Purity: Definition Matt. 5:8 "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God ..." "You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you." If you want to walk with God, purity is absolutely essential. You know a pure mind and a pure heart is always going to see God in everything. Sometimes you know, we lose our vision of God because the way in which we perceive, is unclean. It's like you know when God looks at you He doesn't see anything wrong with you. He's not an evangelical. He's not obsessed by sin. He's dealt with sin once and for all, in Christ. So God is not bothered by sin. He's dealt with it. He's consumed by life. When God looks at you, He doesn't see anything wrong with you. Why? He put you into Jesus. Question. Was Jesus punished enough? Not a trick question. Was Jesus punished enough? O.K., half of us think, "Hmm. I don't know what to think about that one." Was Jesus judged enough? Yeah!!! So there is no more place for judgment then. Come on, think it through. So Calvary was a place of judgment. Was Jesus judged enough? Yeah!!! So one day, the books will be opened on judgment day and judgment will be meted out. Yeah? So between Calvary and judgment day, there is no place for judgment. Hello? We are living in a prophetic season of grace. There is no place for judgment on this earth because Jesus paid a price once and for all for all people; for all men everywhere. So there is no place for judgment in this life. So what does judgment mean in a New Testament context. What does it mean when here we have the Gospel of grace where it is the goodness and the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. Well it's the gospel of kindness, it's the gospel of mercy, it's the gospel of the goodness of God because funnily enough, it is the good news. What is the good news; no judgment in this life, only the availability of mercy and grace and goodness and kindness. So what does judgment mean in a New Testament context of the Gospel of Jesus. What if judgment is an assessment. What if you are judging someone? What if I am judging John, not because of what he's done. What if I'm looking at what he's done and I'm judging how much mercy and goodness is it going to take to restore this person to a place of fellowship with God. What if that's what judgment is. >>>CD 2<<< Somebody breathe. There's like a big hole opening up here in the middle. I feel like I'm gonna get sucked into it. What if I am assessing? What if I am judging? What I need to be to him as a friend to see him restored to the God of grace. What if I am judging? What is the level of warfare around his life that I need to contend with so that I can deliver him from his present condition. What if that's judgment? What if I am looking at him and I am judging how much encouragement and blessing do I need to give him so that he gets a radical idea of who Jesus is for him. What if that's judgment? You better think about that one eh? You're already clean. You're already clean because of what God is continually speaking to you. You're already clean. You are set free. You are the beloved of God. You are the passion of God and he adores you and he loves you and he's made a way for you. All of us need a radiant idea of God. It's the only place to live. To be astonished!! To be amazed. To marvel. To be so caught up with the beauty of his nature, it becomes who you are. It washes over you day after day after day, and you love every thought that you have about him. You love every word he says. You hang on it because it's life. The love of God is so powerful, it never stops flowing in your direction and God isn't frustrated with you because when he looks at you he doesn't see what's wrong, he only sees what's missing from your current level of experience. He put you into Christ. Question. Is the Father a schizophrenic? Is he a schizophrenic? Does he do one thing and say another? Does he do one act and then treat it as though he hasn't done it? He put you into Christ, why? So that you would always be accepted in the beloved. Who's the beloved? Jesus! Who else is the beloved? You!! He put you into the one place he could always approve of you. Do you think the Father approves of Jesus? This is not a trick question. Do you think that he approves of Jesus? So when he put you into Christ, what was he thinking, "I am so going to put you into a place where I can approve of you. Where I can always look at you and always see who you are and who you are becoming. Where there will always be grace and mercy available." In Christ, you can come boldly into the throne room and park yourself right in front of the throne of grace and you can find grace and you can find mercy to help you in your moment of need. Why? That's the good news. Judgment!!! Hah!!! Fat chance. You think God's going to judge you? He is so not an evangelical. He's not. He punished Jesus so he'd never have to punish you. You are welcome. You are so welcome in his presence. The truth is, the Father doesn't have anything but a good thought about you. It's who he is. He loves you. He's got things to show you. He doesn't get disillusioned with you because he never had an illusions in the first place. He chose you because you're weak and foolish with a history of screwing up. And the Holy Spirit; He is going to help you translate all of your inadequacies and insecurities into a joyful vulnerability. The truth is the Holy Spirit is come to enable you to become vulnerable to the goodness of God. That's what I like about my own life. I am so