Yeah, come closer here, come closer, I'm off the edge, woman of beauty, off the edge, yeah.
Choice, well, this is fun to be in the same space as people often when we're doing
interviews and chats like this, we're in different places, but not today.
Today, we're hanging out right here in the office. Yeah, in the same geographical location.
Bloomin' beautiful. I like your office. Oh, thanks, mate. Very nice. Thanks. So,
cool to be here with you guys and we've got some fun we're going to be chatting about. We're going
to be chatting about prayer, building intimacy with God and Matt has also been working on
something pretty exciting. Yeah, yeah. So, this week, starting tomorrow and we're going to be
releasing this teaching at 12pm New Zealand time. All right. Every day this week and it's the
Raising Home Fires prayer school and I'm actually going to be, I have released part one on one of
these platforms at some stage. Sneak a leak. It's there somewhere, but we're going to be doing part
two and the basic kind of idea behind the school, particularly for part two is I found
that in my conversations with people, one of the main things that people are really hungry for
and I love it, this is what people are hungry for, is they're hungry to
really, truly, genuinely know God and have a real living relationship with God
and one of the main questions that people ask is and they ask it in the context of like,
okay, you know, I'm a Christian, I love God, you know, I have a relationship with God,
I pray, but man, I feel like there's something kind of not quite there in my prayer life
and a lot of the time people will say like, you know, in their own different way, but they'll
basically be asking, how do I pray? How do I pray? How do I pray? And so, this is a real practical
course that basically goes through some practical ways of how to pray and we'll be doing six
different sessions, super practical, all for the purpose of empowering people's prayer lives.
Actually, there's some places you can go and check out what people are searching on Google
and that's actually a pretty massive question that's asked on Google, just simple questions
like how to pray or how can I learn to pray or yeah, so that's awesome. So, fam, great to have
you guys jumping on board. We're streaming a few places, so we'll try and keep up with your
comments, but feel free to get chatty with us. Hi, Hadley and Paula. Hey, Karen. Shay.
Oh, Shay. Good to see you, Shay. You're a legend. So, when you jump on, just say hello, let us know
where you are in the world. And you know what I would love to hear, Benji, in the comments,
is if anyone has any specific questions around prayer or anything that they found
difficult or anything they don't understand. Yeah. Now, I would love to have a little convo
around that. Yeah, totally, because I think we've been praying for a while, you can kind of forget
what it's like when you were like this different stages of learning about prayer. I remember when
I first got, this is just a thought that just popped in my head, when I first started speaking
in tongues. Oh, come on. I thought it was so, I was so weirded out, right? Yeah. But the guy said,
look, you know, actually what happened for me was this old Anglican guy prayed for me to be
filled in the Holy Spirit, and absolutely nothing happened, which is a great way to get disappointed
with God, right? When you're like, nothing happened at all, because you're seeing other
people, things are happening for them, and this old Anglican guy got his, like, neck collar on
and everything, prays for me to be filled with the Holy Spirit. But he gave me some really good advice,
actually. He said, listen, this prayer is 100% guaranteed to work every time. It's not a, this
prayer can't not work, basically, is what he said to me. Yeah. He's like, yeah, it's impossible for
this prayer not to work. It works 100% of the time. All you have to do is practice it. I was like, oh,
okay. So the next morning.
