Bill Johnson - The Birthplace of Breakthrough, Walking in Power
Because the power of God is not a tool that we use to bring people into the kingdom; the power is a person. I am the tool that He uses. It is not my maneuvering of His presence and power that I use for Divine purpose; it is my yielding and surrender. I’m unwilling to live life without the «yes» through which He would flow in power. Good job, good job! Bless you! Wow, this is a very fruitful church, very fruitful. My goodness! A pastor dies and is waiting in line at the Pearly Gates. Ahead of him is a guy dressed in sunglasses, a loud shirt, leather jacket, and jeans. St. Peter addresses the cool guy first: «Who are you, so that I may know whether or not to admit you into heaven?» The guy replies, «I’m Dennis, a retired airline pilot from Florida.» Peter looks at his list, smiles, and says to the pilot, «Take this silk robe, this golden staff, and enter the kingdom.» The pilot goes into heaven. Next, it’s the pastor’s turn. He stands tall and booms, «I’m Pastor Bob, pastor of Belal Church in Redding, California, for the last 43 years.» St. Peter looks at his list and says to the pastor, «Take this cotton robe and a wooden staff and enter into heaven.» The pastor responds, «Hey, wait a minute! The pilot got a silk robe and a golden staff! I only get cotton and wood! How can this be?» Peter replied, «Up here, we go by results. When you preached, people slept. When he flew, people prayed.»
In Revelation chapter 2, Jesus brought a word of correction to the church at Ephesus. It’s not that I want to bring a word of adjustment or correction; I want to highlight a principle that He addressed in the passage. If it fits, great! He said, «You’ve lost your first love.» What fascinates me about the story, when He addressed the fact that the church at Ephesus, this church that had experienced what I think is the greatest move of God in the New Testament, is that He didn’t say, «Memorize these scriptures until your love for me returns.» He didn’t say, «Go into multiple worship services and worship until your love is restored.» He didn’t say, «Fast for seven days and then your love will return to you.» Instead, He said something that I find very strange: «Do the deeds you did at first.» It’s almost strange to me that the Lord would direct people who had lost their first love to go back to their first deeds. When you understand the heart behind this, you realize that, of course, it comes from Jesus, so it has to be true and right. But it is the most profound connection for a person to get back to a place of fervency in God. «Do the deeds you did at first.»
What happens in life is that we pay a price. We pay a price to serve God. Nobody adds Jesus to their life; Jesus is our life. We literally leave everything to serve Him, and we pay a price. Some of you moved here from other parts of the world or the country; some people left great businesses. Some left families in difficult situations, and you just made that bold move because you heard the Lord speak to you. Others have done other things; they joined WWAM, they go into missions. The point is they said yes to God and paid a price, and what happens is that when you say yes to the Lord and we pay a price to increase and advance in the kingdom, it brings breakthroughs. Sometimes, it’s quickly; sometimes, it’s after years. Some of you, as new believers, went on a seven-day fast, and you didn’t think it did any good. All it was was just a hunger strike for you—your dreams and visions of hamburgers and fries—and there seemed to be no spiritual significance to the fast, and yet it was laid up to your account. Some of the breakthroughs you experienced, maybe even years later, were in part due to a price that you paid.
I remember waking early and crying out to God, and oftentimes I would fall asleep. I found that the secret to prayer is to keep walking; just keep moving. It’s the way it works for me. I just walk and pray, walk and pray. I found the Bible says, «Watch and pray,» but I walk so that I can keep my eyes open and watch. Some in this room had certain things you did in your early days with the Lord that, after breakthrough started to come, you began neglecting some of the things that actually got you to that place of breakthrough. I don’t know if everything has to be the same as it was, but if we don’t look at our lives wisely, we will misinterpret what actually brought the breakthrough. It wasn’t my significance; it wasn’t my call; it wasn’t my great faith. It was His grace. It was His grace, and somehow paying the price.
