Bill Johnson - Faith Sees (How to See What God Sees)
Experiences in God shape perception; it’s like you look at a field, and it’s not barren anymore. You can’t explain it because it’s still dry. You look at this opportunity that seems like the most hopeless situation, but something’s happening in you. Your perception is changing; it’s not mind over matter. I’m talking about the spirit of God at work in this heart of faith, where now something looks different.
I was in Germany just last week, and the foot was actually broken completely off the leg bone, so they had to put metal plates there. It was pretty cool. Anyone who has an issue with either ankle, a broken ankle, a Kelly’s tendon tear, or anything else, if you can see, he’s got a nice little cast here. Anyone with a right ankle or any ankle can stand up if you have an issue. Stand up. Yeah. How many of you broke your ankle and still have lingering problems? Put a hand up if that’s you. Yeah. Get out in the aisle; check yours out right now. Start moving it around. How are you doing? Just start moving around; walk on it. Don’t injure yourself; we’re not looking for that. Seriously, I don’t ever want to push someone to a place of personal injury, but I like them to find out what God’s done and watch what he’s doing.
God’s touching her leg right now. All of you that have this issue, you’re standing; if you’re close to them, somebody get down, find out what foot it is, lay hands softly on it, and let’s pray, declaring the healing grace of Jesus over that.
Hey, Tom, would you go back to the one back here? I want to see what’s happening. Thanks. Just declare the healing word over that part of their body. We declare the healing grace of Jesus. If you’re watching online, you might as well get healed too, and it doesn’t have to be a foot; it can be something else. But we just declare and release that healing word of Jesus right now. Thank you, Lord; he restores all.
Now, while they’re praying, start moving around, but keep praying. All of you that are praying, keep praying; but those of you that are receiving prayer, start examining yourself to see what’s happened. Just start moving it around and check yourself really well. Testimonies prophesy; testimonies prophesy. That’s why we play these things so that they’ll prophesy what God’s doing in you.
Now, how many of you that have received prayer checked it out really well and are at least 80% better? Wave your hands over your head so we can see who you are. We just want to celebrate with you. Anyone that’s at least 80% better, wave your hands over your head tonight. Right over here is one! Wonderful, we thank you for that. Thank you. Anyone else? Check yourself out really well. Okay, turn and pray again, folks. Turn to pray again.
How are you doing? I’m doing better, yeah. It’s good. She broke her foot going into a hole while playing soccer and wasn’t able to do that. Wow! Okay, well, just keep checking it out here because I’ll have you come on; keep praying again. The Lord’s healing, and it’s wonderful. We give you thanks for that, Lord. Anyone who’s ever broken a bone and it didn’t heal correctly anywhere else in your body, stand up; we want to get you healed too. Just put a hand up. Those of you that are sitting around them, go to those who are standing with their hands up and find out where. Begin to pray intelligently and speak to the condition. Do it quickly, and don’t leave them hanging. If they’ve got their hand up, make sure you get to them. This is not a spectator sport!
How’s it going down here? What’s happening? How are you doing? No pain, it feels loose. That’s progress! Yep! Alright! Believe! Amen! That’s great; bless you for that! Alright, everyone check yourself out again; try to do what you couldn’t do or what was difficult or restricted movement. Whatever it might have been, just examine yourself really quickly. Okay, who else is at least 80% better? Wave your hands over your head so we can see who you are. We just want to celebrate with you. Right down here, we’ve got another one. Thank you for that, Lord. Beautiful, another one. Oh, over here, same one. Okay, thank you, Jesus.
How many of you can feel something happening; you just don’t know if it’s all the way done yet? Put your hands up. Yeah, that’s good; I like that. Yeah, we’ll take that. He’s not a quitter. Tom grabbed the… what happened to you?
Yeah, just, um, I was playing soccer one day with a friend, and then I tripped in a hole in the ground and snapped my ankle. I know, it was crazy. But I couldn’t extend it before fully down on the ground, and now I can. Beautiful! How long ago did you break it? Oh, like last September. Yeah, it’s been a while. Thank you, Lord. We give thanks to you for that. Alright, and you’re doing good? Think 100%?
