Bill Johnson - Waiting on God Is to Refine Your Focus
I want to become extremely focused on Divine Purpose and what He has said for my life. I don’t want to come to the end and find out that I waited and did nothing when He was anticipating me to wait with Divine Focus. Waiting on God is that expectation; it is that refined focus that says I am all in and I have no plan B. Thanks, thanks. All right, how many international guests do we have today? Put your hands up. Welcome to all of you! We love you and are glad that you’re here. We are always thrilled to see our guests, all of them, even those from down the road. We are just glad you showed up. We had such a great conference this week. I’m assuming the question was already asked: how many of you were part of the conference this week? We had the Leaders' Conference and had such a great time! But this is in honor of our international guests. Bethel, this will be familiar to you. For those of you who watch what you eat, here’s the final word on nutrition and health. It’s a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.
Number one: the Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the English.
Number two: the Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the English.
Number three: the Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the English.
Number four: the Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the English.
Number five: the Germans drink a lot of beer, eat a lot of sausages and fat, and suffer fewer heart attacks than the English.
Conclusion: eat and drink what you like; speaking English is apparently what kills you. My humor stories work better if you have a third-grade sense of humor, so just work on that; you’ll appreciate it more. I have a brand new book out; it just came out this Friday. It’s officially not released till December, but it’s one that Benny and I have wanted to do for like forever. It’s been on our hearts so much. I don’t know how it works, but you finally get to the place where you write a book. This one is on raising children, and the title is called «Raising Giant Killers.» It has to do with raising children with their Divine Destiny in mind, and there’s a kind of prophetic role that the Lord has put on every parent for this purpose. Anyway, this is available wherever books are sold.
I want to give one of the three away to an international person who came. Over here, do you have children at home? Just take it. An international? Help me out, Chris; just take it back to where they are waving their hands. Oh, look at that! That’s fine; that’s fine. He’s a friend of mine; you can give it to him absolutely. And then these two go to reading people, and right here, you are holding a child right there—you qualify right here. And then let’s go; I got to go away. All right, I need to take it to the back—just take it way in the back to somebody who looks pitiful like they need help— a parent. There we go. Okay, thanks; thanks, Teresa.
I’m trying to learn how to give away books the way Chris does. He’ll have a book on spiritual warfare and he’ll ask, «Anyone who’s demon-possessed, this book is for you.» Or for his book on empowering women, he’ll say, «How many of you abuse your wives? Or women, how many of you have been abused by your husbands? Raise your hands.» So I’m trying to learn that anointing. Actually, I’m trying not to; that’s one I’d like to avoid. But it is funny; it is funny.
All right, open your Bibles, if you would, please, to 2 Chronicles chapter 20. It will take me a few minutes to get there, but it would be great if we were ready to go in this wonderful subject we have for this morning. I notice that the Lord often, at least with me and I think with us, deals with us in themes. How many of you recognize there are times where it seems like every book you come across has a similar subject? Every conversation is a reminder of a particular theme or word; sermons, podcasts—whatever it is—God just seems to repeat Himself over and over again for us.
One of the things that has been a recurring theme for me is the subject of waiting on God. Now, I had a chance to meet with our students here. Chris, would you do me a favor? Just take one of those three books and give it to this couple right here on the front row. Right there—yep, right there. Those guys—Merry Christmas!
So, there’s been this theme on waiting on God. About two weeks ago, I got a chance to talk with third-year students, and part of what I talked about—a small part—was this theme I’m going to discuss with you a little today because waiting on God is completely different than I thought it was. I thought it was kind of sitting in a recliner waiting for God to act, just kind of waiting for Him to show up and do something.
I’ve been finding out, in my experience as I look back over the history of my life, the times I’ve had breakthroughs and the times I haven’t, there have been these seasons where, if I were to—excuse me for the implication here, but just follow me—if I were not to read the Scripture at all and I were just to look at my history, I would come to the conclusion that God often does not want to do something for me; He wants to do something through me. He’s looking for me to act so that He joins His activity with mine. As I read the Scripture, I find that it’s actually a central theme in the subject of waiting on God.
