Hey guys, hey so I'm just here at the Auckland airport, here I am just found a little nook
here and I wanted to just share about something with you, I want to share about the fact that
you have been hidden in Him and kept safe and I want to share about this because I believe
that God is wanting to bring us into a space where we truly utterly find ourselves in parallel
with us finding Him and so I'll share more on that but I know what you're all wondering,
you're wondering what the hang happened to your beard Matt and honestly I was wondering
the same thing this morning when I gave it a little bit of a trim and I just bought this
new trimmer and I bought this new trimmer and normally I use a number three and I just
number three it, this new trimmer had a number three except it was actually a number one
disguised as a number three and so I just went and then of course once you've started
you can't stop so this is the shortest my facial hair has been in probably ten years
so I apologize if I'm freaking anyone out right now, I freak myself out, I definitely
freak my family out and anyway that's a little side note but I don't know how many of you
have watched The Lion King, I just went and watched The Lion King the other day and of
course most of you know the story of The Lion King so and in the movie that's out now nothing's
changed in the storyline really so it's not gonna kill it for any of you but in the story
of The Lion King it's one of my favorite stories but there's this part where obviously you know
Mufasa dies and Simba feels responsible for Mufasa's dying and Scar says run and never
come home and and it's almost it's almost Scar's almost the devil right and and Simba's almost
the prodigal son at this moment and he runs to a faraway land and he learns the motto
Hakuna Matata and no worries and he makes friends with Timon and Pumba and he starts eating grubs
his whole diet changes he's not acting very much like a lion he kind of forgets who he is he
forgets his responsibility and then old Rafiki old Rafiki he know the way he comes in this baboon
he comes and and he he says you know I know who you are I know who your dad is Mufasa and he says
my dad's dead he says he's not dead he's alive and Simba's like what and he follows he follows
Rafiki Rafiki says I'll show you where he is and Rafiki leads him to a lake
and he says have a look and he looks in the lake and he sees a reflection of himself and he's like
no he's not there he's not there and then Rafiki touches the water and says look again and he looks
again and then all of a sudden he sees his dad's face in his face and he goes into encounter an
encounter with his father and his father says says Simba remember who you are remember who you
are and there's this moment where he finds himself in an experience with his father and realizes that
his father is in him living in him and he is living in his father and that to me is one of the most I
mean that line the Lion King is one of my favorite movies of all time and that is probably to me the
most powerful part of the whole movie when he rediscovers who he is and it leads him into a
re-engagement with his destiny with his calling and a restoration of the land and I believe that's
a really a picture of what God is doing with a generation of people who have kind of run away
from their calling some of them still in the church some of them out of the church and but
they've really run away from their calling and they're living in a faraway land as I said maybe
even still in the church but they're far away from their calling they're far away from their
destiny and they've really forgotten who they are and and I believe it's a picture of what God
is doing right now I've also been reading this book it's sorry if it offends anyone I don't think
it will but it's called the new seeds of contemplation by Thomas Merton and the reason I'm
reading this book is because I actually had an encounter in my sleep with Thomas Merton who I've
never read any of his stuff before and then a friend of mine had a dream with me and it and in
the dream and she had no idea about who Thomas Merton was but she said there was this old man
behind you and his name was Thomas Merton do you know who that is and so that led me into a thing
of like man I think that the life of Thomas Merton has something for me and then the BSSM team were
in Whangarei from
Bethel and Reading California they came out and during their time one of the
guys from the team he said I don't know why I'm doing this but I feel like I'm
meant to give you this book does Thomas Merton mean anything to you and I was
like man this is crazy all these dots are lining up and so I've been reading
this book and it's been blowing my mind and I want to read to you something from
this book so in fact what I might do is I might I might just turn the camera
around you can read with me so here we go
you see that there you go every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person a
false self this is the man that I want myself to be but who cannot exist
because God does not know anything about him and to be unknown of God is
altogether too much privacy my false and private self is the one who wants to
exist outside the reach of God's will and God's love outside of reality and
outside of life and such a self cannot help but be an illusion we are not very
good at recognizing illusions least of all the ones we cherish about ourselves
for the ones we are born with and which feed the roots of sin for most of the
people in the world there is no greater subjective reality than this false self
of theirs which cannot actually exist a life devoted a life devoted listen to
this guys a life devoted to the cult of the shadow is what is called a life of
sin I'm gonna read that again a life devoted to the cult of this shadow is
what is called a life of sin and I think that is so beautifully put also all sin
starts from the assumption that my false self the self that exists only in my own
egocentric desires is the fundamental reality of life to which everything else
in the universe is ordered thus I use up my life in the desires for for
pleasures and the thirst for experiences for power honor knowledge and love to
clothe this false self and construct its nothingness into something objectively
real and I wind experiences around myself and cover myself with pleasures
in glory like bandages in order to make myself perceptible to myself and to the
world as if I were an invisible body that could only become visible when
something visible covered its surface okay guys this is I don't expect you to
necessarily get this on the first take this is so deep and so amazing I just
love it but there is no substance under the things with which I am clothed I am
