Hey guys, how's it going?
Alright, just work this out a little bit.
Well, I'm excited to share today.
Just waiting for some people to come on.
Gilda.
Hey, good to see you.
We're just going to hang out for a little bit.
Wait for a few people to tune in.
Behind me is my lounge,
which has been transformed into a film studio
where we're filming a teaching series on prayer.
Hey Tawhiri, see you bro.
Cool to see a few people jumping on.
This is awesome.
I'm going to share with you just in a few minutes
on the second pillar of kingdom culture.
I talked about the first pillar yesterday
in the first session,
being that Jesus is what kingdom culture looks like
and Jesus Christ is the definer of kingdom culture
and is our invitation from God
to step into that actual culture.
He's the way, the truth, and the life.
We beheld His glory,
full of grace and truth.
Grace being the empowerment of God
to do something that you couldn't do
before you received the grace
and truth being the reality of God
and the reality that God has designed
for each of us to live in and walk in.
When Jesus came, we both saw that reality.
We saw God's original blueprint.
We saw God's ideal.
But not only that,
through the cross and through the price that Jesus paid
and the price that God paid through Christ,
we are empowered to live in that reality
and our lives are empowered to be kingdomized.
That's pretty cool.
So feel free to jump back and check that out.
There's a few people jumping on.
This is cool.
I'm about to show you one of my paintings.
It's a pretty old painting.
I'm about to tell you the story behind that painting.
So stay tuned.
In a second, I'm about to show you that.
And I've just got a short little korero.
I'm going to be speaking today
for about, I would guess, about 20 minutes
on Kingdom Culture Pillar 2,
The Ways of the Kingdom.
Of course, I'm not going to be talking about
all the ways of the kingdom.
But I'm going to be talking about
what every single one of the ways of the kingdom
rests on, the foundation of the ways of the kingdom.
We're going to be sharing a little bit about that.
And so welcome.
What I might do is actually,
I'm going to begin by telling you a story
of an encounter that I had
that really showed me God's ways.
But before I do that,
I'm going to...
No.
No, no, no.
Actually, I'll show you afterwards.
I'll show you afterwards.
So let me share the story with you.
I'm going to get started.
Probably...
Well, I mean, it feels like last year,
but it was actually like 10 years ago.
I had this crazy encounter
that really changed my life.
And it was in a season of my life
where I was seeing an explosion of growth
in many areas of,
particularly in the gifts of the Spirit
and in some of my designs,
some of my dreams.
I was seeing an increase in the word of knowledge.
I was seeing an increase in the prophetic.
I was seeing an increase in the angelic.
I was seeing an increase in the joy of the Lord,
in the miraculous, in creative miracles.
I went through a season of just seeing
a whole bunch of metal dissolve out of people's bodies.
I could tell just a bunch of crazy stories
around that season of life for me.
Just ridiculous words of knowledge.
People being healed on the street.
It was a season of time
where we were like drawing chalk circles on the ground
where we were sent...
The spirit of discernment was increasing.
We would sense that an angel was standing
in a particular place
and discern that it might be a healing angel.
So we'd just draw a circle around that
and people who were sick would come
and would say,
Hey, just go and stand in that circle
and God will heal you.
And they'd stand in the circle
and God would heal them.
It was just quite a dramatic increase of...
I was feeling a dramatic increase in my life.
And in that,
I experienced something
that I wasn't anticipating experiencing.
I wasn't anticipating that I would experience.
And that is,
I actually began to feel quite a pressure.
And the pressure that I was feeling
was I felt such value
and I felt like the stuff that God was teaching me
and the stuff that God was giving me and showing me
was so, so, so valuable.
Hey Sean-O, surprised you're not surfing, bro, and it was so valuable and I didn't want to be unfaithful with you.
I wanted to be a good steward of everything that God was teaching me and everything that God was showing me.
But I was having a hard time because I felt like it would be easier if God was just doing one thing in my life.
It would be easy to steward that, but because God was doing so many different things in my life,
I wanted to be a good steward of the gifts of the word of knowledge.
I wanted to be a good steward of the prophetic. I wanted to be a good steward of the healing and anointing.
