I will never say to you, “The Lord is here,” in a frivolous manner because it is a sacred and a holy thing to have His presence. Of course, His Spirit is where we are—is that not what His Word says? But this evening when Chuck was giving the announcements, the Lord walked in. He sat right in front on the platform and that is where He has been ever since, dressed in the robe of many colors. He sat there for awhile, but as you intensified your worship He stood and received it; it was very beautiful, of course. He is very beautiful. Do you love Jesus tonight? I do. I think He is so incredible.
Turn please in your Bibles to Matthew 6.
On our sign out in the front of the building where we meet, we have the words, “Prophetic Revolution” because that is what is beginning to occur in the earth. It is a revolution that is brought to life by prophetic revelation—a revolution that is going to stir the heart of the Lord and cause Him to stir the hearts of His Church.
You know, when He allows His glorious presence to come in, there is a presence that is filled and we are permeated with a sense of His holiness. It is very strong on me tonight. Can you feel it? When that presence comes, I cannot stand to think about, talk about or see anything mundane. I just want to bask in the beauty of the glory. You know, life loves to bring those stressed moments, right? But when that presence comes, you just tend to want to shy away from the stresses and go sit in peace and rest at His beautiful feet, amen?
His glory is very strong up here tonight—I hope I can get through this message because He has put something on my heart for you. How exciting it is that God cared so much about you that He speaks to the heart of another person and says, This is what I want to share with my people. How exciting! I think it is just so personal.
Are you at Matthew 6? Two things must last so that I can share His heart. One is my voice; two is my ability to control myself. I want to start with a scripture I know some of you have never heard of before. This is going to seem new to most of you, right?
Pray, therefore, like this: Our Father Who is in heaven, hallowed (kept holy) be Your Name. Matthew 6:9 AMP
If you love His holiness, you never want to do anything to offend it or do anything in any way to tarnish or defile it. You want to learn how to keep all your thoughts pleasing in His sight, because you want His holiness not to carry offense with your heart.
I love it that Jesus said, “Hallowed be Your name.” I love the fact that He told us to pray like that—that our Lord’s name would remain holy, set apart and hallowed in the earth. His Name at present is mocked by the unbeliever and, unfortunately, mocked in a different way by so much of the Church. Jesus said to pray that His Name be kept holy. This was not a man praying; this was the Son of God, who loved the holiness of the Father more than He loved to breathe. How He yearned to be restored to the glory that He knew before He came here, where holiness was undefiled. There was no dilution of the reality of that incredible glory.
Holiness is what God is and because He loved the Father, His holiness meant everything to Him. He prayed until He dropped great drops of blood, that He would not displease the holiness of the Father. He never sinned, ever. He never sinned because His life was poured out in the holiness of the Father. I do not think I am making this very clear or helping you to see the love of the Son for the holiness of Father.
In His holiness there is peace and the beauty of His purity. In His holiness is love undefiled. His holiness is the total absence of sin and deception. In His holiness is the total absence of the lie. Please let me expound for just a moment.
“The Bible says that Satan is the “father of lies.” Some translations read: lies. But it is THE lie. Only one lie, and out of that poisoned river comes all deception. Now, would you like to know what the lie is? It is everywhere you look. The very atmosphere you breathe is permeated with this lie.
There is a veil over the whole earth. I have seen it and that veil is the lie. Every human being on the face of this earth looks at everything—people, family, friends, belongings, materials things—everything is seen through this opaque veil. When Satan tempted Eve and brought Adam into the whole thing, what he was in essence doing was saying to Eve, Will you accept the lovely veil I want to give to you, that will veil you from the truth that you now know and cause you to believe something different about God than what is true? And they bought it. There was a moment in time when Eve had to make a decision. Is there something I need beyond God to have life? And for a moment she allowed her heart to believe the lie and now everybody believes it.
Please do not sit in your chair tonight and be foolish and tell yourself you do not believe it, because you do. The day the Lord unveiled it to me was a horrible experience. I looked at everything that was in front of me and suddenly I realized there was no life in any of those things. What was so frightening was to realize that only moments before, I had believed there was so much life in those things and I didn’t know the truth. The hardest place deceived is where covetousness comes from, because we believe so deep in our hearts, where we cannot get in touch with it.
I do not know how to explain this to you, but you have seen everything this way since the day you were born, so it would be foreign to you to see it in any other kind of way. But somewhere deep within you, you believe that if you would go out and get a certain car, that car would give you a better quality of life in the way the world sees it. Deep inside, you believe you need that car added to God to improve the quality of your inner life.
When you go house hunting and find one that is just perfectly you, it is because you believe something in that house is going to give you life aside from God. The thought of that is kind of scary, is it not? What I am telling you is the truth and you believe it so deeply within because your inner man has been veiled by this lie: that God is NOT the only source of life. That is what Satan was trying to convince Eve of that day, that she needed the fruit on the tree for a source of life beyond God. That is what he tried to convince her of, and she bought it. Because Eve bought it, we all bought it and we bought it in the womb. Though we did not want it, it still covers the eyes and unless He reveals to you the depth of the truth I am trying to give you tonight, we cannot understand how much it controls your everyday thinking.
This is why Paul said, Be content. Learn to be content in all things. This lack of contentment comes because of this veil that lies to us and shrouds us from the truth. Do you believe me? The only way to get onto the other side of that veil is to get into union with Christ. Until then, your eyes are helplessly, hopelessly obscured by that veil.
To be continued…
In His Amazing Love,
Nita Johnson