when I woke up I was like okay let's just see what happens and I actually just kind of implemented the
advice that he gave me which is just to start just move my lips and let God take over so I'm in my
bed with the sheet over my head in the student hostel where I was living kind of like almost
silently and just sort of like hiding under my sheet in my bed like and like oh my gosh something's
happening and it just began from there so prayer is a bit of a journey uh you know I remember I
remember when I first started speaking in tongues my journey one of the reasons that I actually
came up with wanting to do this school um was I was thinking back on my journey of kind of
learning how to pray yeah and thinking man I had this thought man it would have been epic
if someone got beside me and actually helped me and kind of taught me some of the how-to
of how to pray hey hey zoe hey taffety hey um good to see you guys come on some good people on this
yeah yeah legends yeah so I so I started speaking in tongues I remember um I've got I'm gonna do a
session on tongues yeah as a part of the school I think that's one of the most powerful things
yeah um and we can actually we could pray for people now who don't have the gift of tongues
we could pray for them on this live just to to receive it but 100 percent um I remember uh I
got baptized in the holy spirit in my car which people generally know that story um but I didn't
know I had received the gift of tongues in that moment okay um until I got home about two weeks
or a week later and I started to pray people have been talking to me about this gift of tongues and
I was like god if I've got the gift of tongues you've got to prove to me that I'm not making
this up yeah and so I started like I'm just making a noise you know like an unintelligible
noise yeah um which sounded like whatever yeah and then it turned into this full-on
Chinese dialect for about 45 minutes and to the and the joy of the lord got me
I both thought it was super funny and it was the joy of the lord so I was getting double whammy
and I ended up on the floor of my concrete bedroom and uh just laughing and speaking it
in this Chinese dialect that I just thought was just the funniest thing in the world and um
classic that's very funny actually um earlier in this year uh I got a message from a lady in
Malta she was on the she was in Malta in Spain and um she just sent a message because she'd
been on one of our live prayer sessions and while I was praying in tongues she like I was I didn't
realize anything unusual was going on but I was I was just praying in tongues like normal but
everything that I was saying she was hearing in Spanish and I was just like speaking to her exactly
about where she was at with her life like she'd just given recently given her life back to Jesus
she had a whole bunch of stuff going on and everything that I was saying right there she
was like oh my gosh this is like like right on point speaking Spanish right into her life and
she's like so yeah so it's kind of fun um kind of fun stuff I love that stuff they might um
you might know this guy but um I think you do actually one of our friends he um he was in Israel
and he was in a prayer meeting there and he was just on the ground just under the influence of
the spirit praying in tongues and there was a guy he noticed that for about an hour there's a guy
like sitting next to him um like writing down what he was speaking in tongues yeah and he was like
what are you doing mate and the guy said to him he's a Hebrew guy he said you are speak you're
prophesying fluently in Hebrew you've been doing it for the last hour and he was like whoa and so
then he went for another hour the guy wrote like half a book of Hebrew and it was like this
apocalyptic crap like it sounded like he was the prophet Isaiah or something and he actually um
didn't lose it he could speak in Hebrew in tongues without knowing what he was saying at the at
request wow um and he actually started to learn Hebrew from speaking Hebrew so he'd be just praying
in Hebrew thinking oh I keep saying that word what does that mean and he actually began to learn Hebrew
from tongues that's classic that is pretty funny um so uh that's one thing give us some like a
little bit of a heads up um on some of the topics covering this week in the school of prayer and
just a shout out as well to everyone there actually before we move on shelter uh storm
good to see you marie good to see you there as well and um uh do you ever write down what god
says to you as he says it
Yeah. You know what?
Hey, just a comment on that, Rowan.
So if I pronounce your name wrong, that's actually something that I don't
know. I think I might cover this in the school a little bit,
but I might actually do something at the end of the score.
I cover this a bit more.
But one of the things I do is I have a little file on my
phone, and I'm coaching a few people right now.
Actually, some of them are on this live.
I'm pretty cool.
Love you guys.
And I've been talking about breadcrumbs, and I've got this file
on my phone, and it's called Ideas, but it's a breadcrumbs file.
And what I do is I've prepared my life to be ready for
God to speak to me at any moment.
And you'll often see me driving.
You'll often see my car pulled over.
Yeah.
Won't be pulled over for long, maybe for two minutes.
And when God drops a thought, and I know that's a God thought
or an idea or a frightened, often it's a one line.
It's like a one phrase or even one word.
And I'm like, I just feel like that's a God's highlighter
on it. I pull over, and even if it doesn't make sense initially,
I just write it down in that file as God's saying it, because
often it's like other people that say stuff.
If you're not intentional to actually take note of that and
remember it, then it goes in one ear and out the other.
And the same is true of God.
So I would encourage you, Roanne, to get a little file on
your phone and just start practicing that and see what happens.
It's like following the breadcrumbs of the spirit.
And I think you'll find you'll be led to some really cool
situations, whether it's having notes on your phone or if
you are a journaling person, definitely having that accessible.
So I primarily use my phone at the moment as the spot to
kind of record all the things that are going down.
It's kind of easy because you've always got there.
Yeah.
So that's cool.
Now, we did just have a question in here from Terry.
Come on, Terry.
Terry, how you doing?
Good to see you, brother.
Let me just see it.
The question was from all the way from Timaru from Kat.
And Kat said, how do you deal with distractions?
Like, how do you deal with that?
What's going on with distractions?
So Matt, what's your best way to deal with distractions?
And that's a pretty good question.
I think the first thing is to, Kat, by the way, good question.
