Bill Johnson - Rewards and Motives
The journey is merely a relational journey, and in this journey, He adds all these things. Yes, He brings blessings; yes, He brings prosperity; He does all those things. But it’s such an interesting journey because anyone who builds a relationship with God based on what they will get out of the relationship is actually pouring dirt into the cement, causing it to become so weakened that there’s not a foundation big enough to hold any significant structure. What the Lord wants from those who follow Him is the simplicity and purity of devotion.
Is there anyone here who was in an automobile accident involving three cars? Let me ask that first. Anyone here involved in any kind of accident with three cars? Alright, we’ve got several of you. Do any of you still have lingering injuries or results from that accident? Keep your hand up. Alright, all of you do. Why don’t all three of you—four or five, however many there are—just stand up? Which one of you had an injury to the ribs and still has lingering effects from that injury? There was also an injury to the neck and back over here, right? And there’s an issue with the right hip as well. This may be a separate accident; there’s someone who has an issue with the right hip, and it goes all the way down to the right ankle. Is that anyone in this room? Overflow, is that you? Okay, that’s fine.
Also, is there someone here who had a blow to the head? I don’t know what caused it, but some kind of blow to the head that affects your ears. It may or may not be your hearing; it could be ringing in the ears, something of that nature. Stand up if that’s you. Alright, yeah, just stand up. Some kind of blow to the head that actually affected the ears. I’m not positive it’s just hearing loss, although we’ve seen that healed.
Let’s see, who has the issue with the injury to the ribs on the right side? Is that you right here? You have that issue? Alright, okay, and you as well—just stand up. Alright, yeah, how long ago did you injure the ribs? The hearing? Sorry, ribs. I’m looking for ribs, but you keep standing.
Ribs, who’s got ribs? Alright, yeah, you all have ribs! Now, is there anyone here with a terminal disease, terminal disease of any kind? Anyone with cancer, ALS, any of those kinds of things? I want you to stand back here. I want to give Jesus the opportunity to demonstrate how much He hates terminal disease—how much He hates disease. So we’re just going to pray very simple prayers of faith over these folks. If you have a terminal disease, I want you to stand in the aisle. Just move to the aisle and stand there; the rest of you stay where you are.
Alright, excellent! Now we have a great host of folks—friends that are watching. Actually, the church is just growing really all over the world, so we want to honor those who are with us online. Those of you that are online, if you have any of the conditions that were described, do something. Stand up in your living room; if you’re in a small group or a church that’s watching this, do some kind of response to indicate before the Lord that you’re ready for His miracle.
What I’m going to ask is for people to surround these individuals. I need one more thing: is there anyone here who went through some kind of a traumatic injury, like an automobile accident or something of that nature, and ever since then your digestive system has been messed up? Who is that? Is that you right here? Okay, is there someone else? Back over here as well?
Alright, so make sure that you’re standing. Church, I want you to surround these folks and just pray—pray aggressively over them. I realize there are not that many standing, so you’ll have to pray long distance, but please do so. We don’t need to beg God to heal anyone; He’s already determined to do so. What I want you to do is find out what the injury or problem is. There is specifically someone with hearing loss, damage to the right ear; the Lord is restoring that. There’s someone who has some sort of injury to the right ankle, and it caused damage to the tendons, ligaments in that right ankle. There’s actual weakness, and it could even be numbness, but at least weakness. Is that you back here? Anyone else who has that?
Alright, take a look around you because there are more people. Make sure you stand with them. If you stood for that, wave your hand so someone can agree with you. Alright, right here, excellent! There’s another one back here—one over here to my left, excellent! Those of you online, do the same thing—just join your faith with ours. We’re declaring over these folks right now, in Jesus' mighty name: ears open! The torment of the ringing in the ears, we declare to you: you must stop now in the name of the Lord Jesus! You must stop now—the broken ribs, the injury to the neck—we declare that Jesus makes all things new. He makes all things new.
Who has ever been in an accident in their life and now has arthritis where they were injured? I want you to stand quick. If you’re not already standing, stand up and put a hand up if you have arthritis now where you were injured. Okay, look around; some of you need to gather around these. Find out where the arthritis is. Lay your hand on that. The enemy likes to be attracted by old injuries, and he works to sustain that injury through arthritis. I want you to just join with me and stand against that affliction, in Jesus' name.
