Pray for your pastor as they have a very difficult job. They are fighting against the powers of darkness for all of you. The powers of darkness attack the pastor to get at the church. So always pray for your pastor. Sometimes, we think that our pastor is so spiritual and so close to God, they don't need prayer.
I have hundreds of pastor friends around the world and I know the struggles they go through. So, thank God everyday that you have a good pastor. A pastor who does not want to just to keep things the same, but you have a pastor who has ambition for your spiritual growth. A pastor, who wants you to be effected in ministry. That's a good kind of pastor.
Why are we here on this planet? What was God thinking? Why did God create humans? God said, "Let Us make man in Our image." "Let Us make man in Our image and in Our likeness." The word image means shadow. So you are the shadow of God. The word likeness means model.
When I was a child, I used to make 'model airplanes'. They were small, they were plastic, but they looked exactly like the real plane. You are the model of God. So God said in Genesis 1:27, "So God created man in His likeness and His image, male and female, He created them." Everybody say "them." The image of God is not a He, the image of God is not a She. The image of God is them. That's because God is a relationship. The one thing that has always been is relationship. That's why, relationship is the most valuable thing in the universe because relationships has always been. Relationships will always be.
Tonight, you and I meet. That starts something that will last forever. I met you tonight, you met me tonight. That lasts forever. There is no end to relationship unless you or I end it. So relationship is eternal and relationship is the essence of God. That's why relationship is the most valuable thing in the universe. We had relationships before matter and energy. We had relationships before we had molecules and atoms. We had relationships before plants and animals. There has always been relationships, a relationship between Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. God is one, but God is Father, Son, Holy Spirit. How do we explain that? Relationship.
So, that's why God said, "Let Us make man in Our image." And that's why the image of God has to be a relationship. No single, solitary individual is the image of God. God is a relationship, so man must be relationship, male and female.
And then God said in Genesis 1:27, "Let them rule." Now you know why we were created. Two reasons:
1. To manifest the life of God in this planet.
2. To rule
God put us here to live out His life. His nature and His character. God's nature is power, supernatural power, unlimited power. God's character is love. We are here to manifest love and power. Power to rule, love to keep the relationship. That's why we're here, to manifest power to rule and love for relationship.
▲You see, evil was already here. We don't know when it came, we don't know the details of how it came, but Satan was here. He was here before man. He had already rebelled against God, and he was already in this planet. So, God makes man to rule over the planet, to keep the enemy out of the planet. So, God gave all the authority to the humans, and He said, "You rule over all the creations. Rule the birds, the fish, the animals. Rule the plant life, and rule over the Earth."
Here was what God was thinking, if man rules, then Satan will have no rulership. He will have no authority, he will have no power. So, God said to Adam and Eve, "I want you to rule."
Now, how does man rule? God said, "Let them rule." Not man, not woman, them. When we are in good relationship with God and each other, we rule. When we are in bad relationship with God and each other, Satan rules in our place. Why is there evil in this world? Why is there violence, war and injustice? Why is Satan ruling so much in our society? God is sovereign, God is almighty. So, why in our society is there so much crime and violence? Injustice, poverty, why? God has all power.
Satan is ruling in our society for one reason: bad relationships. We have a word called sin. What is sin? Bad relationships. Bad relationship between man and God, bad relationship between people and other people. So you can say, sin, or you can say bad relationship, same thing.
What is righteousness? Righteousness is good relationship, right relationship with God, right relationship with each other. All we have to do here is have good relationships. If we have good relationships, Satan can't rule. That's the authority we have. So that means, the main thing for us as Christians is to have good relationships. That is the most important thing because it is eternal, because it's the essence of God, and because it's out authority. Your authority to rule in life comes from your relationships.
Verse 28 of Genesis chapter 1, "God bless them, and He said to them be fruitful and multiply, fill the Earth and subdue it." Who did God bless? God blessed them, not the man, not the woman, He blessed relationship. The blessing of God is on relationships, not on independence, not on rebellion, not on bitterness and unforgiveness. The blessing of God is on right relationships.
Psalm 133, "How good it is for brothers to be in unity for their God commands blessing." The blessing of God is on unity, on relationships. The presence of God also comes to relationships. Everyday in the Garden of Eden, God came down, and He walked and talked with Adam and Eve. God's presence always comes in relationships.
Matthew 18:20, "Where two or three are gathered in My name," that's relationship, two or three gathered, "there I will come." The presence of God comes to relationships. The power of God also comes to relationships.