Yeah. What was it? Take the mic over to her; I want to… yeah, run, Tom, run! I want to see Tom run! Yeah, it was my left heel, and I just kept feeling warmth. It kept getting better, and I was like, why is it getting better? Then I was slapping on my heel, going, because it was hurting before I couldn’t step on it or walk; it was just painful for like a week. But anyway, it’s just gone! Good! Wonderful! That’s the best kind of pain there is—the kind that’s gone!
Alright, we still got some prayer going on, which is great. Alright, take your Bibles and open to the Book of Genesis, please. Genesis 2:6. I’m actually going to revisit an old subject, and we’re going to end up in some very familiar scriptures.
You ever notice that the Lord, when he deals with us, it’s like he’ll teach you something, and then six months later or six years later, he peels back another layer of the onion and takes you back to the same subject? Anyone know what I’m talking about? He has this habit of making sure that we understand more deeply because there’s always more. Every truth can be learned in a deeper, more profound way. What the desire of the Lord is for us is to become what the word says, not just do what the word says, is to actually become the very thing that is taught in scripture.
Acts of generosity are how we access a lifestyle of generosity. Until we become generous, we become something—something through the acts of obedience. We follow the Lord in acts of faith and explore realms of the Kingdom until what we practice actually becomes our nature, our response, our default. You open your computer, and you have a certain font that’s already been chosen. You can change it, but it’s chosen; it’s a default. There are certain things that should be our ambition to have as a default that when we face certain kinds of challenges, our default is to do such and such.
So that’s really the purpose of the renewed mind—to teach us and take us into those kinds of things. This just stood out to me this last week or two.
Genesis 26:1 says, «There was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham, and Isaac went to Abimelech, King of the Philistines in Gerar.» The first phrase there was a famine in the land. Verse 12: «Then Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold, and the Lord blessed him.» The man began to prosper and continued prospering until he became very prosperous. I think the Lord wanted to make a point there. I’m not sure; I’m thinking he had something in mind.
It says he began to prosper, continued prospering until he became very prosperous; and he was so prosperous, the next verse says the Philistines envied him. It’s just interesting. Here’s what I want to ask, here’s the question I want to ask all of us. You’re in a famine, so there’s no rain; crops aren’t growing. You’re in a very challenging time, especially for an agricultural age, and you’re looking at a field that can’t grow anything. You decide to plant. All of us have the capacity to plant that seed from a word from the Lord. Amen? Right?
You’re in a situation, and he challenges you to give, or to plant, or to do something out of faith. It looks unreasonable. But I’ve got this conviction: I’ve got to do what I feel I’m supposed to do. Do you understand what I’m talking about here? We have that capacity to act out of obedience to the Lord to do whatever he says.
Here’s what I’m looking for: Is it possible to experience the breakthroughs of the Lord on such a significant level that the barren field actually looks different than it did the first time you saw it? I’m wondering if it’s possible to see the fruitful field before it’s fruitful.
Let me talk through this because I’m fishing for something here. Is it, I’m asking a question, I know it’s possible: Is it possible to be unimpressed with barrenness and be overwhelmingly impressed with how God sees the potential of a barren field? Because it wasn’t a fruitful field that produced a hundred times as much; that would have been a great miracle. Amen?
It was a barren field. It was in a time of famine that this harvest came forth that caused even the Philistines to envy him. Now make that material. Make it spiritual. Insight, wisdom, anointing, friends, favor—I don’t care what you do with it. It’s just the blessing of the Lord on a person’s life that gives them radical increase, and that radical increase is always for the purpose of influence.
It’s always for the purpose of influence. Tom asked questions earlier during the offering. I like to tell the Bethel family if you don’t hunger for more—let’s just go financially. If you don’t hunger for more financially, then you’re just being selfish. You’re just being selfish because there are so many needs around us and so many situations around us that all of us, many of us have thought, «Man, I wish some rich person would come along and take care of that problem.»
Well, then become that person and take care of the problem. Do something—do something. Don’t just sit idly and let an unbeliever come up with an idea. Be the person that contends for the breakthrough so that we can make a difference. Here we’ve got this strange story.