Now, I want to hear you pray, church. I want to hear you pray! That’s right, Jesus makes all things new. He makes all things new. There’s someone else that was in an accident and injured the right shoulder. The right shoulder—who is that? Just a bunch of stuff on the right side going on tonight! So right here, make sure you lay hands on them. Put your hand up again, right shoulder. Yep. You guys just lay hands on him, on that right shoulder.
Thank you, Lord! Those of you that aren’t close to anyone, at least extend your faith. Just join with those who are praying, seeking breakthrough for these folks. Thank you, Lord! If you’re praying for someone who had an injury of any kind, I want you just to rebuke trauma—just command the effects of trauma, the spirit of trauma, to be broken off their lives. We just declare their body is government property; this is a violation---trespassing on government property! Cancer be gone in Jesus' name!
Okay, we’re going to take just a moment longer and then we’ll see what’s happening. Thank you, Most High God. Alright, go ahead and end your prayer, but stay right with the person. I realize that not everything we just prayed for can be tested, but I want you to test yourself anyway. Just move in a way you couldn’t move, do something to see what the Lord has done. If it was an issue with hearing, ringing in the ear—if you need to go out where it’s quiet to find out if the ringing is still there, do that. Do whatever you need to do.
Now, how many of you are able to testify that you’re at least 80 percent better? I want you to wave both hands over your head like this until your arms cross. We want to see who you are! Back over here, down over here—there’s another one there. Yes, we thank you, Lord! Right? Yep. Thank you, Lord! Right down over here, beautiful!
Turn and pray again—do this again for another two minutes and then we’ll wrap it up. Go ahead, just do it again. We just declare the Lord Jesus heals you! The Lord Jesus heals you! Thank you, Lord!
Alright, I’m going to ask all of you to stand if you would, and end your prayer. All of you that had anything you can examine, I want you to check yourself. Anyone who is at least 80 percent better—we say that because healings are progressive—anyone who is at least 80 percent better, please check yourself, wave your hands over your head like this. Beautiful! We got over here, yeah—right over here—another one there! Thank you, God! Down here. Beautiful!
I want everyone to stand, if you would. We’re going to pray one more prayer together, and I just need you standing for this one. Actually, you could probably pray sitting down, but I feel better if you’re standing. Put a hand on the shoulder of someone next to you. We’re going to pray for something. I want you to ask the Lord to release divine health into their life. Pray it right now: divine health, divine health, divine health—supernatural health in every area. God, we say, even let us age more slowly—might as well throw it in there! Come on, divine health to ourselves, our family members! Show us the secrets, Lord, of divine health. We pray this in Jesus' name.
Alright, you did good. He did good! Just bless someone and be seated. I want you to open your Bibles to Luke chapter 18, if you would. You know, divine health has nothing to do with the message; it’s just been on my mind for a long time. Israel had it in the wilderness and they didn’t know God; they weren’t born again. They ended up dying in the wilderness. I mean, God actually gave them such a measure of breakthrough that even their clothes didn’t wear out. I know that’s bad news for many women who just like to change, but even their clothes didn’t wear out. To me, it’s—we’re under a better covenant, and these things have to matter enough that you cry out for them. They’re not just supposed to be history lessons; they’re not just supposed to be empty promises that make us feel good about heaven. They’re actually supposed to be things we’re willing to go to war for, we’re willing to get along with God for, lift our voices, contend for. This is supposed to matter.
To me, it would be tragic to come to the end of time and have the only generation that lived in divine health be a people that were in rebellion against God—died in the wilderness; they weren’t born again. So this is called a better covenant. Let’s find out what it looks like. Some things are just better if it’s a corporate breakthrough—not just an individual breakthrough. And so that’s why I mentioned it here tonight. I’ve mentioned it before a number of times, but it’s been several years, so I just declare over you now. Let’s just contend for this; let’s just contend for it! Let’s change our way of thinking that only assumes that certain things happen later in life, for example, «Well, it’s just what happens when you get older; your eyes get weak,» or whatever it might be, arthritis or whatever. You know, that’s just nonsense! Just show it to me in the covenant, then I’ll believe it! If it’s not in what He said, then we can’t tolerate it.