The first thing I think is to determine, first of all, is this a distraction?
Is this God distracting me from what I thought God was leading me in,
but he's actually changed the course?
Yeah.
Or is this a distraction away from where God's leading me in prayer in this moment?
Yeah.
That's the first question you've got to ask.
Is this a valid distraction or not?
If you ask that question and the answer comes back,
we start to feel, no, this has got nothing to do with anything.
I need to get back on track.
I think just the actual process of determining this is a distraction
and realizing that is probably 90% of the work already done.
Like, you've realized you've been distracted.
And then you have to ask the question, do I want to be distracted?
Yeah.
And if the answer is no, then that's like 95% of the work done.
Yeah.
And then if the answer is no, you've determined you're distracted.
You've determined you don't want to be distracted.
Then the next question to ask is, what do I do to not be distracted?
And that is the question you're asking.
And it's simply, I think, like a refocus.
Some of the things that I do are, like, if I find myself being distracted,
one of the main things I do, and you've probably got tons,
you're like the master of staying focused, Benji.
So I'm excited to hear what you're going to say.
But one of the things I do is I read.
I'll get the Bible out if I'm feeling distracted, and that keeps me on track.
Yeah.
Or sometimes I'll even use, like, the Common Book of Prayer or something.
Yeah.
And actually read through old prayers.
I've got a list of old prayers, like the prayer of St. Patrick.
And all those old Franciscan prayers and stuff.
And I'll start reading some of those prayers and praying through them.
Especially if I'm feeling, like, either tired or distracted
and feeling like I don't have the internal grunt to stay focused on my own.
Totally, totally.
So, yeah, like, classic spaces where I'll get distracted is if I'm tired.
Yeah.
Like, oh, tired, man.
That's where our buddy Kristen Williams, I think he may or may not have invented this
term.
It's called sloaking.
Oh yeah.
You know, you're soaking in the presence, but really actually you're just asleep.
But the kind of, so I think, you know, a lot of sloaking goes on and it's not a bad way
of having a Jesus time and a bit of a rest, but depends on what you're trying to get out
of your prayer time.
Lynn Packer has a really good, like, kind of thought for us on this.
It's just like all revelation is an invitation to ask more questions.
And so sometimes it's kind of interesting, like, are you actually being distracted or
is God trying to bring you into something?
So because sometimes our minds are like weird places, and I'll give you an example, right?
I had this, I don't know, I just one day I just had this ridiculous thought going through
my head.
And I just was like, what is this?
And I just thought it was so left field that I was like, oh, this has got nothing to do
with anything.
But what I was, I saw this picture of people smuggling drugs into New Zealand in their
shoes.
Glitter.
I was like, what's that about?
I was like, you know, it's got nothing to do with anything right back on task, focus
on Jesus.
And then on the national news, six o'clock news, I think it was the next night was these
people who just got arrested smuggling drugs into New Zealand in their shoes.
Was that recent?
This was not recent.
This was like 10 years ago.
I think that someone else just got busted.
There you go.
It's happened again.
So the interesting thing is, right, is that maybe if I'd asked God a question, there might
have been something deeper that you wanted to say about that.
There might have been a message attached to it.
There might have been a prophecy attached to it and saying, and as you know, like, we
could have just been more there.
So what I'm saying is sometimes something on the surface looks like a distraction.
But if it looks like a distraction or if you're not really sure, then you can just ask like
deeper questions.
I think most of the time our distractions are just like life.
You know, if you've got family, kids or whatever.
So in that context, one of the best ways to sort distractions out is an undistracted environment.
So just figuring that out, you know, and often that just requires you to put up some boundaries
or be creative or get some headphones or relocate yourself.
And I think actually I had a really cool chat with a friend yesterday who's at the gym.
And her focus is gym life, you know, like exercise is her focus, nutrition, health.
That's her focus.
So for her, she prioritizes working out above sleep and she prioritizes working out above
food.
She prioritizes working out in her schedule above anything else.
And if you're talking about focus, really, when you kind of really boiled down, if you
really want to master focus, focus is not something that you master on the fly.
Focus is something that you master as the structure and like the infrastructure and
the rhythm of your life.
So how do you not get distracted?
Well, it's not something if you want to not get distracted, that's not something that
you can just do really well on the fly in the moment.
If you want to be focused, then it actually comes from like a much deeper way of organizing
life around really what's your priority.
And then you say, well, this is and it's really good to actually ask questions like this.
