I'm very excited today for this call as you guys know because I feel like I have, you know,
this treasure of a friend in Graham and I have this treasure in each of you guys of Kingdom
Messengers and the treasures are coming together and I get to share you guys with each other today
so I'm very excited. This is very extra special for me. What we're going to do today is we are
just going to jump in. Graham and I are going to be having a conversation. We were able to
chat a little bit beforehand about what, you know, you have a group of Kingdom Messengers.
These are pioneers. This is a new breed of ministers who are doing something different.
You know, what would we want to tell them? What we would want to talk about? What conversation
would we would want to have? And that's what we're going to be talking about today. So I,
we're going to forego the typical intros and announcements and Bruce and I have already
prayed up this call on your behalf so you guys are good but I just want to welcome to the call
Graham. Hey Graham. Hi. So I was telling Graham, you know, something that I love about each and
every one of the of you guys, the Kingdom Messengers on this call is you represent a
longevity with the Lord. A lot of you have been walking with the Lord for years and you've
discovered the beauty of your identity in Him and it looks different than maybe how you were brought
up with, you know, religion or culture and you've embraced this Kingdom identity and now you're
stepping out into the digital landscape and you are sharing that with others. What you might not
know about Graham, who's been in ministry for, it's ministry for over 40 years, right? But your
spiritual birthday, you just celebrated 50 years with Christ, right? 50 years in Jesus, 42 years in
ministry. Like that is longer than I've been alive so it's just speaking about longevity. But Graham
is a pioneer in the digital landscape as well because he is one of the first that I know of
who has taken on technology and the internet and leveraged it to reach people with the good
news of the gospel and not just reach people but disciple them in truth. Discipleship is huge to
Graham. Mentorship is huge. He has a mentorship community that many of you are a part of,
the brilliant mentorship community. And so that is why it's extra special to have Graham because he
has been doing this for a long time. Like not just walking with Christ, which is awesome, but
leveraging the digital landscape and he's learned some things. And so one of the, I kind of, we're
just going to just jump off into this conversation and where we're going to jump off is a very
exciting place and that is I asked Graham to share about renewal and revival and the difference in
those two things. Yeah, I actually grew up, I got saved into the house church movement. So
I didn't get, my beginning wasn't in traditional Christianity. I was with a group of people who'd
been in that for 30 years and realized it could never achieve the kingdom in its construct that
it was then. So they came out. So I joined them about five years after they came out. So they
worked out all the kinks of what it meant and everything. And they were in this place in the
Lord that I just, I wanted, you know, they had a marvelous simplicity. They said, you know,
God made freedom for English people. So it had to be as simple as possible.
We weren't going to be able to get through this call without you speaking of your Englishness.
Okay, I will quit right there. So I didn't grow up in church. I grew up in kingdom.
Everything we did was kingdom. We only met once a month to teach. The other three times we would
just do worship and healing or worship and prophecy or we just go out in the street and
feed people, whatever, as a congregation. So we only met once for teaching because
we taught so well, it took, a good message takes about four weeks to unpack. And so we, in home
groups, we disciple people. So that was it, you know, a powerful message, unpack it. Now we're
free to do everything else in the kingdom, you know. So, and they made everything as simple
as possible. And they talked about joyful routines. And I've been practicing joyful routines.
So for us, then,
I never grew up with any context for revival because they taught us how to be renewed day by day.
How to live one day at a time.
We only have 24 hours.
Jesus said sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
It's like just one day at a time.
And then finish that day well, start the next day fresh.
Lamentations 3.
So that was my start.
Was Lamentations 3.
New every morning is the goodness of God.
Because it's new, you'll never be consumed by what's happening in the world.
Because everything starts, you just start fresh every single day.
I mean, it's beautiful.
So any mistakes you make today, you get rid of tonight before you go to bed.
You just have like 10 minutes with Jesus.
So did I miss anything that you wasn't happy with?
Did I miss something?
Could I have done something better?
Have a great conversation.
Then I just ask him for a good night's sleep.
Wake up fresh.
And usually when you get in that routine, as soon as you wake up,
his voice rises up from your spirit into your conscious mind.
Because what you're doing is you're just spending the day with him.
So what that means is you're constantly renewed.
And if you're constantly renewed, you actually don't need to be revived.
That was the lifestyle that we practiced.
So when we had all these things come around the country about revival,
we never really got involved.
Because even to have gone to those meetings would have been counterculture to us.
Because we were growing up, what we felt was properly in the Lord.
So we never prayed to God.
We prayed with him.
So if Christ is in you, is the dominant part of your life,
then just enjoy that.
Enjoy Jesus being in you.
Enjoy the fact that, you know, if you're living in the kingdom,
then the enemy has to fight more than you.
Because you actually, you know, there was a war in heaven.
One third of the angels fell and became demons.
So we still outnumber the suckers two to one.
And we have the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
What?
What really?
You know, so a simple lifestyle is just where innocently you practice overcoming.
Revival is a traditional church concept based on wanting the God who is out there.
Because they don't know how to connect with the God who is in here.
So we want God to come into our space and do something in the world.
When actually, really, he wants to actually do something in you personally.
Everything with God is personal.
So walking with God in a constant renewal negates the need for a revival.
And the more people we have living renewed day by day,
then the more powerful our church expression is going to be, I think.
You have to look at the world right now and think, you know,
look at the state of whatever country,
and you've got to figure that the church has to be responsible for the state of the nation,
for crime, for everything that's going on, that you hear all the bad news.
And the church has to bear some of that responsibility.
Because we're not living in the fullness of who God is.
If we were, it would be being said about us what was said about the early church.