Because as we were told years ago, what you tolerate will dominate. We don’t want to lessen the standard. Don’t ever feel guilty or filled with shame or any of that stuff if you’re dealing with a physical affliction. Don’t go that direction! But also, don’t assume that it’s God’s will when it doesn’t exist in heaven. Let’s just learn what that looks like.
So, alright, Luke chapter 18. We’re going to do a little different kind of study. I don’t think it’s very long. I actually shared it earlier today at one of the meetings—the noon meeting—and there are two stories that are back to back. Jesus—I get so moved by seeing how He ministered to people because every time He talked to somebody, it was different. Sometimes He just nailed them between the eyes; other times there was such gentleness. When He would nail people, it was never to shame; it was never to confuse; it was never to reject. It was always because that was the thing they needed to get to where He wanted them to be, where He wanted them to go.
Sometimes people would ask questions of Jesus, and He would give elaborate answers; other times, one gentleman asked Him about salvation or eternal life, and Jesus said, «Well, what does the law say to you?» So He never answered him. We often, in the place of learning to hear God, choose patterns and principles to live by—a one-size-fits-all kind of gospel message—because we don’t always learn how to hear in the moment how to touch this person in the best way possible. Jesus nailed it every time. He represented the Father perfectly.
When He tells the guy, He says, «What does the law say to you?» He quotes a few commandments. Jesus says, «Do that, and you’ll be fine.» He wasn’t being short with him; He wasn’t being rude; He wasn’t being callous towards him. He was helping a man to rediscover what he already knew—that he wasn’t obeying. If God didn’t do that, and He answered him, He would have been giving him greater understanding, greater revelation— which means greater accountability. If he hasn’t been obeying what he already knows, that’s not mercy—to increase the accountability for somebody who hasn’t obeyed what they already know.
One of the surest ways to increase the voice of the Lord in your life, to increase the spirit of revelation in our lives, is to obey what you know. Obedience actually is what attracts the voice of God for fresh things. So we’re going to read two stories, and these two stories are as different as can be. One is with a rich young ruler, and the other is Jesus talking about children. So let’s just jump right in here:
Verse 15. Luke 18, verse 15: «Then they also brought infants to Him that He might touch them, but when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to Him and said, 'Let the little children come to Me and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of God. Surely I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.'»
I often teach a contrasting passage to this. Do you understand that truth is held in the tension of things that seem to contradict? But they don’t; they actually complement one another when you understand the two sides of the same coin. In this particular case, we have Jesus commanding His disciples: stop rebuking the parents who are bringing Me their kids. Let them come to Me. Then He goes on, and gives us a magnificent understanding of the nature of the kingdom of God. He says, allow them to come to Me, because if you don’t receive the kingdom as a child, you can by no means enter.
So think about this: you can only enter what you’ve received. Contrast that with Matthew 11, where there’s progress in the kingdom. There’s entrance into the kingdom through the violence of faith. The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. So here, on one hand, we have this aggressive posture of faith; and on the other hand, we have children that just simply receive. As is the custom of believers throughout history, we tend to camp on one or the other instead of realizing that they represent seasons and circumstances—where there are times where if you sit and wait for something to be brought to you, you’ll be waiting till you die because it will not come.
There are certain things in our life that require a fight, and I am finding more and more believers, because of an entitlement-type culture that we are a part of, and because of the instant gratification that’s just a part of American culture, there are fewer and fewer people willing to contend and fight for things that would bring breakthrough. The Lord presents these two realities before us, and they are actually complementary to each other. One is to receive as a child; the second is to violently take by force. It’s violence in the kingdom that is the expression of faith.
Whenever the Lord is highlighting a situation or season for you where you obtain through the violence of faith, it’s because He wants you to learn your authority. But when He wants you to be still and receive by faith as a child, then He’s wanting you to learn your identity. There are seasons where the thing that’s on His mind is authority, and that’s what He wants us to know: how to use the authority that He’s given us. Then He switches it, and in the very next week, we have to be in a place of rest. We try to fight and get breakthrough and obtain this and obtain that. We confess, we declare, we march, we fast, we wave our flags, our tambourines, and every other Christian tool known to mankind, and we use them to bring breakthrough—and nothing happens! Because until we discover who we are and come to a place of rest in that identity, nothing is released to us.