Is prayer more important to you than sleep?
Is prayer more important to you than food?
Then put it in the order of priority.
And I think we should do this with all of our stuff, right?
What is important and then organize our days and organize the rhythm and the structure
of our life around what is actually our priority.
Yeah, that's good, man.
I was talking to someone a while back and they were telling me how they didn't have
a lot of time to I said, what does your prayer life look like?
And I said, you know, I pray every so often, maybe once or twice a week.
And it's good when I do pray, but I don't get much time to pray because my life is largely
around my kids and da, da, da, da.
And, and, you know, I want to, I want to make sure I've got time for them.
Yeah.
And I said, I said, well, what if Jesus wants to make sure that he has time with you?
You know, and so we had this conversation and ended up saying, Hey, why don't you actually
like book in and put some boundaries around some time that you and Jesus can have.
Yeah.
And so she put that in a calendar and has, has, you know, almost like put defenses around
that time.
Yeah, totally.
It's such a good idea.
Right.
You've got to intentionality is a weapon.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
Oh, I've just lost it.
I think not completely lost it, but I've just lost what I was going to things that are
lost.
Yes.
They can be found.
Oh, but this one's slipped my mind.
And now Jesus brings back.
Everyone pray right now.
Come on.
Pray.
Everyone just reach your hands towards Benji and pray.
Come on, Jesus.
What was rapture will be restored.
Yeah.
So we were talking about this concept.
Come on, brain.
Help me out.
Where were we?
We were talking about intentionality, focus, boundaries.
Rachel, I can see your comment there.
Yeah.
We'll get back to that for sure.
It's a good comment, actually.
Let's come to Rachel and then we'll come back and see if this little fella reappears.
Can you share an example from each of your own lives of what you would consider a productive
prayer time?
Oh, yeah, that's a great, great question.
I love that.
I love it.
I love it because one of the reasons I love this question is because human beings.
And this is the design that God has put in humans.
We always look for truth that we can see incarnated.
Yeah.
And in flesh.
Yeah.
And that's why we have to have Jesus.
Yeah, exactly.
Because we see God in the flesh.
Yeah.
But when you ask that question, it's like, man, that is always the most helpful thing
is to actually see something fleshed out.
That's what's so fun to read.
Like old revival stories.
Yeah.
You know, the stories of people like Father Nash and stuff, those prayer warriors, Moravians
and stuff.
But that's a great question.
A productive prayer time.
Yeah.
Oh, you know, for me, it's an epic question and also quite a difficult one to answer.
Yeah.
Because what is a productive prayer time?
And there's lots of elements and there's lots of things that contribute to a productive
prayer time.
To me, this is.
Yeah.
Totally.
I'm just laughing because it took me a while to learn this lesson.
Yeah.
I can't wait to hear your answer.
For me, I feel like a productive prayer time is a time, if I boil this all down, where
I am conscious of the fact that I have just spent time in relationship, in conversation,
in actual connection with God.
And, you know, the prayer school that is launching now and will continue tomorrow at 12 o'clock
every day, New Zealand time, is really like keys and how to, some how to's and how to
connect with God in prayer.
And so for me, it's, I might be sitting completely silent for an hour, just thinking with God.
And if I feel connected to God in that, then that's a productive prayer time to me.
If I feel like the conversation is back and forth and there's interaction with God, then
that's, I feel good about it.
That's great.
But it can practically look different every time for me.
Totally.
So interestingly, for me, my journey of learning about prayer and growing in prayer and praying
was a really, I'm like, okay, sweet.
This is what my prayer time looks like.
I'm going to have an hour and a half with God.
I'm going to be praying for my list of people.
I'm going to be reading my five chapters of the Bible.
I'm going to be recording a verse from each chapter, and I've got a pretty structured
time of what that's going to look like.
Here's where it gets funny, right?
Because I had this mindset.
It was kind of, there was like a lot of ritual in there and kind of religious in the sense
of it has to look like this.
So that went on for years, and it was awesome, right?