The people who turned the world upside down, they've come here.
And it wasn't, oh my God, the people who turned the world upside down have come here.
It was more like, oh my God, the people who are turning the world upside down, they're here.
They're here. My sister just saw them in the village square.
They're here.
And everyone was excited because good news always travels faster.
When miracles are happening, you cannot, that news just, you know, gets ahead of everything.
And people need something miraculous to connect to it.
There's nothing more miraculous than Christ in you.
Really, that's what we're learning.
Simple, joyful routine.
I've been practicing that for 50 years.
The reason I wanted to start our conversation here,
Graham, was because for me personally,
when I started in ministry,
that in heart revival was the gold standard.
That was what we were working towards,
was revival, and you really helped me
gain a fresh perspective on the point,
which is what you're sharing.
And you said, look, some of the greatest revivalists
were people who just lived renewed, day by day.
Right, they were the exceptions.
That's why they coined a term for that context of power.
They called it revival, but it really wasn't.
It was a person living in their utmost renewed state.
And all of them had amazing relationships with God,
and they all took Him simply at His word.
Exactly.
And it is, you know, simple.
This is important for someone like me to remember,
because I sometimes can make things complicated.
Because I think, well, I've got the basics down.
Okay, we're fresh every day.
What's the next thing?
It's like, no, the next day is you're fresh.
You're fresh.
And you speak about this from a,
you say the ultimate permission, Romans 6.11.
Consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God.
Alive to me.
And so what does that mean, alive to God?
It is just that.
You share every day with Him.
I mean, as soon as I wake up,
as soon as it's like I'm starting to focus,
because I've been asleep for X number of hours,
you know, God has not stopped working.
So when I wake up, He's ready to talk.
So I feel this, you know, God doesn't speak to you.
He speaks in you, because that's where He lives.
So the word of the Lord comes up from your spirit,
which has always been awake while you've been asleep.
And if your first conscious thought, get hold of it.
My first conscious thought is not coughing.
It's not.
I wake up and He takes me like,
you know, it takes me about 10 seconds or so.
So He has this 10 second window, which is more than enough.
And I suddenly, I get this great thought, you know.
And one time it was just simply,
I want to be the first one to tell you that I love you today.
I woke up with that.
So I got out of bed to find a handkerchief,
so I just got up crying.
So I wanna be the first one to tell you that I love you today.
It's very personal.
And often the very first thing is either a great thought,
which is, you know, it's like magic to an introvert.
Having a great thought is like our woo-hoo moment,
but you'll never hear an introvert go woo-hoo,
but they'll do it silently, you know.
And so a great thought is, oh my gosh.
And so it like teases me to, you know,
it's almost like a game.
Let's see how fast I can get this boy out of bed.
So he's very joyful, hashtag mischievous.
So I love that, that he loves to connect.
And you're worth connecting to.
To God, you're worth it,
because Jesus paid a price for you.
So that's what you're worth.
You're worth, you have the full weight of his beloved son.
That's your value to the father.
And I love that.
I love that, you know, Jesus deserves me to be blessed.
So it's just simple, joyful routines, you know,
starting the day.
I believe everything God says.
I believe he can do everything.
I can just keep it simple all day.
You know, I know that the enemy is vastly outnumbered.
So I feel safe.
I would feel safe if it was just me and Jesus.
I would feel safe.
I'd feel safe like the disciples
that have felt walking around with him.
You know, even when he was getting harassed
by, you know, the Pharisees and so on,
the disciples just looked at him and thought,
How on earth can he stay so cool?
I think people on the planet, you know, you see someone you it's when you have the
we're sitting across from you and you've been in this for a long time and some of some of
people on the call know about your history because they're part of the brilliant community.
But for those who don't, you know, Graham has walked through challenges, difficult circumstances,
like this has not been a walk in the park. And I think that is where as a kingdom messenger,
and when we're when we're trying to stay simple, but we're have very complex circumstances.
If we're not aware, awareness is a huge part of it, we become aware to the wrong things,
and we get stuck in the complexity. And it then dictates every other aspect of our lives,
including our ministry, right? So you talk about the power of moving in the opposite spirit. Yeah,
because this is a big, this is a big issue, not just for me, but I know this is a conversation
we've been having as kingdom messengers of Hey, I have this desire to reach people with the good
news of the gospel, but life is happening, or circumstances and stuff. So I want I would love
for you to talk about like, what does Graham do in the midst of when life is swirling? And there's,
there's ministry to be done. And there's people to reach. Yeah, yeah. I keep, I stay really close
to Jesus, you know, I mean, he's very clear. He doesn't hide anything in Graham in the world,
you will have tribulation. Stop for a split second, big grin, but cheer up. I've overcome
the world. And what he's saying is, yeah, all of these things are going to happen. And the thing is,
he doesn't make them happen. He's absolutely superb at taking advantage of everything.
So if something happens, it's like, okay, so that's what the enemy is doing. What on earth
are you going to do? What so what are you going to give me? So I feel like every time a negative
comes, it has to come with the opposite, because that's the kingdom. So in the world, you will have
tribulation, but I have overcome. So what that means is, you know, the equation is, is tribulation
equals overcoming. Simple, I can do that. Tribulation means I get to learn how to overcome.
Persecution means I get to learn to live in peace under pressure. So there's always an
opposite spirit. And you see it in, in the prophetic word that Isaiah had about Jesus.
In Isaiah 61, he uses the most powerful word in that chapter is the word instead.
Instead of mourning, instead of joy, instead of mourning, or dancing instead of this.
And what God is doing is saying, when Jesus comes, he is bringing an exchange program with him.
