Bill Johnson - How to Thrive in Your Relationship with God
And the Lord in this passage is trying to draw us into a covenantal relationship where we don’t let people who do wrong cause us to lose our peace. Number one. Number two, we maintain that sense of presence; we dwell in that place of abiding. We feed ourselves on the history of God that we have and others have around us. Then it says, «Delight yourself in the Lord.» Make sure that you find joy in your relationship with Jesus, and make that your chief joy. Now, to bless our team again, would you just thank them? Thanks, guys! Thank you! Beautiful! Oops, hold on, hold on! They’re running; they’re running to give! They’re running to give! We like to see people run to give! Our Christian school has a play coming on this week, and so that’s why we have all this. It will be fun; it will be beautiful; it will be excellent.
All right, well, are you ready? Where did it go? How many guests do we have from out of the country visiting with us? My goodness, why don’t you stand? Don’t you stand up! We’re so glad that you’re here! Yeah, just stay standing; we just want you to remain standing, if you would, because we’re going to pray for you and bless you in just a moment. We’re so thrilled that you’re here, and it’s just an honor. How many of you that are standing came to the medical conference this week? Are you here because of that? Quite a few of you—excellent, excellent! How many of you just don’t know how you got here, but you just showed up? Yeah, that’s good. Well, we’re glad, no matter how many of you were dragged here. Somebody dragged you, and they brought you into the building, and we’re glad you’re here too.
We want to bless you and just pray for you, praying that the Lord would release such grace and impartation over you that every single person here, regardless of what your dreams were in coming, may be that you were just curious and came. It may be that you are desperate for breakthrough in some area. It doesn’t matter to me what the reason is; my prayer is that the Lord would overwhelm you with His goodness and that you would become a contagious influence upon your return home. So, Bethel family and other guests from our own country, why don’t you stand around these folks? I want you just to pray the blessing of the Lord on them; pray that they would go home with more than they thought was possible. Pray with great faith, great hope, great authority. You have the authority to bless; it’s a gift that every believer has. Just prophesy over them as well—just declare a blessing: the blessing of the Lord! Beautiful, beautiful!
Now, just give them a hug or something nice and bless them really good, then be seated. Excellent, beautiful! We have a lot of guests from out of the country online watching us on Bethel TV, so we bless all of you as well, and we’re going to pray just corporately before we get into the word as well for healing in several areas. I had the sense earlier that the Lord was actually going to heal. I don’t know enough about how things work in our bodies. Just years ago, to illustrate my ignorance, one of our staff members bought me an anatomy book. Wait, there’s more! It’s a coloring book! So just to put it in perspective, I try hard, you know; I try hard, but I just basically get close, you know? But I had the sense that the Lord was going to heal people that had issues with gut bacteria. I don’t know if there’s such a thing as bacterial infections, or if there are. I know that there’s wrong bacteria and good bacteria; I understand that stuff. But I feel like the Lord was just going to recalibrate things in people’s bodies tonight. I know phrases like «leaky gut» and stuff like that.
In fact, somebody just shared a testimony before the service, but I don’t know what it is, and I really don’t want to know, so don’t come up with pictures. You know, there are certain things I want to remain ignorant of; that’s one of them. Any kind of leaky thing, keep me ignorant! I really don’t want to know. Now, Gabe here loves to watch all the surgeries and the bloody things. Yeah, what? Yeah, it’s true, it’s true; I just leave the room! I just leave the room because I don’t want to know what’s in there. I just trust it all works, so just leave it there, all right? Seriously, I did sense that the Lord was going to bring healing to that. There’s also someone here who has an injury to the right leg. There’s a weakness all through the leg, and there may even be a tingling. I just feel this weakness throughout the right leg from some sort of injury. I know there’s someone here who had a very serious injury down by the right ankle, but I don’t know if it’s the same.
So if that fits you—weakness all through the right leg because of some injury, and I think it was a break in the right ankle, lower part of the leg, the ankle itself—it may be healed up, but you have problems with it. So if that’s you, put your hand up because the Lord’s going to bring healing. Oh, we got several. Oh, it’s spreading! Okay, we’re going to pray for that. One of the common things that we see is the Lord just healing issues with broken bones, that sort of thing. How many of you have gut issues? You’ve got something going on here that you just need healed. You know, that’s a hard one to measure immediately unless you actually feel a sign. Sometimes the Lord will give a person a sign that they feel something; sometimes it will be like heat, sometimes there’s energy, like electricity. Sometimes we’ve seen coolness, especially with resetting bones. I don’t understand that one, but we’ve had one guy whose ankle was run over like 10 to 15 years ago by a 14-ton truck; it crushed it. It was all back together, but there was just a lot of pain and restricted movement, all that sort of thing.
When some of our guys prayed from right back over here, it just turned cool, like there was an anesthesia effect over it. It just went numb, and there was a pop, and it was completely healed, and the Lord just kind of reset the bones. So, and then there are a whole bunch of people that don’t feel anything. So what we just need you to do is just examine yourself when you get home tonight. You know, I don’t know what to tell you to do; just figure it out! Give God the glory and let somebody know your gut doesn’t leak anymore! Whatever, however that works for you, I’ve opened a can of worms here, haven’t I? Thank you, Lord! Do you guys have anything that the Lord has? Yeah, okay, somebody has nerve damage in the upper back. Who is that? That’s very… is that you? Yeah, stand up right now and move it around; it should actually be getting healed right now as we talk. Yeah, yeah! How is it doing? It’s loosening up?
