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Hey guys, how's it going?

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Alright, just work this out a little bit.

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Well, I'm excited to share today.

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Just waiting for some people to come on.

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Gilda.

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Hey, good to see you.

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We're just going to hang out for a little bit.

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Wait for a few people to tune in.

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Behind me is my lounge,

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which has been transformed into a film studio

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where we're filming a teaching series on prayer.

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Hey Tawhiri, see you bro.

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Cool to see a few people jumping on.

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This is awesome.

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I'm going to share with you just in a few minutes

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on the second pillar of kingdom culture.

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I talked about the first pillar yesterday

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in the first session,

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being that Jesus is what kingdom culture looks like

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and Jesus Christ is the definer of kingdom culture

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and is our invitation from God

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to step into that actual culture.

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He's the way, the truth, and the life.

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We beheld His glory,

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full of grace and truth.

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Grace being the empowerment of God

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to do something that you couldn't do

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before you received the grace

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and truth being the reality of God

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and the reality that God has designed

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for each of us to live in and walk in.

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When Jesus came, we both saw that reality.

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We saw God's original blueprint.

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We saw God's ideal.

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But not only that,

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through the cross and through the price that Jesus paid

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and the price that God paid through Christ,

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we are empowered to live in that reality

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and our lives are empowered to be kingdomized.

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That's pretty cool.

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So feel free to jump back and check that out.

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There's a few people jumping on.

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This is cool.

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I'm about to show you one of my paintings.

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It's a pretty old painting.

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I'm about to tell you the story behind that painting.

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So stay tuned.

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In a second, I'm about to show you that.

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And I've just got a short little korero.

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I'm going to be speaking today

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for about, I would guess, about 20 minutes

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on Kingdom Culture Pillar 2,

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The Ways of the Kingdom.

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Of course, I'm not going to be talking about

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all the ways of the kingdom.

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But I'm going to be talking about

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what every single one of the ways of the kingdom

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rests on, the foundation of the ways of the kingdom.

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We're going to be sharing a little bit about that.

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And so welcome.

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What I might do is actually,

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I'm going to begin by telling you a story

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of an encounter that I had

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that really showed me God's ways.

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But before I do that,

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I'm going to...

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No.

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No, no, no.

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Actually, I'll show you afterwards.

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I'll show you afterwards.

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So let me share the story with you.

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I'm going to get started.

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Probably...

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Well, I mean, it feels like last year,

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but it was actually like 10 years ago.

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I had this crazy encounter

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that really changed my life.

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And it was in a season of my life

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where I was seeing an explosion of growth

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in many areas of,

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particularly in the gifts of the Spirit

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and in some of my designs,

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some of my dreams.

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I was seeing an increase in the word of knowledge.

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I was seeing an increase in the prophetic.

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I was seeing an increase in the angelic.

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I was seeing an increase in the joy of the Lord,

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in the miraculous, in creative miracles.

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I went through a season of just seeing

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a whole bunch of metal dissolve out of people's bodies.

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I could tell just a bunch of crazy stories

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around that season of life for me.

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Just ridiculous words of knowledge.

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People being healed on the street.

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It was a season of time

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where we were like drawing chalk circles on the ground

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where we were sent...

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The spirit of discernment was increasing.

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We would sense that an angel was standing

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in a particular place

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and discern that it might be a healing angel.

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So we'd just draw a circle around that

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and people who were sick would come

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and would say,

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Hey, just go and stand in that circle

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and God will heal you.

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And they'd stand in the circle

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and God would heal them.

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It was just quite a dramatic increase of...

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I was feeling a dramatic increase in my life.

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And in that,

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I experienced something

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that I wasn't anticipating experiencing.

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I wasn't anticipating that I would experience.

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And that is,

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I actually began to feel quite a pressure.

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And the pressure that I was feeling

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was I felt such value

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and I felt like the stuff that God was teaching me

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and the stuff that God was giving me and showing me

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was so, so, so valuable.

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Hey Sean-O, surprised you're not surfing, bro, and it was so valuable and I didn't want to be unfaithful with you.

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I wanted to be a good steward of everything that God was teaching me and everything that God was showing me.

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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.

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It would be easy to steward that, but because God was doing so many different things in my life,

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I wanted to be a good steward of the gifts of the word of knowledge.

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I wanted to be a good steward of the prophetic. I wanted to be a good steward of the healing and anointing.