In fact, there’s another one; they’re all through the Bible, actually, but there’s one in the book of Acts, chapter 11, that would be good if you took a quick look at as well. Acts 11:27—I’ll give you a moment to turn there; it’s on page 1647 in the anointed version. Acts 11:27: «And in those days, prophets (plural) came from Jerusalem to Antioch. Then one of them named Agabus stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea. This they did, sending it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.»
This is a very interesting story because the prophet just announced that a famine is going to touch the entire world, which means it’s going to touch where you’re standing. In other words, you’re about to get hit with a famine, and they obviously think different because the first thing they did was to take an offering to give relief.
I’d like to suggest to you that it was an offering of honor because they were sowing back into the people that brought them the Gospel in the first place. I didn’t intend to make this about giving tonight, so let me just make a couple comments and then move on, because it’s not really where my heart is for the evening.
We give generally out of three areas: one is compassion, the other is vision, and the third is honor. Compassion is the single mom or dad that can’t pay the electric bill or pay the rent. We’re all going to empty our pockets, do whatever we can. We’re moved with compassion to take care of human need. It may be compassion for a medical fund for cancer research or something. But the point is, as we’re moved with compassion to meet human need, the second is vision.
It’s really the backbone for the tithe and the offering because it’s what we do to support the work of the gospel through the church in the cities, the nations that we live in. It may be a vision for a building; it may be a vision for a missionary. Tracy and her milk project that we pay for every year to save the lives of hundreds and hundreds of babies. We have a vision to take care of something, to build an orphanage, to do these various things.
The third is honor, the rarest gift there is because it’s not given necessarily to meet a need. The Queen of Sheba brought an extraordinary gift to Solomon. He didn’t just send out a missions support letter asking for people to help him with his next part of his vision. He was the wealthiest guy on the planet. Yet the Queen of Sheba wanted to honor him for who he was and what he carried. It’s the most unusual gift, and I would like to point to this particular gift in Acts 11 that they took an offering and sent it to the brethren in Judea.
Here’s the fascinating thing to me: You never hear of the famine spoken of again. I’m not saying it didn’t happen; it just wasn’t worth noting. Is it possible the generosity in the face of a famine silences or removes the teeth of the famine? So here, let’s say we’re Isaac, and we’re in the middle of this famine. What if the Lord speaks to me about giving sacrificially or taking this bold direction in my life, or taking a risk? I take that step of faith, and I pursue obeying the Lord to see him do what only he can do.
I know what it is to have that word come and to have that conviction of heart, to take the risk, and then see God follow through. What I’m looking for, though—and I don’t know if I’m making this very clear—but what I’m looking for is that faith is supposed to teach me how to see. Not just in the moment where I’m facing a challenge or an opportunity, but actually teach me how to see.
Because faith sees, right? Faith sees. In John chapter 3, it says, «Unless you’re converted, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.» He’s not talking about what you will see when you die and go to heaven; that’s not the reality of the Kingdom. He is speaking of the reality of the Kingdom that is seen when someone is healed, delivered, set free, broke through into healing and health in their family—whatever it might be. It’s the touch of God’s lordship and his dominion that is practically experienced in somebody’s life.
Jesus identified it this way in John 12:28, I think it is: «If I cast a demon out of you by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God came upon you.» So here’s a person that’s tormented. They were abused as a child. They live with torment day after day, and we gather around, pray for them, and they’re set free. What happened? The kingdom came on them. We saw freedom come. But how did it happen? It came because the superiority of another world drove out the inferior world of darkness, drove out the inferior world of torment.
So the point I’m trying to make here is that when you’re born again, you’ve been given the capacity to see the Kingdom of God. Well, the Kingdom is not visible. Romans 14:17 says the Kingdom of God is not meat or drink; it’s righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. The Kingdom is in the spirit.
It’s in the unseen realm. You can’t see righteousness, peace, and joy. You can see the effects of righteousness, peace, and joy. You can see a person that has peace all over their life. You can see the joy that someone has. My personal definition, and I don’t have a verse for it—it’s just out of my own experience—is that joy is quiet peace and peace is loud joy. They are so similar in their felt condition that they are partners. You see them frequently in scripture.