So when the world tries this, heaven is giving you this. So you don't look at that. You look
at what God is doing. So I've learned now that when persecution comes, it's like Yahoo for me,
because I have a promise from the Lord, which is 1 Peter 2.14. Yeah, 1 Peter 2, something like that.
But it's blessed are you, when people say all manner of evil against you, it's 1 Peter 4.14.
Blessed are you when people say all manner of things, evil things against you, for the name
of Christ, for then the Spirit of God and glory rests on you. So the moment I'm getting persecuted,
I'm thinking, this is going to be so cool, because I know what to expect. It's not enough
to know what the enemy is doing. You have to know what the counter is. So God always moves
in the opposite spirit. So you see, Jesus, every time he was harassed and persecuted,
you know, he just spoke evenly. He just spoke calmly. He didn't get drawn into a fight,
because he just knew that everything they were going to say in that moment would never work.
And no one, even in the crowd, would be able to remember it. What they would remember is
the things that Jesus
to sin. So he knew that. And I know that. I mean, I'm on
everybody's apostate site.
That's when you know, you've made it right.
Right. So I'm either I'm either going to hell, or, you know,
or you're getting a crown.
Or I'm getting, you know, so I'm either a heretic, or I'm a
mystic, and both of me, both of which make me laugh. The idea of
an Englishman being a mystic, oh, sorry, English joke. But
you know what I mean? I am not mystical. I am just there is a
simple wisdom. That sounds amazing. Honestly, it can't be
that amazing if I'm doing it. So there's a simple wisdom that
is profound, really profound. So I love that. I love that.
Jesus undid people by the simplicity of what he said. So
people couldn't stand against that kind of simple wisdom. So I
just in my learning in my daily routine of practicing life with
Jesus, I just keep it simple. I like the one line verses that I
can memorize, you know, like my favorite is Psalm 7328. It's just
so simple. The nearness of my God is my good. Yes. I can use
that small key to open up a whole big place of revelation.
The nearness of my God is always my good. That's it. So when the
enemy comes, I know that the nearness of my God is my good.
All things work together for good. Simple stuff. But I but
you've got to practice it every single day. When you get a great
truth, you have to practice it and practice it and practice it
until it becomes part of you. So that's why learning from your
heart is always better than learning from my head. We trust
with our heart, you don't trust with your head.
When we fix our heart, when we fix our heart, then our mind
becomes set.
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. David said my you know, all the
troubles that David caused for himself. He said, finally, he
got it one day and he's going, Oh my God, my heart is fixed. My
heart is fixed. Something had shifted in him. His heart was
fixed on God. And so I think he's, he's writing change from
like asking God to kill people and smash their teeth into
something else.
You gotta love David.
I look at the Psalms and I think David, you were really bad at
journaling.
negativity, and put it out there for God. And then you started
learning how to journal through worship. And so you see the
progression in the Psalms with them, you know. But as you say,
when your heart is fixed on who God is for you, then your mind
can be set. And the two together are irresistible, but
they have to be partners. You know, you can't be trusting the
Lord, and yet your mind is like, all over the place worrying. You
know, that's just, they just cancel each other out, really,
because that's the essence of being double minded. When your
heart and your mind agree, you are unbeatable. Because in that
agreement, you are acknowledging everything that
who God is for you. And so I practice acknowledging who God
is for me, and who I am in him, and who he will be. And I'm not
afraid. I can't remember the last time I worried. You know,
I'm pretty sure it was more than a decade ago. Because I just
think worry is 100% pointless.
It's the wrong fixation, right?
100% pointless. Why worry when you can be like joyful? When you
can be believing, when you can have the joy and peace and
believing, rather than the negativity and suffering and
disbelief. Choose, you have to choose. You choose the person
you want to be by choosing the response that God wants you to
have. So every day we're choosing.
But I like Lamentations 3, 22-24,
new every morning, and it says,
this is where you will never be consumed.
New every morning is the goodness and kindness of God.
You're going to have some situations that will last a while,
but last some weeks maybe.
Maybe if you're fortunate,
maybe a few months.
But you can't learn perseverance in a weekend.
But you learn perseverance by being happy every single day.
Persevering is not, I'm persevering under.
Persevering is, I'm persevering by being on top.
In the world, you'll have tribulation,
but be of good cheer, I've overcome.
God puts you into a place of overcoming,
and that's where you learn to persevere from overcoming,
not towards it.
That's a huge difference right there.
Don't persevere through oppression and so on.
You persevere above it.
Because Colossians 3 says,
set your mind on things above,
not on things on the earth.
Why? Because you're dead,
and your life is hid with Christ in God.
That's a yahoo moment right there.
We practice from God, not towards Him.
We don't do anything towards God.
We do everything with Him,
because He's with us.
This was really my heart for this call, Graham,
is I wanted to set people free.
I wanted to set kingdom messengers free from
the complexity of circumstances,
life swirling, tribulation trials.
Because yes, they're real and they happen,
but you are someone who has
demonstrated to me time and time again.
I'm not calling you a simple person.
No, I am though.
But it's because you speak and it's profound,
like it's been profound to me.
I dig a little bit and I realize you are circling.
You have keys, like you said.
I have promises.
I've taken God for His word,
and I'm not letting those go.
That's what I continually circle around every day,
and so again, that renewal,
that is what we're doing when we renew,
is we are once again taking those keys,
picking them up, and walking
with the Lord and those promises.
Like you said, circumstances may last a long time.
Why do circumstances sometimes last a long time?
Because I think the lie is they
last a long time because something's wrong with me.
I'm not doing this right,
and so therefore the situation is not being solved.