Because I read the Bible over and over.
you know, just really, really got well grounded in the Bible by reading the Bible over and over,
loved those times. But then what was really interesting is came to the season where I was
having this massive encounter with the glory of God. And it would be what my prayer time
primarily looked like as I get in, I put some worship music on, I'd get in a bean bag and I
just be whoa. It was a time actually where I started to really, really deeply experience
the encounter, the manifest presence of God, where before that, it was, I mean, actually,
to be honest, I went most of my life in church, you know, not knowing that the manifest presence
of God was a thing. I didn't know that you could have an actual experience with the manifest
presence of God. I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything either. I just didn't know that
that was even a possibility. I didn't know you could you could do that. I mean, I'd spent
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours in prayer before I even discovered that was a thing
that you could actually experience the presence of God physically and be like, whoa, the presence
of God. So things started shifting and changing. And I started into the season where I was in a
massive encounter with the glory of God. I was like, so I'd put some worship music on,
I jump in a bean bag, it's like, whoa, whoa, so much presence, so much glory that I'd barely
be able to move for hours, just undone in the presence of God. Oh, yes. And then right,
I'd be like, flip, I better, I better make sure that I read my five chapters of the Bible, right?
So I would, I'd drag myself out of a bean bag and then crawl along the floor to
get my Bible and then try and like read it as I'm well heavy under the presence of God,
under the influence of the glory. I'm like, struggling and slowly reading the Bible. But
you can imagine this, right? I'm just trying to shake off what God's doing, like crawl,
drag myself along the floor. I'm just trying to, yeah, I know. And I'm like, I'm going to read my
Bible now, take my notes. And it's just so funny that afterwards I started to realize like, oh,
hey, here's God doing something really deep in me. And because I have this mindset that
a productive prayer time or I had this mindset of what my time with God had to look like,
what ended up happening is, because I had such a strong ritualistic picture and kind of religious
mindset of what it needs to look like, I couldn't see the fact that God was doing something so
blatantly and powerfully in my life. And I was reverting back to the old, like to just to a
mindset of prayer looks like this, like time with God looks like this and go time with God has to
involve reading my five chapters of the Bible and time with God has to look like me recording
a verse from each chapter. And it has to. So basically, God spent years and years deconstructing
my mindset around prayer. And so now really what it looks like is it looks like a dance.
And the whole point of the dance is just to ensure that, hey, I have no preconceived idea
of what time with God is specifically going to look like. That doesn't mean that I don't have
some structures in place in my life either. Because I do have some structures and some
things that I prioritize, like daily declarations. I prioritize daily declarations and I make some
epic daily declarations and I use those declarations as a way of governing over my
life. Understand that I have a governmental authority, a governmental grace. I govern over
my family, I govern over my life, over everything around me by decreeing and declaring and mandating
and legislating. And what I'm doing is I'm actually with those declarations, they're so
powerful. And I know for a fact, because they manifest all the time, I'm actually shifting
the fabric of reality around my life with those declarations. So those things, yes,
and there's Bible that I'm reading on a regular basis. Yes, it's part of the daily hard things
challenge. I love those things. But when it just comes to time with God, or even time outside of
like a specific, like, you know, if I box God into a prayer time or whatever, it's just like,
actually, it's really become more about a dance and not having so much of a preconceived idea
of it has to look like that. So yeah.
Rowan? Wait, yeah, no, Barbara, you asked if prayer times or dance does everyone have
a different rhythm? Yeah, I reckon 100%. And also, I think that the rhythm of every person
changes depending on the season and depending on what's going on in their lives. Like I mentioned,
sometimes for me, prayer looks like complete silence and stillness.
Other times it looks like me stomping around my living room,
shouting in tongues, and one is like a high, intense rhythm,
and the other one is just a full rest, laid back rhythm.
And both of them are just as productive as the other,
if they're in their right season.
Tight link.
And Liz, interesting, when you start to center on your
prescribed rhythm or routine above relationship,
yeah, sometimes routine, our routines are there to stop gap
of space in our lives.
Where there isn't a consciousness of the presence of
God. We rest on our routine and the absence of presence.
Yeah.
And when I say presence, the absence of our ability to engage
with the fact that God is there.
Yeah.
I used to tell the story in lots of places when I when I preach
about the World War Two family.
Yeah.
And the World War Two family, mom and dad have a baby.
Then the dad goes to war.
Is it war for six years?
Well, is it war?
The mom and the girl do this routine to cope with the absence
of dad. And the routine is at bedtime, mom would say, read
some things about dad, then say, okay, honey, go give your dad
a kiss.
Good night.
She would walk up to the picture frame, kiss the picture
frame, say, good night, dad, walk back to bed, go to sleep.
And then six years later, after she's done this for six years
and learnt a routine to keep a consciousness of dad in her
heart, in the absence of dad's actual presence, dad comes
home and it's bedtime.