Peace and joy, and righteousness—that is the nature of Christ through right standing, where his nature becomes illustrated through how we do life. So righteousness, peace, and joy can’t be seen. But that’s the Kingdom. He says if you’re born again, you can see the Kingdom, which means you can see the unseen realm so that you can partner. Amen! That’s what we need when we’re looking at a barren field!
It’s what we need when we’re looking at a field where there is no natural way it can produce or grow. There are a bunch of us in this room right now that are standing in different parts of our lives. Perhaps it’s a relational challenge; maybe it’s a health issue. It could be business—whatever it is; there are a zillion things we could fill in the blanks with.
You’re standing before a barren field, and there is no natural solution. There has to be a thinking and a seeing that are different than what we’re accustomed to. My personal conviction is that the Lord works on renewing our minds every single day of our lives. I’m not sure we’re always aware of it; in fact, I’m sure we aren’t always aware of it. And I’m not sure we’re always picking up the kinds of things he’s wanting us to adjust to.
When I obey in faith, he is taking me into an experience that is teaching me how to see and, more importantly, how to think. How is it Jesus, with absolute confidence, can take a child’s lunch and feed 10,000 to 15,000 people? It’s extraordinary. Now I’m impressed with a miracle, obviously, but you have to think differently, right? You have to think differently. Yes, you hear from the Lord, but remember, the experience of faith is to teach us how to think and how to perceive.
Amen! The challenge for us—all of us—me big time is to experience these things in the Lord and appreciate them. The video tonight, extraordinary. I’ve seen so many miracles like that happen. Let’s applaud! Give thanks! Give him all the credit; he alone did it. But then not be changed in how I see the next problem. If it doesn’t change my perception of reality, then he still gets the glory for the miracle, but it hasn’t had its full effect.
Come on! Miracles are to teach us about the unseen world. What Paul said is what you can’t see is eternal; what you can see is temporal, which tells us the unseen is superior. It’s not the shadow; this is the real; this is the shadow, and that is the real. Until we make those adjustments, we don’t realize that faith enables us to actually live from what’s unseen towards what’s seen.
Clear as mud? Yeah, good! Alright! Faith doesn’t come from the mind; it says with the heart man believes. Great faith doesn’t come from great striving; it only comes from great surrender. We yield our way into faith; we don’t work our way into faith. He’s already done the work; he’s already created the momentum. Picture yourself standing by a stream that’s continuously flowing; you can dip into it any time. That’s the nature of the kingdom: it is present; it is real; it’s within reach. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand; it is within reach.
Learning how to take what he has made available by faith is a huge part of our walk with Christ. So faith then doesn’t come from the mind; it comes from the heart. But what fascinates me is that the renewed mind, as you read through the gospels, there are so many stories where a person’s understanding revealed their faith, which almost is a contradiction to what the scripture says. Scripture says faith doesn’t come from the mind; it comes from the heart.
So then we have to look at it this way: There’s the carnal mind, the natural mind, and there’s the renewed mind. Faith does not come from even the renewed mind, but the renewed mind creates the context for faith, much like the banks of a river create a context for water to flow. So good!
When the centurion comes to Jesus and says, «My servant is dying,» Jesus says, «I’ll come and heal him.» In Matthew chapter 8, the centurion, a Roman soldier, says, «You don’t have to come to my house. I’m a man under authority. Because I’m under authority, I have people under me, and when I say to them, 'Go do something, ' they do it. All you have to say,» he says to Jesus, «is say the word, and my servant will be healed.» He understood how authority worked; he understood an unseen reality.
How does a Roman soldier step into a divine perception like that? It was an absolute gift of God, but he had it, and he functioned, and he communicated it well. Jesus didn’t honor his intelligence; he honored his faith because the renewed mind created the context for the gift of faith to flow.
So the point is, it’s vital that we learn how to—I’ll use it this way—extract the nutrients of the experience we have in God. Let me explain it this way: It is possible; in fact, it happens all the time for us to eat foods and not benefit from the nutrients. Sometimes it’s combinations of foods; they don’t work well together. Sometimes one food needs another to fully work well. Sometimes it’s just our own health, ill health, that we don’t extract the nutrients.
It’s possible to have a very nutritious meal, a very healthy meal, a very organic meal, and have it actually pass right through you and not affect your health. That’s what happens in the miracle realm. We experience these things in God. They have all the nutrients necessary to bring us into a transformed mind, but they actually don’t bring the effect God intended.