The key really is with Jesus when He talked
about living one day at a time,
sufficient until the day is the evil thereof.
What He's saying is,
okay, something bad happens today,
don't naturally take it into tomorrow.
Just deal with it today, go to sleep.
Tomorrow, the situation may persist,
but you'll be fresh.
I was in a situation where I was being
roundly persecuted by a bunch of prophets,
who were really trying to close me down,
because I was teaching New Testament prophecy,
not Old Testament, because
a new covenant means everything's new, simple.
Prophecy in the New Testament is
vastly different than it is in the Old,
because it's all based on relationship,
who you are in Christ, and so on.
We prophesy to God's people from
a new covenant that Jesus paid a price for you to be in.
There's no price for us to pay because He paid it.
That means in the new covenant,
there's no shame, no blame,
no condemnation, no judgment,
because Jesus took all of that on the cross.
That's what He sets us free from,
is from the harassment of religious people,
who want to shame us for behavior,
but they have no sense of
walking in what is your identity in Jesus.
Religion is a double-minded focus,
and that person will not receive anything,
James said, James 1.17.
What the Lord is teaching us here is there's
one life and it's you in Christ,
it's Christ in you.
you and you in Christ. So there's one relationship you have to take care of all the time. You have to
constantly receive the upgrades from Jesus every day. So you live in that one relationship,
and all the other relationships around you, you deal with them from that one singular place.
So I have peace. I have the joy of the Lord. I have what Jesus has in me. So Christ in me gives
me access to everything. So the Lord just says, just live today. You only have to live 24 hours.
The enemy gives you the lie of the long battle. This is going to take months.
And it might take months, but that's not the issue. The issue for God is, no, it'll just take today.
Just today. You have to live with me today in this. We can do that. I can teach you how to live
one day at a time and be happy regardless. And then at the end of the day, you just give everything
to the Lord. You just talk it through. What could I have done better? What could I have seen that I
didn't see? Whatever. And then, Lord, good night's sleep. Wake up fresh. I don't carry yesterday's
negativity into today. And I don't carry yesterday's blessing into today. I want to spend
it all every single day. So if I have a certain amount of blessing today, I'm spending it every
last penny. I'll stay up till one o'clock in the morning to make sure I've spent it.
But then because when I wake up new every morning is the faithfulness of God. So everything starts
fresh. So if something lasts in the world three months, what that might mean is you have 90
fresh days. 90 days of being fresh and therefore being focused on who God is for you and what
you're learning in Him, with Him. So every situation therefore has a guarantee attached
to it that this will work out. All things work together for good. There's a guarantee
that you live one day at a time. And that's not even a price. That's not even a cost.
That's like Yahoo. It's like this is amazing. I get to be peaceful all day today because the
Prince of Peace lives in me. So what we're doing is we're accessing what God has provided for us.
And this is where the Holy Spirit is beautiful. The Holy Spirit has a number of specific roles
and one of them is making sure you get the fruit of God's nature.
You have the joy and peace in believing you know that you are the beloved of God.
I know that God loves me. And then there are times when God tells me that He adores me
and that completely undoes me. It's like tears and snot everywhere. It's horrible.
It completely undoes me. Just to know that I am. If Jesus is in me and He's the beloved,
what does that make me? It makes me beloved too. Because I know one thing about Jesus.
He's definitely not schizophrenic. Not in two minds about anything.
He's not double-minded.
He's not double-minded about anything. And He knows me. He understands. He also knows what
He's purchased for me. So God is working on our identity. And it's our identity that transforms
our behavior. When you know who you are in Jesus, then that's what you line up with.
And your behavior changes not because you're focused on your behavior.
Because you're focused on the identity that Jesus bought for you. So I have an identity in God
every single day. And I just want to live and be true to that truth. We used to call it years ago,
we used to call it, when you're under pressure today, pick a truth and be true to it.
That's gorgeously simple. Great. Pick a truth and be true to it.
That's it. Just for one day. Tomorrow, we'll do it a different way.
And that's the great thing about when a situation lasts a month, two months, every day can be
different and teach you different things.
So I've had a long term illness now for over 12 years, and part of it really is, it's a
thorn in the flesh, you know, because when God told me 11 years ago, I want you to lay
down the prophetic for a few years, I'm going to teach you wisdom, and I'm going to give
you a spirit of revelation.
And he was quite clear, and he said, but son, it's going to come at a price.
I will be with you in that price.
And what he did was he talked to me about how I could make each day bigger in him.
So I'm in constant pain all the time.
But this is my, I think I even was dumb enough to write it down at some point.
But I think it's like my 4317th first day, first day of being fresh.
Now, that's a mindset.
My heart is fixed on who God is for me.
And because my heart is fixed, my mind agrees that nothing can work against me.
So my mind and my heart are in sync together.
You know, so I'm not double minded about who I am, or who God is for me.
We need to say that again.
I'll say it for you if you need me to.
All right, do it.
Because my heart is fixed.
My mind is set.
Did you say on who God is for me?
I bet Hillary has what you said.
What you said was just that, Hillary, if you remember, I know you're track, she's keeping
notes for us in the chat.
I didn't ask her to but what you just said, great, I'm, I'm gonna embarrass myself and
not quite even remember what you just said.
But what you said, we need to plant ourselves there.
Right?
Guys, remember what he just said about my mind is fixed, my mind is set on who God is
for me.
And who I am in him.
Yeah.
So what it means when your heart and your mind agree, everything around your life has to
agree with that mindset, and that heart response, because that's the power of the three plus
me.
You know, so when you get Jesus inside you, you get the Holy Spirit, and you get the father
because they're all in unity.
So they're all going to show up and lovingly gang up on you.