And he's like, oh, my gosh, I've been waiting for this moment
for my whole six years at war.
And he's standing at the end of the bed.
He's like, I'm going to give my daughter a hug and a kiss.
Good night.
This is it.
And mom's at the switch.
Dad's at the end of the bed.
He's brace ready for this moment of glory.
And mom says, okay, honey, you can give your dad a kiss.
Good night.
And she walks out, walks up, walks past dad, picks up the
picture frame, says, good night, dad, puts a picture frame
back down, hops back in bed and doesn't acknowledge the
presence of actually dad's at the end of the bed.
And things change when you become conscious of the fact
that is true, whether you feel it or not, that dad's actually
at the end of the bed.
And our routines should serve to lead us into a consciousness
that dad's actually there.
Yeah.
Come on.
So, yeah.
Boom.
Awesome.
All right, Matt, we've got one for you.
Been praying for 20 years to be filled by the presence of
God.
Not sure if it's happened, but I've had some close encounters
with him.
Yes.
Also, I just I mean, we all want all of us.
I'm sure all of us here are hungry for deeper experiences
of our deeper experiences of the presence of God.
There wouldn't be one person here.
There wouldn't be one person on Earth that doesn't want that.
I don't think.
Not if they understood what they were talking about.
Not if they understood what they exactly.
Yeah.
But I will just encourage and say this.
I'm assuming that you're breathing right now, because if
you weren't breathing, you wouldn't be alive.
It'd be hard to get those fingers tightened.
Yeah.
And so the fact that you are alive right now in a breathing
is proof that you are actually right now in the very middle
of one massive encounter with God.
Your life from the beginning of your life to the end has been
in an encounter with God.
And the evidence of that is the fact that you're alive because
life comes from no other than God himself.
Now, that might seem kind of like, okay, cool.
Yeah, whatever.
But I just still want the encounter with God that I'm hungry
for now.
That's good.
One of the ways I think that that comes is by, first of all,
learning to sort of stand and wonder and thankfulness and
appreciation of the fact that I'm actually already in an
account.
Come on.
And when you can acknowledge that I'm actually already in
an encounter with God and the evidence that I'm flipping, I'm
awake this morning.
Yeah.
Yep.
I know you still want more.
I know you still want deeper.
So do all of us.
But when you can acknowledge that and I've gone through this
and this has been a game changer for me is getting to this
place where, oh, my goodness, I wasn't one breath and God has
filled me with life.
Every time I breathe in, that one truth has set me up for
some of the most, maybe subtle, but most life changing
encounters with God that I've had and sometimes some of the
most natural, like easy to miss, but so transformational.
Yeah.
So I just want to encourage that.
So you are in an account of God right now.
Totally.
I think that, oh, here we go. Sue's saying, went to church, they didn't understand what I was
praying for. I don't even know why this comes to mind when I pray. Yeah, I think that something
really interesting around this whole concept of the manifest presence of God, or experiencing
the manifest presence of God, we want, obviously, we want more of that. But I think that it's really
important for us to understand the different dynamics of the presence of God. So there's the
omnipresence of God, right, which is, Isaiah talked about, Isaiah 6, actually, it's not Isaiah
speaking, it's the seraphim speaking, and they declare from heaven. So this is what they declare
from heaven. So this is heaven's perspective on the omnipresence of God, what they shout out in
Isaiah 6 is, holy, holy, holy, the whole earth is filled with his glory. So from heaven's perspective,
there's nowhere on the planet where you can actually escape the presence of God. He fills
every breath you take. He has infused the fabric of reality. So from heaven's perspective,
the whole earth is present tense, filled with his glory. David writes about it in Psalm 139,
you know, like, where can I go from your presence? He's like, I descend into hell, you are there,
if I ascend into the heavens, you are there, where can I go? But there's nowhere I can go to escape
your presence. If it comes to, when Paul writes about it, he says in Acts 17, in him, we live and
move and have our being. And Paul, when Paul's writing about that, he's specifically writing to
the Athenians, or he's speaking to the Athenians and the Arapagos, and these guys are guys that
didn't know anything about Jesus, they had no faith. They were pretty high level sinners,
they were unrepentant, sin loving Gentiles who'd never heard the gospel, right? And so
Paul's perspective, even when he spoke the gospel to everyone, he said, in him, we live and move
and have our being. So that's a really important thing to grasp, right? From heaven's perspective,
separation is an illusion. From the Old Testament perspective, separation is illusion. From the New
Testament perspective, separation is an illusion. No matter which way you look at connection with
God, from heaven's perspective, Old Testament perspective, New Testament perspective,
separation is an illusion and reality is oneness. So here's the thing, wherever you place your
agreement, right? And it might not happen right away, but wherever you place your agreement,