Yeah, just keep at it! You’re exploring new territory. You may feel funny, but we’re rejoicing with you. I just feel like the Lord is just releasing that healing. Any other—yeah, pressure pain behind the eye, right eye or…? Okay, pressure pain behind the right eye. Does that make sense to anyone? Is that you? Yep, yep! All of you that had anything we called out, just stand up. In fact, when we call these things out, just stand. All right, anything else here? Yeah, tailbone damage to the tailbone, okay, an injury possibly in a car? Damage to the tailbone? If that’s you, put your hand up; I want to see who you are because we get a lot of tailbones healed, especially if you had it injured. Is there any woman here whose tailbone was actually injured giving birth to your child? Is it right back here? Yeah, and you still have issues with it? Well, guess what?
Tonight is your night! Yeah, right back over here, I believe it! Just tonight’s your night! Yeah, check it out; yeah, sit on it hard! How is it? How’s it doing? I’m sorry, I hear a lot of people talking, but not you; how is it? What? It doesn’t hurt? It doesn’t hurt! No trust? Yeah, amazing! Beautiful! Back over here, are you as well? Yeah, check, check, check it out! Check it out really good! Just challenge it. I mean, I don’t want to embarrass you, but years ago when this first started happening with the tailbone, I just said, «Sit down hard!» She was wearing like hard plastic chairs. She jumped up and landed butt-first on that chair. I thought, man, you could break it if it wasn’t broken! And she was completely healed! I don’t think—honestly, don’t think—I have ever seen a woman that injured the tailbone through giving birth to a child that wasn’t healed! It’s the one thing that I don’t think I’ve ever seen not healed.
I feel like Chris’s word tonight, just praying for that vindication and honor of the woman, I feel like the enemy has stolen from. In fact, you know what? If there’s any woman in the room that you still suffer from physical problems because of pregnancy or childbirth, I want you to stand because we’re just going to make this part of the vindication prayer that the Lord would restore everything that was stolen from you. Everything that was stolen! Yeah, there’s breakthrough on this one; you watch; this is going to be fun! It’s good! Huh? Yeah, healthy tailbones are necessary! Thank you, Lord! All right, all of you that are standing, put a hand up. Just put your hand up; what I want you to do is keep it there until someone comes to you. Bethel family, you know what to do; find somebody with their hand up, find out what the problem is, and just begin to pray. Just find out what’s wrong; pray quickly, okay?
End your prayer, but stay with the person. All of you that receive prayer, if there’s something you can do to examine yourself, do it right now! Move! If you couldn’t move, do something! As soon as you discover you’ve been healed, as soon as you discover you’ve been healed, I want you to wave both hands over your head like this until your arms cross. We want to celebrate with you! Okay, look over here to the left! All right, just wave both hands right down here, back over here, some back over here, down over here, another over here! Come on, bless the Lord! Okay, let me ask you a question; just give me your attention for a moment. How many of you that had that gut issue could actually, when they started praying for you, feel something happening? Okay, you can actually feel something? All right, sometimes the Lord gives that as a sign to you to encourage you in your faith.
Okay, we’re going to pray one more time, but there was another word of knowledge, and this is a very tender one, but it’s also very, very important that there’s somebody here you just have an unnatural fear of dying. You just have an unnaturally—you can see it on you! It doesn’t mean you’ve done something wrong; it just means something’s going on that we just need to join with you and just pray over your life to break that thing off. If that makes sense to you, put your hand up because we’re going to pray right over here. Yeah, just surround this one; yeah, just break off; just break that thing off. That’s a right word! If you see the hands up, surround them! If you see a hand up, that’s your privileged assignment! Just an unnatural fear of dying! Okay, now turn and pray for the ones you were praying for; pray for them again! Yeah, don’t let your faith sit out!
Let’s go after this one more time, and we just break off that spirit of death that would just torment the heart and mind. We just declare no more; just lift that pressure off their mind just, you know, like it was something on their head—just lift it off! Lift it all! That’s right! Okay, I want to have everybody stand, if you would. Everyone stand! We’re just going to take one quick moment for this. All right, now we’ve prayed for—I don’t even remember half a dozen specific things—but in an atmosphere like this, what I want you to learn to do and to recognize is to draw from that healing anointing because I believe, although we have a history of seeing people healed during worship, of including cancer, broken necks, all kinds of stuff healed, actually during worship, during sermons, during watching a video, listening to a podcast—we have good history in that! I feel like it’s going to increase.
So I want to encourage you just to realize that in the economy of God, all that we long for is in the presence, and He is here. That being said, some of you came in with great affliction, difficulties, problems, pains, whatever. I want everyone in the room with a problem to check yourself out, even if you weren’t prayed for; because if you’re in the room, you’re a target! So check yourself out, and if you’re at least 80% better, just try to move it away. It may seem foolish to you; well, that’s fine! Be foolish for Jesus! Just check yourself out, and if you’re at least 80% better in any area, I want you just to wave both hands over your head like this. Do it for about 15 seconds! Yeah, look around the room! Come on, thank you, Lord! Check yourself out real good; move around! Thank you, Lord! All right, go ahead and be seated! How many of you got healed of something tonight that you’ve had for at least five years? Put your hands up high—at least five years! Beautiful, good!