So we always talking brilliant about three plus me.
You're never overwhelmed because there's always four of you in here.
Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and me.
So I think that's something to be happy about.
That's what God meant when he said, I will never leave you.
I'll never fail you.
You're never on your own.
I will always be with you.
Three plus me.
I take that really seriously, because three plus me means regardless of what's going on,
I'm in the majority.
It doesn't matter how many tens of thousands of people are against me.
I'm in the majority.
One person walking with God fully is always in the majority.
So I expect to win every fight I'm in.
I expect to win.
I expect not to be overwhelmed.
I'm too busy being overwhelmed by God to be overpowered by the world.
When your heart is overwhelmed by who God is for you, that is amazing.
And God takes you on this journey where he constantly upstages the last thing he did
in your life.
So he gives you this revelation, and you think, this is amazing.
And you don't know it's a plateau until you get to the other edge of it.
And then you realize, all this space is now in me.
I've taken this territory.
So I've taken the territory of persecution.
Honestly, I'm at a place where I can't be persecuted anymore because I know how to win.
I know how to overcome.
So what happens is you take this territory, and then God gives you the next mountain.
And I remember one he gave me four years ago,
we have been like loving, I love being in it with him.
And it's Romans 11, 36.
When God, that's when God's first, you know,
he's always talked to me about Graham,
no matter what's going on, ask me for a gift.
Ask me for a gift.
James said it, Jimmy the apostle said,
every good and perfect gift comes down
from the father of lights.
Jesus said, all things are given by the father.
You know, Jesus was constantly giving out gifts
that the kingdom is a gift culture
and everything starts with a gift.
You didn't wake up in your pre-Christian state
and think, I know it's sunny, it's Thursday,
I think I'll get saved.
That wasn't how it happened.
God just like crept up on you and jumped all over you.
And you know that you know that you know when he showed up.
I know it, I can go right back to that day, August 26, 1972.
That was, I got saved on my 19th birthday.
First birthday present I ever had,
but that's a different story.
So my first birthday present was salvation.
And I had an encounter with God that rocked my world
and it came with a gift.
God gave you a gift at salvation.
So the way you come into salvation
is the way that that salvation is sustained.
Everything comes with a gift.
So Romans 11, 36 says this,
it describes the cycle and it says,
from him, through him and to him are all things, all things.
So no matter what's occurring,
something is being given to you from God.
Sometimes it comes before the event,
sometimes it comes in the event,
whatever the circumstances are,
and God gives you the stance in your circumstance.
He gives you a gift from him.
It comes, and the great thing is,
he will give you a gift on your worst day
because the truth is he gives the gift to Jesus in you first.
Now that is genius, come on, that is genius.
He doesn't give it to you, he gives it to Jesus in you.
That means he makes sure that you have it.
So Jesus receives everything from the father.
He lives in you, he's your redeemer.
So he receives the gift and then he and the Holy Spirit
make sure that you're gonna practice that gift.
But if you've got a mindset
that I'm on my own and everything,
you pull yourself out of the place
that God wants to hold you into.
That's where, if your mind is not
in harmony with your heart,
in this world, your head will pull you out of stuff
or your head will convince you.
It works like this.
Religion says you have to do this, this, and this,
and then you get, and then God gives you something
as a reward.
That's not how it works.
Everything is a gift.
You can't earn a gift.
You understand that?
When it comes to your birthday, you can't earn a gift,
but you have to learn the gift.
You can't earn it, but you get to learn it.
And that's the beauty of having gifts.
God gives you gifts.
So I always ask a lot, what's the gift?
Thank you for this situation, Father.
Appreciate it.
What's the gift?
And the gift is what I learn.
The gift is what I practice in that situation.
What are you learning?
You're learning how to be an overcomer.
You're learning how to be joyful.
When everyone thinks this is too painful, you don't.
You know, because joy takes away the pain of something.
When other people are under pressure, you're under peace.
When other people are like barely surviving,
you have the patience to be able to see
what's actually happening and take advantage.
Three plus me means we get to take advantage.
Why would I trade that renewal lifestyle for a revival event?
Seriously, why would I want to do that?
What if you are your own revival right where you are?
God wants to touch your heart in such a powerful way that your mind will outthink everybody else
around you. It's an irresistible combination. When I've been under pressure in business
situations, in the places when I used to work for people before I started my own company,
because I had peace, when businesses came under pressure,
nine times out of ten, I was the one that had the one bright idea.
I was the one that had a strategy. I was number 24 in a company and I rose to be number two
in just over two years. Because under pressure, me and Jesus, brilliant. Absolutely.
I got the bright idea. When everybody else was like, what, what, what, you know,
or trying to downsize or look at this or ways of getting out from this, I was thinking,
how, Lord, how can we capitalize on this?
You like the word leverage?
Right.
Because that's what we're doing here. We're leveraging the digital landscape.
In the midst of all that is happening right now with big tech and censorship and hacking
and privacy concerns, we are a kingdom people that is entering the scene from a place of
overcoming and saying, let's leverage this, this territory.
All things work together for good.
And what I want to point out, because I do not want anyone to miss this,
Graham just laid out the most perfect discipleship program.
In summary, from, through, to.
And for those of you that are building discipleship programs, that's your framework.
From, through, to.
Learn the gift. Help people learn the gift.
There's always a brilliant question that you can ask the Lord.
And there's going to be some great questions they'll ask you.
So we did a, we did a whole series on life questions, which I love.
Like, I carry them around with me.
My favorite question is, Lord, thank you for this day.
What is it you want to be for me?
Thank you.
Now that I have this huge problem, what is it that you want to be for me?