▲Matthew 18:19, "If two are more of you will agree in what you ask, it will be done by My Father Who is in heaven." Wow, two humans agree, have unity have good relationship, and they can ask what they will and God of heaven will do that. The blessing of God, the presence of God, and the power of God moves to and through relationships.
Now, that's why, Satan hates relationships. Satan has one agenda, destroy relationships. Destroy the relationship between man and God, destroy the relationship between people and other people. That's why every marriage is under attack. That's why every family is under attack. You are all Christian people, and yet when I talk to you, you would tell me struggles in your Christian marriage, you would tell struggles in your Christian family.
We have racism. We have problems between this generation and this generation. We have competition between women and men, every culture and history has had that problem. Men trying to control women, women trying to control men, hurting each other, using each other, abusing each other. This is Satan's work. This is spiritual warfare.
Spiritual Warfare is not about casting demons out only, warfare is living in good relationships. Do you want to do powerful warfare? Do you want to kick demons? Love somebody. Forgive somebody. Stay in good relationship. That's how to do warfare. That's your authority. Agreement, unity, love. Love rules. Selfishness let's Satan rule. Very simple, love rules. Relationship rules. There's authority in good relationship. God is almighty, God is sovereign, and sovereign means He rules.
Where did God get this power? Why does He have this? Why is God all powerful? Because He's relationship. The Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father, the Spirit of God is a spirit of love, peace, joy, patience. The holy Spirit is the relationship. That's where God gets His authority, that's where God gets His power, from His loving relationship and that's where we will get out power.
So, God blessed them. The blessing of God is on relationships, the blessing of God is on marriage. The blessing of God is on family, the blessing of God is on local church and Satan hates that. So he tries to divide the marriage, he gets the family to fight, he gets the people in the church to fight. Almost every church I had ever been to had conflict. Then we sing victory songs, we say Amen when the pastor says we have authority over the devil. You don't have authority over the devil, unless you have good relationship. The blessing of God is on unity, on love, on tight relationship.
▲Then God said, "Be fruitful." Now, we understand this means have babies, but having babies is symbolic to everything because, then every human being can understand, because how primitive human beings are, they understand the basics of how we have babies. It's the same in every culture. We have babies the same way. So, it's something we can all understand. So, this is God's object lesson to us. So, how do we have babies? That's what I have come here tonight to explain to you.
No, you already know. But think about what you already know. God humbles proud men because a woman has to go to a man and say to a man, "It's very difficult for me to admit this, but I need you to have a baby." See what God is thinking? He forces relationships. Otherwise, no baby.
Babies only come from relationships. Independence has never produced a baby. So be careful men, because the enemy tempts you to think, "We don't need women." Be careful women, because the devil tempts you to think, "I don't need men." That's never God, that's how the enemy has a thinking.
So, the result of a relationship produces fruit and the having of a baby is symbolic of everything. Fruitfulness in our lives comes from relationships. If you have a good relationship with God and good relationship with others, you will produce fruits in your life. You will produce new life. You will bring vision to new birth. You will be creative and be successful, but fruitfulness, success and new life only comes from relationship.
If you cut off your relationship with God, you cut off your relationship with others. You will not bring forth fruit. Your life will not produce. It will not bring anything to birth. That's the way God has designed it, because He blessed them and He said, "You be fruitful, multiply."
▲Now, I always thought this meant have lots of babies. Have lots of people, but then I realized, what are we suppose to multiply? Not just individual humans, we're suppose to multiply the image of God. What's the image of God? Relationship. So, God designed it, so when the baby is born, the baby is helpless, the baby will die if it does not have relationships. So designed it to make relationships necessary to have the baby and relationships to keep the baby alive. See what God was thinking? God designed the marriage, so that's the only way to multiply and God designed a family because that's the only way the baby can stay alive.
The baby doesn't know how to eat, doesn't have a source of eating, doesn't know how to walk, doesn't know how to talk, doesn't know how to dress itself. God designed it so that babies are totally helpless. Again, God made relationships necessary, necessary to bring forth life, and necessary to maintain life. It's all about relationships.
Then God said, "Fill the Earth." This is interesting. Why are we to build the Earth with good relationships? When was the other time God said, "Fill the Earth?" He only said it twice. Once to Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:28, when was the other time? After Noah came out of the ark. There were only eight people and God speaks again, "Fill the Earth." Why did God wanted us to fill the Earth? Because Satan was here. Evil is here, and if we don't fill the Earth with good relationships, it gives Satan room to function.