That was actually a really good point! That’s too late! You don’t get another chance though! I’m teasing; I’m teasing. Let’s do this: Here’s a passage that I have taught on maybe more than any other, so those of you who have been here a while hopefully won’t get bored with the chapter. Oh, that’s impossible. It’s too good! It’s Mark chapter 8. Want you to turn there if you would. This particular chapter has helped me more than any other in the Bible regarding this.
So just my own journey, my own experience. Mark chapter 8. The first ten verses talk about the feeding of the 4,000. So there’s been the second occasion of the multiplying of food. I do want to point out that the food actually didn’t multiply until it was given away. Jesus didn’t create a big pile of food in front of 10,000 hungry people and go, «Shazam!» and there was a big pile of bread. He didn’t do that; he just broke it up and gave it to the twelve, and as they handed it out, it multiplied. This means that the disciples were actually a part of the miracle and didn’t realize it.
Following this particular miracle, Jesus takes the disciples into a boat, and he says in verse 13: «He left them, getting into a boat again, departed to the other side.» He left the crowd, and the disciples had forgotten to take bread, so whoever was in charge of lunch blew it, and they had forgotten to take bread. They didn’t have more than one loaf with them in the boat, and he charged them saying, «Take heed; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.» They reasoned among themselves, saying, «It’s because we have no bread.»
In other words, Jesus is talking to us about leaven because we forgot lunch. Jesus, being aware of it, said, «Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened?» That last phrase stings: «Is your heart still hard?» If you’re not seeing, he asked the question, «Is your heart still hard?» It’s not shame; it’s an invitation. Recognize the difference: God never brings shame; he always brings invitation.
Verse 18: «Having eyes, do you not see? Having ears, do you not hear? Do you not remember when I broke the five loaves for the 5,000? How many baskets full of fragments did you take up?» They said to him, «Twelve.» «When I broke the seven for the 4,000, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up?» They said seven, and he said to them, «How is it you do not understand?»
This is an amazing conversation to me. I never, ever, ever get tired of reading it. It’s one of the most soiled pages in my Bible because it convicts me to be honest with you. It’s kind of like running into a sword. You know, I need it; I need that sword to cut deep because here Jesus is walking us through a process. These guys have seen food multiplied twice, and they’re worried about lunch.
Now we laugh—is it nervous laughter for anyone else? We laugh, but here’s the deal: How many of you have had God supernaturally supply for you before? Absolute miracle. How many, after that miracle, had another problem, and you were just as afraid the second time as the first time? Alright, guilty! Every single one of us facing this challenge again; we’re as nervous as we were the first time.
Because we’re learning, and you’ll notice Jesus never required or even expected his disciples to perceive supernatural provision until he had taken them through the lesson. In other words, on day one, he didn’t say, «Can’t you see? Can’t you hear? Don’t you remember? I have all provision; I can make food multiply for us; you never have to worry about anything.» He didn’t do that on day one; he took them through the experience, and the experience had the nutrients in it to teach them to not be hardened of heart, to be able to understand clearly.
So it involves the renewed mind, and to perceive, it involves your sight. And the result of what the miracle is—that miracles are costly for this reason. So Jesus asked them questions. When we broke the five loaves for the 5,000, how many baskets full did we have left? He said twelve. «When we broke the seven for the 4,000, how many baskets do we have left?» Seven. I’m not saying he did this, but I imagine a mic drop at this point.
He’s asking them. He’s not painting them into a corner for shame; he’s trying to bring them into a place of realization of the reality that they are actually in the middle of that they’re not recognizing. So what does he do? He says, «Alright, we broke five loaves for 5,000 people, not counting women and children. How many baskets did we have left? Twelve. Alright, we started with seven loaves more; we fed a smaller crowd: 4,000 and we had seven baskets left over. When we started with less, we fed a smaller crowd and had more leftovers.»
It’s Heaven’s math! God didn’t multiply nothing; he took a child’s lunch. He started with something. Oh, sorry, I forgot his name. Can’t forget his name: TD Jakes made the comment he says, «God doesn’t make chairs; he makes trees.» We have a role; we have a responsibility.