So, these are two different seasons and two different approaches to the kingdom. How do you know what season you’re in? Just try the one you want, and if it doesn’t work, then try the other.
I wish I knew—there’s a certain percentage of my prayer life that fits in the frustration category. I know that most of you are too spiritual for that, but it fits in that category because I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I’m supposed to come out swinging or if I’m supposed to sit in the recliner and wait. It’s just one of those things you’ll never step into out of a principle; you’ll only step into it out of a relationship. A lot of what we try to do in the kingdom is reduce it to a concept instead of a walk, a journey.
So here we have this beautiful story where Jesus is so tender with children, and then we move right into the story of the rich young ruler. Verse 18:
«A certain ruler asked Him, saying, 'Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? ' And Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call Me good? No one is good but one, and that is God.'»
Here, Jesus is trying to help him discover a revelation. Can I put it in my own words? You’re right, I’m good, but you need to know why nobody’s good but God. You see the decision he’s about to make; he needs to understand who he is standing in front of. Because if he doesn’t know who he’s standing in front of, he may not be willing to pay the price that is needed for the challenge that God is about to bring into his life.
Verse 20: «You know the commandments: do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and mother.»
And he said, «All these things I have kept from my youth.»
When Jesus heard these things, He said to him, «You still lack one thing: sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Come and follow Me.»
It’s interesting—come and follow Me. There were 12 that were allowed to follow Him, and Jesus was giving him access to be one who could follow. I don’t know if he’d be one of the twelve or one of the seventy—I don’t know. He just had an opportunity to come and follow Jesus.
Here’s what you need to see: Jesus never uses the reward of following Him to entice someone to follow Him. He doesn’t use the promise of eternal life. This man is concerned about wealth. Jesus easily could have said, «Listen, this is how it works: seek Me first, and all these things I’ll add to you.» He never used the other parts of the story to get him to follow, because if you follow for any reason other than simply following Him to be with Him, your foundation is fragile and you will falter in difficult times.
The walk with the Lord has lots of reward and it has lots of costs. Anyone who has a foundation of seeking so that they can obtain will fall and falter.
The second thing about this part of the story: if this man follows Jesus because of what will happen to him— that all these things will be added—then he will always measure his success in his walk with the Lord by external things. It will never be measured by the relationship itself. Our seasons are so dramatically different. Like Paul said, I know how to abound; I know how to be in lack. If we measure the season we’re in by external conditions, we will come to the wrong conclusion.
The journey is merely a relational journey, and in this journey, He adds all these things. Yes, He brings blessings; yes, He brings prosperity; He does all those things. But it’s such an interesting journey because anyone who builds their relationship with God based on what they will get out of the relationship is actually pouring dirt into the cement, causing it to become so weakened that there’s not a foundation big enough to hold any kind of significant structure.
What the Lord wants from those who follow Him is the simplicity and purity of devotion where it’s not because of the outcome. Now, I’m usually the guy that talks about the outcome. I’m usually one talking about seeking first all these things that are added. He wants you to be significant, have impact in the course of history—all this stuff, the dreams fulfilled. This is who our Father is. But in this beginning of the journey, it’s vital that we come with no attachments.
I often describe it this way: when we come to the Lord, the Bible describes it as a straight and narrow road. It’s straight, so it’s not complicated. But it is narrow—it’s a narrow road to the kingdom. There’s one place of entrance: it’s Christ Jesus, and He is the entrance to a lifetime of communion and fellowship with the Father. There’s only one way—straight in, narrow road. Many believers, once they come into the kingdom, think it’s still a straight, narrow road. I don’t want to imply that once you’re into the kingdom, you get to be careless, because that would be a misinterpretation.
But in the kingdom, it’s different than the entrance to the kingdom, because in the kingdom, there are options that you didn’t have outside the kingdom. As you approach the Father, there are no options—there’s only one way. But in the kingdom, He says, «Pursue earnestly spiritual gifts.» He doesn’t tell you which ones because there are options.