You might say, «Well, why should I pay the price? Jesus paid the ultimate price,» and it’s true, but it would be foolish to think I can serve Him wholeheartedly without paying a price. There’s something about the absolute yes that costs me absolutely everything. What happens is we get breakthroughs; we come into places where we’re enjoying the fruit of yesterday’s yes. We enjoy the fruit! Maybe you’ve never seen a miracle in your life, and you started to cry out to God, and there’s this encounter that came on your life. You started praying for people, and every once in a while, you actually see a miracle take place in somebody’s life. What is that? That’s an inheritance. That’s the Lord saying, «Here, this is a realm that belongs to you.» This is something that is the result of your yes.
One of the illustrations I like to use, which is a standard in Scripture, is an Old Testament concept that warns us: do not move the ancient boundaries. Just think with me now: don’t move the ancient boundaries. This was to a people that had inherited pieces of land, and they weren’t to adjust the borders. They were to experience, enjoy, and delight in what God had given them to the fullest and not adjust the boundaries. Sometimes, you can adjust the boundaries because you think your faith is small and you’re not going to live up to your potential. Sometimes, you can actually encroach upon other people’s lives because you want what other people have; you want their anointing, their ministry, their blessing in life, instead of living responsibly with what God has given you.
The point is that we are forbidden to move the ancient boundaries. It’s kind of an abstract lesson, so I need you to work with me a little bit here today. When the Lord reveals truth to us, He’s doing two basic things. He’s inviting us into personal transformation and revealing to us our inheritance. I heard someone say recently that when God reveals truth to us, He’s inviting us into personal transformation and He’s revealing to us our inheritance. For example, every broken situation that Jesus walked into, He walked into it redemptively. He didn’t walk into a tragedy, a crisis, a disease, a funeral—whatever; fill in the blanks. He didn’t walk into the situation, look at it, and go, «I don’t know what to do,» and walk out. It never happened! He always came in with a redemptive solution.
He raised the dead child, healed the blind eyes, brought peace where there was conflict, hope where there was a loss of hope. The point is that He always stepped into a situation redemptively. That’s an ancient boundary; it’s a boundary that was established in the nature of the Gospel that we do not have the right to adjust. I may never do it well, but I can’t change the boundary. I have to grow into the size of the inheritance I’ve been given. In light of this, I’ve had two things kind of pulling at my heart. One is that when I look at history, at church history, I look at Evan Roberts, for example. I love that guy! What was he, 19 years old? He just started hungering for God, and he just started praying in ways that were just unheard of. He would cry out to God; he would stay up at night and cry out to the Lord; he’d wake up early. He was a coal miner, and he just knew that God wanted his nation to be saved; he just ached for more. When you ache for something like that, sometimes you forget to eat. Some of the things that would normally matter just don’t matter anymore.
You just see this guy that is so obsessed—in a right way—with the things of God that he just cries out day and night for this move of God. He arranges with this pastor; he comes home from the coal mines and arranges with his pastor to talk to the people. One evening, when the meeting was over, the pastor said, «I’ll let you talk to whoever wants to stay after.» He didn’t give him the main service, but he stayed with, I forget how many—25 people or something—and he just challenged them to give their all for Jesus. If I remember the numbers right, I think it was 13 people who stood at the end of that brief message to 25 people and basically said, «I’m all in.» Evan Roberts' response was he wrote to the national newspaper and said, «Basically, revival is here.» All he had was 13 people that said yes, and he basically said, «Watch out; your world is about to change!» Why? Because we have 13 burning ones that are now going to shape the course of world history. You read this, and you go, «Man, that’s an ancient boundary! I don’t want to move that! I don’t want to mess with that!»
That’s a standard that forever stays in my mind, that this is what God responds to. He responds to the person who just puts away some of the normal things—the things that are okay—and says, «You know what? I just hunger for God more than anything else.» These prices that we pay, these experiences, these moments where God deals with us—I remember my own walk with the Lord where the Lord came so powerfully in the night. I won’t go into detail, but the power of the Lord was so present in the room upon my physical body that I couldn’t function. I couldn’t maintain, and I knew that the Lord was asking for one thing. I had asked Him, «I want more at any cost; I will pay any price.» He began to parade in front of me scenes of me trying to teach in front of the people, realizing I looked so dumb, so foolish; no one was going to believe this is God.