I didn’t know that, and I don’t know why, but I just didn’t know it. I didn’t know it experientially. So here are these two words found in Psalms 37. I’m not even going to take you there; you can read it on your own. There’s one in verse 9 that talks about waiting on God, and it’s a word that’s very similar to the Biblical word hope. I don’t know that they’re actually related, but the definition is very similar. Let me give it to you: in verse 9 it talks about waiting on God, and the word there is «u,» which describes great anticipation, great expectation.
It would be like, let’s say, that you’re in a room with people, and there’s a lot of conversation going on, and there’s someone you really want to hear from that’s on the other side of the room. You try your best to shut down every other voice; you may lean, you may move seats, you may cup your hand over your ear and lean in, because there’s this anticipation that they’re going to say something you want to hear that’s important to you. Waiting on God is that—it’s leaning into something that would ordinarily be thought of as just another mundane activity, just conversation going on in the room, but somehow there’s this refined focus. What I’m finding is that the words I find in the Scripture for waiting on God actually have as much to do with refining our focus as anything.
The word that I really want to talk to you about is found in verse 7, where it says waiting on God. Some words in the Bible, when they’re translated, you go back to the original language. For example, the word «presence» is literally «face.» They are very similar and yet unique. But some words are so diverse that you wonder how in the world they can translate this one word in so many different ways. This word waiting in verse 7 is one of those words. For example, the experts in Hebrew will look at this word and in a certain setting, they actually translate the word to «whirl in the dance.»
Now that’s not what I think of when I think about waiting on God—waiting on God is anything but whirling in the dance. Yet that is actually an interesting translation of this very wonderful and beautiful word: whirling in the dance. You won’t be seeing me whirl in the dance. I stopped whirling quite a few years ago in fear that I would lose body parts, so I just try to keep everything intact. My dance is a jump. I may turn a little to the side, but that’s pretty much it. What I just showed you right there is as much as you’re ever going to get from me.
I believe in the dance, and actually my first time dancing before the Lord was a whirl in the—I didn’t know what to do. I just saw it in the Bible, and I was embarrassed. I was the only one home, and I was embarrassed. I literally made sure the curtains were drawn, and at night I turned the lights out because I didn’t even want to see me. I’m embarrassed for myself. But I saw it in the Bible, and I knew it was an appropriate thing to do, so I just jumped in the air and twisted and turned in the air and landed, and I did it again and again.
The point was the whirling! One of the things I noticed is that when you are in the air and you are turning, you have one basic concern: and that is where you’re going to land. You don’t want to land on the dog; you don’t want to land on the shoes you forgot to put away; you don’t want to land on the coffee table—you want to land somewhere safe. So there’s this focus you have in the whirl of the dance that I believe is implied in this word to wait on God.
If there were ever another end of the spectrum that was extreme and diverse, it would be another way this word is translated; it’s actually translated to «give birth.» Waiting on God to give birth? Strange. I was privileged and blessed to be in the room when all three of my children were born, and the third one, Leah, was born when we had like 20 people in the room. I mean during the delivery; you know, just think hippies. That’s what hippies do—it takes a commune to deliver a child, you know?
So we had at least 20 people in the room. My wife’s parents were there, and my mom got there right at the last minute, and my sister was there. We had family; my boys were there. We had about 20 people in the room, and this doctor’s office was actually a home, and the delivery room was this large bedroom. So if you can imagine, about a third or half the size of this stage, that was the bedroom. Benny is in a bed, and I’m next to her. I like Chris’s story: women giving delivery need to have a focal point, and Chris put a Snickers bar up there. That was the focal point, and then he ate the focal point! You don’t eat the focal point!