vulnerable to the goodness of God. It's like a complete pushover. I mean he only has to wiggle his left ear in my direction and I'm falling all over the floor and manifesting, because there's something about him that's irresistible. There's something about his nature that's totally and compellingly, utterly irresistible and your role in the earth is to be loved wonderfully, marvelously, beautifully. To revel in that love. To be confident in that love so that everyone who comes into contact with you comes into contact with who you are in Jesus. The truth is, God loves our weaknesses. It's the place where he chooses to step into our life. I love that about the nature of God and I love being that with my friends. You know, in every relationship, you get the chance to be passionate in a strong way for your friend, but you also, the other side of that coin is, you get to see your friend in their area of weakness and you get to actually step into that place and be something for them. If all we ever do is connect in the area of our strengths, all we do is touch each other. That's not real love. Real love is where we connect in the low places, and there's a strength there and it's exciting to know in relationships around you, where people are struggling. I know currently where all my friends are struggling and I'm so there because this is my moment to be something; because it's in the low places of life and humanity where you get to express real love. That's where real love works. That's the good stuff in relationships; is the struggles, the idiosyncrasies, the little lunacies that we all have. The areas where, "I'm no good at this." Yeah but I'm your friend and God puts people together so we cover each other in the areas of our weakness. We don't kill each other because you're weak. We step into that low place because that's what God is like. All of the things we don't like about ourselves, to a real friend, that's the good stuff. That's the good stuff. That's where I get to be something for you because I'm your friend. That's where God gets to step into our life; is in the low places. This is an Old Testament revelation by the way; not a New Testament one. In the book of Nehemiah, where they're all rebuilding the wall it said that they stationed people in the low places of the wall. These people had a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other. That is so like God. Yeah, you're weak, you're foolish; well I will defend you to the death and at the same time I'm building you up. That's friendship. That's the Good News. That's the Gospel. That's the message that we have. God is not put off by your weaknesses. He's excited by them. He has a plan for them; to step into that place. So when people around you lose it and get stupid, you have a great opportunity to prove your friendship. What do we do in the evangelical church? Someone sins and we step away. Euwww! We step away. God doesn't step away, he steps in closer because where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. Grace is always bigger than sin. Often we have lots of sin in church because we have so little grace. Where there's no grace, sin increases. That's the Good News, eh? That's who God really is. He looks at you and says, "You are so clean, because of what I'm doing. I need you to understand how clean you are." When God looks at you, he doesn't see what's wrong with you; he sees what's missing from your current experience of him and he's committed to bringing it into your life. I was in Kansas City doing some prophetic ministry with a whole team of guys; prophets and I just finished prophesying over this one person and stepped back to get a drink and as I'm just stepping back into the line, the prophet next to me is prophesying over this young man. I looked to this young man's face, and it was hard, hard face, it's like really hard faced. You know, and tough looking, giving nothing away you know. And this prophet guy is prophesying, "You know, I see a walnut. Hard exterior but soft, you know on the inside and the walnut is you and God is the nutcracker. Over this next season God is going to break you so that hardness can actually be diminished and God can release all of the stuff that's on the inside of you." And I looked to this young man's face, you know, and I'm thinking, "Right vision, and wrong interpretation." All he's ever known is people being hard on him. I mean, if you don't know God in your life, for God's sake, build a wall around your heart and defend yourself. That's sensible. That's all he's ever done. He's known hardness all his life and now here he is in the house of God and God's a nutcracker? Who wants fellowship with a nutcracker when you're the nut? Not me says I. Forget that. Are you mad? So this guy prophesies about his hardness and now God's going to break him and all this kind of stuff and then he looks at the guy. Just so you know, I'm going to cuss in a minute. So get ready O.K. It's an important part of the message otherwise I wouldn't do it. So gather yourself. O.K. So he looks at the guy and he finishes prophesying about God's going to crack you open and break you and smash you and all of this kind of stuff and he looks at the guy and he says, "Do you want me to pray for you?" And he said, "Shit no!!!" He turned around and left and I'm thinking, "Good for you son," because I wanted to give this guy some five-fold ministry myself. What is that? What is that? I prayed for him. I got back to my room and just through the night I woke up several times, he's