In one case, it was the boy’s lunch. He can create out of nothing, but he has chosen to work with us with what we have. So when there are seven loaves, it’s a smaller crowd with fewer leftovers than when he started with a smaller amount of loaves. You’re getting the point? Then he asked them, «How is it you don’t understand?»
How is it that a barren field, after you’ve just experienced a hundredfold return, the next time you have a famine, it still looks barren? It still looks scary; it still looks like a foolish investment. Transformation actually starts; the transformation of a human life starts with the transformed mind. Romans 12:2: «Don’t be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.»
You be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You experience personal transformation in every aspect of your life. How? By the renewing of your mind. A transformed mind transforms a person; a transformed person transforms a city.
So good! It starts right here with how we think, how we perceive. It’s not that I need to imagine piles of food; it’s not that I need to imagine something happening. It’s that I become aware of unseen realities that are at work and can at any time cause there to be a breakthrough or shift or change in any given situation.
I realize that talking like this about unseen realities gives an invitation for weird people to be even weirder. When you do that, don’t blame me; it was not my fault, but it’s worth the risk because maybe somebody will tap into a level or measure of the Kingdom that we have yet to see, that we’ve not yet experienced, we’ve not yet been able to demonstrate.
The Lord gave us a command; this is so important to him. Now remember, if a demon is cast out by the Spirit of God, the Kingdom of God came upon him. Jesus said, «Seek first the Kingdom.» Yes, the priority in our lives is to make the pursuit of his dominion to be realized, felt, and measurable in every given situation that we face in our lives.
The freedom that only exists in heaven should exist in this problem that I’m facing. Yes, it’s the reason I have to stay encouraged from scripture and encouraged by testimony because some situations don’t yield immediately. I’m thankful some do! I’m thankful that the situation you saw in the video was just quick. Nobody prayed; it just happened. Nobody prayed at all!
I love when those quick ones happen; it helps to give me the courage for the ones that take a while. The point is that we stay locked into God’s heart for a given situation. I have to be careful; this is where I make my biggest mistakes—assuming that I know how God wants to do something.
I’m trying to learn to do better because I’ll make an assumption and then do what I think is obedience, and it’s actually not; it’s actually an effort to control the Lord, to direct the Lord. He doesn’t like to receive direction from me; he’s pretty sure I work for him; he doesn’t work for me.
This applies as much to our online family as to everyone in the room. Every week, we get to join with people all over the world, and I believe that the Lord wants to teach us how to think and how to see differently than we have. How many of you can say we have a song—I don’t talk the way I used to, I don’t think. Whatever you know the song; we sing it. We didn’t do it today, but we could if we wanted to. I just couldn’t lead it; that’s for sure.
How many of you know you don’t think like you used to? How many of you realize you also don’t think like you’re going to? Yeah, amen, amen! Because the nutrients of our experience—I’ll use the word nutrients—the particles of a miracle are supposed to have full effect on my thinking, my perception, my emotions, my thought life—everything about me is to come under the influence of that meal that I just experienced.
He said, «Taste and see that the Lord is good.» Listen to it: taste and see. What did he just tell us? Experience precedes perception change. Amen! Come on! Taste what you taste will affect how and what you see! Come on! Faith always explores. Faith can only operate where you have understanding or conviction that the Lord is good. It only explores the goodness of the Lord; that’s what faith does. And it comes not out of determination—I’ve already mentioned this—it comes as a result of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
It comes literally as a gift that he gives us or a fruit. In other words, he gave us the seed of something that we grew through use, but the source is still him and the dependency on him for greater faith is just really, really significant. In fact, this whole deal is about dependency. It’s about trust.
Let me give you just a—not a silly example, but a simple example—that started something in me, oh goodness, at least 15 years ago. I was at a particular church, and I had given, I think, about six or eight different words of knowledge—things that we were going to pray for in healing. I remember calling out the first one, and I don’t remember what they were—something knees and eyes and whatever. So I called—I just remember calling out the first condition, and I said, «If you have that condition, just raise your hand.» And they did.