Come on, how many of you got healed of something you’ve had for at least 10 years? Put your hands up. Wow! How many of you got healed of something you’ve had for at least 15 years? Put your hands up. Wow! 20 years? 25? How long? 30 years? Thank you, Jesus! How long ago? 25 years ago? What did Jesus heal you from? Damage from childbirth? I understand, but she could feel the damage done during delivery of her son. She could just feel that power present. I love when the Lord gives signs like that. We always want you to go home and verify and give us a report; just email it, do something to tell us. What did Jesus heal for you? You want to run that back to the other side, Tom? Other aisle! I’m going to write a book! Tom, put your hand up.
What did Jesus heal for you? What happened 30 years ago? Pressure behind the eye? Thank you, Lord! 30 years ago! Come on! Wow! Anyone else have the Lord do something significant for you? You want to give testimony before we get into the word? We have one right here! Go ahead. Just stand up. A fire in my back? That’s awesome! And the pain and the pressure just released? Yeah! Come on! Thank you, little Jesus! Beautiful! Back over here, Tom. It’s now two pages long so far. Is anyone here named Livingston? If that’s you, put your hand up. Livingston? Right here! Interesting! Did you have any of the conditions mentioned here tonight? Yes, you did. During worship, I actually heard the name Livingston. I didn’t know if it was because I’ve been watching the Warriors play every game because they have a Livingston, or if it’s a word of knowledge. But let’s just declare—somebody just stand next to him and declare it is finished! I felt specifically the Lord wanted to identify you by name and declare the score is already in the record books. It is a victory. It is a win in the name of the Lord Jesus! It is finished! Thank you, Lord!
Alright, grab your Bibles if you would and open to Psalm 37. I’ve actually got two very strong directions in my heart and mind, and what I’m going to do is talk to you for a couple of minutes about the one, and then we’ll jump to the second. Even though they don’t connect, we’ll build a bridge and just fake it. Alright, Psalm 37. One of the things that is difficult to recognize is the enemy’s tactics when he knows he can’t get you to do evil. Part of the maturing process, the growing process, is that we are presented with options. There’s good and there’s bad. Eric did a brilliant job this morning talking about this as it pertains to the will of God. But much of life, especially as a new believer, has to do with good and evil. But as you grow in the Lord, evil just becomes a distant thing to you. It’s not that we ever lose the capacity to sin; to be honest, it just loses all of its appeal. A lot of the decisions we then face have more to do with the quality of good that we want to give ourselves to and what God is intending to do in our lives. What I’ve noticed is that if the enemy can’t persuade me to make an evil choice, then what he will do is try to join me in the good choices to overemphasize that which God actually directed me to do.
There are three influences. This is old material for us, about the family, but I find that I need to continuously review it. There’s a political spirit, which is humanism; there’s the religious spirit, which is God without presence or power, without a personal encounter; and then there’s the Kingdom. Those three influences are all fighting to influence our lives unto control. The political spirit wants to influence you for power to control us. The religious spirit does the same, while the Kingdom of God is completely different because it empowers unto liberty. It’s a very difficult thing to describe because people think in the Kingdom there’s actually more room than there is outside of the Kingdom. So being constrained by God is the most empowering, liberating thing that is possible. God invites us into liberty, into freedom, and the mark of citizenship in the Kingdom is freedom. Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom; there’s liberty. The religious spirit works to control through many different means, and I don’t want to get too deep into this because I won’t be able to crawl out, and I don’t want to do that. I just want to illustrate this concept of how the political spirit wants you and me to overemphasize the assignment that God has given us.
Hopefully, this will make sense. We have three realms that we are constantly being tested in. They are not tests of success or failure; they are measurements to determine what measure of glory, majesty, is a word that Chris uses often from biblical texts, that God has assigned for us as human beings to live under. The Lord does this; if great blessing comes on an unsanctified life, it will crush it. If great blessing comes upon a sanctified life, it will establish it. There is a huge difference between the two, and the difference between them is the heart condition of the person receiving the blessing. The Lord actually longs to bless you more than you want to be blessed. That’s hard to imagine, but it’s really true. But what he does is he doesn’t want what he releases to us to destroy us, to distract us, or empower us unto self-centeredness. So the Lord portions out the blessing according to what we can carry. The three areas he is constantly measuring us in are authority, resources, and favor. He is always testing us; he releases a greater understanding, a glimpse of authority that we have in God, our authority in this world, favor, and resources. Resources would be time and money.
He releases increases to us all, and it’s always to see how much more we can handle. All of the Lord’s dealings—for example, if you look at Jesus’s illustrations on money, there were only two options that were approved by God: one was giving, and the other was investing for increase. I’m just trying to figure out how much trouble I want to get into. Yeah, you want me to get into a lot of trouble, I know. There’s such a thing as delusional compassion; it’s not real. There’s a delusional counterfeit wisdom. Fear of man is often called wisdom, but the good name covers an evil plot of the enemy to control or manipulate a person’s life. It’s called the fear of man. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of these kinds of things that come to us appearing to be good but actually draw us deeper into the lack of liberty, the absence of freedom.
