Bill Johnson - The Keys to Emotional and Mental Health
All right, I’ll give thanks. Okay, thank you, thank you. Sorry, still have gum in my mouth. Careless, sorry. Well, good morning! It’s still morning; there are 27 minutes left of morning. The drought is over; thank you, Jesus! I mean, it’s really over. Did anyone experience that thunderstorm yesterday? That was like God saying, «Amen, it’s over!» It’s like it’s over, huh? Tonight’s going to be so much fun! I missed last year. I made that the Gospel Night, and so many of our community were able to minister to so profoundly. I missed it this year. I don’t forget where I was; I was somewhere else besides here. I begged—I didn’t get pitiful, but I begged—that they would do it again, and I’m so glad they’re going to do it again tonight. So, it’s just going to be outrageous and wonderful, and I’m just thankful in advance.
A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with five- and six-year-olds. After explaining the commandment to honor thy father and mother, she asked, «Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?» Without missing a beat, one little boy, the oldest in his family, answered, «Thou shalt not kill.» That really touched him! A kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom while the students were drawing. She would occasionally walk around to see each child’s work, and she got to one little girl who was working diligently. She asked what she was drawing, and the girl replied, «I’m drawing God.» The teacher paused, commenting, «But no one knows what God looks like.» The girl responded, «They will in a moment.» That sounds like one of the kids in our schools—welcome! Sounds like, «Oh yeah, they will in a moment.»
The little girl was talking to her teacher about whales. The teacher stated, «It’s physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because, even though it is a very large mammal, its throat is very small.» The little girl stated, «Jonah was swallowed by a whale.» Irritated, the teacher repeated, «A whale could not swallow a human; it’s physically impossible.» The little girl said, «When I get to heaven, I will ask Jonah.» The teacher responded, «What if Jonah went to hell?» The little girl replied, «Then you ask him.» Hmm, oh wow! That was kind of scary.
I’d like for you to open your Bibles to the Gospel of John. There we go, sorry, I apparently have been in the Gospel so much lately, it just automatically was coming out of my mouth. To the book of Joshua—I don’t know if you do this. Joshua chapter one, especially verses 5 to 9, are verses I review actually very, very often. It’s kind of like my cabin in the mountains, the place I go to for rest and refreshing—oh, not to kill animals, sorry! I have been thinking about a cabin in the mountains as a place to find refreshing.
I have different places throughout Scripture where I go, and I will pray, read, and meditate. I think about them for great periods, and this is one of them. This is actually probably one of the top three most important passages in my life for the last 40-plus years, so it has that kind of role. I’ve taught on it before; I’ve talked about it many times through the years. But I’m not going to take a different twist; I want to refine my focus for you this morning because I believe there is a tool in here that is necessary for emotional and mental health. Emotional and mental health.
I’ve never seen a time in my life when there has been as great a battle over the mind as in the last few years, and the Lord has equipped us with tools that are not just necessarily useful; they are edifying. They are wonderful tools that He gives us about life, and one of the byproducts is that it helps us in these areas. So, that’s what we’re going to do. Joshua, chapter one: this is about Joshua receiving the baton, or the «baton» if you’re from one of those other places, from Moses. This is where the Lord speaks to Joshua and says, «Moses, my servant, is dead; his job is now your job, basically.» And here’s something to remind yourself: Joshua is now leading the descendants of the people who first received the promise about the Promised Land. They didn’t get it, although God promised it to them.
Larry Randolph helped me understand this much better a number of years ago. He said, «God fulfills all of His promises, but He is not obligated to fulfill our potential.» Sometimes, the Lord gives us a promise that actually carries with it an invitation to potential—a possibility to a realm of maturity, development, and conquest, whatever it might be. The Kingdom of God in the Old Testament, of course, was a—the Promised Land in the Old Testament was a type of the Kingdom of God in the New. In the Old Testament, it was a geographical area that we will read about in a moment, and they were to inherit this vast piece of land. They would divide it up according to tribes, then divided it up according to family; that was their inheritance. It was a land that was so prosperous, so rich, and so wonderful that the Lord described it as a land flowing with milk and honey—in other words, it had abundance in everything that was right, and it was their inheritance.