hollow and my structure for pleasures and ambitions has no foundation I am
objectified in them and they are all destined by their very contingency to be
destroyed and when they are gone there will be nothing left of me but my own
nakedness and emptiness and holiness tell me that I am my own mistake
the secret of my identity is hidden listen to this guys the secret of my
identity is hidden in the love and mercy of God come on and what but
whatever is in God is really identical with him for his infinite simplicity
admits no division and no distinction therefore I cannot hope to find my
myself anywhere except in him ultimately the only way I can be myself is to
become identified with him in whom is hidden the reason and fulfillment of my
existence therefore there is only one problem on which all listen to this guys
I'm gonna zoom in therefore there is only one problem on which all of my
existence my peace my hat and my happiness depend to discover myself in
discovering God if I find him I will find myself and if I find my true self I
will find him
oh my gosh I would I would read that all again if if if I thought you wouldn't
tune out but I feel like getting that framed and put on my wall it's such an
amazingly deep I want to kind of read it every day because it's got something
extremely deep and foundational to it but really inspired by that when when we
when we find him we will find ourselves and when we find ourselves we will
ultimately find him there's this thing that we that we live in that's like a
false self I remember having a vision a little while ago a long time ago when I
first got born again and it was kind of one of those visions that where God was
giving me kind of part of my calling in this vision and in the vision I was in a
masquerade ball and everyone at the ball was wearing a mask and they're all
hiding behind this mask and the mask represented the false self the mask
represented the shadow self and it was
kind of a gathering of the cult of the shadow, which is the beginning of all sin,
the lifestyle of sin. And everyone was hiding behind their mask, and
everyone was pretending to be someone they're not, only because they didn't
really know who they were. And they were afraid to be seen from behind the
mask. And in the vision, I came up and I
started to come up to people, and I started to just take their masks off.
And I took my mask off. And all of a sudden, people started taking their masks off.
And they started to come into a revelation of, this is who I am. And it's
okay to be me. And there is a trueness to the deepness of what's on the inside of
me. I am actually me. And there was a freedom that took place. And there was a
rediscovery of self. And it was that kind of the moment from The Lion King, like
Simba, remember who you are. And it was an encounter with the Father, where people
just started taking their masks off, and started being themselves, and started
stepping into who they truly are, and abandoned the cult of the shadow, and
stepped into a union with God that their souls had always longed to have, but had
never known how to have. And I want to read this scripture to you. It's in
Colossians 3. We can start in verse 1. It says this. Now this is the NIV version
I'm going to read. I actually like the New King James version of this a little
bit better, because to me it's a little bit clearer. But I'm going to read
it to you from the NIV, for now, anyway.
Since then you have been raised with Christ. Set your hearts on things above
where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above,
not on earthly things. For you died, or you are dead, and your life is hidden
with Christ in God. And in another version it says, your life has
been hidden with Christ in God. And in verse 4, when Christ, who is your life,
appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
Here's the thing. At the fall,
God did not forget who we are. He did not forget what He made. He did not forget
the original blueprint that He had in mind when He made each one of us. But what
happened at the fall is that mankind turned into kind of a blindness and a
darkness, because of sin and because of separation. And they lost sight of two
things. They lost sight of...mankind in general has lost sight of who God is and
what He's like. And in that, and because of that, they've lost sight of who they
are and what they're like. Those two things have been lost. They
are what was lost at the fall. And the result of that is that mankind hid. Adam
and Eve hid behind a fig tree, behind a bush, and the first thing God did was He
said, He came and He said, hey where are you? Where are you guys hiding? And of
course there was shame because of the distance, because of the assumption of
who God was that wasn't true, and because of the assumption of who they were that
wasn't true, and because of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil that was
expecting punishment. And of course in perfect love there is no punishment, but
under the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and in that framework, there
isn't a consciousness of punishment. And so they're expecting now to be punished
by a God who doesn't punish. And they're hiding, and He says, where are you? And they
say, we're here, but...and He said, who told you that you're naked? They're like,
we're hiding because we're naked. Who told you you were naked? And He realized
what they've done. Of course He already knew that anyway, but He provides a
covering and pulls them out of their hiding place. And since that point, since
that beginning of sin, since that beginning of separation, God has
been calling mankind out of the hiding place, out from behind the mask, out from
the faraway land, and back into the Father's house. And this has been God's
journey from that point all the way to this point, all the way to Jesus, where He
finally and forever takes us out of our hiding place, out of our prodigal living
land, and into the Father's house for good. It's super powerful. So you have
like, you have, in Mark 11, you have the story of Jesus. He's walking with His
disciples, and this is just a fascinating story. He sees a fig tree that's out of
season, but not bearing fruit, which of course, it's not really meant to be a
fruit. But anyway, and He curses the fig tree. And I always wondered, like, why was
Jesus so pissed off, so mad? Excuse my language, but so kind of unreasonably mad
with a fig tree. And when you study in Hebrew, the Hebrew people, when they study
Scripture, there was a principle that they would go by, which is called the
principle of first mention, which says that the time, the place in
Scripture where something is first mentioned, defines the original
definition of that, well, defines, sorry, the definition.