If I can just pick on one thing: the primary function of government is to rule for protection and to empower. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s the government of a country, mom and dad of a home, or CEO of a business. The two primary functions are not the only ones, but the two primary functions are power and authority given to provide safety. For a country, of course, we think of military defense and those sorts of things. We want to make sure that as a nation we are safe, and so our leaders have a responsibility to make sure that we’re safe—that’s their responsibility. The second thing is to empower, to enable. When government shifts to control—and that’s what the political spirit works at—then it begins to draw from us the God-given liberties.
I need to be careful here because I’m not wanting to make a political statement as much as I’m wanting to make a kingdom statement. If you as a politician take my money and give it to the poor, that’s fine; just don’t call it compassion. It’s only compassion when you take your money and give it to the poor. Come on! No, I’m very serious. I’m not saying we shouldn’t take care of the poor. If you know how I live and you know how we live here, this is a real big deal for us. We’re very, very committed to this. But there’s a process that is Kingdom and then there’s a process that makes people feel good but isn’t good.
You know, when there’s some total military conflict or, you know, I remember when we had hostages in Afghanistan years ago. People would tie a yellow ribbon around the tree. It kind of gave them a sense of partnership with those who were being held hostage. Tying a ribbon around the tree didn’t do anything, but it made the person who did it feel connected. There are lots of political decisions that make people feel connected to a problem, but they actually don’t solve the problem.
I was not going here, but there was this sucking sound and it drew me into this black hole, and I’m not sure I can swim out of it. So let me just go all the way in and address your emails to Chris. This is a real touchy area, so let me just stand on that nerve a little bit more. If you take my money and give it to the poor, don’t call it compassion. Number one. But number two, you’ve robbed me of the gratification that comes from being personally involved in allocating resources to people in need. Wow! It bypasses the God-given encouragement and sense of identity and connection with broken people. What we like is we like for someone else to take our money and do it. Government, fine—but what it does is keep the poor there and those with means here.
If government (and that’s all of us because we the people) wants the poor to be taken care of, then honor those who do it on their own. That’s called enabling. If people aren’t doing it, then recognize those who do and it will attract others to do the same. Something great happened among the wealthiest of our nation several years ago when Bill Gates stood up and said he was giving half of his wealth away and he began to personally challenge the wealthiest in the world to join with him in that challenge. I love that! I love righteous peer pressure! I do! I love it—as Paul shared it this morning when he talked about the Muslim man who was prayed for by his doctor. He went to his dentist and found out he was a Christian. The dentist asked him, «How come you don’t pray for me? My doctor prays for me.» All of a sudden, there’s pressure to do the right thing! I love that! Let’s just create pressure!
I feel like what happens in revival is there is this pressure for morality. It’s peer pressure; it’s like there’s a standard that’s been set. Sometimes, how many of you know, sometimes we succeed only because we’re in the right group of people? I remember we used to cut wood a lot in Weaverville. In fact, it was the only heat we had for 17 years. We’d go out in the woods and get these dead trees and cut them up to use for firewood. I remember when we were hunting—hunting again—we saw this madrona tree, which is great to burn; it’s a nice hot burn! Only those with wood heat know what I’m saying right now. If you knew what I was talking about, you’d be lusting for my wood pile. Yes! Yes, never did I think it was possible to lust for a wood pile.
But when you live by wood heat, you start looking at people’s wood piles, you know? I remember being in the woods hunting with Buck Steele, looking for trees to cut. There was this huge madrona tree that fell but fell into the branches of another tree. Because of that, the roots were still partially intact—because of where it fell, it was still alive. Some people actually fall in a safe place! Wow, it is true!
So here’s where the enemy works to persuade us to go beyond what God has called us to do. Let me try to illustrate authority. For a large part, authority in Scripture is actually used to provide a voice for those who have no voice. So the enemy can’t get me to not speak on behalf of the poor and because he can’t persuade me from what I have committed myself to, what he tries to do is to get me to pick up the offense of the poor so that I minister justice out of the spirit of offense. Wow! Can you serve the poor without being offended at the rich? Can you serve the rich without being offended at those who won’t work? Can you serve in a foreign field without being offended at your own country? Can you serve the Jews without being offended at the Palestinians? Can you serve the Palestinians without being offended at the Jews? Can you serve the Republicans without being offended at the Democrats? Can you serve the Democrats without being offended at the Republicans?
See, here’s the deal: it is so easy to pick up the offense of the people you serve. It’s one of the most difficult courses to navigate in life. Because once you join your heart to people, their voice matters to you, and not everything they say is Kingdom. That’s why you’re serving them. Can you serve college students without being offended at the establishment? What I’ve observed is that people in ministry will often pick up the offense of the people they serve, and they will use their authority to minister justice because that’s what authority does. But it’s driven by the spirit of offense, which always goes past God’s intended target. Wow! Alright, that’s enough. We’ll just leave that there. If it’s messy, leave it. If it helps, great.