When the twelve spies went in to check out the land, they came back saying, «It’s true; it’s a land flowing with milk and honey, but there are giants there. There’s a very well-equipped military throughout this land.» Remember, these are the children of slaves who are now supposed to go in and have military conquest; they have zero training whatsoever. So, these folks are very intimidated. They come back with a report saying, «Yes, it’s a land flowing with milk and honey; the giants are there.» Then they said something very eye-opening: «We are like grasshoppers in our sight.»
In other words, they are here, and the giants are there, and there’s no way they can measure this challenge. Because of their unbelief, they disqualified themselves for the very thing God had promised. There is a part of the promise over your life and mine that requires active faith to fully apprehend and step into. This notion that «if it’s meant to be, it will just happen» is nonsense; it’s absolute nonsense. It’s absolute careless and lazy theology. There is a responsibility in this long journey to continuously exercise faith in pursuit of what God has promised. I feel better having said that. Alright, let’s just get into this, and I’ll fix whatever I break later.
Alright, let’s go. Verse 1: After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, saying, «Moses, my servant, is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, as I said to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon, as far as the Great River, the river Euphrates, and all the land of the Hittites, to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not leave you nor forsake you.»
Stop right there; let me kind of connect the dots concerning the kingdom, and then we’ll read verses 5 through 9. This is actually the part that I return to on a regular basis; it’s my cabin. Alright, when we talk about the Old Testament Promised Land, it is, in the natural, a picture of the New Testament concept of the Kingdom of God. It is the fact that when you enter a realm of maturity, a realm of conquest—in some cases, it’s like a territory that you inherit. When you experience joy, when you experience deliverance, when you experience healing, whatever it might be—it’s always an invitation to a realm in God that you actually inherit: the Kingdom, the King’s domain. It’s the realms of God’s dominion that we step into. Jesus announced to us that the kingdom is at hand, and then He would say, «If I cast a demon out of you by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon us.»
He’s actually describing realms of personal inheritance. Here’s somebody who’s tormented at night; they don’t sleep because of an abusive upbringing, whatever it might be. They have a rough time with their life. Jesus comes along, or you come along, and minister to them, breaking off that power; suddenly, they sleep at night. What is that called? That’s called the kingdom of God, the realm of God’s dominion. I just received a report this week of another person who had throat cancer that was healed here. They came and were delivered, set free of throat cancer. What is that? That’s the kingdom of God, the realm of God’s dominion that has no cancer, coming upon this person’s throat and driving it from them.
Recently, we have had five cases that I know of of Lyme disease in the last five weeks. It actually happened in a three-week period—five people with Lyme disease who were healed, 38 years, 38 years, and 10 years, mostly bedridden for 10 years. I watched as the Spirit of God flooded everything that was wrong out of her body. If you could imagine having a vase with dirt in the bottom, and you just keep pouring water until all the dirt is flushed out, that’s exactly what happened. The Spirit of God came upon her, and I have a video of her running around her swimming pool. She’s been incapable of doing that for ten years, bedridden. As a result, two little girls, aged eight and eleven, who were also bedridden with juvenile arthritis were completely healed. I have a video of them doing jumping jacks with their mom—things they were incapable of doing.
The point is we see the kingdom, the kingdom that has no affliction, come upon their bodies and literally flush out everything that the enemy tried to do to steal, kill, and destroy their lives. What is the kingdom? It’s all of that. It is the promised land for the believer. It sometimes includes financial blessings and prosperity in business, but we never want to make the mistake of equating spiritual maturity with income and possessions; neither do we want to equate spiritual maturity with poverty. Let’s throw out both; they’re stupid ideas. God wants to bless you more than you can imagine. Alright, I’ll crawl into a hole and make a mess; I can see it.
Alright, verse five: «No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you.» Be strong. Here’s where we have the words of instruction; I want you to pay attention here: «Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you would divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be very strong and very courageous, that you may be able to observe all according to the law which Moses, my servant, commanded you.» The law of Moses was the Word of God they had at that time, so we can substitute that for the Word of God, the scriptures you now have.
How many of you have your Bibles with you? Let me see them; let me hold mine up. I’m just taking a roll, just trying to see. Alright, we’re talking about the Word of God now. The Word of God, in this case, the law Moses, my servant, commanded you: «Do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go.» Please notice prosperity and success are biblical terms. We can’t let Wall Street’s definition affect our position because real prosperity starts on the inside. So, the target of the Lord is for everyone in this room to be ridiculously prosperous, but His target is the inner world—my emotional and mental health.
