Bill Johnson - Your Influence Is Determined by How You Manage Your Heart
We all want to see cities saved; it starts right here. How do you manage your own world, your self-talk, what you think about, what you meditate on? What do you feed your soul? Those are the things that position us for influencing cities. Well, hello once again, and welcome back to our quest for wisdom. It’s really a key for life for each of us to reign in life over the challenges and difficulties we face and to illustrate the lordship of Jesus in everything we do. It’s the great privilege of life. So, welcome. We’re in chapter 16 today, and I’ve got another challenge because I have a couple of things here that are quite large. I will have to touch on them somewhat briefly, but hopefully, they’ll ignite something in you that allows you to study on your own.
Let’s begin quickly with verse one. Verse one of chapter 16 says, «The preparations of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.» That’s interesting: the preparations of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. Here’s the deal: if you’ll watch over your heart, as it says in chapter 4:23, and prepare your heart to walk in purity and strength, you will never lack the word of the Lord that you need to speak into a given situation. The answer of the tongue is from the Lord. You take care of this part, and He’ll make sure you have the right thing to say. Perhaps you remember when Jesus was talking to His own disciples; He said you would find yourselves in difficult situations where political leaders and others would ask you questions. Don’t worry about what you’re going to say in that moment because the Holy Spirit will give you the words to say. That’s what’s happening here, but in Proverbs, it gives you the step preceding that: you prepare your heart; you ensure that you’re in a place of surrender, yieldedness, and willingness to obey, and He’ll make sure you have the right word in a given situation.
All right, let’s move on. Verse three says, «Commit your works to the Lord, and your thoughts will be established.» That’s interesting: commit your works to the Lord. Let’s say, at your place of employment, you have five projects you’re working on. You think through these projects and assignments and commit each task to the Lord. The reward is that your thoughts will be established. What does that mean? It means your thoughts will be established. Established serves as a foundation; your thoughts will constructively contribute to the works that you need to care for. In other words, it is this co-laboring role we have with Him: if you commit your works to the Lord, the things you have to do, He’ll work with you in your thoughts so that what you think actually contributes to what you’re committed to. Jesus cares about this stuff. He cares about the car you repair for a living; He cares about the homes you build or the surgeries you perform as a doctor. He cares about each of these things, and when we commit our works to the Lord, He inspires us to think creatively to contribute to each of the things we’ve been assigned to do.
Okay, moving on quickly, I’m going to jump right down to the big one, and this literally is a big one because I took a book to write about it, and it’s verse 15. So, let’s see how we do for time here. «In the light of a king’s face is life, and his favor is like a cloud of latter rain.» When we talk about rain throughout Scripture, Old Testament and New Testament, latter rain crops, and in the New Testament, it prophetically deals with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. So when I see verses like this, I automatically think, «What can this help me understand as it pertains to the mighty outpourings of God, and what He plans to do in the last days?» «In the light of a king’s face is life, and his favor is like a cloud of latter rain.»
Here’s a verse that I felt the Lord tied together with this passage for me many years ago when I was writing about the quest for the face of God, face to face with God. It’s in Exodus 39:29, and I’ll just read it to you: «I will not hide my face from them anymore, for I shall have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel,» says the Lord. Think about it: «I will not hide my face from them any longer.» Why? «Because I will have poured out my spirit upon them.» What is He saying? «I’m not going to hide my face from them.» Why? «Because in the outpouring of the Spirit is the face of God.» This is significant: in every great move of God, the face of God is revealed. You say, «Well, I don’t see the face of God.» The clarity with which we see is determined by our tendency to create forms, idols, or routines based on what we’ve seen instead of truly responding to the face of God. That’s actually what the Lord spoke to Israel: He said, «I hid my face in the cloud, but I didn’t allow you to see any form because I knew you to be an idolatrous people, and you’d create an idol after what you saw.» So, the clarity with which we see is often determined by that tendency to create forms, formulas, idols, or routines that have lost the inspiration of the presence of God.
So here is this verse in Proverbs: «The light of a king’s face is life.» We come before this King of Kings, and that delight in His face over you and over me is a life-giving delight. It’s the Father who delights in a child; it’s the smile, the funny noises we make as parents or relatives over a baby. We make these sounds of delight and joy over this child—that’s what you have here. That is life. Then it says, «And that favor is like latter rain.» That favor is just like the outpouring of the Spirit. Here’s the deal: the Scripture connects the face of God, the delight of God, with revival. That’s really what it comes down to; it connects the whole issue of the outpouring of the Spirit with favor. I hope that in this next season, everyone watching this will become unusually aware of the Father’s delight in you. We can never earn revival; we can never earn a move of God, but we can certainly prepare ourselves for it and discover His delight in us so that we position our hearts correctly.
All right, let’s move on real quickly; I’m going to wrap this up. We’ll do one more verse, and this one’s going to seem quite a bit out of context from what we’ve been talking about so far, but it’s in verse 32: «He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty; he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.» Now, I don’t know what you do when you read Proverbs, but anytime I find a statement where there is discussion about influencing a city, my ears perk up. So, here’s what it’s saying: «He who rules his own spirit, he who manages his own inner world well, has the strength…"—I’m putting this in my terms—"has the strength to take a city.» We all want to see cities saved; it starts right here. How do you manage your own world, your self-talk, what you think about, what you meditate on? What do you feed your soul? Those are the things that actually position us for influencing cities.
My favorite story in this regard is a parable Jesus gave in Luke 19, where He talks about those who took minas—a sum of money—and invested and increased. The guy who increased to ten, the Lord, in response to that, said, «Here, you now are in charge of ten cities.» In other words, your faithfulness with this natural thing positioned you to influence cities. I pray that for you. I pray that the Lord would take what’s in your hand, what’s in your wallet, and enable you through faithful stewardship to manage your inner world well so that you can truly be those who influence entire cities. I bless you with that and for that in Jesus' name. Amen.