There’s this intense focus, and it’s a Snickers bar, and then the next contraction—there’s no Snickers bar there! So that’s a Chris story. But I remember standing next to Benny, and the kids are here. I’m having a conversation with someone, and all of a sudden I feel this death grip on my left arm—literally, my wife grabs my arm with such intensity that I wonder if I’m ever going to use it again. I mean, she grabbed that arm. Why? Because she was having a contraction!
Now, writing a book is as close as I’ll ever get to giving birth. I can only imagine that in giving birth to a child, you don’t care who the president is; you don’t care about the next car payment; you don’t care about the angry neighbor. None of those things matter. You have one thing on your mind. If there were ever an illustration of intense focus, it would be giving birth. She grabbed my arm, and I ceased all conversation. I didn’t even end the conversation; I just acknowledged the one I was unworthy to be married to. I mean, every time my wife would have a child, I’m in my heart of hearts, quietly thankful it was her and not me. She was more of a man than I was!
So anyway, that doesn’t work, does it? Anyway, you get the point: whirling in the dance—you’ve got to land, right? Giving birth—there’s just this intense focus. Somehow that word is used to describe waiting on God. It is not inactivity! It is not involving myself with a hundred other things hoping that God will somehow intervene. Obviously, He’s God; He can do whatever He wants. He can intervene anytime He wants. But what I’ve noticed is that He looks for my participation so that my feeble efforts are things that He can breathe upon, making them supernaturally effective.
The verse I use over and over again is that passage out of Proverbs where it says, «The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord.» I’ve got to do everything I know how to do to feed the horse well, to train the horse, to do everything to make sure the stage is set for victory. But when it comes, it’s only because God breathed on my efforts, making them supernaturally effective. That I believe is a key to the next season we’re entering into—learning how to surrender natural effort and focus for Him to breathe on, to bring about the breakthroughs that we’ve longed for.
One of my favorite individuals in church history is a man named George Mueller. I love reading about him. He ran an orphanage in the UK, and he was such an extraordinary man of faith. His prayer life was just bizarre and unusual. One day he was praying, and the Lord just gave him either a word or a vision; I forget which now, about building a new building on the grounds. He left his time of prayer and was walking across the playground when a child came up to him and gave him a penny and said, «This is for the new building.» Here’s the deal: when you’re waiting on God, the penny is a million dollars because you’re not intimidated by its size or lack of size. He took the penny literally and lifted it before the Lord, saying, «Thank you for the confirmation.»
I prefer a confirmation of $100,000 or those kinds, but he took the penny and said, «Thank you for the confirmation.» Here’s the deal: when I’m biblically waiting on God, the size of the confirmation does not matter because I’m leaning in and expecting Him to do something, and the penny is enough.
Two of my favorite characters in the Old Testament are Elijah and Elisha. Elisha was the understudy to Elijah, and one day Elijah just asked Elisha what he could do for him. He says, «I want a double portion of what you have.» Elijah said, «Man, that’s hard! That’s a rough one.» You can’t give twice what you have! If somebody says, «I want $200,» you say, «Well, I only have $1. I can’t give you $200. You can’t give what you don’t have.»
So here, the request is being asked of Elijah about this desire for a double portion anointing. He said, «Man, that’s a hard one.» He finally comes to the conclusion and says, «If you see me when I’m taken, you can have it.» So here’s this challenge: our biggest tests are when we don’t know we’re being tested, because the Lord is looking for a heart response to a given situation. There’s not time to think; there’s not time to pray; there’s not time to do anything—there’s just a reaction.
Either the reaction is a correct one or it’s not. It’s not a test for judgment; it’s a test to see what this man or woman can carry of the things of God into the Earth. The Lord is constantly examining and testing us to see what we can carry. Remember the king who was told by the prophet to strike the ground with arrows? He hit the ground three times, and the prophet got mad at him, saying, «Man, if you would have hit the ground five or six times, you would have annihilated the enemy. But now you’re only going to have three temporary victories!»