Alright, verse eight: «This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you will meditate on it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. Then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.» I thought the Lord did it. He gave you the tools. I get the same response from that drama back there. Then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Say this with me: «I am responsible for my own prosperity; I am responsible for my own success.» Oh, Jesus help us! We need a nation of people right now who will take responsibility and not expect some government to do it. Alright, I have more to say, but for all of our safety, I will be quiet. Verse nine: «Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid; do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.»
How many of you have ever become so anxious over something that it kept you up at night, with that thing going through your mind all night long? And you couldn’t sleep, but you’re all right. So, we know how to meditate. Now we just have to change the subject matter. This passage of scripture shows us how many times he has to say it: be strong, be courageous, be very strong, be very courageous. Did you hear me? I said, be strong, be courageous. Don’t be dismayed, don’t be fearful, don’t become anxious. He gives all these commands, but not one time does he tell you how. He just says, be strong, very courageous, and then he says, you’re going to make your own way prosperous; you’re going to make your own way successful.
Then he gives one little, extremely profound sliver of advice—not advice, a command; a sliver of instruction that makes everything else in the verses possible. He says, but you shall meditate on this word day and night. I think biblical meditation is probably the most neglected area of Christian discipline in the body of Christ in our country. There’s Western meditation, which is intellectual; there’s Eastern meditation, which is to empty your mind; and there’s biblical meditation that is unlike either of those two. I want to read to you the definition of this word meditation. By the way, if you’re taking notes, I don’t know if we’ll get to it or not, but the first Psalm, Psalms number one, is a parallel passage to Joshua chapter one; it runs very, very similar themes.
All right, so let me read this definition to you: it means to reflect, to moan, to mutter, to ponder, to make a quiet sound, such as a sigh, to meditate or contemplate something as one repeats the words. It represents something quite unlike the English meditation, which may be a mental exercise only. In Hebrew thought, to meditate upon the scriptures is to quietly repeat them in a soft droning sound while utterly abandoning outside distractions. From this tradition comes a specialized type of Jewish prayer called davening, which is reciting text, praying intense prayers, or getting lost in communion with God while bowing or rocking back and forth. If you’ve seen people at the Wailing Wall, this rocking is actually a physical response to biblical meditation. It is repeating a matter, which is what you do in biblical meditation.
All right, so rocking back and forth evidently comes from David’s time, thus called davening. This is from Dick Mills in his work-study book. Often what we do is we read scripture, we say amen to what we read, we’re encouraged by what we read, but the Lord has actually given us instruction that in many ways determines the measure of our success, our impact, our prosperity. Again, I don’t mind talking about money in this context, but it’s not my focus today at all. It’s not about boats, planes, and mansions; it’s about being as wealthy as Bill Gates is on the outside. You and I can be that wealthy on the inside. There’s that kind of abundance here that I have to spend my life trying to figure out how to give all this encouragement away because I’ve got so much. That place of prosperity—could it be possible that God would bless you more on the inside than someone like Bill Gates or others are blessed on the outside?
Yes, it’s possible because we tap into an eternal, unlimited kingdom. It is the Lord’s design that we actually enter into places of personal victory that are equal to the kinds of victories we see by great corporations, etc. All right, so back to the point: the Lord would cause you and me to be a people who have triumphed in our personal journey with Him to such an extent that there are conquests similar to those seen in military conquests, business conquest, and other parts of life, like sports, etc. Instead, what he says is directly tying this one tiny little sliver of insight and command to meditate, even where he says this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth.
That’s actually one of the expressions of meditation. It is the fact that there is just—I’m not saying you have to rock—but I want to illustrate that there is this repeating theme: God spoke a word to me. Let’s take—I remember times I’ve been in a really difficult place financially, and I needed a miraculous break. I found this verse in Psalms 127. In fact, for months now, I’ve been reading Psalms 127 to 128 every day because they are family Psalms, and I love to pray them over my household. So let’s go back to this verse, where He says He provides for His beloved even while they sleep.
I will take this verse in a time of personal great need, and I will just pray and say, «God, You said in Your word that You provide for me even while I’m sleeping. God, I celebrate the fact that I work hard for You and give that to You, but Your work for me is far greater than my work for myself. You have unlimited resources; You have precious resources. You provide for me out of the riches of Your glory, which is vast and uncontainable in any vessel. God, I thank You that Your abundance pours toward me and that You’ve actually assigned a measure of breakthrough into my life, my family, and my family line. God, I confess, I declare, I sing before You: You provide for me even while I sleep.»