I’ll try not to go much longer, but I have some happy verses I want to read. Do not fret, verse one, because of evildoers. How many of you know people who are pre-converted? They’re pre-Christians. And how many of you know that those people really live like they’re not converted? How many of you have been betrayed by them? Are you just looking at me way too piously? Come on! Do not fret because of evildoers! Have you ever had someone curse you, rebuke you, throw your Christianity in your face, and tell you how bad of a witness you are? I had someone this week experience that delightful experience again and this verse means a lot to me. Do not fret because of evildoers! Don’t let the evil that someone else does mess up your peace. One of the coolest things to realize is that you never have to put your peace on an altar. You get to preserve that sense of presence that keeps you with perspective throughout your life. You don’t have to always be right, but you don’t ever have to lose peace!
So good! Do not fret because of evildoers, nor be envious of the workers of iniquity. Psalm 73 is great on this one. If I can put Psalm 73 in my own words, it’s: «God, the wicked get blessed all the time! They don’t even have pain when they give birth to children. They’ve got it made, and I don’t.» It’s just this whiny prayer; it’s from the sons of Asaph. It’s just this complaining, whiny prayer: «God, they get all the breaks! I don’t! They get all the blessings! Why do I even serve you?» This real bold prayer. He says, «This is how I thought until I went into the sanctuary. And then I perceived their end.» Wow! When I saw the moment they had the advantage. When I saw the big picture, they did not have the advantage! Sometimes all we lack is the big picture!
Don’t be envious of the workers of iniquity. Verse two: «They shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither like the green herb.» I never read these thinking of evil people. I always think in terms of the demonic realm. In this day, the war was between nations. In our day, the war is between spirits.
Come on, so good! So when I read about the wicked being slain, I don’t think, «Oh, that will serve him right,» as though God were going to vindicate me by killing somebody. There’s no pleasure there. You understand what I’m saying? We’re actually talking about the spiritual conflict, and the thought of the devil being annihilated brings great joy to my heart.
Verse three: «Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and feed on his faithfulness.» Whenever you see «dwell in the land,» it’s a picture of Israel in the promised land. What does that foretell? It foretells the kingdom living lifestyle that is available to every New Testament believer. When Jesus said, «The kingdom is at hand; repent for the kingdom is at hand,» what he’s doing is saying to dwell—in fact, here’s another way to put it: abide in Christ.
Live in that place of communion and fellowship because in that place you have perfect peace, and you have continuous access to unlimited resources that enable you to accomplish all you were assigned to accomplish. Dwell in the land; feed on his faithfulness. That’s a command to review the testimony. Feed yourself on the record of what God has done!
I’m concerned a little bit that if I were to give the Bethel family, specifically, a questionnaire and ask you certain questions, you could answer the right answers, but is that what we do when we’re in crisis? Is that what we do when we’re in trouble? Is it our first response? You understand what I’m saying? Feed on his faithfulness. What does that mean? It means I’ve got to look where he’s been faithful, and I have to feed on it.
What does that mean? It means I have to dwell on it until it becomes nourishment. Yeah! It doesn’t mean it’s a passing thought; it means I stop there and consider it a meal. It’s not fast food. Dwell in the land; abide in Christ. Stay connected to the presence. Stay connected to your purpose. You don’t always have to be mindful or understand what God’s doing. I rarely do, but honestly, I–I don’t!
I mean, I have moments where I see direction and all that, and I’m thankful when I do. But most of the time I’m abiding. I’m just maintaining peace. I’m just doing whatever is at hand, what I’m supposed to do next. I don’t concern myself with having to understand everything. I don’t remember the last time I asked God why. So good! It’s brought a lot of peace to my life to stop asking him why, 'cause he never answers!
I found it’s easier just to not have the frustration. I will do this: I’ll say, «God, I don’t want to go through that one again.» And if you can give me understanding, if there’s any part of that breakdown that just happened, any part of this problem, this loss we just experienced—if there’s any part of that I’m deficient in—I’m asking in this next season that you teach me.
But I don’t ask him why because usually, what we end up doing is we make up answers. We make up answers that have some sort of spiritual root to them, and they’re not at all what God is saying. I hear better going through life than I do stopping. Now, it may not be for you. If you say, «God, what does this mean?» and he speaks right to you, consider yourself the most blessed person in the room! For me, when I ask that question, if I stand there and wait, I’ll wait till I die! Generally, he speaks to me in doing life.
Is anybody else like that, or am I the only one?
Alright, here we are! Dwell in the land, feed on his faithfulness, delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. This is actually the verse when I thought about tonight that I felt would have the greatest importance for us. Delight yourself in the Lord.
It’s interesting if you look at the Greek language, and I just have the books. I’m not the smart guy in the languages; I just read the books. What I noticed was the word «joy» actually has a root word, and the root word is «rejoice.» Let’s put it this way: where does joy come from? Rejoicing! Let me try this side! I’ve got really good news for you: a lot of people wait for joy to come crashing in on their heart. You can wait, 'cause sometimes it happens, or you can have it now! In the world, we did things because we felt like it, and in the Kingdom, we do it because it’s right.
In the Kingdom, feeling follows action; in the world, feelings precede actions. Wow! I feel like the Lord illustrated it in the language of Scripture. The word «joy» actually comes from a root word that means «to rejoice.» So rejoice is an action; joy is a condition.
And for those who don’t like the idea of feelings, feelings can be misleading, but none of his feelings are misleading. So just learn in your journey to recognize the difference. Self-will has a similar gratification to it, as does the voice of the Lord, and you have to learn to recognize the difference between the two. That went over quite well, but it’s all right; let’s press on!