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I wanted to be a good steward of creative miracles. I wanted to be a good steward of the spirit of discernment.

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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.

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I've just mentioned a few, that God was increasing in my life all at the same time.

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And I was praying, I was saying, God, I want to be a good steward.

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And I said, but I'm having a hard time because there's so many things to steward all at once.

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And how do I steward everything all at once? And he said, well, you know, you could pick one or two.

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And I was like, oh God, it's so hard to pick one or two. And then I went into this vision.

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I went into this encounter. I was in my bedroom, went into this encounter.

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And I started seeing all these different colored streams coming towards me.

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And they all coming towards me. And above every stream, there was a name written.

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And one of them was the gift of the word of knowledge. One of them was prophecy.

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One of them was miracles. One of them was healing. And so on and so forth.

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All these different colored streams, and they're all coming at me.

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And they were all sort of separated from one another. And God said, okay, pick a couple.

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You've probably got enough space in your life to pick one or two of those, and you could steward that really well.

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When your attention is divided, it's pretty hard to steward stuff.

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And when the focus is dull, it's pretty hard to steward.

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And so I just felt, and I said, God, I don't know which one to pick.

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They're all so good. I want all of them.

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And it's almost like he kind of took a step back and he said, oh, I see. I see.

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You don't want just one or two.

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And he kind of had that little bit of a tone about his voice.

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Very kind, very gentle, but kind of like a little bit cheeky.

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And I said, yeah, no, I don't want just one or two. I want them all.

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I don't want to let go of any of them.

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And he said, okay, well, if you want all of them, there is a way.

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And I said, okay, God, well, what's the way?

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And then all of a sudden, all these streams all combined,

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they all came together to make one massive torrent.

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It was like a massive river was just coming at me.

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As all these streams combined, and the name of the stream,

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the name of the river, as all the streams combined, was love.

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And he said, if you will pursue love and you steward love,

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then you'll steward everything.

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But you can either choose to steward love, or you can choose just one or two.

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In love is everything there is to have,

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and everything there is to steward in the kingdom.

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So the easiest option for you, Matt, just choose love.

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And so I want to show this painting to you.

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And I'm going to take this little phone off here.

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It really impacted me, this encounter.

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And oh, I got an angry face.

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Hey, bless you.

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And I want to show you this little painting that I did.

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I don't know how to...

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So I'm going to do a little scan down.

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So this is a pretty old painting.

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I did this for an exhibition a little while ago.

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And this is the streams that were coming at me.

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And they go into the cloud, and the cloud represents the glory of God.

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Moses spoke to God face to face, as a man does to his friend,

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inside the cloud, where Al-Tiroa, the land of the long, bright cloud.

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And in that cloud, everything that we're trying to steward,

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all comes together in this place of the glory of God.

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And the glory of God really is a manifestation of the love of God.

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And this is my attempt to just sort of paint my encounter.

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So there you go. I love doing art.

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I just wanted to share some of that with you,

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as I'm doing this session here.

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And so everything is in love.

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And 1 John chapter 4 says this.

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And this is such a key, key scripture.

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We're talking about the ways of God.

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It's so important to know the ways of God.

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And I want to just talk to you.

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There's so many ways of God.

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God has ways for this and ways for that.

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And it's a massive topic.

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And there's lots of subjects to cover within that.

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But this here, what I'm talking about right now,

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is the foundation.

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of every single one of His ways, that no matter what God does, He never does anything that's

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not founded and formed from a place of love.

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And so, and I'll prove that to you by reading the scripture.

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And to be honest, you could read the entire book of 1st John and 2nd John and 3rd John

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and the Gospel of John and reach the burning conclusion that what I'm saying is true.

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But at the very least, read chapter 4 of 1st John.

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And I just want to pull out one scripture that really is kind of a central anchor point

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scripture in this book of 1st John, which by the way, is mind bogglingly good.

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And it is in verse 16, it says, and we have known and believed the love that God has for

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us.

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God is love.

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God is love.

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And he who abides in love abides in God and God abides in him.

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Now I just want to suggest that what I believe John is saying is this, he's not saying that

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love is one aspect of the nature of God.

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What I believe John is saying is that God is love and every other attribute of His character

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is an attribute of an expression of love.

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But at the foundation of all of who God is and at the foundation of all of what God does,

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there is love.

