On 29th of January, Planetshakers from Australia came to Malaysia to awaken the young souls of this country into the fire of the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Rudy Nikkerud kick-started the first session at Sunway Pyramid Convention Centre, with a powerful message – Who is your partner in year 2016?
“If you are looking into Instagram, all I see is one thing – how to keep your resolutions? – partners with someone else. There is great power in partnership!”
The greatest partnership of all is with the King of kings and the Lord of lords, where all authority bows to Him. It is none other than Jesus Christ!
…so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless, in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
(1 Corinthians 1:7-9)
“God will do this for He is faithful to do what He says. And He has invited you into partnership with His Son, Jesus Christ!”
God could have asked us to partners with a vision or a man of God. But no, above all, He wants a direct relationship with us. He wants a partnership with us. He wants to personally walk with us.
“God could have created a world where we just sit back and He shows up and does whatever He wants. And we get to watch. That would be a great movie! That would be a great life, just watching God show up every day doing stuff.”
But God created a world where He partners with us to do something miraculous through us on earth.
Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
(Matthew 6:9-10)
“There’s nothing special about these hands I got on my body… But when I lay my hands upon someone, they got healed! Not because I got special hands. But it’s because I’m partnering with the greatest partners of all, Jesus Christ!”
You are chosen to be in partnership with God. But what does partnership with God mean?
“That means everything that God partners with you, He is fully invested. He is full of His Power and His Provision.
“God is the kind of partner who will bring His ‘Super’ to our ‘natural,’ his ‘more-than’ to our ‘enough,’ and ‘what-is-over-and-above’ to what we can do on our own.”
God is a Partner who wants to be with us
Not only God wants to be our partner on Sunday, but from Monday to Sunday. In fact, He want to every day and every where with you.
Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.
(Deuteronomy 31:6)
“It means that students, you’re not studying alone! God wants to go through high school, college, and university with you.”
Pastor Rudy shared about a student in Melbourne who went to church on Sunday, and was late to his exam on Monday morning.
“God says, ‘It’s all good, the exam is delayed.’ So, he went there, and there was still fifteen minutes left to the exam. He heard God speak, ‘Quickly revise these three things.’ He got in and the entire exam was based on those three things.”
“So often in life, we can pray for God to show up in a moment and show up when we need Him… But you know God wants to be with you all the time. He doesn’t just want a visit. He wants to live (in you).”
But God wants a habitation, not only a visitation.
God is a Partner who has Gifts laid up for us
In fact, He is the greatest partner of all because He brings gifts along.
It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.
(Proverbs 25:2)
“Do you know that you are the king or queen? Jesus is the ‘King of kings.’ It’s you.”
If Rudy had a one year old and six months child, he would hide the chocolate bunny during Easter for him to find. Rudy intended the child to find the gift.
“Parents hide things not to keep things away from their kids. But there is great joy in the search of that. Do you know that there are gifts laid up for you?
“God has laid up gifts waiting for you – gifts in His Presence, His Encounter, and His Power.”
God is a Partner who works when we pray
So, how do we live in partnership with God? God Himself is a perfect partnership of the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
Charles Spurgeon said well about partnership, “When we work, we work. But when we pray, God works.”
God is a Partner who wants us to trust Him
However, it is easy for us to take over the partnership when things did not the way we expect or we thought God did not answer our prayers.
“It’s so easy to pray to God to move in our life but we go and do our own thing anyway. Maybe something in the world will try to intimidate us and get us to behave in a way that doesn’t line up with the faith that God has for us.”
Pastor Rudy shared about how he was beaten by a thief and stolen of his cellphone, during a prayer walk around his house.
“I asked God, ‘What is that? Why do things happened to me when I was praying?’ Right away, I realized what had happened. The devil wanted to try to intimidate me away from all the prayers I was praying.
“As I started to walk home, I said to God, ‘God, I am not going to be intimidated! The Bible says fear is not from you, but power, love, and a sound mind.’ So, I started partnering with God.
“Every prayer we make this year, God, You will answer. The devil is not just up against us, but he’s up against us and our Partner.”
When King of Syria sent a great army of horses and chariots by night to capture Elisha, his servant was afraid. But Elisha said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
Then, Elisha prayed for his servant’s eyes to be opened. And he saw ‘the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.’
(2 Kings 6:16-17)
“Sometimes, things don’t always look great to us in the natural. But we walk by faith, and not by sight. We gotta trust what God says, He will do. We gotta trust that He is our protector, He is our redeemer, He is our deliverer!”
And when God is on our side, greater is He in us than he who is in the world!
Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
(1 John 4:4)
Indeed, if we listen to God’s voice in response to what we see or hear, God is our greatest business partners as well.
Isaac wanted to leave the land of the Philistines because of the famine in this land. But the LORD appeared to him and ask him to dwell in the land, where He will bless him and his offsprings. (Genesis 26)
So, he did as what God told him. ‘And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold.’
(Genesis 26:12)
“You can sow in a land where there’s nothing going on. You can sown in a land where there’s drought. You can sow in the land where God calls you to. God comes upon you and you reap a hundredfold.
“That’s the kind of return that Isaac got because he planted at where God had called him to plant. That’s a great example of partnership.”
And Samuel said, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offering and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, to listen than the fat of rams.”
(1 Samuel 15:22)
God is a Partner who wants us to look ahead into our future
A couple of weeks ago, Pastor Rudy obtained his motorcycle license. He learned to drive his motorcycle, he would only need to look to the direction he wanted to go and lean.
However, if the road were to be our life, some of us might be too focused on our rear vision mirrors. We are too focused on our past and what could have been.
“The mirror is great for glancing every now and then, to see how far we have come. But you know what God has in front of you, it’s so much greater than what’s behind you.
“Your past decisions do not define you. The mistakes you make do not define you. All you need to do is to look and lean, look and trust, God has an incredible future for you!
“I want to live the kind of life where I walk by faith and not by sight. In whatever position I find myself, I know God is still with me. I want to live a life of partnership with my Lord Jesus Christ.”
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