So it's personal, you know, so we'll do the business in a minute.
But this is personal, you know, Lord, what do you want to be for me?
You know, what part of yourself are you giving me?
And then once I, it could be, it could just be like joy.
It could be like, peace, Graham, you're going to need some patience here.
So, you know, I'll give you patience.
So the Holy Spirit, patience.
And what it means is that when he gives you a fruit of the Spirit as a gift,
you stay in that fruit, which means your mind can't be affected.
Your mind can't be affected.
I mean, the Lord is really clever about everything.
You know, he knows how to get through everything.
He knows who he wants to be for you.
He knows what you need to become in this situation.
So he doesn't shield us from that.
He just helps us to process through it and take advantage of it.
You know, so I hear people around me, not in brilliant, I have to say,
but I used to hear people in church saying, you know,
I just want this to be over and things to get back to normal around here.
And I'm thinking, which normal are you talking about?
If you're talking about normal from the world,
then the world will give you tribulation.
That's your norm.
That's your normal.
So if you don't get, if you don't take advantage of this one,
don't worry, there'll be another tribulation along.
They're like buses, you know, you wait all your life,
you wait an hour for one and then four come along at once.
You know, they're like buses, not like taxi cabs.
They never come around, but they're like buses.
always going to be there, you know?
So if your normal is normal in the world,
then it's normal for you to have tribulation.
The world will give you tribulation.
But be of good cheer because I've done this.
Now, what do you want to live in,
tribulation or what he's done?
I want to find out.
So thank you for this.
So what have you prepared for me to walk into?
What is the gift you're going to give me?
What fruit of the spirit do I get to practice
in this situation?
Here's the thing, by not panicking,
you have the grace to expect.
When you're panicking, you're talking yourself out of it.
But when you're in peace,
you have the grace to expect something from God.
And here's the key.
And again, it's in Isaiah 61.
If God grants you something,
he expects you to take him for granted.
Don't mess around here.
God grants you something.
He gives you a gift.
Take him for granted.
He loves it.
Because this is where he sees you growing up.
And he loves that moment with you.
So what we're learning here is
how to take advantage of every opportunity.
It doesn't matter whether it looks bad, ugly, or whatever.
It doesn't matter how it comes,
what it looks like when it comes to you.
What matters is what it's going to look like
when God is finished with it.
That's what it means.
What are you going to do here?
And so we're going to have the grace to be intrigued.
I'm intrigued.
I know you.
And that's my conversation is to sit back and think,
I know you.
You're up to something.
You're going to give me something.
I expect him.
Why?
Because there's three of them,
and they all live in my house.
That's what abiding means.
When I abide with the Lord,
I'm not going to abide with the devil.
When I abide with the Lord,
I have a kingdom lifestyle, not a worldly one.
And this is the joyful routine.
So you'll find that God will give you keys
that are for certain situations, maybe key scriptures.
And very often, I know when I'm going to go
into some warfare, when he might say to me,
Graham, read Psalm 921 to me.
And because he gave me that scripture,
I don't know, 30 odd years ago.
And I've lived in it ever since.
It's one of the ones, it's made for trouble.
That scripture is made for trouble.
That scripture was made for 2020.
Well, it's like, this is,
you can live here no matter what is going on.
And, but the first time I read it out to him,
he just said, no, no, no, you don't read it like that.
That's not how you read it.
And so I said to him, so would you read it for me?
And so here, you know, God lives in you.
So he talks to you, in you.
He talks from that place.
He talks in you.
And so it rises up and he read it.
And I was just a puddle on the floor afterwards.
The tone of voice that he used was outrageous.
And so I practiced it.
And every time he said, you're getting close.
It took me quite a few years to practice his tone,
but it was a joy between us.
He wasn't like, you've got to get this tone right.
He was just like, no, say it like this.
Okay, when you say it like that,
because this is what I'm doing.
And so I learned that when God uses that peaceful tone,
he's creating something.
When he uses that joyful tone, he's creating something.
When he talks about overcoming in that joyful voice,
he's like saying, like, this is nothing, son.
This is nothing.
And so the tone is everything.
And so now I'm pretty good at reading stuff back to him.
I can't remember, he hasn't corrected me
in that joyful way for a number of years on Psalm 91.
I got it down.
I think it's what has made you such a skillful communicator
is that you pay attention to tone.
Oh yeah.
Jesus said, I only do what I see my father doing,
I only say what I hear him saying.
And I think that included tone.
I'm not gonna use my father's words
in a tone that he would never use.
How often do people do that?
They speak the word, but not in the tone
the father would use, that's huge as a messenger.
I want those of you guys that are watching,
if you do have questions, put it in the chat,
questions about what we're talking about,
because we are coming up on time.
But I have a question for you, Graham.
And that is something we've talked about
in our intensive group with our members,
but how do you decide what you bring
out of the secret place?
Because you're talking about the depth of intimacy
with the Lord that you and him share,
that's between the two of you.
And then naturally there's an overflow, right,
of what you minister.
How do you personally decide this is ready to be shared,
or this is something that I can take from my time
with the Lord and minister and share with others?
Do you have a process or a key for that?
I ask permission, I don't decide.
It's his word, you know, and so he gets to share it.
He has to be the one.
I love it when the Lord says, you know,
because some things I've had for 10 years,
and, but some things he just says, you need to live this.
And so I don't get to share it until I've lived it.
But I never quite know if I've lived it enough, you know?
And so when he says, Graham, I think it's time,
that word needs to breathe out there.
And so I was like going,
oh, does that mean I've really learned it?
He just laughed and said, well, we're not quite there yet,
but it's good enough for you to start sharing it.