How many understand the king probably wanted to take the test over? He didn’t know he was being tested. Our greatest tests are the ones where the Lord is looking to see what’s in the heart, and we don’t know what’s in there until it comes out. This was the test for Elisha. Elijah said to him, «If you see me when I’m taken.»
Elisha wouldn’t let Elijah out of his sight. He literally wouldn’t let him go to the bathroom by himself! It’s like having someone watching you all the time, which is weird. So this goes on for a while, and then suddenly there is a chariot of fire; if you can imagine horses on fire, a chariot of fire comes down out of heaven and comes between Elisha and Elijah. Now remember, Elisha’s assignment is to see Elijah when he’s taken, and he has one responsibility.
Now remember; some of you may have heard the old hymn that talks about Elijah going up in the chariot of fire. He didn’t go up in a chariot of fire; he went up in a whirlwind. So here’s a chariot of fire that comes and it comes in between Elisha and Elijah, and Elisha has one responsibility. Remember, he’s asking for a double portion. A double portion anointing is extremely demanding; there’s very little wiggle room for error.
Why do I say that? The farther you go in God, the more casualties you cause by your failure. That’s just life. He’s trying to measure the metal, if you will, the heart of this man Elisha. So here comes this chariot of fire that comes in between the two, and Elisha goes, «My father!» speaking to Elijah, «My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and their horsemen!» What’s he doing? He’s acknowledging something supernatural is happening, but he has this amazing ability to keep his eyes on his assignment, which was Elijah.
So here are the chariots of Israel and their horsemen. Elisha has his eyes on Elijah, and then a whirlwind comes and takes him up. Interestingly, the whirlwind takes him up, and after it takes him up a ways, the mantle that represents anointing falls to the ground. Elisha picked it up. Elijah couldn’t give him a double portion anointing, but God could. When God took the mantle, for a moment, and released it again, it had twice what he needed.
So in this moment, he goes to the water, strikes the river, and says, «Where’s the God of Elijah?» The river parts. The point is, what Elisha illustrates is waiting on God—it was not inactivity; it was intensely focused on the mandate of God. It was intensely focused on the assignment.
This theme recurs throughout Scripture. This is one I mentioned last week where Jesus said if your eye is single, your body will be full of light. The word «single» there has two meanings: it’s the number one, and it’s the word «voyage.» If your heart— the eyes of your heart—are set on one reason for being alive, you’re on one journey that will actually release the light of God to shine on every aspect and part of your life. Everything about you will be enlightened by the presence and the glory of God.
Focus—refined focus. Here we have a story—it’s a great story that would be worthy of much deeper study than what we are going to do today. I’m just going to read a couple of highlighted verses, so if you go to 2 Chronicles chapter 20, look at verse 1. We’ll skim around a little bit and then come to a conclusion.
Verse 1 says, «It happened after this that the people of Moab, with the people of Ammon and others with them besides the Ammonites, came to battle against Jehoshaphat.» Then some came and told Jehoshaphat, saying, «A great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea.»
Verse 3: «Then Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord and proclaim a fast throughout all Judah.» Stop there for just a moment. My wife and I recently bought another home and we’re remodeling it. It’s gutted, but we’re just having so much fun in the process of building something that’s been in our hearts. We have this really nice deck. Sometimes—I don’t know if this happens for you, but sometimes my favorite room in the house is the deck outside.
We love to eat outside. All food tastes better outside—usually—unless it’s snowing; then it does not. We have this really nice deck and Benny bought this umbrella. It’s one of those 11-foot-wide umbrellas, and it’s on a stand. It has this arm that lingers on and holds it; it’s this massive device. We found that the little puny stand that came with it—you breathe on it, and the whole thing falls over. It just wouldn’t do it, so we bought this massive stand that you fill with water.