I wanted to be a good steward of creative miracles. I wanted to be a good steward of the spirit of discernment.
I want to be a good steward of the joy of the Lord. I want to be a good steward of all these different things.
I've just mentioned a few, that God was increasing in my life all at the same time.
And I was praying, I was saying, God, I want to be a good steward.
And I said, but I'm having a hard time because there's so many things to steward all at once.
And how do I steward everything all at once? And he said, well, you know, you could pick one or two.
And I was like, oh God, it's so hard to pick one or two. And then I went into this vision.
I went into this encounter. I was in my bedroom, went into this encounter.
And I started seeing all these different colored streams coming towards me.
And they all coming towards me. And above every stream, there was a name written.
And one of them was the gift of the word of knowledge. One of them was prophecy.
One of them was miracles. One of them was healing. And so on and so forth.
All these different colored streams, and they're all coming at me.
And they were all sort of separated from one another. And God said, okay, pick a couple.
You've probably got enough space in your life to pick one or two of those, and you could steward that really well.
When your attention is divided, it's pretty hard to steward stuff.
And when the focus is dull, it's pretty hard to steward.
And so I just felt, and I said, God, I don't know which one to pick.
They're all so good. I want all of them.
And it's almost like he kind of took a step back and he said, oh, I see. I see.
You don't want just one or two.
And he kind of had that little bit of a tone about his voice.
Very kind, very gentle, but kind of like a little bit cheeky.
And I said, yeah, no, I don't want just one or two. I want them all.
I don't want to let go of any of them.
And he said, okay, well, if you want all of them, there is a way.
And I said, okay, God, well, what's the way?
And then all of a sudden, all these streams all combined,
they all came together to make one massive torrent.
It was like a massive river was just coming at me.
As all these streams combined, and the name of the stream,
the name of the river, as all the streams combined, was love.
And he said, if you will pursue love and you steward love,
then you'll steward everything.
But you can either choose to steward love, or you can choose just one or two.
In love is everything there is to have,
and everything there is to steward in the kingdom.
So the easiest option for you, Matt, just choose love.
And so I want to show this painting to you.
And I'm going to take this little phone off here.
It really impacted me, this encounter.
And oh, I got an angry face.
Hey, bless you.
And I want to show you this little painting that I did.
I don't know how to...
So I'm going to do a little scan down.
So this is a pretty old painting.
I did this for an exhibition a little while ago.
And this is the streams that were coming at me.
And they go into the cloud, and the cloud represents the glory of God.
Moses spoke to God face to face, as a man does to his friend,
inside the cloud, where Al-Tiroa, the land of the long, bright cloud.
And in that cloud, everything that we're trying to steward,
all comes together in this place of the glory of God.
And the glory of God really is a manifestation of the love of God.
And this is my attempt to just sort of paint my encounter.
So there you go. I love doing art.
I just wanted to share some of that with you,
as I'm doing this session here.
And so everything is in love.
And 1 John chapter 4 says this.
And this is such a key, key scripture.
We're talking about the ways of God.
It's so important to know the ways of God.
And I want to just talk to you.
There's so many ways of God.
God has ways for this and ways for that.
And it's a massive topic.
And there's lots of subjects to cover within that.
But this here, what I'm talking about right now,
is the foundation.
of every single one of His ways, that no matter what God does, He never does anything that's
not founded and formed from a place of love.
And so, and I'll prove that to you by reading the scripture.
And to be honest, you could read the entire book of 1st John and 2nd John and 3rd John
and the Gospel of John and reach the burning conclusion that what I'm saying is true.
But at the very least, read chapter 4 of 1st John.
And I just want to pull out one scripture that really is kind of a central anchor point
scripture in this book of 1st John, which by the way, is mind bogglingly good.
And it is in verse 16, it says, and we have known and believed the love that God has for
us.
God is love.
And he who abides in love abides in God and God abides in him.
Now I just want to suggest that what I believe John is saying is this, he's not saying that
love is one aspect of the nature of God.
What I believe John is saying is that God is love and every other attribute of His character
is an attribute of an expression of love.
But at the foundation of all of who God is and at the foundation of all of what God does,
there is love.