I saw the next scene of me standing in front of my favorite restaurant in our town up there in Weaverville, realizing there was not a person in the city that was going to believe this is God. I remembered that Jacob wrestled with an angel, and he limped the rest of his life, and Mary, of course, was the mother of the illegitimate child. The point is, when you are profoundly touched by God, it leaves a mark. Are you willing to live with a mark? Because it’s not always something you can explain. That’s what the Lord was dealing with me on; it was a price to pay, so to speak. I remember laying there, unable to function normally, tears flowing down my cheeks onto the pillowcase for about maybe 20 minutes. He began to show me scenes and show me; I told Him I want more at any cost, and He was showing me the price.
When those scenes were over, I said, «I’ll take it if I can get You in the exchange. You can do anything You want to do with me.» You know, you have these moments in God. It’s going to be different for every person, but the point is the farther you go in God, the less you can take with you. These moments where the Lord touches a person’s life, these moments where a word is released into somebody’s life, these encounters where I don’t know what happens, but something happens in here where I think differently, I see differently—everything changes. These are the yeses we say to God that become the price we pay for breakthrough. What’s vital for me is that I say yes; I pray; I do all the things that I do unto something. I have this encounter, and the Lord speaks to me here, and I obey in this very difficult situation, and I give or sacrifice or whatever. The point is, all these yeses to God, somehow He adds to that, and He brings me into a breakthrough that I didn’t even know was possible.
The temptation is to coast in your present breakthrough and live ignorant of the fact that that was just step one of many steps into the things that God longs to release into the earth. There are things that have never been seen before; there are realms in God that have never been seen before that He longs to release to His people. In John 16, Jesus said, «I have so many things to say to you, but you can’t bear them now.» I have so many things to say. When He talks, He doesn’t just exchange ideas; when He speaks, He creates. He’s basically saying, «You don’t have the weight-bearing capacity to hold under what I want to release over you, so I have to hold back what I would normally say.»
I feel like the Lord is bringing us to a place. I believe, personally, that the next 90 days have been set aside by the Lord, where we live with the possibility of seeing breakthroughs that we have longed for for years. How many of you have sensed you’re on the edge of breakthrough? How many of you can say you’ve felt that way for years? It’s not like the last four weeks; you know it’s been the last 10 years or something. I feel like we’re on the edge of something. I can feel it; I can taste it; I can see through the glass darkly, so to speak. What He keeps bringing me back to is this that I’m talking about today.
When you get breakthrough, you can never depart from what got you the breakthrough. «Do the deeds you did at first.» Go back to the standard that you said yes to in the beginning; keep the simplicity of devotion to Christ. Don’t complicate it through the fruitfulness of breakthrough. So, I’m going to take you through just three portions of scripture. So go with me, if you would, to Ezekiel 44. Yes, Ezekiel 44. In 1972, my dad spoke for, I think, four weeks, if I remember right, four weeks out of this chapter. How many of you weren’t even born in 1972? Oh, shut up! I remember my dad spoke out of this chapter, and in this chapter we’re going to read just a couple of verses because what I want you to see is I want you to see a concept that is revealed here. It’s an ancient boundary for me; it represents a life-changing moment. In this chapter, he talks about priests, and priests had two basic functions: to minister to God and to minister to people.
As he laid it out for us, he talked about the priority of ministry to the Lord and then ministry to the church and ministry to the world. That so resonated in my heart. I remember the old—how many of you were here in the old Bethel Church? Some of you were alive and here then—bless your hearts! These are not old-timers, long-timers. Some of them are also very old-timers, but long-timers. There were two sections like this, and I remember sitting on the edge right over here, maybe third or fourth row. My dad spoke for four weeks on the subject of ministry to God, and I remember at the end of one of the messages. He didn’t have an altar call; there was no invitation to do anything. It was just coming to the end of the message, and I remember just bowing my head right back here, and I just prayed this prayer: «God, I give you the rest of my life to teach me this one thing.» This one thing. I’ve been so impacted by the fact that the people of God have the privilege of coming and ministering to God Himself.