We all have specific areas of life and ministry. We all carry a ministry of reconciliation, but all of us have unique expressions. He doesn’t try to buttonhole us because there are options; there’s uniqueness. You can be a vegetarian or you can be a meat-eater. Thank you for the latter, Jesus. But I’m serious—there are options! Paul actually talks about the honor that is supposed to exist for the person who differs. Why? Because in this kingdom, there are options!
See, it’s a broad road. It’s built so that you can succeed in this journey with the Lord. He tells this rich young ruler to sell everything. The guy’s really depressed afterward.
Verse 24: «Because he had a lot of stuff.»
Jesus says, «It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.» I’ve tried to picture that one since I was a child; never been able to get one hair at a time through the eye of the needle. I guess it can be done, but it might take a couple days. The disciples heard Jesus’s response. Just follow this now for a moment.
The disciples heard the response; they said, «Then who can be saved?»
Verse 26.
Verse 28: Peter said, «We left everything to follow You.»
In Mark’s Gospel, he explains this a little differently: «I will return to you a hundred times as much of what you left to follow Me.» But I will return it to you with persecution. I’m glad he said with persecution, because it was going to come anyway. But I’m glad he said with persecution, because we would be tempted to put that kind of a promise off into eternity.
We’d be tempted to put that into heaven, and he was saying, «No, this is for now. I’m going to return to you a hundred times what you gave up to follow Me, but it’s going to come with persecution.»
It’s going to come—I’m going to increase the income, but I’m also increasing the tax—the income tax. See, it’s the opposition, the criticism, the betrayal that keeps you honest. We want the increase of the anointing for the prophetic so that we can be more powerful, and He says, «I want to give it to you, but the tax will increase.»
I want a greater anointing for breakthrough; me too! But the tax will increase. Everything you laid down to follow Him, He celebrates, and He will return it way beyond what you ever could have imagined—that’s part of the deal! But Jesus never used that reality to get anyone to follow.
It’s interesting that in His journey with the disciples, He never did that. He just said, «Follow Me!» And I don’t know; how do you own a business in fishing, and somebody just walks up to you and says «Follow Me»? You leave everything? I mean, what is it about this Jesus that is so commanding that someone here follows Him, and something inside of them comes so alive that nothing else matters? How does that happen?
It wasn’t the result of a sermon—it wasn’t an altar call; it wasn’t, you know, a summer camp, or at the end they made a decision, «I’m going to follow Jesus.» It was just simply someone coming by the shore while they were cleaning nets, and Jesus said, «Follow Me!» Peter goes, «Done! I’m in!» What does that take?
It wasn’t facilitated by a musician or something; it was simply because when Jesus calls—there was something about Him! He said, «I no longer call you servants, I call you friends.»
Just because we sing the song «I am a friend of God» doesn’t mean I’m a friend of God. I don’t mean in any way that God would reject me; I’m just saying friendship takes time. You learn their voice; you recognize a friend who calls you on the phone because you’ve spent time with them. It’s frequent interaction.
It causes us to know: this is what they value; this is their favorite color. This is what they like to do on Sunday afternoons; this is their hobby. Whatever! We get to know them because of time together.
We know Jesus sometimes through a song, through a favorite Scripture. But we’ve been summoned into a relational journey. It was to the twelve that had been with Him for three and a half years that He said, «You can ask whatever you want.» He didn’t announce that to anyone who was in the crowd that would have welcomed a message like that in John 6 instead of «Eat My flesh; drink My blood.» They would have voted for that one any day over the drink blood thing that He was preaching. They would have bought right into that immediately; the increase in numbers in the altar call would have been massive.
But Jesus chose not to do that. Here’s my question for you: this man asked about eternal life, and Jesus gave him an answer that was perfectly fitting for him because Jesus saw the heart. Most of us would have led him in a prayer and tried to make him believe that he was fully surrendered to Jesus, but was he? He wouldn’t be any more saved after my prayer than he was with Jesus’s conversation.
The point isn’t to shame people or to lock horns with them or challenge them; that’s not the point. The point is, we tenderly love people and speak, and care and direct people into this relationship where it just makes sense: drop the nets. It’s just the most logical thing in the world to do. I don’t need the boat; it’s like we just leave things to come with. I mean, the farther you go with God, the less you can take with you.