God never strays from love.
He never does anything without love being at the center of it.
God is love.
And when we step, you know, if there's a flow of blessing pouring down here, if there's
a waterfall of glory falling and coming down right here, and this is a flow of love.
Every time we step outside of love, every time we step out of alignment with love, what
in effect happens is we step outside of the flow of God's glory over our lives.
When we abide in love, we are literally abiding in the flow of God.
When we step outside of love, we step outside of the flow of God.
And that might sound like a heavy comment to some.
That might sound like a challenging comment to some.
But to be honest, that is just the honest truth, is that God is love and God never does
anything outside of who He is.
Now the other thing that is true is this, is that you have been created in the image
of God.
Therefore, if God is love, you have been created in the image of love.
When you act or you live in a way that is outside of love, you are living in a way that
is apart from or outside of who God created you to be.
In other words, you are not being yourself when you are living outside of love.
So for you to be yourself, and by the way, when you're not being yourself, you are incredibly
unfulfilled.
You are incredibly frustrated and your life is not going well.
When you step outside of who God created you to be, everything just starts going to custard.
But at the core foundational framework of who God has designed you to be, you are an
expression of love just as God is love.
And I want to, um, I was, it's right, it's, oh, Shauna, you're working and recovering
from yesterday.
We got some good waves yesterday, man.
So good.
Right now it's actually raining at my house and I can, I've got a water tank here.
We're on tank water and I can hear my tank just filling up.
It's pretty awesome actually.
But one thing you can hear is you can hear the water going down the downpipe from the
gutter from the flowing off the roof into the gutter down the downpipe.
Now if that downpipe comes loose, and it has before, and it moves over, even if it's just
like a few centimeters over, if it's not directly underneath the hole, then, um, you
know, there's nothing wrong with the flow of water.
The flow of water is going to keep on flowing.
But if that downpipe is not there to, underneath the hole to catch the flow of water, then
the water is not going to get into my tank.
Now that tank represents our lives.
And the downpipe represents our choice to come into alignment with the nature of God
and alignment with the ways of the kingdom.
Now at the center and the deepest foundation of the ways of the kingdom, love is right
there.
Love is the most foundational way of God.
And um, I'm just reading Liz's comment.
Another thing that is love is that glorious Jesus here.
Is that salt water here or Pantene, yo?
Listen, I don't go near panting, that's just straight salt water, thanks Liz.
But the flow keeps flowing, but when we are knocked out of alignment, and we know we're
knocked out of alignment when our life starts to manifest or our life starts to be an expression
of something that is other than love or that is not founded in love and not sitting on
top of love, when our life comes out of alignment with love, we come out of alignment with the
ways of the Kingdom.
We come out of alignment with the flow of glory.
We come out of alignment with the nature of God, and we come out of alignment with who
God has called us to be.
We come out of alignment with Kingdom culture, and there's no two ways about it, that's just
what happens.
And before long, as you are knocked out of your alignment, before long you will start
straying from your assignment.
And when you stray from your assignment here on earth, when you stray from your calling
here on earth, when you stray from that thing, that burning desire in God's heart, now your
assignment is your expression on earth of who God created you to be in relationship
with Him.
When you step away from that, when you step...I'm just looking at some of these comments, they're
quite funny.
When you step away from that, there is a deep sense of...well, there's probably many words
to put there, but it's a negative feeling.
It's not a good feeling.
You are unfulfilled at the very least.
And the way to step back into your assignment, back into your calling, is to first of all
ask yourself, have I come out of alignment with the nature of God or with the ways of
heaven?
Are there blessings that are flowing, attempting to flow into my life?
Is there glory attempting to flow into my life that I've simply...I'm out of position
to receive those because I'm out of love?
Because every time you step...this is what John said, I didn't say this, John said this,
but every time you step out of love, you step out of a place of abiding in God.
And when you're not abiding in God, you can't bear God fruit.
But the simple solution is this.
Every time you step back into love, you step back into the place of abiding in God.
And love is never closed to you.
Love never holds up the...never locks a door on you and it never says to you, hey, you've
gone too far and you're not allowed back in anymore.
