Andrew Wommack - Effortless Change - Part 9
Welcome to our Thursday’s broadcast of the gospel truth. Today I have some great news for you and that is that you can change effortlessly. If you would just take the Word of God and make it priority in your life, plant it in your heart, the Word of God will just change you without you even realizing it’s happening. It really is that simple, and that’s not necessarily easy because one of the hardest things you’ll ever do is to unplug from all of the distractions that this world has to offer and just focus on the Word of God.
Now, that takes effort, but if you will just put the effort into the Word of God, then the Word of God will change you effortlessly. Man, that’s what I’ve been talking about now for two weeks, and I tell you, I’ve already covered some really, really good things. Let me just mention that I am encouraging everybody to read through the Bible in one year. The scripture says that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, not just a portion of it, all of it, and there are many Christians that have never read the whole Bible, and I tell you, you need a plan to be able to go through it.
This is the same Bible reading plan that our Bible college students use. They have to read through the entire Bible one time in the first year of their classes, and so this is a free gift to you, and then we have this living commentary, which I have spent, I’ve probably spent 20 years writing this living commentary on my Bible, but this is actually 46 years' worth of studying the Word of God, I mean just pouring through it and I’ve written over 18,000 footnotes on 18,000 verses in the Bible. This is a tremendous blessing. We’re offering this as well as this teaching on Effortless Change, and I encourage you to please get that. It will make a big difference in your life.
Today I want to turn over to Psalms, chapter 19, and I just want to share some of the things that the Bible says about itself. I’ve been talking about how that the Word of God is alive and it’s powerful and that this is the dominant way that God speaks to you, that this, I used scriptures yesterday out of 2 Peter, chapter 1 that men wrote scriptures as they were moved upon by the Holy Spirit. This isn’t a book by men about God, this is a book from God through men, and it is God literally speaking to us, and here are some of the things that the Bible says about itself, and there are many, many, many, I’m just picking a few here.
Turn over to Psalms, chapter 19, and in verse 7 it says, the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward. Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins: let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, o Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.
You know, I read through all of these verses, but man, this is just power packed with things that the Bible says about itself. In verse 7 it says, «The law of the Lord is perfect». I tell you, one of the criticisms that many people have against the Bible is that it’s just a men’s document and it doesn’t apply to us. You know, we had a president of the United States, I won’t call his name, but for anybody who knows our history, you’ll probably be able to figure this out.
I’m not against a person, I’m just saying that here’s a person in the highest position in the United States that proclaimed to be a Christian, claimed that they were a born again Christian, and yet they took a stand for abortion, they took a stand for homosexuality, they were for everything that the Bible was against, and they were against everything that the Bible was for, and during one of their press conferences one of the reporters asked them, «You claim to be a born again Christian and yet you are taking stands on social issues that are directly contrary to scripture», and they said, «How do you justify that»?
And this president of the United States says, «The Bible, it’s God’s word» and he said that, you know, «This is God and it is God’s word, but it was written by men, it was full of their prejudice and of their, you know, situations that they wrote in thousands of years ago and it doesn’t really apply to us. We have to update it, we have to make it relevant to our society», and basically what he did was say, «That the law of the Lord is not perfect, that it was just written by men, that it might have been God inspired, but by the time it got out through them it was corrupted and polluted and we have to on our own decide which parts we want to take and which parts we don’t want to take».
I’m telling you, that is a terrible, terrible attitude. There’s probably people watching this program right now that your attitude is something similar to that, and yet many of you say, oh no, I believe it’s the Bible. Well, if you really believe that this is God speaking to you, how come you’ve never even read the whole thing? I’m not saying this to hurt anybody, but I’m saying it’s inconsistent. If this is really God speaking to us, if this is, as I quoted yesterday, Hebrews, chapter 4, verse 12, it’s alive, it’s quick, it’s powerful, it’s sharper than any two edged sword and it’ll pierce right to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and joint and marrow and be a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of your heart.