He could have started the conversation with John 15:7: «Abide in Me; you can just see Him on the beach.» Peter’s never seen Him before. Jesus walks up and says, «Peter, abide in Me. My words abide in you; you can ask whatever you want, and it’ll be done.»
There would have been a whole bunch more than Peter that signed up for that one because they would have signed up for the stuff and not the relationship!
It’s all about the relationship. Anything I build on the reward—I believe in the reward so much; it’s a central part of the faith journey with the Lord—not the journey for salvation, but in the journey with the Lord. Once we’re born again, faith is an expression of our confidence in Him as the rewarder! That’s Hebrews 11!
I must believe He is the rewarder of those who seek Him. The confidence of Him being the rewarder is essential in our journey. I feel like the Lord—let me rephrase this—the shaking in our life reveals whether we’re in it for the journey or for all the things.
Because if I measure how well I’m doing by breakthroughs in these things, then my own self-esteem in Christ goes up and down, goes up and down. But if I see it for what it is, there’s a reward! He’s given me much more than I ever deserved. The next week there’s a challenge; this gives me an opportunity to draw nearer. It’s all about the journey and who I’m traveling with. See, it’s all for Jesus! It really is!
It’s not Jesus looking for entrepreneurs who know how to handle money; He just found one. There’s a prime candidate! Jesus doesn’t need anybody’s gift! He can bring revival through a rock if He wants to! He can anoint a camel to preach. I mean, do whatever He wants; He’s God!
Old Testament, He had a donkey preaching! He once announced, «I can raise up a whole generation to Abraham out of these rocks; trust Me! All I got to do is speak, and they come!» Not only that, I can get them to praise!
The point I’m trying to make is when the Lord—He doesn’t look for celebrities and all this stuff. He doesn’t look for the most talented people. I love talent; I do! I love human talent. I love the Olympics! I love the Olympics for that reason!
It’s just bizarre to me that people will train eight hours a day for four years, eight years, to run a ten-second race, and then it’s over! If they’re in first place, they won by, you know, a hundredth of a second! How does it come down to that? How do you develop skills like that?
I’m so impressed with these guys. I love human skills. I love the musicians, the actors, the actresses, the businesspeople who just have the intuition to know what to do culturally. They see what’s happening; they know how to invest. They know they fly over a city, and they know where the city is growing, so they invest in this land and that land. It’s just amazing to me—this natural wisdom and skill that God’s given people!
I love it all, but He doesn’t need any of it! He doesn’t look at the landscape and go, «Oh, this guy can really sing; I should get him saved.» He doesn’t think that way! He just finds people that have stuff and says, «Come on! You just can’t drag the boat with you.»
I’m not one who believes that that message of abandoning all is the mark of surrender to Christ, and you have to sell everything to do that. You know if He says for you to do it, you do it! That’s just the point.
But Jesus ministered to people differently. Mary, Martha, Lazarus—very wealthy people. He never said that to them! Why? Because it wasn’t at the center of their heart. See, He has laser vision.
He has that tenacity to go right to the root and the core of issues. With one person, it’s the bitterness regarding their past, but it’s the key to their breakthrough. To another person, it’s their whole vision for their life—they have to lay it down.
I always—it’s a strange analogy, I know—but I love the story with Moses and his rod. I use it for a lot of things because it speaks to me so deeply, but he’s got this shepherd’s rod that has been with him for, you know, the forty years that he had sheep in the wilderness. The thing about a shepherd’s rod is they would actually carve on this staff— it was like a diary.
This had like the record of a forty-year history—this is Moses. He could say, «This is my life as a shepherd; it’s all represented in this rod.» God comes along and requires of him what He required of His disciples: they had to leave everything!
Moses had to take the only thing that was significant in his life and throw it down!
Now you’re awake! I’m just glad I didn’t break this little light here, guys! Sorry! I almost—yeah, just take it out of my allowance!
So he throws this rod down, and you know the story—it becomes a snake! This is just this bizarre thing! Do you know whatever you have in your hand is a snake? You just don’t know it yet! That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be holding it; it just means you need to understand what you’re holding!