So you have to ask the question: why then would God want us to come and minister to Him? He’s not insecure; He’s not in need of us boosting His confidence. He’s not fearful about His identity; He’s not struggling with any of those things. Why then would God want me to come and declare to Him His greatness, His significance? Why then would He want me to come and give a sacrifice that goes beyond convenience in giving thanks even ahead of personal breakthrough? Why would He want that? The answer is that every decision God makes is out of love and love chooses the best. So God wants that for me because it is the best for me. So then we have to ask the question: how then is ministering to Him the best for you? For me, it’s because we always become like whatever we worship. God could want nothing better for me than for me to become like Him.
It’s also true in the negative. You look at Psalms 115—it’s another Psalm—I forget the one right now, but the principle used is: those who worship idols—and, by the way, you know people may not have an idol sitting up in their home, but the Apostle Paul taught that greed is idolatry. Idolatry is spiritual adultery, so you almost always see sexual sin and idolatry in the same breath because one is in the spirit and the other is in the physical. Generally, before people fall into physical sin, they’ve made the spiritual sin. So Paul warns about idolatry. What’s the point? Psalms 115 says, «And those who worship idols become blind like the idol they worship.» This idol can’t see; they become blind. It doesn’t mean their eyes don’t work; it means their discernment, their perception stops.
Their ability to touch and taste the experiences of life—those things begin to shut down. Why? Because they’re becoming like what they worship! The opposite is also true—in the presence and the glory and the opportunity to minister to Him, we are changed. Take a look at this passage—we’ll read just a couple of verses just to represent this particular part of the story: Verse 15, «But the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok, who kept charge of My sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from Me, they shall come near to Me to minister to Me; they shall stand before Me to offer to Me the fat and the blood.» Verse 23: «And they shall teach My people the difference between the holy and the unholy and cause them to discern between the clean and the unclean.»
I don’t know if that stands out to you, but I love that verse: your life as a worshiper can actually provoke and cause others to see things that are holy and unholy. There is a perception that they obtain in life about right or wrong, things that are defiled, and things that are blessed by the Lord—to see the difference in the two simply because you’re in their life as a worshiper. Here is this privilege of ministering as a priest. Now, here’s the deal: In the Old Testament, one tribe out of 12 were priests. In the New Testament, every believer is a priest. Old Testament: Exodus 19 and Isaiah 61 say, «You shall be priests unto the Lord.» New Testament: 1 Peter 2, Revelation 1:15 says, «You are.»
The Old Testament says, «You shall be.» The New Testament says, «You are.» It has been in the works for a long time, but now everyone is a priest before the Lord! So when He spoke that word, I bowed my heart, bowed my head, and said, «God, I give you the rest of my life to teach me that one thing.» What is that? I’ll tell you. For me, and I believe for this house, it’s an ancient boundary; it’s not negotiable. This is who we are; it defines the privilege and the mandate that rest upon our lives to come in before Him. I tell you, one of the most important parts of this for me is that it has to be sacrificial. Would this example make sense to you? What I gave to the Lord 20 years ago was a sacrifice, but that was a sacrifice 20 years ago.
What I gave to the Lord 20 years ago is now convenience obedience; obedience increases your capacity. So to stay on the edge of personal development and growth is to increase the sacrifice. It’s a very good point, Bill! Amen! All right, go to Isaiah chapter 60. Are you alive—like really alive or just kind of? Wow, deeply impacted by the woo? That was good! In May of 1979, the Lord spoke to me out of Isaiah 60. How many of you weren’t even alive in 1979? Pups! Young pups! I was in the back of the church walking in Weaverville, in the back of the church. The church seated maybe 120 people if we squeezed together tight, and I was in the back of the sanctuary, just walking. It was my custom; I would walk through the place and pray.