you're going to start seeing fruit from that agreement. So if your agreement was with the fact
that, hey, I'm disconnected from God, I'm far from God, I'm really, you know, like, oh, he's
really turned his back on me. Well, if you've got agreement with that, then get ready for that to
manifest in your life, you know, you can have as much of that as you want. Whereas if you shift
your agreement, and you actually go, no, separation is an illusion. In him, I live and move and have
my being. And if I were to make my bed in the depths of hell, he would be there. If I was to
ascend into the heavens, he would be there. There's nowhere I can escape from him. You know,
his glory fills the very air I breathe. So when you place your agreement there, now that was a
big mindset shift for me, right? Because I had grown up in a church with a church mindset that
endorsed separation. So the church mindset that I grew up in, endorsed separation, right? So
from my perspective, I believe separation is an illusion, right? But when you place agreement
with separation, you get that in abundance. But when you place agreement with seamless union,
with oneness, with effortless union, effortless bliss, then you get that in abundance. So there's
the omnipresence of God. And you might not feel that, right? That's not a touchy feeling thing.
That's just a present reality. So we have to distinguish between what we feel and what is
present reality. So present reality is you're as one with God as you could be. And you've always
been one with him. You haven't been separated from him. In him, you live and move and have your
being. He fills the very air that the entire planet breathes, right? We can't be separated
from him. So there's the omnipresence of God. Then there's the abiding presence of God that's
actually in you, with you. And then there's the manifest presence of God. And it's like,
the more you celebrate the omnipresence and the more you celebrate and steward the abiding
presence, what I've found in my life is that as I celebrate that more,
the more I experience a manifest presence. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Word, brother.
Word, word. Well, Matt, why don't you tell us a little bit more? Oh, yeah. Storm's saying
visualization really helps you because visualization is part of the process of faith
because faith and your imagination and visualization, they are all part of the process.
Why don't as we kind of just kind of bring this to a landing, why don't you chat about
what people can expect this week in the school of prayer? What have we got lined up?
Well, I want to leave a little bit of mystery in it. Not too much mystery that people don't
know what's going on. Not quite X-Files level mystery. Not quite X-Files or Twilight Zone,
but maybe MacGyver. Yeah, MacGyver. So you're going to know that there's a pocketknife.
My favorite show. So 12 12 p.m. NZ time, I'm going to be dropping on the Raising Royalty site. I'm
going to be dropping some prayer teaching. It's a Raising Home Fires School of Prayer
season two, actually, and season one will be available. I'll point you in that direction
after after we've unleashed season two. Any reason why? I mean, we have actually
dropped season one in the past. Most people may or may not. You may or may not have seen it.
Do they have to see season one to see season two? No, you don't.
Now, season one is all about the mindsets and the principles that undergird a healthy prayer life.
So it's a really good season, and I recommend it. And I will point you in that direction. Season two
is practical tools and how to pray. And so we're going to be talking about things like
the gift of tongues. We're going to talk about thankfulness. When I say thankfulness, we're not
just going to be going into some detail around what that can look like, the dynamics around that.
We're going to be talking about vulnerability. We're going to be talking about heart journaling.
We're going to be talking about a whole bunch of things that you may have heard of before,
may not have heard of before. You may implement now, you may not implement now, but we're going
to go into them in some depth that hopefully you haven't sort of delved into yet. And at
the end of every set, they're going to be about half an hour sessions. So it's not going to take
the whole day. And at the end of each session, there's an activation. And that activation,
if you activate on the activation and actually do it. Implementation is key, right? Yeah,
absolutely. If you do it, it will help you. And then we're going to end with a
session at the end, which will include like a question and answer time for people
to ask questions. So yeah, so it's going to be really cool. Super excited about it and
encourage you if you have a heart to want, if you have a heart for deeper connection with God,
deeper intimacy and relationship with God, or you're feeling like, man, I want to supercharge
my prayer life. This could just be a really practical, some real practical tools that you
could implement to do that. Totally. That's great. Well, awesome, guys. If you've got any
last questions or thoughts, any feedback that you want to drop, now's your moment. So just drop that
in there nice and quick in the comments. And we'll do one last round on the comments, which will be
awesome. So yeah, so this is it. This is your chance. Now, if you've got some other comments
you want to drop there, drop those. We'll do one last check of all the comments. And after that,
we're going to sign off and call that a wrap for today. But thanks, Kerry. A wrap.