What did Pharaoh’s magicians do? They threw down their rods, and they became snakes! Right? What did Moses' rod do? It ate their snakes! So where is the power of the enemy? It’s in the belly of your snake; it’s in the belly of your authority!
So here we’ve got the snake down here. I don’t like snakes; I don’t like them in National Geographic—I know it’s not cool to kill snakes, so I won’t tell you. But when it was legal, there were a couple rattlesnakes that went to meet Jesus! They don’t make me happy! I don’t like them! Just tell Ben Armstrong because he collects them; he loves snakes!
So here’s the snake, and it’s a poisonous viper. It is my history with God; it’s my training. And as good as my training is, when I throw it down, I see it for what it is!
Then He says the most illogical instruction—except from God’s perspective, it’s perfect logic, perfect reason, absolute perfect intelligence! He says to Moses, «Pick up the snake—do it by the tail.» I’m not a snake guy, but the one thing I do know is you don’t pick up snakes by the tail!
So what does that mean Moses has to do? He has to pick up the snake by the tail! I’m just scared to death one of these days I’m going to use this illustration and this mic stand is going to turn into something, and I’m going to be out in the Hebrews lobby while you guys deal with this thing!
So just between you and me. So he has Moses pick up the snake by the tail. As long as I hold it behind the head, I will be tempted to think my intelligence, my knowledge will keep me safe with this—that is dangerous!
But if I pick it up by the tail, I’m only safe when I hold it the way He says to hold it! It’s like He doesn’t mind me having stuff; He just wants me to hold it by the tail. He just wants me to live with the realization that I got it; I gave it to you!
Just hold on to it correctly, because if you hold it incorrectly, the very thing that is the blessing to you can turn against you. The very thing that is your tool to succeed in your assignment suddenly becomes the very thing that can threaten your life!
That’s the journey! It’s not—as C.S. Lewis says, of Aslan, in Chronicles of Narnia—in the whole seven books, Aslan is not a tame lion! This journey with this Jesus is not a tamed journey! It’s a journey where we have the privilege, day after day, of holding what He gives us in a way that He says to hold it so that we can see Him glorified by our continuous ongoing offering!
Because what I’ve learned is my «yes» 40 years ago—I meant it! But I say «yes» day after day after day, as we sang tonight—to reaffirm that decision!
Then in the same way with my wife! I said «I love you» to her many, many, many years ago when we got married! But I also say it many times a day now, because it’s still active; it’s still true!
The Lord wants us to not build our estimation of how well we’re doing on the journey by the externals. Now, next week or the next time I’m up here, maybe I’ll talk to you about how to get the breakthrough and the fulfillment of vision and all the other stuff that I love to talk about—but tonight, excuse me—but tonight, I want to hit just this one simple thought that is—that my evaluation of my life has nothing to do with all the things—the promotion, the favor, the home, whatever it might be, which I know are secondary important things, but they’re not primary.
Primary is that in crisis, I know who to talk to. I’m on a journey; He’s promised His voice to me. His presence is with me; He’ll never leave me. If I’m anxious, I lose sight of Him. If I’m anxious and angry or frustrated, I lose connection with Him, but He hasn’t left; I’ve just lost my awareness of His touch in my life.
The best thing I can do for me is just hold with confidence the snake by the tail—just believing I’m safe because He says I’m safe—and suddenly my moments in Him mean more!
I’m thankful for the house; I’m thankful for the promotion; I’m thankful for all the stuff! But the real treasure isn’t any of that—it remains the journey!
It remains that when I’m in trouble, He speaks. You know, if you took everybody in this room, and you took all of our life, our giftings, our history, our culture, our family line, and everything you inherit—spiritually, naturally—everything about our life, every experience, everything—just pile it high! Every issue of our life—if you strip away every one of those things, and you finally get down to that one thing that we all share together, the common denominator, the one thing would be: I called upon the name of the Lord, and He heard me! That’s the common denominator!
Everybody in this room has had that one moment where you heard Him speak to you; you became aware of the opportunity—and you called to Him, and He heard you, and He saved your soul! That’s the one thing everybody in this room has in common!
And holding to that tail, so to speak—holding to that, that God has released in my life—knowing it is the blessing of the Lord! But I will gladly throw it down; it is the blessing of the Lord, but I live with a purpose to honor Him with every action!
