Bill Johnson - How to Love God and Steward a Heart of Affection for Him
So I just pray right now that every one of us upgrades that resetting of the affection of our hearts for Him, not just reduced to a discipline, but that the increasing passion of the Lord would become our passion. Verse 14: «Because He has set His love upon me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high because he has known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble.» Go back to verse 14; let’s cover just that one for a moment. «Because he has set his love upon me, therefore I will deliver him.» From whom does deliverance come? It comes to the people who set their love on Him. I don’t want to twist the meaning of this, so again, do everything to resist any kind of guilt, shame, or whatever; to me, this is an invitation from God to learn what it is to fix the affections of our hearts and to be anchored in Him continuously. He makes a point for a reason: «Because he has set his love on me, I will deliver.»
I know when I’m home, I tell my wife that I love her many times a day. Sometimes, during a meal, it’s going to be repeated frequently. I’m going to reset; I’ve already set my love on her, but I reset. See, in Acts chapter 2, it says they continually devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the breaking of bread, to prayer, to fellowship, etc. They continually devoted themselves; they continually re-upped the contract, re-signed the contract. There’s something about this passage that provokes me: «Because he has set his love upon me, therefore I will deliver.» There’s something about the ongoing— I hate to reduce it to a discipline, but if that’s what it takes, do it—the ongoing resetting of our affection for Him throughout a day. If you need it, set it on your alarm to remind you. The resetting of our hearts of affection for Him—there’s something about that. He’s such a lover that He’s drawn you.
I’ve talked about this for years, but when I go to sleep at night, I turn my affection toward Him. When I go into a difficult situation, I’ll stop, turn my affection toward Him, and until I can sense His presence resting upon me. It’s not that He wasn’t there before, but something happens; either He comes or I become aware of Him. I don’t care what it is; I like it. I turn my affection towards Him, and something happens in that moment where there is a manifest presence of God upon me for whatever environment I walk into. I’ve told you before, I remember a store I used to shop in; it was a grocery store but had Celtic stuff there too, and I loved to shop there. I remember the owner taking me aside one day. Before I’d walk in, I would just stand at the door. I’d go to the back yard, just stand at the door, and turn my affection toward the Lord, making sure that I could sense the Spirit of God resting upon me. Then I would walk in and just shop. I wouldn’t do anything different than anyone else, but the owner took me aside one day and said, «Bill, something is different when you walk into the room.» I know it’s because of the manifest presence of God resting upon me.
So this is what He’s saying: «Because you have set your love on me, therefore I will deliver.» So I just pray right now that every one of us upgrades the resetting of the affection of our hearts for Him, not just reduced to a discipline, but that the increasing passion of the Lord would become our passion. I remember a prophetic word I heard—oh goodness, it was probably 1972, before I was married, which was in 1973. I remember sitting in a service at Bethel Church, the other old location, and this woman prophesied. She said, «If you long for me as I have longed for you, you will be satisfied.» Ah, if you long for me. What does it mean to set your love on God? It means you’ve received His love. Do you know the scripture? «We love Him because He first loved us.» Do you know when I love Him, I only love Him back with what He gave me? When I opened my heart to receive His love, He gave me the capacity to love Him back.
Strangely, in scripture, you see instruction for the husband to love the wife, but the wife to respect the husband. Why? Because if the husband does a good job loving the wife, she doesn’t need to be commanded to love in return. And all the women said, «Yes, amen,» but you get the point. The point is it’s actually carried on in the illustration of Christ and His Church, the husband and the wife: «Because He has set His love upon me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high because he has known my name.» I’m not sure what it means. My mind goes quickly to being seated in heavenly places, and it is at that particular passage that we are seated in heavenly places with Christ. It is a wonderful, wonderful truth.
The problem that I have, not with the verse, but with the issue, is that it gets reduced to a point of theology and never becomes an experience. Heavenly places are supposed to be a place from which we think and from which we see. It’s not a mind-over-matter thing; it’s not discipline in our minds to imagine this and imagine that. It’s that our love runs so true with Him that the resetting of our hearts of affection towards Him becomes so ongoing that we not only have the point of theology that is accurate—we are seated in heavenly places—but we actually think and see from that place. Because our burning heart of affection for Him and His burning heart for us brings us into such a place that our perception changes. Everything changes.
Because in that abiding place of presence, we think and we see differently. See, it’s that person who can say to the disease, it’s that person, as John G. Lake discovered, who could still hold the disease in his hand, put it under the microscope, and watch it die. Not everyone could have done that. Why? Because not everyone has life flowing from them continuously. If you take a garden hose and put it in foul, putrid water, whatever’s in that tunnel is going to leak into the hose. The only way to keep the inside of the hose unaffected is that before you put it into the stuff, make sure the water is turned on. If there’s a continual flow through the hose, you can put it in any environment, and it doesn’t get infected.
We’ve got people setting up barriers of protection around themselves because they don’t have enough flowing out. You get the stuff flowing through you—yieldedness, not yieldedness just for the sake of power, but yieldedness because of this romance, because of this love, because I’ve set my heart of affection on it. Suddenly, there’s stuff flowing from us that starts changing the atmosphere, starts changing the environment that we walk into. We’ve been called into this for this season; this is the season of advancement. All right, we’re getting close to the end; that’s right. Verse 14 again, look at it in your Bible. Verse 14 again: «Because he has set his love upon me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high.» It’s actually a place of safety, in a sense, unreachable. By the way, the scripture teaches pretty clearly that we are out of reach of the enemy, but not out of sight.
That’s why He prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies. You’re out of reach, but you’re not out of sight. Why? I think the Lord loves to torment the devil. That’s just my thought. I think He rather enjoys it. And you know what? You’re sitting at a table, and you’ve got the enemy all around you. What is your attention on? Any situation where you feel like you’re under heavy assault—if you’ll refine your focus, you’ll find the table of fellowship. He prepared a table before me in the presence of my enemies. If all you see is the enemy, then you need to readjust. Get back to what God has said about your life. Find the table of communion; but in that table of fellowship with God is your and all of our place of great strength, great confidence, great life, great health.