All I can tell you is that one person looked different than the rest, and I can’t tell you why. What I have found about my life is that if I stop and analyze it, I’ll kill whatever I thought I saw. So it’s like whatever was in that jar just evaporated. I don’t stop and analyze; that’s for later. When I look back, I can analyze.
So I’m in this moment, and there’s just a guy over to my left; he just looks different. I can’t say there’s a light on him; I don’t know what it was. He just looked different than everyone else. I said, «You know what? Check it out; I think it’s already healed.» He began to move around, and the miracle took place when it was spoken; he was absolutely healed.
So I had, like I said, six or eight other words, so we celebrated that miracle, prayed for the rest. Actually, we didn’t pray for the rest because I was trying to get the whole group that needed a miracle in one time. So I called out the second; I said, «There’s some kind of a growth in the back of the eye.» Three or four people put their hands up, but one looked different.
What I thought is I thought, «Well, this thing with the knee was a one-time experience. Now I’m going to call out all the other conditions, and we’ll pray as a group for these folks.» But every word of knowledge I gave, this is the only time this has happened like this before, and it introduced me to something.
Every word of knowledge I had, every time I had them raise their hand, someone would stand out, and I can’t tell you why, but they did. Every one of them was healed instantly as soon as they moved, as soon as they tried to do something.
So there were six or eight of these conditions that were healed instantly, like the G. on the video; she stood out. I don’t know why. Experiencing in God shapes perception. Oh man, I hope this makes sense.
It’s like you look at a field, and it’s not barren anymore. You can’t explain it because it’s still dry. You look at a relationship that looks absolutely dead, and it just doesn’t look dead anymore. You look at this opportunity that seems like the most hopeless situation, but something’s happening in you, and you can tell it; you can feel it. Your perception is changing; it’s not mind over matter.
It’s not you doing mental gymnastics to try to imagine an answer before it comes. I don’t even want to say that that’s evil; I’m just saying that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the spirit of God at work in this heart of faith, where now something looks different.
I don’t mean the whole world looks different; I mean the problem you’re facing looks different. I mean the barren field doesn’t look barren. I mean the marriage that is on the rocks, or the couple that can’t have children, or the bankruptcy that’s taking place in a business—it doesn’t matter what it is. Suddenly, things look different, and I can’t tell you why, but I’m going with perception; I’m moving with the perception because I was born again to see!
I was born again to see! I was born again to live from a different place—not just divine reasoning. Reasoning under the influence of the Holy Spirit is a very important tool. I don’t want to downplay the mind at all; Jesus honored it and recognized it time and time again.
But what happens is the mind not under the lordship of Jesus is not neutral; it is at war with God according to Romans 8. It’s actually at war! So the purposes of God—there is something in us that is at war with the purposes of God. When we give ourselves to the carnal mind, it’s actually warring against what God is trying to implement, what he’s trying to reveal, what he’s trying to draw us into—a collaborative role where, in the journey with him, we learn to see and perceive, and we learn to act and respond according to the actual conviction of the heart.
Faith is the conviction. When I have a decision to make, I’ll look at two or three things, whatever is in front of me, and all I do is look at that, look at that, look at that, and wait to see where I have conviction—not understanding. I’m not looking for understanding yet; that’ll come later. I’m just looking for where does my heart burn. Where is there conviction? Because faith is in the conviction.
Alright! That’s probably enough. Let’s stand. It’s a very graceful ending. I want to teach our team how to end their message: just end it! Just shoot it and go home! That’s what we do!
I am talking every time I talk; I’m going to be speaking to me, always, because I need truth. I need the truth that sets me free. I need these things to go deeper in me. This particular storyline in Mark 8 has been a part of my personal journey for well over 20 years, I think close to 25 years; it’s when I first started exploring that concept.
I can tell you just from my personal journey, where I’m at in my own walk with the Lord, what I’ve got going on in my life, I need that more today than I did 25 years ago when it first started to open up to me. He’s doing another layer of the onion; he’s taking us down a little deeper still, and I can feel that going on in me. I’m going to assume we’re all in the same boat, so I’m not even going to ask you to raise your hand because I know he’s after you, and he’s working on you like he’s working on me.
I’d like for us to pray together. I don’t know what we’re going to do; we’ll do something here in a minute, but just grab a hand. Let’s do that—just grab a hand. We haven’t held hands with each other for hours. Hours! I don’t know all of our online family; hold hands with yourself. I don’t care; do something.