Love doesn't do that.
Love is always open-armed.
Love is always open-doored and love is always waiting for you to turn around and to come
back home again.
And so that's pretty cool.
To me, 1 Corinthians 13, and this is a pretty common scripture, and I'm sure you all know
this scripture, and I'm sure most of you wouldn't even need to turn there in the Bible, but
I'm going to turn there in the Bible.
And I'm going to have a little look here, 1 Corinthians 13, and I just love this thing
here.
Right here.
It's so good.
1 Corinthians 13.
Let's have a little look here.
And to me, 1 Corinthians 13 is just such a powerful and practical breakdown of what love
looks like in a person's life.
What does it mean to live a life of love?
And what even is love?
And philosophers and thinkers and theologians have been trying to describe this since man
was created, probably.
Probably Adam was trying to do that, but 1 Corinthians 13 really gives just a breakdown
of like, hey, if we're talking about love, this is kind of what a lifestyle of love looks
like.
And as I'm reading these things, and I know you've read them before, but I'm going to
read them again to you.
As I'm reading these things, I want you to keep in mind that you don't see these demonstrated
to the degree anywhere else on earth as on the cross.
That Jesus demonstrated, and God demonstrated His love to us, that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us.
And it's amazing to think that God doesn't just expect us to live in love.
He is a love for us to live from and to love from.
And so here we go.
1 Corinthians 13.
Though I speak with tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I've become sounding
brass or a clanging cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and though I have all faith so that I can move mountains, but I have not love, I am
nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,
but have not love, it profits me nothing.
All you've got.
good work is nothing outside of love. Now this is the list. Love suffers long. Love
is kind. Love does not envy. I read this list pretty frequently just to take a check on
it. Where's my love level at? Is there any aspect of love that I need to work on in my
life? Love does not parade itself. It is not puffed up. It doesn't behave rudely. It does
not seek its own. It is not provoked. It doesn't think evil. It does not rejoice in iniquity
but it rejoices in the truth or the reality of God. It bears all things. It believes all
things. It hopes all things. Hope is the sure and joyful expectation of the very best outcome.
You know, love is incredibly optimistic. It endures all things. Love never fails but where
there are prophecies, they will fail. Where there are tongues, they will cease. Where
there is knowledge, it will vanish away. And then it goes on and the rest of it is just
amazing as well. But this is just a short description of love. And so what I want to
ask you is how's your love going? How's your love tank flowing? Are you in alignment for
your assignment? And if you're not in alignment, I want to just let you know it's really, really
easy to step back into your alignment. And let me just share with you one of the great
keys to living a life in alignment with God's ways. Now, if we align with the ways of heaven
and the ways of the kingdom, then we will see the kingdom of heaven flowing through
our lives. But if we step out of alignment with God's ways and the ways of the kingdom,
then kingdom culture will not flow through our lives. And it's a simple equation. That's
how it works. So in order to abide in love, in order to be a person that lives in love
and that is an expression of love, what is the first thing? The first thing is this.
We can only love Him because He first loved us. And we can only love others to the degree
that we have learned the love of God to ourselves, that we have received the love of God for
ourselves. And so, you know, to become powerful love, and Benji says this, to become powerful
love, you first of all have to be powerfully loved. And to the degree you have been powerfully
loved is the degree that you can then powerfully love others. And so, you know, it's best and
it's wisest not to put the cart before the horse. And the best thing we can do and the
best way we can position our lives on a daily basis to wake up in the morning to say, God,
I receive your love. Help me receive your love. Help me receive the way you see me.
Help me receive the affection you have for me. Help me receive the ways that you're loving
me today. And I just want to give you one quick story before I finish this. And at the
end of the story, I'm going to quickly pray and we're going to finish. And then we're
going live again tonight with the crew. And we should have Papa Norm on there too tonight.