I happened to be walking in the back section, just probably about as far as that wood part of the stage there, just walking back and forth praying, and I happened to be reading in Isaiah that particular week. I came to chapter 60; it says, «Arise, shine, for your light has come.» It was different from every other verse I had been reading up to that time. The way I describe it, it’s a moment that God breathes on. There’s life emanating from what I just read; it gripped me; it spoke to me so deeply that I could see He was changing my view of the church and what is possible in my lifetime.
He began to uproot some things just in the reading of the Scripture. Honestly, the first 19 verses—we’re going to read four or five—but the first 19 verses just began to speak to me layer after layer after layer, and it has affected—I believe it’s affected every day of my life since that Thursday afternoon in May of 1979, simply because He breathed on a portion of Scripture that I knew was home for me. I want you to look at this passage with me: Isaiah 60, verse 1: «Arise, shine, for your light has come.» Stop right there! Jesus is the light that enlightens every person that comes into the world (John chapter 1). He is the light that enlightens every person coming into the world! This is a right-now word; it’s vital that we see. In the Old Testament, Isaiah was looking to our day and he was giving us insight, he was giving us food that would nourish us into our expansion into the things of God and the reality of the kingdom of God.
So He’s giving us a statement. He says, «Arise, shine.» In other words, you have a responsibility because your light has already come. Get back to work! Do what you’re supposed to do! Take your position; rise and show the nature, the love of Christ, the power of Christ. Take your posture and watch what happens! «Arise, shine; your light has come. The glory of the Lord is risen upon you. Behold, darkness covers the earth; deep darkness the people. But the Lord will arise over you; His glory will be seen upon you.» So here’s the deal: you take your position, and God adds His glory to your position!
Does this make sense? You’ve been given a glory! Did you know that every part of God’s creation has a measure of glory? He says it’s almost like, «Stand in your present glory, and I’ll add Mine.» It’s like He releases that glory—as the manifested presence of Jesus! My goodness, what could we want that’s better than that? Verse 2: «Behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people; but the Lord will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you.» My translation says Gentiles in the next verse; New American says nations; I’m going to use that one. Verse 3: «The nations shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising.»
Lift up your eyes all around and see. Do you remember when Jesus said, «Lift up your eyes; see the fields; they are white unto harvest»? Do you remember when Jesus said, «Lift up your eyes and look on the fields; they are white unto harvest»? Yes, John chapter 4 is a sister passage to this lifting up your eyes. Here’s what happens: we get buried with world conflict and different difficulties in our personal lives, and our vision gets cast down, down, down, down, down. He says, «Lift up your eyes.» Because it’s only in lifting up that you get to look down with clarity and perception. He says, «Lift up your eyes and see. They all gathered together; they come to you.»
«Sons shall come from afar, and your daughters will be carried in their arms and nursed at your side.» In this translation, then you will see and become radiant; your heart will swell with joy because the abundance of the sea is turned to you. Now, the abundance may be resources and opportunities and favor and all that stuff, and I’m into that; that’s wonderful. But the real wealth of the nations is people! It’s souls! It’s souls! He says the wealth of the nations will come to you; it’s not about you and me building our personal empires. It’s about the King of Glory being exalted as the great harvester in the earth—the harvester of souls! He’s saying, «Arise and shine! Take your place! I’ll add my glory, and when that combination of heaven and earth works together, the nations will come.
Nations, kings, the leaders of industry, athletes, actresses, politicians, CEOs—the whole point is those who shape culture—when they see the glory that is upon you, I have put within them a passion and a desire that they don’t even know how to describe, and it’s for what you carry! When the glory rests upon you, they will leave their position, their posture, and they will come to you. He says, „Lift up your eyes; look! Your daughters are coming; your sons are coming.“ It’s happening! The wealth of the nations, the masses of people will come to you! How, in the world, if God speaks to you about that, can you be impressed by a crisis anywhere on the planet? It doesn’t mean I’m unmoved; it just means I’m not impressed! It doesn’t mean there’s no compassion—no, we respond to these things with prayer; we step into these things redemptively to see God work His purposes out. But the moment a crisis becomes bigger in my own consciousness than my awareness of God, I will live in reaction to the problem.