Delight yourself in the Lord! Choose to celebrate the goodness, the kindness of the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. This is fascinating to me because what this is saying to me is this: he’s saying, «Listen, you make me your chief joy, your chief desire, and then I’m going to provide for you what you desire.»
Do you know what he just said by that? When you desire me, you have permission to desire other things. I don’t know how this works for you, but I never gave myself permission to desire anything outside of a relationship with Jesus. Quite frankly, I don’t want anything outside of my relationship with Jesus. But what I’m finding is that when you’re with him, he liberates you to dream outside of what everyone else would call spiritual.
There’s something that happens to a person that is intensely connected to the presence, to the person, to the purpose, to the heart, where things start happening outside of what has been called spiritual, and it is actually spiritual from his perspective. Jesus is the one who honored— in the parable of the minas—honored the guy who had $1,000. He invested it and gained 10,000!
I’ve been hearing recently—a biblical standard that I think may be true—a kingdom standard for finances is that we need to start praying into and believing for 100% profit per year of money invested as a minimum because the minimum increase in the investments that Jesus used was 100%. Others experienced up to 30%. So suddenly the way I use this is intentionally spiritual. Why? Because he’s my chief delight and I can give it, I can keep it, I can invest it—doesn’t make any difference!
My relationship isn’t defined by what I make or what I own. My relationship is entirely a relationship. But in this relationship, greater joy and greater peace come into my heart, and suddenly I find him peering over my shoulder saying, «Son, I noticed you looked at that. You like that because it would be my dream to provide that for you.»
Come on! You’ve heard some of my stories that I’ve shared with you. You know the funniest one I’ll do quickly: the funniest one is when I was going through a fly fishing magazine a number of years ago, which I do love to fly fish. Thank you, Jesus! Thank you for the Sacramento River, the river of Sacramento going right through town. It’s beckoning me!
I was going through the magazine. Long story short, I look through these magazines just to see if I can find God’s will for my life. That’s what it comes down to. I happened to be just going through, and when you get towards the back, that’s where only the hards make it. You know, the novices stop after two or three pages; they see the fishing rods cost anywhere from $600 to $1,000, and they go, «Too rich for my blood.» They close the book. But some of us press in.
Some of us press in! I got towards the back, and I remember looking down at the page. There were these crystal goblets and crystal serving containers, and then on the right side of the page, there was a column, and there were these flasks. Apparently, fly fishermen like to put brandy or whiskey or something to keep themselves inspired if they don’t catch fish, I guess. Or to keep them warm in the cold water; I’m not sure what it is. But I looked at it just because it was a beautiful design. I had no use for one, but I just looked at it and thought to myself, «I can afford it, but I have no use for it.»
So I just turned the page and went on, and I think it was the next week—it might have been two weeks later—I was in England with Benny. We were at this conference, and a lady brought up a gift for both Benny and me. I let Benny open hers first. I forget what it was; it was what you’d buy a godly woman. You know, a cross earring or a picture frame with the name «Jesus» on it or something.
So I thought that was cool, and when Benny was through, I opened my box, and in this box is a flask! And I said, «Oh, well, thank you!» In my heart, I’m going, «You’re kidding! You’re kidding me!» I paused for two seconds to look at a page of something I could afford that I thought looked nice, but I had no use for. Why would you take Kingdom resources to buy something for me that I’ll never use? Just think through it.
I mean, all of us have our emergency prayer list—these are the A-grade prayers; we have our B, these are the important ones; we have C if you’re in a good mood, move into this; and if we’re really on a roll, oh, God, I’ve got this whole area. And then we have what’s left, and there’s a pile. It’s stuff we never bother to even bring up to the Lord because it’s so far out of reach, it’s unreasonable.
On the bottom of that pile was a flask, and I’m thinking Jesus skipped my A-list, my B-list. He went to the bottom of the refuge list and he pulled out a flask, and it was as though he was saying, «I just want you to know what kind of Dad I am.» And he provided me the flask. Here it is! Delight yourself in the Lord! Delight yourself!
Bring delight to yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. He will actually birth desires in you that are not there by command; they’re there by relationship. In our early years in walking with the Lord, the big deal is just learning to do what he commands us to do. That’s vital; that never changes, but the emphasis starts to shift a bit as you become more mature in the Lord, where the Lord starts looking to you for what you dream about.
In the early days, I heard it said that we wrestle with the devil. As we get older, we wrestle with ourselves, and before we die, we actually end up wrestling with God, hoping we don’t win that like Jacob. We walk with a limp the rest of our life, the mark of divine encounter. There’s this process that takes place in our lives. And here the Lord is inviting us into a place where we maintain peace, we reveal what we have, we review his nature, his character; we review what he’s like, his faithfulness, the simple stories.
I remind myself of the flask; I remind myself of just the things in my heart—I’m almost embarrassed for them in my prayer life not to talk about. Not that they’re embarrassing to themselves; they’re just not worthy of recognition. I don’t know if you think like this. Forgive me, I’m just in the middle of this. I can feel it in my heart. I just…I want to change the course of history! You know, I want nations to be impacted.
