limited man’s ability to produce evil on the earth.

“I did the absolute best for My children. I limited their (and the earth’s) power to produce. If My children had continued to choose evil, evil would have multiplied quickly, and the earth would have been subdued by evil at a rapid pace. I gave My children (and the earth) time so I could send My Son to die for them, bring them back to Myself and turn everything around”.  

Our lives have become about the struggle to extract a living from the earth – that’s our instinct. People have become worshipers of provision and not the Provider. The systems of the world are built upon the worship of provision, but God has always blessed those who worship Him first.

A word from the Lord for the church: “Separate yourself to Me now, My people. Fear and worship Me and I will cause you to be fruitful and produce far beyond what your worship of provision could ever produce. As you worship and fear Me first, I will cause the fear of God to come upon man and they will run to bring their business and their wealth to you”.

There are things that have come down generationally, that are so entrenched in our culture and in our way of thinking, that we don’t even question them anymore (for instance: you must go get an education, because you need to make a living).  Education for the purpose of pursuing provision and not God, is evil. We must worship and fear God first (and worship God within the systems of this world and use education and skills to create wealth in the service of God and man, not self). We will not have peace until we do. Our lives are not our own. If you will worship God, as a family, with the provision you have right now, God will multiply your provision, your business, your productivity.

Social order: compete to achieve / God’s order: serve to be fruitful.  

Society puts pressure on you: You don’t want to waste too much time finding out who you are and what you were meant to do. Why? Because you need to make a living. This is the language that comes from the internal war of who we are and whose we are – the worship of provision.

In the system of the world, we will never be enough. Teenagers are doing whatever they want, to escape the system of this world (not God), because they know their identity is not in education or how good they can compete in school (grades/sport). God does not want us knowing evil, He wants us knowing Him, which is good – because He is good and His mercy endures forever.

The world system is designed to compete and to compare. We are designed to press for the extraordinary (to be fruitful to multiply to replenish and subdue the earth, using its vast resources in the service of God and man). We have lost sight of how extraordinary our original purpose to serve God and to serve each other is, because the enemy has been able to keep us worshipping provision and looking at the knowledge of good and evil (to decide for self what’s good and what’s evil). The more we partake and the more we can see for self, the more we can choose. The more we do that, the less we want to serve God.

I have good news: God is taking over; He is taking us over, we are partaking of the tree of life and He is showing us His glory through the message. If you want more of His glory, put your footstep in the message, live your life in the message, bury yourself in the message. The Lord gave me such a beautiful image of us, living among the seed like a farmer (taking the seed, putting the seed in our heart, in our mouth, in our heart, in our mouth). 

We get magnificent life filled seed in this church. Can you imagine what would happen to us as a people, if we use this Word, not just on a Sunday but the rest of the week?  (If we meditate on this Word; if we have conversations with each other regarding this Word; if the fear of God comes upon us as families, worshiping God and going through the transcriptions during the week; if we take all of what God is saying on a Sunday and using it as a mirror to see what order needs to come into our lives).

Stuff happens to us in our lives and subconsciously we ask questions. All of your answers are found in Him. 33But, seek first of all His Kingdom and His righteousness (His way of doing and being right), and all these things taken together will be given you besides (Matthew 6:33).

The Lord is presenting a standard to us as a culture in our society. 

We might have become a little bit soft to severe discipline (and boundaries).  Adam and Eve experienced severe consequences (which might make you feel a little bit uncomfortable). The result that severe discipline/consequences produce is peace. In light of what the Lord has said to us about the war that is raging inside of us, discipline settles that war and brings peace. Without severe discipline, you have more war for yourself and you actually make it harder for yourself.

We as a church will be a prototype (an original) for God.

The Lord is being surgical with this church. He is very precise in every single message that He delivers to us, cutting out all of those things that shouldn’t be there and restoring our souls.  

There are elements that God needs to be in place for Him to come, so that we can see each other and ourselves the way that He wants us to see.