If that’s true, then why don’t we read it? Why don’t we study it? I’m telling you, the reason most people do not make the Word of God priority in their life and spend time studying the word is because they don’t believe that it’s perfect. They believe there’s all kinds of inconsistencies in it. That’s not true. That is not true. I can guarantee you: I don’t think there’s anybody watching this program that has studied the word more than I have. Now, there may be. I’m sure there’s somebody who’s studied the word more than I have, but I can guarantee you, 99,9% of you, I have spent more time studying the word and reading it than any of you have and I have seen things that look contradictory at one time, but as I study it, man, they balance each other perfectly and it doesn’t contradict. The Word of God is perfect, just like this is saying, and it says, converting the soul.
If you study these Hebrew words back, not the very definition of this Hebrew word right here, but if you study it and trace it back in its meaning, it literally means that this is, when it converts the soul, it means, to restore to an original condition. Now, that’s important, because you know, people as they go through life, they just get beat up. Man, you have some bad things happen. You have people reject you, hurt you. You have people die. You have disappointments and things, and you know what? It’s hard for a person to maintain their focus and maintain their enthusiasm and their commitment and their love for the Lord, because again, life is just a terminal experience. It’ll beat the joy and the peace out of you. How do you maintain things? Right here it says, «The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul», restoring it back to an original condition.
You know, I have many ministry friends who at one time were just as excited about the Lord as I am, and yet many of these people, I see them fall by the wayside. Every once in a while I’ll come across people that years ago were just so turned on and excited about the Lord and yet they’ve had things happen that discourage them and they fall by the wayside and when I come across their path, they just can’t understand why I am still so optimistic and why I’m still so excited about the things of the Lord, and this is the answer right here. The law of the Lord is perfect, it will convert your soul, it will restore it to an original condition. It will freshen you and bring you back to the right perspective.
You know, I remember a time when I was in the army and this was when I was first drafted. I was actually at fort Hamilton, New Jersey, right underneath the verrazano-narrows bridge, and I was there and I was being persecuted and people, I mean, it was, I could spend a lot of time, but it was just a bad time. People were giving me a bad time and while everybody else went on a weekend leave and went into the city of New York, I stayed in the barracks and I just read the Bible for about eight hours, and I tell you, when I started, I was doing it out of desperation because man, it was just hard. Everybody was criticizing me and speaking against me. After eight hours of studying the word, man, I was on fire. I was just built up. I was encouraged. It’s like David said, I could run through a troop or leap over a wall. Man, I was excited. The Word of God just built me up. It converted my soul.
Now, if this is true, which it is, then let me just speak to those of you who are having your soul disturbed, something has happened. You know, it says in Proverbs, chapter 13, verse 12, hope deferred makes the heart sick, and there are some of you that have been believing for a new job, better job, health, marriage, children, you know, just any number of things and you believe for something and you haven’t seen it come to pass and because of it your heart has been made sick, you’re discouraged. How do you deal with this? Well, the average person just goes to God and prays and they want God to just open up the heavens and pour out joy on you or to do something like that. Right here is the simple answer. The law of the Lord is perfect and it will convert your soul. It will restore it back to where it needs to be.
If you’re discouraged, if you’re fighting discouragement, if it’s hard for you to maintain your faith, your focus, your enthusiasm, get into the Word of God. Read a story about somebody else who had negative things happen to them. Man, I could take hundreds of examples, but Moses, he had terrible things happen. The very people that he led out of Egypt wanted to turn around and kill him, and you know what? He would just turn back to the Lord and God would speak a word to him and it would bring him out and I’ve looked at Moses and thought, God, my problems are nothing compared to what Moses is going through, and it’s encouraged me. I’ve seen people like Gideon who had to have five times that God confirmed to him that what he told him to do would work and he just vacillated and stuff and I’ve seen how God came through and it’s encouraged me. I’ve seen David who blew it and sinned big time, and yet God brought him through.