And here's the thing, when you start sharing it
out of your experience,
I will quicken the parts that you haven't learned yet.
I'm thinking, that is so flipping kind, so kind, you know?
I get to, you know, I've learned it enough
to start talking about it in public.
And he gives me a gift that says,
and while you're sharing it, I'll quicken that part of you.
And so I would say things in the message
that I had never learned.
And so I was always the first one at the booth saying,
I want a copy of that,
but it was tapes in those days, or CDs.
I want that, you know, I want the download of that.
And I will go away and I will listen to it,
and I'll look at my notes,
and I'll spot this particular word and I'll write it down.
And then I say, Lord,
I wanna have a conversation about that, and we do.
And so that is amazing to me, that he will include gifts,
things that I've never heard, never seen, never felt.
And I'll get those gifts,
and you just have to go back over it and pick them out.
And then I write them down,
and I know that in the next month or two,
we're gonna talk about every one of those.
And the father's like, he's really happy
because he wants to talk to me about them.
But he's so merciful, so faithful,
so kind, so good, so loving and patient towards us.
That he's looking at us, and he has,
you know, we don't know where the pass mark is for things.
So you just keep doing the best that you can do.
But then he just has a way of saying,
yeah, you're doing really well, I'm gonna give you this.
Just, he's not a task master, he's a gift giver.
He's a gift giver, you know?
So, and I don't know, I never know if I've earned a reward.
And so I've learned not to think that way.
I know that when God gives me permission.
to give it, then I'm ready to speak it.
But I'm also knowing now that I'm also going to get a bonus.
I'm going to get things that I didn't have.
Because the kingdom works on generosity.
It works on goodness and kindness and beauty and laughter.
That's the life that God commits us to.
There's no struggle on Earth as it is in heaven.
I don't know anybody who's struggling in heaven right now.
So the bigness of God is it'll work on Earth
the same way it works in heaven, because I'll be in you.
My goal is to make you like Jesus.
I just want people to know that there's a recording of this.
And I do encourage you to re-listen to it,
because you'll catch the simplicity again.
Something that you said, Graham, that I don't want us to miss.
I say that a lot, because there's so much
that you're sharing.
But you just laid out for us the simplicity of actually doing
a prophetic act.
When you talked about capturing something
that you want to have a conversation with the Lord in,
something you want to receive.
I think often when we see people who
are doing big things for the kingdom out in the world,
again, we try to complicate it.
And we think, OK, in order to make that happen,
I have to do all these big things for God.
And I have to go take this action and this big action,
this big action.
But I want to take you guys back to this lifestyle,
this rhythm and routine of renewal
and every day being fresh.
And sometimes the biggest action you can take
is the intention of capturing something, writing it down,
and saying, I want to have a conversation about this.
I don't want people to miss that,
because I think we think it has to be all these big things.
But it's the beauty of taking that first step and saying,
Lord, I want to talk to you about this.
There's a gift here that I want to receive from you.
There's a gift here I want to learn.
And it starts with that conversation with the Lord.
You write down everything, Graham.
I've seen your library.
I've seen your journals.
And I don't want people to overlook that.
We did have a question.
Because some of our kingdom messengers are like me,
and they're reaching Christians with Christ,
is how we kind of say it.
We're helping people grow up in Jesus.
But there's other kingdom messengers
on this call that are introducing people
to Jesus for the first time.
They're working with pre-Christians and people
who have just become believers.
And so this question's from Cindy, who's an evangelist
and working with new believers.
And she said, if you were speaking to an audience
of new believers, Graham, what would be the first thing
that you would share with them?
For me, it would be God is the kindest person
I've ever met in my entire life.
I don't know anybody kinder than God.
And his kindness has underpinned
every situation in my life.
And he has been kind to me when the world would say
I didn't deserve it.
But the father is kind to us because Jesus deserves.
He deserves it.
So God put Jesus into you so that there would never be
in a problem in you receiving anything.
On your worst day, he will bless you.
Why?
Because Christ in you.
Christ in you is the incomparable gift.
So he is the gift.
Jesus in you is the gift that opens the door
into everything.
So his heart is the doorway of God into your life.
That's how it works.
Luke 6, 35 says that God himself is kind to evil
and ungrateful men.
What?
God himself is kind to evil and ungrateful men.
Every Pharisee in the world would be up in arms
about that right now.
Because you can't measure that.
You can't control it.
You can't manipulate it.
When we were sinners, he loved us.
End of story.
There it is.
How, why is he gonna beat us up?
Because we're not learning to be good sons.
He didn't beat you up as a sinner.
He's not gonna beat you up as a child of God.
You're in the kingdom now.
You're in the domain where love is normal.
Love is usual.
Love is common place.
It's available everywhere.
So I would say to people, when I feed people on the street and, you know, the guy last winter when it was really cold, you know, I took my best coat because I'd seen him and he just had rags and I went and found him.
And I knew more or less where he slipped.
So, and I went at two o'clock in the morning because I knew he would be less resistant.
And I went and found him and he was shivering in the doorway.
And I gave him my best coat.
And, and I said, could stand up and I put it on him and I zipped it up and everything I put his gloves and scarf. And I said, you'll be warm, and I said tomorrow.
We need to get you some boots because I want you to live.
And you look to me, and it's the first time ever. Normally you'd get profanity look to me and you said, why, why the F, are you doing this.
And I said, it's because God is the kindest person. I know.
And he knows you're freezing to death. And it's not your time to die.
I never saw him after that. It doesn't matter I'm just a link in a chain.
But his heart was open.
A gift makes way for the giver.
God is the kindest person I've ever met. That is why everything comes with a gift.