on my heart; I prayed for him. So the next day I wasn't due to speak until the afternoon, so I went to another church, St. arbucks and got a cup of coffee. It's probably my favorite church if I'm really honest. We sat in St. arbucks having a cup of coffee, in walks this guy and I'm thinking, happy birthday to me. He got a coffee, sat down, I walked over and said, "Hey, how you doing, my name's Graham." He said, "I know who you are." So I said, "Can I sit down?" and he went, "Yeah, if you must." Real like, welcoming, you know. So I thought, I'm just going to have some fun here, so I said, "You know I was just looking at you across the coffee shop and I got this picture of a nut." And you could see his face going, "Oh shoot." Or words to that effect. "I just feel like the Lord wants to say something, would you be open?" And he went, "Oh, if you must." "So I see a picture of a nut. I know that, man, you've had a hard life eh?" And the Lord just showed me some things that he'd gone through as a kid so I just said, "When you were nine, this is what happened. When you were eleven, this is what happened. When you were going through your teenage years it was one thing after another and God knows all of that. God knows that you had to build a wall around your heart to protect yourself, and you did. Great wall by the way. It's really high. The Lord says that it's time for that wall to come down now because I'm in your life and you can trust me. You see, there is this hard exterior. That's not a word of knowledge. You can tell just by looking at you. You know? This is what the Lord is saying about this hardness, there is suspended over your life right now, a huge jug of oil and God is going to pour the Holy Spirit upon you for the next three years, continuously, until all that hardness is made soft and you are going to dissolve into a place of intimacy and worship and you are destined to become a man after God's own heart." O.K., time out. There are a bunch of people, when I just said that, you felt something impact on your Spirit. Where are you. Yeah, stand up for a minute will you. Just stand up. Yeah. You guys have had it rough eh? Well you know what, that prophecy is yours eh? So let me just say it to you again. "This is a season when the goodness of God is going to come." You know what, there are some more people that should be standing right now, so I'm just going to wait. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. "You've had it tough. It's been hard." O.K., I'm happy now. So, this is what the Lord is saying to you, yeah. "In this next season, there is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on your life that will cause you to see God in a way that you've never seen him before. It will cause your heart to become glad. You are going to come into a season of rejoicing and all that hardness is going to give way; it's going to be softened by the Holy Spirit. You are going to come into a place of joy and laughter, because it's time and for some of you who are standing, the Lord is saying, you're grief is no longer required and so you are not permitted to grieve any longer. It is forbidden." Do you understand forbidden? It means that if you do it, he's going to send me around to slap you. No, I'm just kidding about that. "You are forbidden. This next season is not about sorrow and it's not about sighing. You know, difficult things will happen, but it's gonna touch you a different way. This is a season for laughter, it's a season for rejoicing. It's a season where your heart is going to be softened to a point of intimacy and worship and God is going to come to you and he's going to sing over you and he's going to love on you and he's going to give you a revelation of him that will just blow your little mind, so we'll have to get new pieces for your brain." Yeah. This is a time, and you know what, the Lord has looked forward to this time for quite a while. This is your season of breakthrough. He's not going to smash you, he's going to soften you. He's going to love on you, and you are going to find lots of things restored in your life. Some of you are going to be restored to your families. Some of you are going to be restored to relationships that were fractured, but you're going to have an anointing to actually build relationships in a way that you never have been able to. There's an intimacy, there's a laughter, there's a softness and the Holy Spirit is going to pour upon you in this season and you guys are going to find out how great the Good News really, really is." O.K. Please be seated. Thanks. A pure mind and a pure heart will always see God in everything. Abiding allows us to see the invisible God as well as the visible God. So, 2 Kings 6 is the story of two men, Elisha and his servant both in exactly the same situation, but both with a totally different perception. The servant can only see the enemy and what they're about and so he's affected by what he sees on a natural level. Elisha can see horses and chariots of fire in the heavens. Which do you think was going to have the better day? That's a no brainer eh? You see, Elisha could see the invisible and that's what abiding does for you. The pure in heart see God at every opportunity, so with all your heart, long for purity because then you'll see God in everything. I love the fact that the Holy Spirit enables us to see God in the ordinary, everyday things of life and everywhere you look you'll find God if you're looking for him. We have clean garments. We have a new birth. We are a new