I mean, these are things I dream about and think about. This is what I want to talk about to God! And every once in a while there’s this interest in this thing, and it’s so insignificant, and yet he has interest there. He has interest there only because I have interest there. When Eric, in high school one year, wrestled—was on the wrestling team of the school—I never followed wrestling my whole life, but I became a wrestling fan because that’s where his interest was! Right? I mean, you can have a child that picks up an instrument that you don’t even like!
How many of you know there are some musical instruments that have to have other instruments around them for them to sound right? No, it’s true! It is true! I mean, forgive me if you play…I’m not going to mention any, so I almost started going through them. There are some that just aren’t that friendly to the ear unless they’re in the context of the orchestra they were designed for! I’ll let you figure that out because I’ll get some mail! Email Chris Valen at…he sees, as he looks over my shoulder, my heart just being pulled here or there!
Not idolatry, not materialism, not greed, not covetousness—just life! It’s amazing how often people who are free to dream actually have dreams fulfilled! Come on, so good! I really like good food! I do! I mean, really good food! Sometimes in these really good food restaurants, you get weird things to eat! I’m on a tangent here, but I’m almost done! I think I just like to go to nice restaurants! I do!
It’s on my «boy, this is cool» list! And since I have lived with my desire here, I have had more doors open to eat at these three Michelin star restaurants than I ever did when I kept them concealed!
No, I don’t mean broadcasting to people! You know, I don’t like that stuff where you hint what you want! In fact, I had to take something off my Instagram page here a couple of weeks ago because I thought, «Man, I’ve got to get that off there because somebody will buy that,» and that’s—I—that’s what I—we can’t mention—we like salty licorice or we’ll get a box of it the next week!
Right? Now, that wasn’t a hint! You guys are way too nice! Just don’t pay any attention to illustrations! But I have friends that just pick this stuff up and start thinking, «Yeah, we’ve got to cancel this meeting this night. Let’s go to Paris! There’s this three Michelin star restaurant. It’s at Napoleon’s old house and his compound, and you just can’t get into this restaurant, but because the assistant to the mayor is a friend. It’s amazing what powerful people can make happen!»
I find myself sitting in this restaurant that I could never get into. Now, that may not mean anything to someone else; to a few of you, it would. But to some of you, you’re going, «I’m not going to waste my money on…» Let me ask you a question: Are you all right with me just wandering? I hope so, 'cause I’m not through! I’m not through; it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
Let’s throw it out: let’s offend as many as I possibly can! Let’s just say this meal—oh, let’s pick a good price—let’s say this meal costs $500! Woo! Let me ask you this: If Jesus was coming to your house and wanted to go out to eat, and it was possible, and it was within your means to take him to that kind of a restaurant, would you consider that to be a worthwhile investment?
Remember, he’s the one who said, «When you’ve done it to the least of these, you’ve done it to me.» No—listen! This is the way you live life! I mean, it’s the way you live life! I don’t want to buy—I don’t want to pay $100 for Wagyu beef for a vegetarian friend!
Like my favorite t-shirt says, «If God meant for us all to be vegetarians, he would have made broccoli more fun to shoot at!» And all the vegetarians in Bethel, I challenge your faith!
So often, I’m so sorry, it’s just this twisted sense of humor! I genuinely am sorry! But the point I’m trying to make is I’m not going to spend a lot of money on something to provide for someone else that they wouldn’t value. But what I will do is look for what you value! Why? And then I get to honor the Lord!
One of the most important lessons I ever learned in life was in my early years in Weaverville, where I always thought that when you serve the Lord, God comes first, your family comes second, Ministry comes third—in my case, Ministry would be job, occupation, that sort of thing. You go on down this list, and I think it’s a good list because it shows us priorities.
But I found it impossible for me to live! Because it’s really hard to divide your time, and the best answer I found is that when God is number one, there is no number two! Come on! And that I actually get to love my wife as unto the Lord, and he receives it personally! And when I take time with my children or my grandchildren, it is as unto the Lord! It’s an offering to him because I’m doing what I was born to do!
I’m doing what I was designed to do! A person who doesn’t dream and has no desires is already dying! We keep alive! We actually provide evidence of life by the fact that we have the freedom and ability to dream. And the Lord in this passage is trying to draw us into a covenantal relationship where we don’t let people who do wrong cause us to lose our peace.
Number one! Number two, we maintain that sense of presence! We dwell in that place of abiding in Christ! We feed ourselves on the history of God that we have, and others have around us. It just means you sit down and take time. It’s not a happy meal; it’s a—in a sense, something you just drive through, pick up, and gobble down.
It’s something you take time—let it impact who you are! Dwelling in the land, feeding on faithfulness changes how you see! And if what you’re feeding on doesn’t change how you see, then you need to eat another meal! You need to go back to the faithfulness of the Lord again!
Then it says, «Delight yourself in the Lord.» Make sure that you find joy in your relationship with Jesus, and make that your chief joy! In doing that, he’s going to peer over your shoulder to find what caught your eye! He’s going to find the things that actually bring delight to you!
Why? Because as he fulfills them—in his heart and mind, there’s no separation between secular and sacred! There’s no separation between natural and spiritual; they’re all interwoven! When he answers that flask thing for you or he does that unreasonable, out-of-the-way dream that you had—even the slightest, smallest little thing—but when he does that for you, something is strengthened in your identity with him!