If I can hold it and glorify God, I will hold it till I die! If the best way to glorify Him is to throw it on the ground, then I throw it on the ground! Because it’s the journey; it’s the person I walk with; it’s not the «and all these things.»
So why don’t you stand? You know, it was interesting this afternoon at noon: I was, of course, over Twin View, and that particular service is a service for students. But I just kind of felt this strange prompting to have an altar call—to give people a chance to meet Jesus.
One gentleman raised his hand, who apparently was brought by one of the students—which was very cool! I was thinking of Lindsay Coyle. If you heard her this week, she had just got a revival group together, and it was the first day, introduction, and they were sitting together. She meant to say, «Do you have any questions?» Instead, she said something like, «Does anyone need to get saved?»
She doesn’t even know how that came out of her mouth because what was in her brain was, «Do you have any questions?» When you’re sitting with your revival group in second year, everybody in the school really should be born again by second year; it’s kind of one of those standards that we have!
Then Lindsay is in first year. Well, just let me finish my story, and it will make more sense, too. A lady in the group says, «I need to receive Jesus!» Then she says, «I’m not a student here; I was helping a friend of mine, who is a student, to come and happen to just be sitting with her in that class,» and she accidentally gave an altar call and actually—definitely got somebody saved!
So let me ask the question: is there anyone here that would say, «I want to follow Jesus! I want to follow Him completely, totally, wholeheartedly! I want to know what it is to be adopted into God’s family, what it is to be forgiven, what it is to surrender everything to the only one who has the right to run my life! I want to follow Jesus!»
Is anyone in that position? Would you just say, «Bill, I don’t want to leave until I know I’m at peace with God»? Just put a hand up real high, because I want to make sure that we give opportunity for everyone to be born again! Alright, looks like everybody’s in!
Alright, pretty cool! Look at the snake you got in your hand! Sorry, my mind’s one—what do you do when you go to bed at night? You lay it down! You don’t know what it’s going to be in the morning when you get up! You know, one of those deals.
How about we do this? I want us to pray the prayer again of absolute surrender to Jesus—absolute surrender to Jesus! I do this on a regular basis. I have to keep current; I have to keep current!
So put a hand on the shoulder of someone next to you. I want you just to pray for them that they would know what it is to live in absolute surrender—absolute surrender, absolute surrender! Pray for them to have clarity of heart that they would never judge their success by the «all these things.»
I love when God adds that stuff to our life—but I never want it to take me away from Him! I want it to accelerate my love for Him, enhance my love, my devotion to Him! So just pray that God give clarity of heart here—clarity of heart, clarity of mind, clarity of heart and mind to never judge our life by anything but our walk with You—the journey with You!
Now put your hand on your heart and just say this: «I say yes to the journey! I say yes to the journey!» Amen! Amen! I’m not sure what else to pray, so we’ll just end right there! Yes, amen!
Alright, oh yeah! When you minister to people, and you want to bring them to faith in Christ, don’t use rewards that He didn’t use. Let them know after they’ve said yes, because I don’t want—I don’t want to have any more that have dirt in their foundation. In the cement, it just weakens it!
I want to see solid! You know, for me, when we came to the Lord, Mario was going to be here a couple weeks ago, and he had a horrible injury to his back, so I’m hoping that he’ll be able to get here before the year is over.
But he changed my life, and he changed my life because he preached the absolute raw, absolute surrender to Jesus! You know, zero compromise—you’re either all in or you’re all out! It’s one of those kinds of deals, and he did it week after week! I would travel just to hear him so I could be punished in my heart just to know it was all or nothing!
When I finally said yes, it was all or nothing! And I want everybody around me to know the joy of all or nothing because then you only serve one master! You don’t have that juggling to try to serve many masters! It’s just the privilege of serving one, and He’s the one who has the heart for my family. He’s the one who has the heart for all the other things in life, and I find once I get through these doors, I find He has more interest in my future than I do!
So I just pray that over you; I pray that over everyone here! Let’s have the ministry team come to the front. We want to pray for folks. We’ll have some sort of a fire tunnel, impartation tunnel, love tunnel—whatever you want to call it! The tunnel of love—maybe that’s what we’ll call it tonight: the tunnel of love!