of that thing for the rest of Scripture.
The first time a fig tree is mentioned in Scripture was the place, it represented the
thing that mankind hid behind because of their nakedness, and they hid behind that to hide
from God and from themselves.
And so Jesus is saying in that statement, it's a prophetic statement, He's saying,
I am cursing the hiding place, I'm cursing the mask, I'm cursing the prodigal land,
I'm cursing the faraway land, I'm cursing that thing, I'm cursing that false self, that
shadowed self that you hide behind, until it shrivels up, until it dies, until I tear
it off you, until you truly discover who you are in my face.
And it's such a powerful, powerful statement, but we have a powerful prophetic act that
Jesus does, and it's what He's doing for each one of us right now, is we're in a process
where He has cursed the fig tree that we're hiding behind, He's cursed the mask that we
feel safe behind, that is actually an illusion, it's a false thing, and it's something that
we hide behind at the expense of actually truly finding ourselves, and Jesus is wanting
that to lead us to a place where we truly find ourselves before His face.
And here's the thing, we lost ourselves and we lost God at the fall, but the truth is
God never lost us, in fact, we were hidden with Christ in God since before the foundation
of the earth.
We have been hidden, we have been hidden, our old self, this shadowed self, what Colossians
is referring to is this shadowed self, this illusionary self, this cult of the shadow,
this false identity, this illusion, has died with Christ, it has died, and we have been
hidden, kept hidden, with Christ in God.
In other words, if you were going to go to a supermarket, and you were going to, maybe
you were buying a bottle of wine, let's just say for example, regardless of whether you
drink wine or not, it doesn't make any difference, you're in a supermarket, you're going to buy
a bottle of wine, and normally in New Zealand at least, on the bottom shelf, you get the
cheap wine, the middle shelf you get medium priced wine, the top shelf you get higher
priced wine, and then there's always a locked cabinet that has the really, really expensive
wine, at least that's how it is in New Zealand.
You have been hidden, God has kept you hidden, in other words, I think the word hidden there
is like, he's kept you safe, he's locked you up in a safe place, that no one could
get to, he's kept your true self, safe in him, he never lost sight of who you were,
you've been kept safe on the inside of God's heart, and no one, and nothing could steal
that from God, he's kept you safe, the true you, your original blueprint has been kept
safe in his heart from before the beginning of time.
You have been hidden with Christ in God, and to find yourself in him, if you're in
the supermarket and you wanted to find a really expensive bottle of wine, you don't go to
the bottom shelf, you go to where the really expensive wines are, you go to the locked
up cabinet that you have to ask the attendant to unlock for you, because that's where the
expensive stuff is.
You're not just in God, you're in God with Christ, you're an expensive wine in a locked
away case, you've been put in the most expensive part of the supermarket, you've been kept
in the most precious part of God's heart, along with Jesus, in other words, if it's
true of Jesus, it's true of you, your sonship, the fact that you're a child of God, your
childhood before God, or I should say your childness before God, it's the same kind of
childness that is Jesus' childness, that's how precious your childness is, that's how
precious your relationship to God is to him.
He's kept you hidden, safe, in an indestructible, unpenetrable safe called his heart, and he
never lost sight of who you are.
But he is inviting you right now into his face, because when we come into his face,
when we see him for who he is, it says in Colossians, it says that when he, when Christ
who is your life, in other words, when Christ who is the perfect representation and the
blueprint of your own sonship, when Christ who represents the kind of life that you've
been called to live and the kind of relationship that you've been invited to have, when Christ
who, in a sense, is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory, in
other words, you will see yourself when you see him, when you see the expression of him,
when you see God and Christ in that experience, you will see and find yourself, you will see
and find yourself.
And to the degree that you see him is the degree that you see yourself, and to the degree
that you see yourself is the degree that the mask of the shadow self falls off you and
you enter fully into your true self.