As I study scripture, it just restores my soul. It converts my soul. It restores me back to an original condition. You know, here’s another way of interpreting that too is that all of us have been born in sin and have grown up in a corrupt sinful world and we are just a long ways from Adam and Eve the way that God created men to be, and I mean, we have adopted values and things that are just things that God never intended men to have. How do you get back, how do you know what God really wanted us to be? Well, the Word of God is perfect, and if you go back and study the book of Genesis, you can see how God created us to be. You can see how it originally was intended and you can get your soul converted.
I tell you, this is powerful. If this is the only scripture in the Bible that talked about what the Word of God would do, this would be enough for you to dedicate yourself to it and to study the Word of God because this will transform your life. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The rest of that verse says, the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The Book of Proverbs, if you read the first chapter of the Book of Proverbs, Solomon is saying that he is giving these words to give wisdom unto the simple. I just think that is so powerful. Anybody who feels inadequate and you feel like you just don’t have as much smarts as somebody else, or maybe you’re facing something in your work or in your family, some kind of a decision, and you just don’t feel like you have the ability to be able to choose the right path and you’re wondering what to do, the Word of God will make wise the simple.
I tell you, that is powerful. I have leaned heavily on this scripture because I don’t think I’m the sharpest knife in the drawer, and you know what? I have just depended upon God and I trust his word and God has made me look good. God has caused me to prosper. I’m doing things that I could not do in the natural. You know, I’ve used this story many times and I know some of you have heard it before, but right before my mother died she was asking about all of the things that God is doing through the ministry and I was telling her and she was really blessed, and then she pointed right at me and she said, Andy, you know this is God, and I said, yes, ma’am, I know this is God, and she said, you aren’t smart enough to do this, and you know what, I agree 100%. I am not smart enough to do what I’m doing.
You know, right now I’m not saying this for any other purpose except to glorify God, but we’re on every available Christian network that there is, and I forget the exact number, but we’re on over a thousand, I think it’s around 1700 individual stations. I don’t even know, but we are just everywhere. I was in church just yesterday and I had a man from Zambia come and he’s a pastor in Zambia and he walked up and he recognized me and he says, I watch you every day in Zambia and this is touching my life. I was just in Australia and I had people that were aborigines from out in the bush come and they said that they watch me on television. We’ve got a student in our Bible college from Madagascar. We’ve got students from all over. We’ve got Bible schools in 40 nations of the world and all of this stuff, and you know what? We are making a worldwide impact.
We have 3.2 billion people who have access to this program today, 3.2 billion people, about half of the world’s population and you know what? I’m not smart enough to do this. It is not my intellect. I never sat down and mapped these things out and put five year goals and said, I’m going to do this, and I never prayed and asked God to do anything. You know, all I’ve done is just seek the Lord. I’ve studied his word. God speaks things to me and I obey when he tells me, and I am not smart enough to do what is happening in our ministry. We just built a $32 million building and paid for it debt free during the «Quote unquote» great recession, and we’ve got a second building coming that’s going to be one and a half times as big and it’s going to be $20 million, and I’m going to pay for that debt free, and I’m going to do a lot of other things and I am not smart enough to do this, but you know what? The Word of God, the testimony of the Lord is sure, and it makes wise the simple.
I’m telling you, there’s people watching this program that the problem is, you have leaned unto your own understanding. Proverbs, chapter 3, verse 5 says, trust in the Lord with all of your heart: and lean not unto your own understanding, and the very thing that’s causing many of you to struggle is because you have leaned unto your own understanding. You know, in a way, people who are really talented and are really smart and you’ve got the charisma and everything, you know, you’ve just got that midas touch and you touch things and it turns to gold, you know, in a way that is a curse because you can do things on your own.
You can prosper without God, but the Bible says in 1 Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 26 and following, it says, you see your calling brethren how that God didn’t choose many mighty, not many noble, but God chose the weak things of the world, base things of the world, things that are despised, things that are nothing, things that are naught to bring to naught things that are, so that no flesh would glory in his presence. God didn’t choose all of the movers and the shakers and the people that are so strong and everything in their own, and it’s not because God is a lowbrow and he’s against people who have their act together and are very talented and all of these things, it’s just that people who can do things on their own tend not to trust in God.