What is it? There’s just this repeated prayer. It’s not just a ritual or a religious routine; what’s happening is my interaction with what God has said is now becoming a part of the fabric of my being. Lastly, I would say it has become cellular in us; it becomes something that is so much a part of us that it is woven into our actual personality and affects how we think and live. It’s not a two-minute reciting of a verse; it’s a lifetime of engagement with what God has said. Now, the Scriptures tell us, «Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.»
God is saying you’re alive because I talk. You’re alive because I talk. Everything about you thrives because I have spoken; I have deposited through word. I have transferred from my world to yours through a decree. When we take that word seriously and prayerfully consider it—I’ve done this—I put it on a three-by-five card and stick it on the dashboard of my car if I have distance to drive. I just have that to look at to refresh my mind. I may be able to quote it without the card, but I look at it anyway because I want everything about me to be engaged. I speak it because I want my ears to hear it. I see it with my eyes because I want my eyes to see it. I speak with my mouth because I want to participate with God in saying what He is saying. Jesus only said what His Father said. If you want to learn to say what the Father sang, then start saying what He has said. Start declaring what He has already said. Oh, thank you! That’s probably a very important—oh yeah, a very important note. All of my notes are scribbled; important notes.
Alright, so here we have this invitation by the Lord on this relational journey where we do more than simply read a text. We are alive at a time when we are inundated with many words, ideas, concepts, and principles that are so Antichrist in nature. Sometimes they’re easy to spot because you know the devil wears a red rubber suit and carries a pitchfork; it’s not hard to see. Other times, it’s so interwoven into our culture, maybe our own personal history, that we don’t recognize it at all. It’s just become a part of us. Until you get exposed to something more than just on an eye level or an intellectual level, but through this interaction with God Himself, who is the Word, suddenly things start standing out to me.
Now, wait a minute. It’s like that abortion movie; something that was acceptable is no longer acceptable. Suddenly, you start seeing from a different perspective because the interaction of the Word in you actually rewires your capacity to see and to think. It is meditation; it is an ongoing encounter with God. It is an ongoing experience where we harness our thoughts and emotions, aligning them with what God has said. Suddenly, we begin to carry the shape of that very Word. Here, Joshua was told that his success, personal and corporate prosperity as a nation, was dependent upon them not letting this depart from their mouths. Not letting it depart from their mouths is the expression of biblical meditation. I keep it in front of me; everything that is commanded here: «Be strong; be courageous; don’t be dismayed; keep the Word in your mouth.» All these things are connected to this one simple assignment: meditate on what God has said. It’s the lost art of meditation. We are inundated with words, with ideas, with thoughts that are so contrary to the kingdom.
I grieve as I watch people I know in the body of Christ adopt things that are so contrary to the kingdom of God. They don’t just adopt them in the sense that they no longer resist; they even begin to promote these things they were once very much against—Christ Antichrist thoughts and ideas. I like the internet myself; I love that you can find almost anything on it. Sometimes I think, «What can I find today?» I used to shop for certain items years ago, but I’m not going to mention them because people tend to buy me stuff, and I have to be careful about what I say. It makes me nervous. There was an item, and I’m not going to say what it was, but I used to go in the mall and see it in the window. I would think, «Man, I wish I could afford that.»
At that time, sixty dollars felt like a million to me. Then, several years ago, I realized I had sixty dollars, so I did a little research online. I found what I couldn’t afford forty years ago, and now I can afford it. It’s just a little more than sixty now, but that’s okay. I love the internet, but there’s so much garbage out there. When I watch movies, I last about five minutes on most of them. I watch and then say, «Yeah, I see where this is going,» and I turn it off. There’s so much bombardment on our minds and emotions, trying to draw us into weightiness and heaviness that isn’t our reality. Even if you don’t have the internet or a TV, you still have to walk into a grocery store where the values of another world are everywhere. The point I’m trying to make is that being strong in this hour will take more than a few verses of a devotional on a Tuesday morning.