You can't earn the blessing of God, you can't earn the favor.
He gives blessing, he gives it as a gift, because the gift forgiver himself lives in you, one who gave himself.
So Jesus deserves for you to have this, because he paid the ultimate price.
That's the kingdom. And that my friends, is the gospel.
That's the gospel of glad tidings of great joy.
You got to live in that simple place, I believe that God is beautiful.
I believe that he's brilliant.
And so we have sayings around here my thing is, when I'm preparing a message, and people, you know, in the first stages and talking to people. Oh, that'll be great.
And I said, No, not yet.
It's not beautiful yet.
It's not.
I need to capture more of God's beauty in this, it's not beautiful yet.
Or it's not brilliant, I'm not doing it.
And I think the Lord really loves that. I want his beauty.
I know he's a genius. I know he's brilliant at everything.
And I have an expectation that if I don't know what to do, I want to get a brilliant thought.
It's going to happen. Can't not happen, because God is good.
Everything comes back to his nature.
The big question in the world, I think is, what is God really, really, really like? What's he like?
And the first thing he ever said about mankind, he said, let us make them in our image, according to our likeness.
It's making you like him.
That means at some point, you're the evidence that Jesus lives.
You're the evidence that things will work. You're the evidence that we can get victory when everything's against us.
You're the evidence when you can receive that you can receive on the pressure.
You're the evidence. People look at you and think, how on earth does he do it?
I used to get over, this is in my lunatic days, I used to get over, I got over 50,000 pieces of hate mail.
And yeah, I was stupid enough to count them.
One of my favorite story, Graham. This is one of my favorite stories.
You're great at counting. 37,000.
Don't do that, guys.
It's like, why are you counting? I don't know.
And I would get like, how can they think that I'm not like that?
And all these things would come up where I'm trying to do.
defend myself. And Jesus just said to McGrath,
you don't need to defend yourself. You're already dead.
Your old man is dead. You're defending a dead person. What
are you doing? Are you like, exhuming yourself from some
weird kind of grave you think? What are you doing? You can't
defend a dead person. Don't even bother. So I said, well,
what do I do with all of this? He said, simple. And I had this
letter come in like a day later. And it was 12 pages,
double sided, not a single paragraph. I mean, you know,
it's a demon when it's no paragraphs.
Not good grammar.
They never did English grammar.
You know, it's a demon, but it's not even a full stop, or a
comma or anything. And I said, son, why are you reading that?
There's nothing good in it. So I said, okay, how do I respond to
it, though, if I don't read it? He said, you know, you don't
need to respond to what they've said. You need to respond to
what I want to be for them. So okay, so Graham says what, and I
dictated the first ever, he dictated to me the first reply.
And it was, dear John, really appreciate your writing. Thank
you very much. I was talking to the Lord about you today. And he
told me five things that he loves about you. I hope that
love Graham. That's all I did.
I haven't had a piece of hate now.
For five years. I miss it.
I don't miss getting the hate. What I miss was, you know, just
right opportunity, the opportunity to write. That's
what I miss.
To say, Lord, if you ever want to give me someone's name and
address, I'll just write to them, whatever you say. I just
because I really like that. So getting the letter was nothing.
Because giving the reply became everything.
What is that? That's taking about turning an opposite thing
into a blessing.
When learning to move in the opposite spirit. That's why I'm
a writer. So I read the dictionary. I like reading new
words. And I have a dictionary and the thesaurus. I love the
thesaurus because every synonym has an antonym. So it's like,
it's almost like the thesaurus is like the best prophetic book
ever. Because it'll give you like, this is a really bad word.
And you turn it and you look at it and you say, but this is the
opposite meaning of that. So when people say something to me,
I actually did it once with one of my kids, who was just going
through that phase of saying, Dad, you're so this, you know,
and so I went to a thesaurus and I looked at the opposite of
that. And I said, Ah, what you're really saying to me is
this, father of my heart, and I would say the opposite. I'm not
saying that at all. No, but it's what you meant. No, it isn't.
Well, it could be. And, and I just played the game until they
stopped saying, Dad, and then they'd go, Dad, whatever. My
daughter would look, she would come in, she'd say, Dad, and
I would just like smile. And she went, whatever.
Say it'd be like,
whatever.
Brilliant. I love that. That was just family joke.
Graham, I really appreciate your time with us today. There's so
many takeaways. And it comes down to the simplicity of
staying renewed. And that is just staying fresh every single
day, which means staying new, because we're dead to sin and
we're alive to God. So I really appreciate you and giving us
also this beautiful discipleship framework of from through to,
there's so much that I'm going to be dwelling on. But I really
appreciate you sharing everything you did with us
today and giving us your time.
It's great. You know, I think when you start off learning
fresh every day, it feels like an inverted funnel.
You know, you've got this small space,
but all this stuff in the world going on.
But the more you practice it, the more eventually
it becomes like, you know, the funnel is up here,
but you've got all of this treasure
that you've learned by learning simplicity.
So at some point when you start,
it feels a little strange, but just keep at it
because it's fun, it's good, and God loves it.
And he will invert the funnel until at some point
you realize your simplicity is still that simple thing,
but it's given you all of this, all of it.
And I've learned how to overcome in so many situations.
I've learned the peace of God that passes understanding.
And I've learned those things
because just practicing the simple stuff, simple stuff.
That's what it's about.
I love it.
Thank you, Graham.
Thank you everyone for joining our call.
Thank you so much.
It's been really fun.
All right, everyone, we'll have the recording
in our Facebook group for you guys to rewatch
if you would like, but bless everyone.
And we will see you later this week.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.