creation. We are clean, and Christ is our righteousness and the Holy Spirit keeps us holy. That's why he's the Holy Spirit. In your life he keeps you holy. Yeah? So we are destined to live as people who are continuously washed clean and I love the blood of Jesus because it's like acid to sin. You drop sin in the blood of Jesus; it dissolves. Yeah? Abiding is about living a clean life in the shadow of the Father. You are clean. It's a state of mind and heart that is bestowed in the person of Christ. Abiding helps you to remain clean. Now there may be areas in your life presently where the Holy Spirit is shining his light on impurity and uncleanness. He's not showing you what's wrong, so much as declaring to you something is missing. I was doing some prophetic ministry somewhere on the East Coast, I forget where. A guy came forward and I saw straight away, he had a Spirit of Lust and Uncleanness on his life and Pornography. Now, you know what, he doesn't need me to tell him that because funnily enough, he already knows. David said, "My sin is ever before me." If I give you a piece of paper right now and said tear it in half on one side write down all the things you like about yourself and on the other side write down all the things you don't like about yourself. Which one would you fill out first? Which piece of paper would have more information on it. We don't need to be told things that are wrong in our life. We know. We live with it. He didn't need me to tell him, "Oh, there's a Spirit of Lust and Impurity and Uncleanness and Pornography on your life." He knew it. You see I'm looking at him and I'm seeing those things and I'm realizing, when God shows you something negative about a person, he doesn't want you to tell them, because he's not giving you information to give to them because funnily enough they already know. He's giving information to you because he wants you to know what they're going through. My question to the Lord was, "I see all of that, what's the impact on his heart?" So God showed me his heart and he hated himself. He loathed himself, he felt unworthy, he felt he couldn't come into the presence of God, he felt he was lower than, you know, that he was not acceptable. He hadn't realized, maybe he just forgot that Jesus died for all of that. He forgot that he was in Christ. He doesn't need to be told. So I looked at him. So the issue then is, O.K., so he's doing those things, he's feeling that about himself. What's missing? What's missing? Holiness, righteousness, purity. What do I prophecy? Holiness, righteousness, purity. So I said to him, "You know, I just, I look at you and I see suspended over your life a huge, like weight, of holiness and righteousness and purity and it is the Father's promise that you will be a man renowned for his purity and his innocence. When God looks at you he says, "I see an innocent man." That's what God is making you into. He bursts into tears. Why? It's his dream. It's the secret in his heart. Isn't that what Scripture says? That people will come into our presence and will speak how?: in tongues, a heavenly language and the secrets of their heart will be manifest. Not the sins of their heart; the secrets. What are the secrets that you lock away in your heart? The vision you've got for yourself that you daren't share with anybody. The dream that you've cut down so many times that you've lost sight of the original dream. God doesn't tell you your sins. He tells you your dreams. The Pharisees were the dream thieves of their day. They stole peoples' dreams. God is the dream giver. Secrets; he had a yearning to be holy. That's what I saw. So when I prophesied that, and I said, "Would you mind if I laid hands on you and just prayed that in?" And he went, "Oh please." So I laid hands on him and I prayed. You could sense something changing on the inside of him. Like this resolve coming up from within him. "I want to be that man, and God's going to help me." I saw him a couple of years later. He comes walking up to me totally different. I looked at him and there is a purity there and he looked at me and he said, "You might not remember me." I said, "Well there are few people I do remember, because I've seen thousands and I've prayed for thousands, but you I remember." And I said, "Man, you look so clean." And he said, "Yeah, yeah, all that stuff broke off me and it's not that I don't do it anymore. I don't even think about doing it. It's like it's gone. I have this hunger for innocence." I said, "Yeah, I can see it." What is he now? He's just a Good News. He's the Good News. You see, God wants to work in your life so that you become the best news available to all the people around you. You are the Good News. You're already clean. Yeah? You don't become a new person by changing your behavior. You discover the person you already are in Christ and you behave accordingly. What was missing from his life? That's what the Lord wanted to talk about. Dude, you're missing something and this is what it is. Here you go. "Be holy, even as I am." Yeah? That's the goodness of God. That's the life that we have before us. Anything less than that revelation is substandard Christianity. It's a substandard relationship with God. Let's pray. I know you're all bored right now. So, let's pray. I'm just kidding. So those of you who are being pruned right now, y'all can just stand. You see I said y'all there. Did you notice that? I'm kind of getting Americanized here; slightly. You can just stand. Yeah. You know God has real designs on you for