You have to interact with God Himself, who is the Word. That is interwoven with how you think, feel, react, respond, and plan. Everything is connected. I have taken the time to meditate, to utter, to moan, to rehearse, to bring up over and over again, to put into my own words, to put into His words, to gather other scriptures, to put them together, to make them prayers, to make them confessions, and to sing them as songs. Just don’t try to write a song that Bethel Music could record. That often causes a lot of people not to write a good song because they try to make it recordable. Honestly, it might not be a good song to record, but God will value it if it’s authentic. So, just let it be honest, and sing! I’m serious—sing to Him! «You are the one who provides. While I sleep, I can find peace in Your abundance. Your heart for me is beyond anything I could imagine. God, I celebrate who You are. You provide for me even while I sleep.»
Take this and begin to sing it throughout your day. Why? Because that’s biblical meditation. Somehow the heart, the mind, and the emotions become trained in the mind of Christ. This missing art of biblical meditation must be restored. I believe it’s the most essential ingredient for the season in which we’re living. Why don’t you look with me at Psalms 1? We’re going to read just a couple of verses, and hopefully, it will make sense to you. Several years ago, I faced a challenging physical issue: I had a growth in my small intestine, and I reached a point where I couldn’t eat, and eventually, I couldn’t drink. I sat in a recliner for four long days before I moved to a hotel in San Francisco and then eventually into a hospital room. My practice became to sit with the scripture or to sit with my iPad and listen to prophetic words over my life. This biblical meditation kept me alive. My sanity might be questionable for some of you regarding me, but we’ll just leave that where it is. At least in my version of sanity, it has been my life source. I took what God has said and reviewed it over and over again.
Again, I don’t care if I have read the verse a thousand times; I need it one more time. You’ll take that verse and just begin to pray. He says in His Word that no one is able to remove you from My hand. God, I give You thanks; I give You thanks that my life is firmly in Your hand. Your strength protects me; Your grip on my heart keeps me safe. God, I honor You as the Father who delights in me as a son. You just take this, process it; it’s more than a two-minute moment in the morning—it’s a lifestyle that begins to affect and infect how we think, how we pray, what we declare, what we say. I sat there for hours, just reviewing, breathing it in again, watching the video again, turning to Joshua Wong, which I did repeatedly, reading this Psalm that has been such a life source for me again and again. I’m telling you, it is a source of mental health for us forever, but especially in this season.
All right, Psalms 1, verse 1: «Blessed is the man or woman who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly.» Excuse me just a second; I need to gag. Okay, we cast it out. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. My grandma, my mom’s mom, would quote this first Psalm all the time. I can hear her sing it as I’m reading. I think she’s a little concerned about me, maybe because she would quote this one to me a lot: «nor sits in the seat of the scornful.» Yes, Grandma, yes, I get it. Yes, Grandma, I’m doing my best. «His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law, He meditates day and night. He will be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; whatever he does shall prosper.»
This is a tandem passage to Joshua chapter 1. Now, we’ve heard recently that the drought in all of California is officially over—thank you, Lord Jesus—thank you, Lord. Even that, I’d like to suggest, the trees along the Sacramento River were never informed that there was actually a drought. The trees along the river never knew; they never knew there was a drought. The one who meditates on the Word does not go through the seasons of drought that others experience because the roots start reaching down into these subterranean streams and tap into the rivers of God, where there is always more than enough—always more than enough. The Word of God flows from His heart toward you and me continuously; it is 24/7. It’s why David would say, «I wake in the night watches, and I consider Your works; I awaken in the night watches while I lie on my bed. I consider Your Word.»
He meditates and prays over these words that have been spoken over his life. When you’re in bed and wake up at night, you might as well make it useful; you might as well make it useful. I do! If I have a verse, let’s just say the Psalms 127 verse provides, «I wake up in the night, God, I just thank You; You are providing for me even right now while I sleep,» or whatever verse seems to fit your situation. You take that, prayerfully consider it, and pray it automatically. It’s better to wake up with a purpose than to wake up in anxiety and fear. I’ve said it many times: we have had better days if we have had better nights, and this biblical meditation on Scripture, engaging with the presence of the Spirit of God, is a huge part of our own personal triumph in the victory. So here he says, «His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law, He meditates day and night. He will be like a tree planted by rivers of water that brings forth fruit in its season; the leaf never withers. Whatever he does, he prospers.»