If I live in reaction to the problem, the devil has had influence in setting my agenda; he is not worthy of influencing my agenda at all! The Lord was merciful in May of 1979 to drive a stake in the ground that has influenced my hope, my anticipation, my expectation for what will happen in the earth. Not denying difficulty; not denying crisis; but just saying, „In the midst of it, God is to be glorified! The church will come into a place of purity, a place of great strength, and the nations will see it; the kings will see it; and once they do, they will come.“ But it comes back to you and me—get up off your rear end and shine! Stop waiting for another prophetic word! I love the prophetic, but stop waiting for your word that brings you breakthrough! You don’t need it! Just obey God! Do what He said—just get up!
Well, I don’t know what I’m doing. Well, try your best! Just do the best you can; just take your position! One more: Romans 15. Does anyone else in the room have recreational portions of Scripture that you just turn to just because you can, and they’re so refreshing? Psalms 37 is that for me; Isaiah 60 is that for me; Romans 15 is that way. They are what I call the hot tub! It’s the hot tub in God! Now I have a couple of things in my life that I believe reveal the goodness of God. One is a massage chair, and the other is a hot tub. When I get in that hot tub, I let the bubbles work on the lower part of my back and then I go to the next chair, and I let those things work on my shoulders, and then I go to the part where you get to lay down, and you’re just floating in the glory!
That’s Romans 15 for me. You need to have a hot tub somewhere in the Bible that you can go to just get refreshed, and I’m showing you one of mine. I have several, but I’ll loan it to you; you just have to return it. Look at verse 13: „Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace.“ Does anybody have room for more joy and peace? Well, this is His commitment: „Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.“ Ah! Can you abound in hope without the power? The answer is no! The power of God reveals the love of God, and it is impossible to adequately display the love of God without power! Power is not a point in our theology; power is a person! The Holy Spirit is the dunamis of heaven!
Verse 18: „I will dare not speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me in word and deed to make the Gentiles obedient.“ Here’s our verse: „In mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem round to Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ!“ Read the verse again. I’m going to remove the names of the cities so that you can see more clearly what he’s saying: „In mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ!“ I’ll tell you, another boundary or border that cannot be adjusted or moved is the absolute necessity for the power of God! The absolute necessity!
This is not a verse to say, „Well, you preach, you fully preach the gospel, and your friend doesn’t.“ It’s not a have and have not! If I look at it that way, then I have misunderstood completely what he’s saying because the power of God is not a tool that we use to bring people into the kingdom; the power is a person. I am the tool that He uses. It is not my maneuvering of His presence and power that I use for Divine purpose; it is my yielding and surrender. I’m unwilling to live life without the „yes“ through which He would flow in power. I’m unwilling, and it’s a boundary; it’s a boundary of this inheritance! It’s something in God I have no right to adjust or to move or to change.
It’s not about what somebody else preaches. It’s not about what somebody else has or doesn’t have. It’s about my personal responsibility! As for me and my house, I have seen a line of demarcation. I once was okay with the theology of power and not the experience and not the practice. It’s unacceptable! It’s unacceptable! It’s not a guilt word; it’s not a shame word. It’s just saying, you know what? Here’s the land you’ve inherited. This one over here says you’re a priest of God. This boundary over here says you have hope in every situation, but this one right here says power must be displayed for this gospel to be revealed for what it is to touch the hearts of people because it is that power that changes the life.
Without power, it’s not good news. It’s not power; without power, it’s just another philosophy. But with the power of God demonstrated to confront the demons that torment people, the diseases that afflict people, the lies that circle around people’s heads, those things are broken because the power of Christ working in you and in me stops that cycle of death; it stops the cycle of loss! It’s the requirement upon every believer to demonstrate who He is in power! It’s not optional; it’s a boundary! I don’t have the right to adjust the boundary! I may not live fully to the boundary, but I can’t move it. I have to grow just like a plant; you put it in a larger pot; it grows until it fills that pot. Then you transplant it to another one, and it grows until it fills that pot. That’s where we’re at.