If the whole Earth is filled with good relationship, Satan has no place. See what God is thinking? Fill the Earth with good relationships, good marriages, good families, good villages, good churches, good people groups that are related, that love one another, that are not selfish, that are in good relationship with God, and Satan has no place because Satan only has a place when we are out of relationships.
Good relationships are our authority over the enemy. Love rules, relationship rules. Bad relationship allows Satan to rule and God does not want that. He put us here to keep the enemy out, to keep evil out, to keep death out. That's why we were put here, to manifest God's life. What is His life? Relationships, and by relating, we subdue evil.
Humans were put here to subdue evil. Evil was here, so God created humans, and said, "Fill the Earth with My image and it will subdue everything in the planet."
So one day, Eve is out for a walk and an animal speaks to her, an animal called the serpent. Satan had been able to get in to an animal. We don't know how, we don't know why. But Satan was speaking through a serpent and Satan had also been able to get into a plant, and he had altered the plant. How do we know it was Satan? Because God said to Adam and Eve, "Out of all the trees in the Garden, there's only one tree you should not eat." Why?
It will bring death. God does not create things that bring death. That's why we know that something has happened to the tree. Also, we see that Satan was very interested in that tree because he begins to talk to Eve.
Now, evidently, animals and humans can communicate because Even didn't seem surprise. So, this didn't come from Shrek, it came from the book of Genesis. Animals and humans could talk.
So, Satan speaks through the serpent, "Did God say you were not to eat of this tree?" Why is he so interested in this tree? Why is that the topic of this conversation? Why did he want Eve to eat of the tree? Because he knows that this can bring death and Satan always wants to bring death and destruction. God always wants to redeem and give life.
God is not a God of death, He made everything in the Garden to live forever. He sent His Son so that whosoever believes will not die but live forever. God's program is a program of life. He created us to manifests His eternal life.
So Satan says to Eve, "You know why God doesn't want you to eat of this tree? Because He knows that when you eat of this tree, your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God and you will be able to figure about good and evil for yourself. You won't have to listen to God, God wants to control you with His view on good and evil, and this tree will make it so you can figure it out by yourself. Did God say you will die? You will not die."
Now, everything Satan says is a lie. Jesus said he is a liar from the beginning, and he is the murderer from the beginning. Satan is the source of death and the source of lies, not God.
So Eve, is having a problem in her relationships. We don't know why, but there is some difficulty in her trust of God, If she had a tight relationship with God, she would have run away from the serpent. "Don't even suggest I do what God doesn't want me to do." But for some reason, her relationship with God was a little bit weak and what was happening with her relationship with Adam? This conversation with the serpent is alone, independent.
God related to relationships. Satan relates to independence. Let me prove it to you. How many people in this room have ever sinned? Wave with me if you have ever sinned. Yeah, that's everybody. Don't get nervous, God is not showing me any details. God's not a gossip, but I'm going to tell everybody in this room about your history. You tell me if I'm right.
I want to tell you when you did your worst sinning, things you later ashamed about. I'm going to tell you when temptation was the strongest. You know when it was? When your relationships with God and others were the weakest. When somebody died, and your thinking, "Why did God let that happen?" "How come God didn't answer my prayer?" "I;m not sure God really loves me."
And when your relationship with others were weak, particularly your parents. They failed you, they hurt you, or you rebelled against them and when those relationships were the weakest, that's when temptation for you was the strongest. Am I right? Do you see? That's the pattern. Satan tries to drive a wedge between you and God. He tries to drive a wedge between you and others so the relationships are not strong and tight and that's when he tempts you.
So, how can we have victory over the enemy? Keep relationships strong, keep forgiving, keep loving, keep humbling yourself. Say, "I trust you God no matter what happens. Your a good God." And if your relationships with God and others are strong, Satan will not have influence on you. You will have authority over him. You won't even have to say, "In Jesus' name I take authority over you." You will just have authority because broken relationships are the only open door for the enemy. Amen?
So, God put us here to live His life, a life of relationship, so that we can subdue evil. When I have good relationships with God and others, I subdue evil. When I have weak relationships with God and others, evil subdues me. What happened? Eve ate of the tree and what happened? Death subdued the whole human race. Sickness subdued the whole human race.
That's where we got all of our problems, all the poverty, all the injustice, all of the violence, all of the bad things came because Eve did not subdue evil. God put us here to subdue evil. It's something we must do. That authority has been given to humans. How do we subdue evil? Strong relationships.
If your marriage relationship is strong, Satan can't do anything to your marriage. If your family relationships are strong, Satan cannot work in your family. If there is unity in this church, Satan cannot work in this church.
Grace J.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmAJ0zQuZ7g
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