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God never strays from love.

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He never does anything without love being at the center of it.

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God is love.

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And when we step, you know, if there's a flow of blessing pouring down here, if there's

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a waterfall of glory falling and coming down right here, and this is a flow of love.

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Every time we step outside of love, every time we step out of alignment with love, what

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in effect happens is we step outside of the flow of God's glory over our lives.

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When we abide in love, we are literally abiding in the flow of God.

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When we step outside of love, we step outside of the flow of God.

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And that might sound like a heavy comment to some.

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That might sound like a challenging comment to some.

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But to be honest, that is just the honest truth, is that God is love and God never does

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anything outside of who He is.

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Now the other thing that is true is this, is that you have been created in the image

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of God.

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Therefore, if God is love, you have been created in the image of love.

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When you act or you live in a way that is outside of love, you are living in a way that

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is apart from or outside of who God created you to be.

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In other words, you are not being yourself when you are living outside of love.

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So for you to be yourself, and by the way, when you're not being yourself, you are incredibly

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unfulfilled.

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You are incredibly frustrated and your life is not going well.

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When you step outside of who God created you to be, everything just starts going to custard.

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But at the core foundational framework of who God has designed you to be, you are an

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expression of love just as God is love.

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And I want to, um, I was, it's right, it's, oh, Shauna, you're working and recovering

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from yesterday.

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We got some good waves yesterday, man.

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So good.

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Right now it's actually raining at my house and I can, I've got a water tank here.

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We're on tank water and I can hear my tank just filling up.

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It's pretty awesome actually.

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But one thing you can hear is you can hear the water going down the downpipe from the

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gutter from the flowing off the roof into the gutter down the downpipe.

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Now if that downpipe comes loose, and it has before, and it moves over, even if it's just

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like a few centimeters over, if it's not directly underneath the hole, then, um, you

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know, there's nothing wrong with the flow of water.

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The flow of water is going to keep on flowing.

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But if that downpipe is not there to, underneath the hole to catch the flow of water, then

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the water is not going to get into my tank.

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Now that tank represents our lives.

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And the downpipe represents our choice to come into alignment with the nature of God

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and alignment with the ways of the kingdom.

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Now at the center and the deepest foundation of the ways of the kingdom, love is right

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there.

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Love is the most foundational way of God.

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And um, I'm just reading Liz's comment.

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Another thing that is love is that glorious Jesus here.

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Is that salt water here or Pantene, yo?

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Listen, I don't go near panting, that's just straight salt water, thanks Liz.

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But the flow keeps flowing, but when we are knocked out of alignment, and we know we're

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knocked out of alignment when our life starts to manifest or our life starts to be an expression

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of something that is other than love or that is not founded in love and not sitting on

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top of love, when our life comes out of alignment with love, we come out of alignment with the

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ways of the Kingdom.

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We come out of alignment with the flow of glory.

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We come out of alignment with the nature of God, and we come out of alignment with who

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God has called us to be.

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We come out of alignment with Kingdom culture, and there's no two ways about it, that's just

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what happens.

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And before long, as you are knocked out of your alignment, before long you will start

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straying from your assignment.

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And when you stray from your assignment here on earth, when you stray from your calling

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here on earth, when you stray from that thing, that burning desire in God's heart, now your

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assignment is your expression on earth of who God created you to be in relationship

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with Him.

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When you step away from that, when you step...I'm just looking at some of these comments, they're

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quite funny.

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When you step away from that, there is a deep sense of...well, there's probably many words

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to put there, but it's a negative feeling.

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It's not a good feeling.

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You are unfulfilled at the very least.

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And the way to step back into your assignment, back into your calling, is to first of all

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ask yourself, have I come out of alignment with the nature of God or with the ways of

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heaven?

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Are there blessings that are flowing, attempting to flow into my life?

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Is there glory attempting to flow into my life that I've simply...I'm out of position

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to receive those because I'm out of love?

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Because every time you step...this is what John said, I didn't say this, John said this,

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but every time you step out of love, you step out of a place of abiding in God.

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And when you're not abiding in God, you can't bear God fruit.

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But the simple solution is this.

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Every time you step back into love, you step back into the place of abiding in God.

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And love is never closed to you.

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Love never holds up the...never locks a door on you and it never says to you, hey, you've

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gone too far and you're not allowed back in anymore.

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Love doesn't do that.