He’s expanding our capacity. Revelation knowledge reveals areas where I have personal transformation coming, and it reveals my inheritance—what I must enter into through the expression of faith. Mystery is your friend because it gives opportunity for faith. All those questions you can’t answer—consider them friends because without those questions, it’s much too easy for us to become arrogant and independent. But living in mystery keeps us dependent. It’s been in my heart for the last now probably several months to be honest—maybe even as much as a year or so—to review just for my sake. This is not a pulpit experience; this is my little world. What price did I pay? Where did I say yes when it was hard that brought breakthrough?
Am I maintaining—not I don’t mean the guilt thing; I don’t mean the introspection where we go and we become self-absorbed—I’m not talking about that. Are there deeds I need to return to, or am I maintaining the deeds that got me here? See, I don’t want to grow beyond first love! Those are the stupid things I used to do to just try to please God. I think He liked them! Crazy amounts of reading and praying, and all the stuff—I don’t know. I just think He looked at it and said, „He means well, he means well!“ But every one of those moments—my own history and your history—that’s what our lives were built out of—those moments of „yes.“
I’m in a place where I can see and taste what’s coming. I can’t describe it well; mark my words! I can see it, and I want to invite you into the simplicity of life that returns to the deeds we did at first. It’s the simple things! I heard somebody say once, or actually I read it: „You can tell how popular a church is by their attendance on Sunday morning; you can tell how popular the pastor is by their attendance on Sunday night; and you can tell how popular God is by their attendance at the prayer meeting.“
It’s the deed you did at first; it’s the abandonment to whatever God is saying and doing. I know that anytime we have this many people in a room, there’s always a really good chance that God, in His kindness and mercy, has brought people here—maybe relatives or friends stumbled in here, or maybe you’ve been coming for quite a while. But the point is, you don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The interesting thing about being forgiven of sin, being what the Bible calls born again, is that we actually come at His invitation. We don’t come at ours; it’s not dictated by us; it’s dictated by Him. There’s a good chance there are people here this morning that you’re unsettled in your heart because that’s just a sign of God’s dealing with you. You know that you’re outside the family of God, and yet He would welcome you in to know His love as a father, to know what it is to be forgiven of all sin, and to experience what it means to be born again—changed from the inside out.
I just don’t want to do meetings anymore if we don’t give opportunity for people to know Jesus! It’s the greatest miracle of all! If there’s anyone in this room that would say, „That’s me! I don’t want to leave the building until I know I’ve been forgiven by God; until I become a true disciple to follow Jesus.“ If that’s you, just put a hand up real quick. I’m going to wait just a moment. Put a hand up real high and just say, „That’s me! I don’t want to leave the building until I know what it is to have peace with God!“ I see your hand—thank you! We have so many that watch all over the world—over 100 nations!
If you’re online watching at Bethel TV, if that’s you, I encourage you. Honestly, it may seem silly to you—put your hand up right where you are and just say, „Jesus, I surrender everything to You!“ Anyone in this room—we surrender everything to Jesus! It’s the only way you follow Him! He’s not something you try; it’s not like the detergent you get in the mail, a trial size. He only comes in one size! God, why don’t you stand? We’re going to pray. I want the ministry team to come to the front real quickly. Ministry team, come on up quick, if you would, please.
I want to pray just a simple prayer over you before I run to the back to shake some of your hands. How many of you can say, „I want that first deeds thing operating fully in me! I want the first deeds there, whatever that means to you! I don’t want to leave what got me here! I want to maintain what got me here!“ Father, I ask for the grace, the grace, the anointing, the insight, the conviction of heart, of life for the first deeds—that You would build upon that which You started out so many years ago. I ask this for the honor of the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.