I actually wanted to fill it with lead just to ensure that it wouldn’t move until Jesus comes. Basically, it’s stayed there. But we filled it with water, and man, that thing’s rough to move! I couldn’t get the umbrella where I wanted it after I filled it with water. So Eric came over, and together we moved it—actually, by himself, he could’ve moved it, but I wanted to be involved in the journey, so I put my hands down there too and helped move this massive base for this umbrella so the wind could blow and it just wouldn’t fall over.
If you can picture this: the table is here, but the umbrella is hanging here. You want it over the table. When you have guests, you go down, unscrew the things that tighten it up, and then you lift this pole out of the other pole and turn it until it falls into preset grooves. The reason I needed Eric’s help was so that when the umbrella was in those grooves, it would be over the table right where we wanted it.
Are you following me? Amen. It’s the end of the meeting; go home. So we lift it up, we put it in—it’s set in a particular place. When you were born again, you were given the nature of Christ. That is set on the face of the Father; it is set so when we set our face to seek God, we are actually saying yes to the divine nature that Jesus gave us at our conversion.
We are locking into the one reason we’re alive; once again, it’s the reinforced focus on the one thing. So Jehoshaphat is surrounded. I don’t even remember the numbers now—100 to 1 or something crazy. His armies are so far outnumbered; he’s scared to death! But he sets himself to seek the Lord.
I love this so much about the Lord: it doesn’t matter if I’m afraid, anxious, stressed, or angry. It doesn’t matter what condition I’m in. Prayer is always a good thing, and what I’ve found is that when you pray, if I encounter the Lord and lift up my voice and leave the same way I came before Him, then I wasn’t praying; I was complaining. But when you come and truly engage with the Lord, there’s always a transformation of heart and mind that takes place.
So let’s move on in the story; jump down to verse 7. I love this verse: «Are you not our God who drove out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and gave it to the descendants of Abraham your friend forever?» Here’s the only thing I want to point out: I would encourage you to repeat Bible history or your own personal history in your prayers more often.
It may sound like religious routine, but I don’t think it is. I think it’s vital that Nehemiah did this. He stood before the Lord and said, «God, I don’t take the governor’s allowance; it’s given to me, but I don’t take it.» He said, «All the workers on this project, I feed them out of my own salary.» Did God not know that? Of course, He knew it! But it was important for Nehemiah to recount it.
It’s important to step into divine protocol where you rehearse in your mind what is loving God with your mind. It’s using your mind to recall facts and to bring up situations in the past, or in this case, to bring up biblical context and situation. So here is Jehoshaphat praying: «God, you brought us out of Egypt. You were the one who did all this, and you did this stuff for your friend Abraham.» He’s reminding God, not because God forgets, but because we need to be in His economy of recalling the events of history, because they set a prophetic prototype for what’s to happen in our day.
It’s important for us to use our minds. This is a bit off subject but not; I remember years ago—many years ago, in fact. I was thinking last week of trying this again. Years ago, I was in a prayer meeting in Weaverville, and I told everybody in the room, «Just pick one characteristic of God’s nature—like His liberty, or His power, or His beauty, or His holiness, or His judgment, or whatever you pick something—His love, His goodness.»
I said, «Now let’s do this: let’s give God praise. I want you to praise Him with understanding; use everything you can think about that subject.» So now this is a mental exercise. «God, I thank you that you are so much better than I thought. You forgive people who don’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve it, and yet that’s just how you are—you’re just this forgiver.»
So what we do is we just recall to God, «I remember in Scripture when you were so kind to Manasseh when he deserved your judgment. And yet he turned his heart toward you, and you forgave him; your goodness…» We start recounting these things, and what happened in this room—let’s just say it’s this front row here—at the end of this time, we took, I don’t remember now, I would guess maybe 15 to 20 minutes—and I asked each person, and every single person had the exact same experience, which stunned me. Every single person exhausted everything they knew about the subject; they could no longer think of anything else.