And that’s what he’s working on! He’s building—he’s strengthening the awareness, the consciousness, the conviction, the sense of purpose that is written over our lives! And he does that as we become free to dream! The ultimate expression of the Christian life is not you doing everything he commands you to do!
Eric once again dealt with this so well this morning: the evidence is that our dreams are consistent with his dreams, and he delights himself to empower the fulfillment of those dreams. It’s at those times—see, I didn’t raise my kids to call me whenever they have a decision to be made—no, think about this! My goal as a parent was not so they would call me and say, «I don’t know, Dad! We’re struggling! We don’t know if we should have tuna fish for lunch or fried chicken! We really don’t know what to do!»
We don’t want that. We don’t want that! We don’t want God—Dad—same! Yeah, no, sorry, Dad! We don’t know if we should buy this car or buy that car! I mean, obviously, I’m into giving as much help and assistance as I can, but it’s not a sign of maturity for them to need my input for every decision.
It’s actually a sign of immaturity! And never does maturity bring separation! Maturity does not bring separation—not real maturity. You’ll see earthly models of separation; that’s called maturity, but it’s not Kingdom!
In the Kingdom, family is always maintained, and maturity is then seen by by watching your children in this sense laboring with the Lord, actually representing his heartbeat, thinking just like Jesus! You’ve got to imagine God allowing us to be put in the middle of a difficult decision, and he watches as we think exactly like his Son Jesus! That was the target! That was the target from the beginning!
And it’s not a thinking like Jesus independent of Jesus, but does this make sense? He’s not looking for us to accomplish everything we need to accomplish because of a command. He’s looking for us to accomplish out of design! Delight yourself in the Lord! He’ll give you the desires of your heart! Commit your way to Him! Trust also in Him, and He will bring it to pass!
Just think through the verse! Commit your way to Him! He’ll bring it to pass! What does that mean? You remember those dreams he said he’d fulfill? Many of them have step-by-step fulfillment! Commit your way—commit your initial steps to the Lord, and he’ll make sure that you have your intended result!
Some of you need $10,000, but you’re unwilling to open a savings account with $50 because you want the $10,000 to show up! He’s saying, «Commit the small steps!» And then he supernaturally empowers the steps we take so that they bring exponential increase and breakthrough!
Israel’s problem is they were expecting the Kingdom to become manifested through a military invasion of Jesus, becoming King, instantly taking over the Earth! And that’s what they were waiting for! They didn’t realize that the Kingdom was supposed to become manifested through process!
We value outcome; He values process!
Alright, one more verse, and we’ll wrap it up. Actually, three more verses! «He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, your justice as the noon day.» Verse seven: «Rest in the Lord, wait patiently for him.» That’ll get you to rest right there! If I think that’s some sort of a panic thing!
Alright, rest in the Lord! Wait patiently for him! In some ways, the most valuable possession I have is peace! And while I don’t talk about it a lot, I do have a lot of peace in my life, and I work really hard to protect it! There are times where I lose it. And when I do, I have to backtrack to find out where I lost it. Sometimes I backtrack, and I don’t know—when I back all the way up, I go, «Oh, it was at that phone call! I let go of what I had!» And I embraced something I shouldn’t have!
Don’t fret because of him—who are you with me? —make the exchange! He says, «Wait for the Lord! Rest! Wait for the Lord! Wait patiently for him! Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass! Cease from anger! Forsake wrath! Do not fret; it only causes harm!»
I want to end with that last phrase: don’t fret, don’t worry, don’t become anxious! Why? Because the only possible outcome is sin! Now, don’t fret. Don’t become anxious because the only possible outcome is sin! The only possible outcome is fear, which never takes us into the things of God.
Fear can motivate us to pray. The experience of fear is not evil in itself; it’s our response to fear. If you have shame, you’re holding on to something you shouldn’t hold on to! And you’re not holding on to something you should hold on to! Shame is a result of hanging on to the wrong thing—guilt, regret, fear, anxiety—all those wonderful family of actions. All they are is holding on to something.
Some people try to come into humility by holding on to an old identity, a sinful past, just to remind them of their need for grace. There’s a better way! You can taste of grace, and in the middle of grace, realize how much you need grace! Cultivating an awareness of your evil past does nothing to help you in your identity with Christ!
Let’s stand!
Alright, that was Around the World in 80 Days! That’s what you do when you can’t decide on what two messages you want to share. You just kind of… that’s right—a buffet!
Father, I ask that you would help us recognize the desires, the dreams, the things that are being birthed in us that are actually the result of your influence! They’re your offspring! And to recognize the difference between that and the desires that actually undermine your purposes! And that you’d give us a heart of wisdom to be able to see the difference between the two!
In doing so, Lord, I pray again for us as a family that you’d release us into greater liberty than we’ve ever known! I pray for everybody in the building that the mark on our lives from this point on would be the presence of God and the freedom he brings! Free! Free! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom from the punishment of the religious system! Freedom from the isolation of the political system! Freedom from the control of those things that only seek to destroy!
God, provide for everyone in the room! Provide for them their flask! Let every person have the undeserved breakthrough where you reveal once again you see the deep things of the heart where you’re willing to take Kingdom resources for things that have no eternal significance!
Put your hand on someone’s shoulder. Just pray, «God, free them to dream! Free them to dream! Free them to dream!» Thank you, Lord! Alright, you did good! Amen!