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Love is always open-armed.

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Love is always open-doored and love is always waiting for you to turn around and to come

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back home again.

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And so that's pretty cool.

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To me, 1 Corinthians 13, and this is a pretty common scripture, and I'm sure you all know

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this scripture, and I'm sure most of you wouldn't even need to turn there in the Bible, but

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I'm going to turn there in the Bible.

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And I'm going to have a little look here, 1 Corinthians 13, and I just love this thing

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here.

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Right here.

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It's so good.

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1 Corinthians 13.

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Let's have a little look here.

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And to me, 1 Corinthians 13 is just such a powerful and practical breakdown of what love

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looks like in a person's life.

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What does it mean to live a life of love?

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And what even is love?

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And philosophers and thinkers and theologians have been trying to describe this since man

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was created, probably.

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Probably Adam was trying to do that, but 1 Corinthians 13 really gives just a breakdown

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of like, hey, if we're talking about love, this is kind of what a lifestyle of love looks

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like.

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And as I'm reading these things, and I know you've read them before, but I'm going to

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read them again to you.

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As I'm reading these things, I want you to keep in mind that you don't see these demonstrated

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to the degree anywhere else on earth as on the cross.

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That Jesus demonstrated, and God demonstrated His love to us, that while we were yet sinners,

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Christ died for us.

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And it's amazing to think that God doesn't just expect us to live in love.

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He is a love for us to live from and to love from.

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And so here we go.

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1 Corinthians 13.

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Though I speak with tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I've become sounding

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brass or a clanging cymbal.

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And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,

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and though I have all faith so that I can move mountains, but I have not love, I am

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nothing.

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And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,

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but have not love, it profits me nothing.

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All you've got.

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good work is nothing outside of love. Now this is the list. Love suffers long. Love

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is kind. Love does not envy. I read this list pretty frequently just to take a check on

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it. Where's my love level at? Is there any aspect of love that I need to work on in my

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life? Love does not parade itself. It is not puffed up. It doesn't behave rudely. It does

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not seek its own. It is not provoked. It doesn't think evil. It does not rejoice in iniquity

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but it rejoices in the truth or the reality of God. It bears all things. It believes all

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things. It hopes all things. Hope is the sure and joyful expectation of the very best outcome.

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You know, love is incredibly optimistic. It endures all things. Love never fails but where

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there are prophecies, they will fail. Where there are tongues, they will cease. Where

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there is knowledge, it will vanish away. And then it goes on and the rest of it is just

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amazing as well. But this is just a short description of love. And so what I want to

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ask you is how's your love going? How's your love tank flowing? Are you in alignment for

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your assignment? And if you're not in alignment, I want to just let you know it's really, really

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easy to step back into your alignment. And let me just share with you one of the great

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keys to living a life in alignment with God's ways. Now, if we align with the ways of heaven

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and the ways of the kingdom, then we will see the kingdom of heaven flowing through

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our lives. But if we step out of alignment with God's ways and the ways of the kingdom,

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then kingdom culture will not flow through our lives. And it's a simple equation. That's

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how it works. So in order to abide in love, in order to be a person that lives in love

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and that is an expression of love, what is the first thing? The first thing is this.

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We can only love Him because He first loved us. And we can only love others to the degree

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that we have learned the love of God to ourselves, that we have received the love of God for

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ourselves. And so, you know, to become powerful love, and Benji says this, to become powerful

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love, you first of all have to be powerfully loved. And to the degree you have been powerfully

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loved is the degree that you can then powerfully love others. And so, you know, it's best and

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it's wisest not to put the cart before the horse. And the best thing we can do and the

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best way we can position our lives on a daily basis to wake up in the morning to say, God,

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I receive your love. Help me receive your love. Help me receive the way you see me.

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Help me receive the affection you have for me. Help me receive the ways that you're loving

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me today. And I just want to give you one quick story before I finish this. And at the

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end of the story, I'm going to quickly pray and we're going to finish. And then we're

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going live again tonight with the crew. And we should have Papa Norm on there too tonight.