And it's back to the Lion King again, it's back to Simba.
Remember, remember who you are.
There's this moment where I believe the Holy Spirit is like Rafiki and He's leading you to the still lake.
And He's saying, look, and the lake represents worship.
He's leading you into the space of worship.
He's leading you into this place of stillness, into this place of adoration of God,
into this place of sometimes even just a disciplined worship that leads to a deep adoration.
But He's leading you to the lake of worship.
The Holy Spirit is leading me to this lake.
And He's saying, look, and initially when you look, what am I looking at?
I'm just seeing the shadow.
I'm just seeing the me I believe myself to be that isn't actually true.
I'm in, I'm in Hakuna Matata land.
I'm in this land where I'm eating grubs.
I'm not eating the meat that lions are meant to eat.
I'm not doing the stuff that lions are meant to do.
I've abandoned my calling.
My pride land has gone to custard scar.
The enemy has taken over and it's all burnt and there's no food left.
And it's, it's a bad situation because of my absence, because I've forgotten who I am,
because I believed a lie and I ran and hid in shame.
And the Holy Spirit is saying, come to the lake, look in the lake.
And He's saying, what do you see?
And you say, why'd you see me?
And then he touches the lake.
And as he touches the lake, something changes.
And Simba goes into an encounter with the father where he discovers who he is.
When Christ who is your life appears, you too will appear with Him in glory.
And that's what happens in that moment.
And I believe that this is what's happening right now.
And this is kind of a teaching as well as it's kind of a kind of a prophetic word of what I feel is happening in the body of Christ right now.
The Holy Spirit is touching worship right now.
The Holy Spirit is touching your worship right now.
The Holy Spirit is leading you to the lake,
but not so that you can just worship the way you've always worshipped and see what you've always seen.
But He's touching the lake.
He's touching the worship.
He's touching the space before His face.
And as He touches the space, there's going to be encounters with the Father that literally transform the way you see Him and the way you see yourself and the way you engage with your destiny.
And so the takeaway from this is this.
Other than going by New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton and other than reading Colossians.
The other takeaway from this that I want to share with you is is cooperate with the Holy Spirit and His attempt to lead you into that space of worship, into that new space of worship.
Just know that God's finger in your life is on the place of worship for you right now.
And I just want to encourage you to take some time over the next week to have extended periods of worship before the Lord and just wait and see what the Lord does.
And I just declare over you right now and I pray for you as I'm just about to board my plane to Singapore and then to Munich and then to Berlin.
As I'm about to board my plane, I just pray for you right now and I declare an awakening of worship in your heart.
I declare that your fig tree has been cursed.
I declare that your mask has been singled out as God's enemy.
I declare that your shadow self, that cult is coming off.
And to a degree, all of us have a process to walk on on this journey.
And to all of us, we're still and we always will be discovering more and more so who we are and who He is.
But God is giving grace to actually lift the mask off right now.
So just as I saw in the masquerade ball dream, I just reach my hand out in the spirit right now and I reach my hand out over your face right now.
And I just, by the Spirit of God, I take the mask off in the name of Jesus.
And if you want to receive that, just say Amen wherever you are.
Just say Amen wherever you are and just let the Holy Spirit take your mask off right now.
Let the Holy Spirit take you into a revelation of who you are.
And I want to echo the words of Mufasa, which I believe are the words of the Father for the season.
Remember who you are.
Don't be distracted by the shadow.
Don't be distracted by the mask.
Remember who you are.
It is safe for you to come out of hiding.
It's safe for you to be seen.
It's safe for you to be seen by the world and seen by the Father.
So anyway, that's what I have to share with you today.
Also, a little quick notice is that we're about to unleash.
I just got off the phone to Benji before this call and we're about to unleash our next school.
And of course, this is a more intensive, more full school that we're going to release.
It's an online school, Sonship.
It's a full school.
And so there is a cost attached to that school.
But we've decided that I won't let the whole cat out of the bag,
but I'll just let you see the back of the cat.
And that is that we've been discussing some epic scholarship options for you.
And so it's going to be super fun, but stay tuned.
Have an amazing day. Please pray for me while I'm in Germany that God moves like crazy and also, please
Please pray for my family while I'm away
pray for my wife her back is pretty much good now, but
Thanks Geneva, thanks so much
But it's her back still a little bit weak
and so if you can pray for my kids and my family, especially my wife and her back and just
that would be amazing and
And
For those of you in fun today and
Those of you who I'm with all the time miss you and I can't wait to be back soon
And those of you who are tuning in from Germany can't wait to see you soon. Okay, bless you so much
Bye