Then fresh understanding came. Every single person! Why? Because they were a steward of what they had. They used their insight about the nature of God in praise, and when they exhausted what they had, He unveiled and allowed them to see an even deeper perception of that aspect of His nature. Wow!
It’s the intentional exercise of using the mind to love God. This is not a small little side point; we’ve been called by God in Scripture to love God with all our heart, our soul, our mind, and our strength. We’re to use our intellectual capacity to draw things back to the surface that we can use in giving an offering. Yes, Bill—a great point!
Let’s move on. How are we doing? Yeah, we’ve got 10 minutes. Verse 13 I love: «All Judah, with their little ones, their wives, and their children, stood before the Lord.» Some things just have to be done in family units. You don’t do it, you know, «Well, I’m bored.» Well, who cares if you’re bored? I didn’t ask you if you’re bored or excited; this is what we’re going to do! I don’t live for your excitement; I live for your destiny. Stop letting the tail wag the dog!
Oh, I happen to have a book out there—Raising Giant Killers. That was an unintentional promotion of a book, but I just felt the anointing on it. I don’t know what to say. All right, let’s move on. I’m sorry; actually, I’m not sorry, but let’s move on!
Verse 14: «Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jeziel, the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jehaziel.»
Verse 15: «Listen, all you of Judah, and you inhabitants of Jerusalem, and you King Jehoshaphat! Thus says the Lord to you: Do not be afraid nor be dismayed because of this great multitude; the battle is not yours, but God’s.»
Say that with me: «The battle is not yours; it’s God’s.» Let’s personalize it: «The battle is not mine; it’s God’s.» Say it again: «The battle is not mine; it’s God’s.» Do you know that that’s true, even if you’ve been called to fight in the battle?
That does not give permission for inactivity, and that’s the whole point. I have one point today, and I’m going to get to it eventually—it’s refined focus is the activity of waiting on God.
So let’s move on; a couple more verses say, «Tomorrow…» Verse 16: «Tomorrow, go down against them. They will come up by the ascent. You do not need to fight in this battle. Position yourselves, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord who is with you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Do not fear or be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, for the Lord is with you.»
Here’s the thing that you can’t miss; it all came down to this one phrase: «Stand still.» Tomorrow, go stand still may seem like the permanent posture of someone who wants to see God unfold His will. It’s not. Stand still; adjust your perception on your situation.
Jesus tried this with His disciples in John 4. In John 4, we have what I think is the greatest revelation in the Bible on worship, and that’s that you worship God in spirit and in truth. But what He did is He followed that word on worship with the greatest revelation on evangelism: «The fields are all white unto harvest.»
It’s not an accident that those two things work together in tandem—worship revelation and evangelism revelation—because evangelism in its purest form is an overflow of worship. So here’s this statement on evangelism, and Jesus says, «Lift up your eyes and look on the fields.» Lift up your eyes—look up before you look down. Gain divine perception so that when you look at the harvest, you see it through divine perception.
So there’s this cause-and-effect thing. He’s got «Lift up your eyes; look on the fields.» In this passage, it’s «Stand still.» Go regroup; obtain divine focus because then your activity will be the activity of anticipation. It won’t be just rote, busy Christian activity; it will be divine activity based on what you anticipate God doing.
That’s waiting on God! That’s waiting on God! That’s the leap in the air making sure I land safely. That’s the giving birth keeping all my attention on the only thing that matters. That’s waiting on God.
I have said all of this because I feel we’re entering into a 90-day period of time where we have the possibility of seeing some promises fulfilled that some of us have carried for years and years and years and years. We could say that any day of the week, any day of the year, any year of our lifetime, and it would be true.
But it is also true that there are moments in God that are not repeatable where He is breathing on a thought, on an idea, on an activity. I’ve had two prophets minister to me of late, and they both described the same thing but used two completely different analogies. One of them said, «I see the heavens containing these blessings, these breakthrough areas.» He said, «But the heavens are frozen.» Then he described the thaw.