But here’s what I want you to do. We’re in this boat together; we’re on this journey together. We all are increasing in faith; we’re all increasing in purity, the power that flows in through our life—all these things are increasing in us, and I’m so thankful. But all of us, I would assume, have that ache in our heart that we can tell we’re on the edge of a measure of new breakthrough.
I feel like, at least in part, the Lord wants to work on my thinking. That’s probably always true with everything, but he wants to work on my thinking because my thinking does not always represent him. The psalmist prays this prayer: «God, examine my heart, my mind; make sure it’s pleasing to you.» It’s that kind of thing that we live before him saying, «God, I want to make sure that I’m entertaining stuff that you’re entertaining. I don’t want to have thoughts in my head about me that he doesn’t have in his head about me. I don’t want to entertain things; then I’ll entertain a lie. I’ll find myself emotionally invested in something that’s working against God’s design in me.»
Amen! God’s design in this house! So you’ve got people next to you; you’re already holding hands with them, so hopefully, they’re not strangers. If they are, it’s too late! It’s too late!
Here’s what I want to do seriously. We’re going to take a couple of minutes to pray, and I want you to pray this that we talked about tonight as best you know how as though you were rubbing an oil into wood. I want you to pray that into their soul. I want you literally just to rub that thing into their soul and pray, «God, work deeper in them in this renewed mind.»
Just lift your voices; let’s pray out loud. Let’s pray! Let’s pray through this. Thank you, Lord! Yes! Great renewal of the mind at home too—in the workplace, all over our online family—that this would dramatically increase in every single part of life! Just work that into us, Lord God! Work that deeper and deeper into our souls! Yes, Lord! Help each of us taste and see—experience you deeply, God!
Let it happen even tonight as we sleep! Experience your love—the depth of your love for us, God! Thank you, Lord! Now, put your hand on your own heart; pray for the person who really needs it. Oh Jesus, help me, help me, help me! Pray it over yourself right now. God, help me to get this! Help me to increase, to expand, to accelerate in this renewing of the mind—thinking and seeing as you do. Because it doesn’t come with striving; we’re actually going to surrender our way into this.
Taste and see that the Lord is good! Lord, I pray for this for every one of us—that our experiences with you this week would be pronounced and accelerated, and teach us how to think and how to see. I ask this in Jesus' wonderful name. Amen!
Amen! Benny and I were driving from Weaverville to Redding, a long time ago. We were singing in the spirit; we had two boys at the time; Leah wasn’t born yet, so it tells you how long ago that was. We got to about the Leon turnoff—if you’re familiar with the 299.
We were just singing in the spirit, and the boys were completely calm, which is like parting the Red Sea. It’s about the same level of miraculous right here: they were calm in the back, and we were just literally singing in tongues. Then suddenly, about the Leon turnoff, a fragrance filled the car.
I didn’t know if she smelled it; she didn’t know if I smelled it, so I just kept driving. We sang for a bit; I go, «Yeah!» and I was singing some more. Then I started to notice I could taste it! Wow! It was exactly like granules of sugar that you could put on your tongue.
I’d stop, and I’m driving down, and I’m tasting this—smell this fragrance of the Lord filled the car, and I could taste it. We got down by Whiskey Town Lake, and I said, «Did you smell that?» She goes, «Yes! Did you smell that?» We exchanged notes! Sometimes his world breaks into ours, and we have all kinds of things that happen—gems that show up and oil and the gusts of wind and the gold flakes or glitter or whatever.
One case—a guy who was a scientist type came and got some here and had it tested; it was a mineral—six-sided, like the Star of David! Amazing! Sometimes, you know, people get real ticked off at that one and get mad. Like, «I didn’t do it!» If I was going to ask for something, that wouldn’t have been on my list, but you know what? Since it happens, I’m good! Sometimes, he wants to do something to see if you’ll be embarrassed or if you’ll celebrate.
So, Lord, we just invite you—just teach us; teach us how you move; teach us how you work. We just say yes! Yes and amen! Yes and amen! Yes and amen! Hallelujah! Let’s give him thanks together!