Great having you guys with us. Storm, just to help, hopefully, information, meditation,
repetition, application, manifestation. Pastor Norm teaches this about identity and intimacy.
Yep, totally. Good stuff. Cat is asking, how's the surf? Pretty great last week for you guys.
Cat, honestly, last week was pretty all-time. It was pretty good. You should have been here.
Yeah, Cat, you missed out in terms of surf and tidal last week. It was busy. I don't surf,
but I drive to the Zim. I drive to the Zim sometimes. We have a little secret system here
for people who haven't had the jab for how they can go to do some workouts type things,
which works really well. So while I was driving past, driving to the Zim, I had to drive past
Weiroo and Parks if there's going surfing, and it's packed out. And I'm like, most of the time,
Matt's truck is there.
Yeah. So yeah, it's good.
Good times there, mainly in the morning.
Yeah. Sweet fam. Well, lots of love to everyone.
I hope that's been helpful. Just having a chat.
I know you're going to get so much this week out of the School of Prayer.
So we'll be dropping that into the Raising Royalty Facebook page.
But we will also be uploading it onto the Raising Royalty platform.
If you want to get it, check out the Raising Royalty platform
and get free access to that.
Just go to Raising Royalty dot com and you can get free access to the platform.
The replays will be up there as well.
OK, so you can check it out on the Raising Royalty platform
or you can check it out in the Raising Royalty Facebook group.
So if you're watching from my page or the Online School of Sonship, then
or somewhere else, if you're sharing this or watching it somewhere,
go to Raising Royalty dot com.
If you want to get access and you'll be able to get access on the platform
or go to the Raising Royalty Facebook group.
Other than that, if you need, if you're like, man, I want that gift of tongues.
I want to be baptized in the Holy Spirit right now in the name of Jesus.
We will release the baptism of the spirit.
I release right now the gift of tongues, the gifts of the spirit.
Holy Spirit.
Let fire just come and fall and flood
over people's minds, hearts, bodies into their rooms.
God manifest your glory over people.
We activate right now.
We speak out an activation of the gifts of the spirit to explode.
Well, Lord, a gift of faith explode and to manifest in people's hearts
and people's minds, tongues and people's bodies right now.
And we thank you, God, for what you're doing.
We release the flow of the spirit right now.
Wow. Amen.
Amen. Lord, we thank you for your glory.
But there's nothing we will ever
need more or desire more than you in your very presence.
So Papa, you're sure Holy Spirit.
We thank you for your glory, for your presence, for your tangible
manifest presence, for your for the physical manifestation of your love for us.
We thank you for that to flood over people and in people,
for you to baptize them in your glory, for you to marinate them in your glory,
for you to saturate them well in your presence.
Papa, we're asking right now and through this week, Lord, that people will
look that they will get sucked up into a place of divine union.
Look, they will get swallowed up into seamless union with the trinity that your
that this divine dance of love will swallow them up,
that they will be caught in this unbroken cycle of divine love.
So in the name of Jesus, we decree and we declare
and we mandate and we legislate outpourings of the spirit of God,
awakening, shifting, growth, transformation as we build up to Christmas.
May you have radical encounters
with the King of Kings and with the Lord of Lords who came at Christmas
and as he came at Christmas as a baby, may he come
into your life, into your world afresh like never before.
May there be an explosion.
May it be that world Jesus turns up like never before in your world.
So, Lord, I thank you for a fresh spirit of awakening,
for a spirit of revival, for outpourings, Papa, breaking out of people's lives,
for Lord, fresh encounters, baptisms, explosions of your presence,
for eyes to open, for revelations, for signs and wonders and miracles
and visions and dreams and encounters, Lord, in the midst of everything
that's unfolding, in the midst of all the the Christmas and New Year's
busyness and everything that's happening, Jesus, I ask that you would explode
into the primary focus of our lives.
You leave us undone.
You leave us overwhelmed and just, Lord, with our hearts
burning for more and more of you.
Amen. Wow. Amen.
Cool, fam. Well, love you heaps.
And I look forward to a great week with Matt.
Yeah. We'll see you tomorrow.
Choice, choice. Peace out, fam.
See you.