It’s hard for them to just let go and let God do it. In a way, it is a tremendous advantage to not have any great talents or abilities or anything because it makes you trust in God, amen, and this is what this is saying that if you will just trust in God, if you would take the Word of God and meditate in it day and night, you will make your way prosperous, and you will have good success, or as it says right here, the testimony of the Lord is sure, and it makes wise the simple. It will give you God’s wisdom. There is no person watching this program right now, who one word from God, couldn’t totally turn your life around. Think about that. If you’re in a financial bind, all you need is a word from God. Just one little creative idea and you could be a multi-millionaire.
If you are sick, all you need is just one word from God. I’ve seen this happen thousands of times, that people were praying for healing and they listened to my tapes or come to a meeting, and they just get one word. God speaks a scripture to them and, boom! You know, it says in Psalms 107:20, God sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from all their destructions. Proverbs, chapter 4, God’s word is health unto all of your flesh, and when you receive a Revelation of God’s word, it brings healing to you. I just was with a woman, I think it’s been less than ten days ago, and this woman was healed of cancer, stage four ovarian cancer, sent home to die, I ministered to her, prayed with her, the Word of God came alive and she went back and went through one of those machines and had the nurse take a picture of her holding up a sign, and I forget exactly, but it was something about, Jesus healed me.
I am healed by the stripes of Jesus, and of course, the nurse thought she was crazy because she had stage four ovarian cancer. But when the doctors called her in to look at her reports, they said, we don’t understand, but you are absolutely cancer free, there is no trace of cancer. She was completely healed and the Word of God gave her wisdom, gave her exactly what to do. She was just one word away from being totally healed. There’s no person watching this program, I don’t care what your problem is, anywhere in the world, you could be in a totally different culture, you can be on the other side of the world, the Word of God is your answer for you exactly the same as it’s my answer.
There is no difference. The only difference is, you’ve got to believe this. You’ve got to mix the word with faith. You’ve got to take this seed and plant it in your heart. It won’t germinate and it won’t release this power until you put it in your heart, and this is where the vast majority of people are missing it. They’re praying for their healing, they’re praying for their prosperity, they’re praying for their deliverance, they’re praying for wisdom and direction, but they’re praying and just waiting on God to supernaturally do something outside of the word. I’m telling you, the way for change, the way to grow is to take these seeds, the Word of God, plant it in your heart and it will convert your soul, it will make you wise, it’ll make the simple wise, and you know, it’s important here the word «Simple» it can apply to a person who’s not very smart, but it also is talking about a person who’s just simple, pure.
You aren’t multi-tasking all of the time. You’re just focused. Like Paul said in Philippians, chapter 3 this one thing I do. The word «Simple» here is just talking about a person who is focused and committed to God and just simply taking him at his word and trusting him. You know, you can get too complicated. I had one of my Bible college students come up to me last week and she was crying and she says, this has changed my life. She says, I used to love God when I was a little girl, but she says, I got into all of this stuff and I just complicated it and I got to where I lost the joy of her salvation and she said she’s back in Bible college, she is studying the word and she says, it’s wonderful, but then she says, but it is so simple, she says, and I keep thinking something’s wrong because this is so simple, and I said, nope.
It’s exactly that simple. I said, religion is what’s complicated it and made it hard, but it’s as simple as God loves you and there’s nothing you can do to make him love you more, there’s nothing you can do to make him love you less. You just need to simply trust him, and I tell you, this is one of the ways that you can use this word «Simple», that if you will just be simple like that and trust him and go to him and focus on him, the Word of God will make wise the simple.
I’m out of time today, but I’ve got a lot more to share about this. I’ll tell you, this is something that is an in-exhaustive subject. It’s just all through the Word of God. Let me mention again all of these materials, our living commentary, where I’ve written footnotes on over 18,000 verses in the Bible. We have this free thing, that if you would call and ask for it, it’s a Bible reading guide that’ll take you through the word in one year, and then we have CDs, DVDs, a book and a study guide on Effortless Change.