Another prophet said, «I see these semi-trucks loaded with the breakthroughs, the resources of heaven, and they’re as far as the eye can see, but they’re in a traffic jam.» In both prophets' messages, they identified that something has obstructed the flow of what God has intended. Now, I don’t get demon-focused, but what I do is I want to become extremely focused on Divine Purpose—on what He has said for my life.
I don’t want to come to the end and find out that I waited and did nothing when He was anticipating me to wait with Divine Focus. Does that make sense to you? Because that really is the entire lesson: waiting on God is that expectation; it is that refined focus that says, «I am all in, and I have no plan B.»
When God is number one, there is no number two; there is not another option. This is it, and I believe that the Lord is positioning us for some extraordinary things in the next—I’m personally thinking into February that we have this season of breakthrough, and I personally want to be all in on it.
What happens when you’re all in? The penny prophesies. How many of you have been believing something for years? Let’s be honest now: how many of you have found it hard to get encouraged about what you’ve been believing in for years?
When you’re waiting—waiting biblically, waiting—anticipating, leaning, leaning into just to hear that voice from that person speaking—that anticipating; when I’m leaning, everything has meaning. It’s crazy! Does that make sense to you? I remember there’d be these seasons—these moments—where I’d check into a hotel, and I’d get room 308.
Next hotel? 308! I’d wake up at 3:08 in the morning and go, «God, what are you trying to say?» It’s like everything had meaning—everything was prophetic! And I understand you can abuse it, but the biggest abuse we have is to ignore it. God is often talking when we’re expecting Him to do something else. So the most important thing that could happen today among the 100,000 things we could do that are wonderful and glorious—the most important is the fact that there would be somebody here—maybe brought by a friend, maybe you wandered in, maybe you’ve been here for years—but there’s never been that personal commitment to receiving and following the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is Lord of all; there are not many ways to God! If there were many ways to God, then God was cruel to require Jesus to die. He solved the issue over humanity—the curse over humanity. That was the curse of sin—He dealt with the issue. I just want to encourage anybody who would be in this room, would you say, «Bill, I don’t want to leave the building till I know that I have peace with God, that I know what it is to be forgiven. I want to start my life of following Jesus.»
If that’s you, I want you to acknowledge it by saying, «Bill, that’s me. I don’t want to leave the building until I know I’m right with God.» Right here—we bless you for that. Anyone else? Put your hands up—right here, here’s another one. Beautiful! Anyone else?
We also have people watching week after week after week online. We speak the same word to you on Bethel TV. This is just a day, a time to come to Jesus! There’s just no time to waste. So is there anyone else who would just real quickly want to give an opportunity for anyone else who would say, «I want to follow Jesus; I want to give my life to follow Him»? Anyone else?
Okay, I want you to all stand, if you would. What I’m going to ask is we had at least two that I saw who put your hands up to receive Jesus. So I’m going to ask this: I want the ministry team to come to the front right now, and those two who raised your hands—do me and yourself a favor by coming to these friends of ours to my left. I want them to pray with you. It’s not about Bethel; it’s not about any of those things—it’s about a personal relationship with Jesus, and we have these people to help you. So come right over here, if you would—just leave your seat, come on down.
I want to pray over the rest of you, just real quickly—a prayer concerning this thing of waiting on the Lord. Why don’t you put your hands in front of you? Are you ready to wait? That’s five! Five is all I needed. I’m very encouraged with five people saying «yes.»
All right, Father, I do pray for a great, great grace that would rest upon us as a church family, especially in light of these next 90 days, that breakthroughs would happen that are beyond anything we’ve known to expect before. I ask that this breakthrough would come in our waiting and in our anticipation—our refined focus. Let it be in a way that exalts and glorifies You. Everybody said, «Amen!»