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But one of the things I do, and this is, by the way, the first session on the ways of

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the kingdom. And the reason it's the first session is, of course, because every single

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other one of the ways of God's ways stems from this way that I'm talking about right

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now. None of God's ways are absent from what I'm talking about right now. And so if we're

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talking foundations, this is the foundation of God's ways. And it begins with you receiving

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like everything else in the kingdom. It begins with you receiving. You can only give what

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you receive, and you can only receive what is being given. Now, God is giving love, but

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that doesn't mean you're receiving love. And there are some particular ways and principles

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that you can put in place in your life in order to receive what God's giving. But the

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truth is, unless you receive it, you can't give it. The good news is, God's given it

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so you can receive it. And I went through a season of just a deep longing desire in

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my heart that was just crying out and saying, God, teach me to receive your love. Teach

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me to receive everything you're pouring out in my life. And he said this to me. He said,

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Matt, here's what I want you to do, Matt. I simply just want you to do this. I want

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you to make space in your life on a daily basis. It could be five minutes, 10 minutes,

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20 minutes. It could be hours. But all I need is like five minutes a day. Well, you just

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make space. And in that space, I don't want you to do anything. I just want you to ask

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one question. And I said, God, what's the question? He said, this is the question I

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want you to ask. This question, Matt. God, how are you loving me today? And so I would

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sit the first time I did it. I remember I've done it many, many times since. But the first

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time I did it, I laid down on my couch. It was only about five minutes. And I said, God,

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I'm making space right now. How are you going to love me today? Because I want to recognize

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your love when it comes.

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comes, so that I can receive it when it comes, because if I don't recognize it when it comes,

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I won't be able to receive it when it comes.

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And if I receive it when it comes, I'll be able to give it from that place.

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And so the first thing he said to me was, I'm going to love you through creation today,

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man.

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I'm going to show you my love through creation.

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So I said, wow, God, thank you.

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That's awesome.

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I went outside onto the porch about five minutes after that, and I had this crazy encounter.

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And if you look on my Instagram page, you'll actually see, I've actually drawn an illustration

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of this encounter with a little korero that I wrote, a little description I wrote underneath

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in the comments.

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But I had this encounter with this hummingbird.

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Now there's many hummingbirds in Redding, California, which is where I was living at

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the time.

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But I had this hummingbird, it came right up into my face, and it just started humming

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in my face.

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Like, I mean, nose to nose, I was face to face with a hummingbird.

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Now, if God hadn't just told me that on the couch, He was going to show me His love through

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creation today, that would have been an amazing encounter with a hummingbird that I probably

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would still be talking about today, and maybe would still be drawing pictures about.

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But because God had just shared that with me, I recognized this is not just a hummingbird.

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I'm not just eyeball to eyeball with a hummingbird.

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I'm eyeball to eyeball with the glory of God emanating from this encounter that's coming

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through the eyeballs of this hummingbird, that I'm literally face to face with the love

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of God right now.

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Now, of course, it's still a hummingbird, and no, I'm not saying that the hummingbird

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is God.

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But what I am saying is that hummingbird was sent from the Lord to show me and to teach

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me and to tell me and to impart to me a love that is only from God.

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And I felt the glory of God come around me.

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I felt the love of God fill me.

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I felt enriched.

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I felt empowered.

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I felt built up.

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I felt strengthened.

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I felt the love of God exploding on the inside of me through that encounter.

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And I realized, man, God, thank you so much for your love.

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And the train continued from there.

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And I would ask God for a season of my life, ask God every morning, how are you gonna love

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me today?

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Because I didn't want to miss God's love when it came.

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And the most important way, and the most, to me at least, the most important thing to

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do in order to stay in alignment with the love of God is to learn how to receive the

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love of God to yourself.

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And that's one thing you can do, there's probably many things you can do, I just can share from

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my life, but that's one thing I did in order to position my life and position my heart

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to say, God, here I am, I'm ready to receive.

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I don't want you to give and it not be received, but I'm here with an open heart saying, God,

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I'm making space to receive your love into my life.

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So guys, I hope that blesses you.

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Father, right now I just pray over every single person that's tuned in right now.

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I pray over every single person that will be watching this broadcast and watching this

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session on the second pillar of the kingdom, the ways of the kingdom, which is the way

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of love, is the foundation of all of God's ways, and I just declare, God, show us your

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love.

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God, I declare your love exploding on every single person and in every single heart, in

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the name of Jesus, I bless you guys, and I'm looking forward to seeing many of you tonight.

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So God bless you, have an amazing afternoon, wherever you're tuning in from the world,

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and whatever time it is, have an amazing time, peace.

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Amen.

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