intimacy. Yeah. What he's doing, when he prunes you, he's just taking away all the distractions of ministry. All the distractions of service, because there are times you know, God, He loves you serving him, but He loves you seeing Him as He really is. Yeah? He wants you to see. He wants you to get Him. To get who he is. To get who He is for you. So he's pruning you right now because you need a bigger, improved revelation of who he is for you. Yeah? This is a good time. Now if you're in ministry and you've not got the luxury of taking a sabbatical or taking time out, the grace of God will come to you and help you to learn to be with that. But you just make the bigger part of what you're doing to become more intimate. You know, that means that you know, if you don't get around to writing your sermon till Sunday morning, God's is so gonna give you a Spirit of Revelation over Sunday morning breakfast. Yeah. You'll get away with it because the grace of God will allow you to. The time of pruning; you put most of your energy into being with God and to spending time with him and he will give you grace for everything else. There have been times in my own life of pruning where I've not even prayed for events I'm doing. I'm not even prepared for events I'm doing, because I'm so hooked into being in this place with God. And I go to those events, and everything happens like it normally would, as if I'd prayed and prepared. You just get a dispensation for that period of time, because when the dispensation lifts, you have to go back to working. That's O.K. The thing is, work is different because you are more intimate. Yeah? So what God is doing right now, is, he's re-establishing your affection in him. He's re-establishing in your heart the truth of how he sees you and how he feels about you, and you must come to a deeper level of affection, a deeper place of joy, a deeper place of worship, a deeper place of intimacy and prayer. And the Holy Spirit, he has designs on you right now; to help you come into that place and you will discover about the Holy Spirit, that he is a complete genius. So he tells me. He's a total genius at this stuff and he's got a plan marked out. He already knows what he wants to say to you, what he wants to do, where he wants to lead you. Just be led by the Spirit. That's what I'm going to pray. So, assume the position. Hands out. Father, here we are. This is a great moment Lord. I know that you are really excited right now. You have things to give us. You're such a giver; a great giver. Oh my goodness. Such a great, great, great, giver. And some of us Lord are so behind in our receiving. We're so behind in receiving, but you are going to change all of that. You're changing all of that. So my prayer Father is, this is my request Lord. I ask for favor in the name of Jesus and I ask that in this time of pruning, in this time of rebuilding intimacy, all the intimacy that should have been ours, that we haven't picked up; that all of that will come to us. So, you'll back date our intimacy. But also Lord that all the intimacy you want on this next season of our life, all of that will come. So I'm asking you for a double portion in Jesus' name. All that stuff that we should have picked up, I pray that we won't miss it. It will come to us. And all the stuff that you've got planned for us, from now in this next season of our journey, all that will come to us too. So a double portion of your intimacy, your favor, your blessing. Pour out your love on our life. Pour out your love upon us. And Lord, bring us to a place of abiding, staying, dwelling, remaining, resting, loving your presence, loving being with you, loving what you bring. And I ask that this will be a time where you will lavish affection on us. I pray that you will indulge yourself Lord. I am asking you to go over the top in terms of what you bring to us and Lord, remake us right now in our thinking. Turn our thinking to a point of incredible favor, where we know that it is my privilege and my joy and my inheritance to live under the smile of God all the days of my life. So I'm asking you Papa. Lift up the light of your countenance upon us. Smile on us and bestow upon us Lord, your own intimate heart, so that we are touched by the majesty of your affection for us, that our thinking is changed and rearranged, that our heart is enlarged, that our concept of you and our experience of you goes to a height and a depth its never gone to before. Would you please turn us into a different man and a different woman so all our friends can relax around us. Turn us into different men and different women. And I ask you Lord, to do something awesome and something majestic in our life that is so powerful, we can never go back to what we were. It is lost to us. Do something so majestic that it changes our identity and our personality; something so powerful that it turns us into a different man and a different woman. Because Father, truth to tell Lord, Jesus deserves that. He deserves to be represented by people who are totally enamored of God, who are besotted by God. Make it big. Make it majestic. Make it outrageous. Outdo yourself Father. I know you want to. We ask you in Jesus' name to show off in our life, to show off. Be a show off, Lord. Show us what you can do. Show us what you're capable of. Let's see the majesty of your affection and may it radically transform us for Jesus' sake because we're asking it in his name, because he deserves to be represented by a people like that. So we ask in his name. AMEN!!!