Again, I want to connect the bounty of the soul to biblical meditation on His Word. It’s the groaning, the muttering, the praying, the quoting, the declaring, the broadcasting, the singing, the rehearsing—every application of what God has said over your life. Something happens to the heart of faith in that atmosphere. There are three things that I am aware of this morning that we have been given an invitation and a command to meditate on. One is the Word of God. Whatever God says, mark it! I can take you to two portions of Scripture in here. I’ve got one and the book of Habakkuk that the Lord spoke to me in August of 2009, and I have a little date next to it. There is a passage there that I will pray, I will sing, and I will declare it. I will do all those things to this because He spoke to me. He highlighted it. Have your history with God in that Word.
So he meditated on the word, but the second thing, as we meditate on his ways, is that David would talk about waking in the night and considering the goodness of God, the greatness of God. Whatever it might be, he would contemplate the person of God himself who had chosen him, who has chosen you, who has chosen me. He would consider, for example, the mercy and kindness of God: «God, you are so kind; you could have rejected me a thousand times, time after time, and you didn’t. Instead, you showed kindness to me; you were patient towards me when I was impatient with myself, when everybody around me deserved to be impatient, and you were kind and patient with me. God, the way you have treated me is like I’m a treasure, and yet I would have been happy just to be an outcast, some distance from you, to at least live and not die. Yet your kindness changed who I am, changed how I think, changed what I believe, for it was your kindness that made it possible for me to actually have a hope-filled future. God, your ways are beyond measurement.»
What’s happening there? You’re interacting; your soul has become interwoven with his own, with his own nature, with his own heart. So we meditate on the word; we meditate on those ways. Then David would say in the Nightwatch, «I consider your works.» That’s the things that God does; it’s the pouring in of the presence of God into this dear one who has suffered for thirty-eight years, only to watch the affliction that had tormented her for all those years, through no fault of her own. The enemy comes to kill, steal, and destroy, and the Holy Spirit just poured out upon her, and we just watched as he kept pouring and pouring until eventually there was none of the crowd at the bottom of the vase left; it had all been washed away. It was one of the most simple moments of my life, watching him come and flutter. I thought, «It’s amazing!»
It’s amazing how you do this. It’s amazing that you could just flutter a soul, and the end result is thirty-eight years of affliction is over. You amaze me. What’s happening? Heart, mind, emotion—everything about us is just becoming interwoven with this very fabric of his own nature, of his own being as we interact with the greatness and significance of God. I’m telling you, biblical meditation, that little sliver of instruction, is the key to making your own way prosperous, finding your own way to success, and accomplishing what God has left you on the planet to accomplish. Jesus didn’t go through what he went through so we could sit in a pool and wait for the rapture. He has assigned us to be overcomers and conquerors, but I’m telling you it is not possible without embracing the tool that he gave us called biblical meditation for change in your heart. Help me, Jesus! Happy Jesus! Yes, help me! Not me right now, Lord. I do pray for an unusual gift of grace.
Remember, part of the word that Dick Mill’s definition—part of that word—meant to rid ourselves of distraction so that we can actually give ourselves to him. What happens is, we try to meditate when we’re in the middle of chaos. You know, start with the meditation so it shapes the remainder of your day. Father, I pray for this unusual gift to be given, a gift of biblical meditation to be imparted now through the word to every person in the room, our online Bethel TV family, and the same thing in every home and every church where this is viewed, that there would be an anointing for biblical meditation that changes how we think and how we interact with your word. Thank you, Lord.
In a crowd this size, there’s always a high probability that we have people here who have never been, as the Bible calls it, born again. That’s where there’s a moment of personal surrender to the absolute lordship of Jesus. It’s where we turn from our life serving ourselves, doing all that we can do to be right, to truly being a disciple, following the Lord Jesus Christ. If there’s anybody in the room who would say, «Bill, that’s me. I don’t want to leave this building; I don’t want to leave this property until I know I’ve been forgiven by God, that I know I’ve been brought into his family, that I know I have peace with God now and forever.» If there’s anybody in that position, put your hand up right now. By doing so, you’re just saying, «Bill, I don’t want to leave until I know I’m right with God.» Put a hand up real fast because I’m just going to wait a moment. There may be those even online who are doing this; I encourage you to respond to Jesus now. Respond to him now. You know, we had two or three in the morning service. Is there anybody at all? If not, I’m going to assume you’re all in. Why don’t you go ahead and stand?