But one of the things I do, and this is, by the way, the first session on the ways of
the kingdom. And the reason it's the first session is, of course, because every single
other one of the ways of God's ways stems from this way that I'm talking about right
now. None of God's ways are absent from what I'm talking about right now. And so if we're
talking foundations, this is the foundation of God's ways. And it begins with you receiving
like everything else in the kingdom. It begins with you receiving. You can only give what
you receive, and you can only receive what is being given. Now, God is giving love, but
that doesn't mean you're receiving love. And there are some particular ways and principles
that you can put in place in your life in order to receive what God's giving. But the
truth is, unless you receive it, you can't give it. The good news is, God's given it
so you can receive it. And I went through a season of just a deep longing desire in
my heart that was just crying out and saying, God, teach me to receive your love. Teach
me to receive everything you're pouring out in my life. And he said this to me. He said,
Matt, here's what I want you to do, Matt. I simply just want you to do this. I want
you to make space in your life on a daily basis. It could be five minutes, 10 minutes,
20 minutes. It could be hours. But all I need is like five minutes a day. Well, you just
make space. And in that space, I don't want you to do anything. I just want you to ask
one question. And I said, God, what's the question? He said, this is the question I
want you to ask. This question, Matt. God, how are you loving me today? And so I would
sit the first time I did it. I remember I've done it many, many times since. But the first
time I did it, I laid down on my couch. It was only about five minutes. And I said, God,
I'm making space right now. How are you going to love me today? Because I want to recognize
your love when it comes.
comes, so that I can receive it when it comes, because if I don't recognize it when it comes,
I won't be able to receive it when it comes.
And if I receive it when it comes, I'll be able to give it from that place.
And so the first thing he said to me was, I'm going to love you through creation today,
man.
I'm going to show you my love through creation.
So I said, wow, God, thank you.
That's awesome.
I went outside onto the porch about five minutes after that, and I had this crazy encounter.
And if you look on my Instagram page, you'll actually see, I've actually drawn an illustration
of this encounter with a little korero that I wrote, a little description I wrote underneath
in the comments.
But I had this encounter with this hummingbird.
Now there's many hummingbirds in Redding, California, which is where I was living at
the time.
But I had this hummingbird, it came right up into my face, and it just started humming
in my face.
Like, I mean, nose to nose, I was face to face with a hummingbird.
Now, if God hadn't just told me that on the couch, He was going to show me His love through
creation today, that would have been an amazing encounter with a hummingbird that I probably
would still be talking about today, and maybe would still be drawing pictures about.
But because God had just shared that with me, I recognized this is not just a hummingbird.
I'm not just eyeball to eyeball with a hummingbird.
I'm eyeball to eyeball with the glory of God emanating from this encounter that's coming
through the eyeballs of this hummingbird, that I'm literally face to face with the love
of God right now.
Now, of course, it's still a hummingbird, and no, I'm not saying that the hummingbird
is God.
But what I am saying is that hummingbird was sent from the Lord to show me and to teach
me and to tell me and to impart to me a love that is only from God.
And I felt the glory of God come around me.
I felt the love of God fill me.
I felt enriched.
I felt empowered.
I felt built up.
I felt strengthened.
I felt the love of God exploding on the inside of me through that encounter.
And I realized, man, God, thank you so much for your love.
And the train continued from there.
And I would ask God for a season of my life, ask God every morning, how are you gonna love
me today?
Because I didn't want to miss God's love when it came.
And the most important way, and the most, to me at least, the most important thing to
do in order to stay in alignment with the love of God is to learn how to receive the
love of God to yourself.
And that's one thing you can do, there's probably many things you can do, I just can share from
my life, but that's one thing I did in order to position my life and position my heart
to say, God, here I am, I'm ready to receive.
I don't want you to give and it not be received, but I'm here with an open heart saying, God,
I'm making space to receive your love into my life.
So guys, I hope that blesses you.
Father, right now I just pray over every single person that's tuned in right now.
I pray over every single person that will be watching this broadcast and watching this
session on the second pillar of the kingdom, the ways of the kingdom, which is the way
of love, is the foundation of all of God's ways, and I just declare, God, show us your
love.
God, I declare your love exploding on every single person and in every single heart, in
the name of Jesus, I bless you guys, and I'm looking forward to seeing many of you tonight.
So God bless you, have an amazing afternoon, wherever you're tuning in from the world,
and whatever time it is, have an amazing time, peace.
Amen.