Bill Johnson - Renew Your Mind to See with Eyes of Faith
Nice. Well, goodness, I love you too! Thank you. Good morning! Nice to see you. How many are here from the conference? Your leftovers? I like leftovers! Good, glad you’re here. We had such an incredible week. Goodness gracious! A strange new trend is happening at the office: people are putting names on food and putting it in the company refrigerator. Today I ate a wonderful tuna sandwich named Kevin. That’s funny!
All right. This last week, my mom went home to be with the Lord, and as a family, we had been with her basically all day long for, I think, 15 or 16 days—something like that. In the last three days, we had about 40 of our family gathered around her bed—literally 24/7 for the last three days of her life. We had about 40 of us—young children all the way up to me—just there for the celebration of her life and to be with her as she entered eternity. It’s important that I felt as though the Lord gave me a phrase several years ago now, maybe four or five years ago. I don’t know if I can prove it yet, but I believe it’s true, and you’ll understand it in a moment: eternity is the cornerstone of logic and reason.
What that basically means or implies to me is that anytime we have thoughts, ambitions, or values that are developed without eternity in mind, we are prone to not do well. Our thoughts and values become inferior to what they could and should be. Anyway, as a family, that’s what we do. We did it with my wife and my dad 22 years ago with my mother-in-law. We were a bunch of us around her when she went home. So it’s what we do as a family. We just sang, «Great is Thy Faithfulness,» and all these amazing songs—the hymn of Heaven, the song of the multiple generations standing before the throne. To live without a consciousness of eternity is really to sell ourselves short, because there’s a moment coming when that’s all that’s going to matter.
So anyway, we had a tearful time. She was 96, so she did quite well, but we were pushing for 100. We wanted that letter from the president, you know, that says, «Hey, you made it!» But one of you will have to do that, I guess. It’s obviously a tearful time, a time of incredible loss—the matriarch of our family. It’s also a time of incredible celebration. We’ll have a celebration service here on March 6th at 11 in the morning, and we’ll make sure that you guys know about that when the time comes.
Anyway, that’s been my week. To become so exposed to the raw nature of eternity and to watch someone breathe their last is something that I would never look for the opportunity for, nor will I avoid it, if that makes any sense. It recalibrates for me. It’s due north on the compass; it’s what sets the reference point for values, thinking, ambitions—everything. So anyway, that’s my family’s experience this last week as we spent hours and days together, singing of the goodness of God and the faithfulness of the Lord.
A friend of mine puts it this way: «You can’t threaten me with Heaven.» So amen! All right, let’s move on into today’s word. I want to talk to you about the mind again. I want to talk to you about the Promised Land. If you’ve been here at all the last couple months—I’ve spoken probably eight times now, and in some way, I’ve tried to bring the incredible lesson of Israel coming into the Promised Land, using it as a prophetic picture and metaphor for the New Testament Christian, our life of entering into the fullness of God’s promise, His design, His purpose for our lives. Entering the Promised Land in the Old Testament was not a picture of going to Heaven because the enemy was in that land. The very nature of God’s promise is that He invites you into a conflict.
I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news. The good news is you’ve got a whole bunch of promises in front of you. The bad news is it’s occupied by an enemy. Now, here’s an amazing part of this journey for us: I was just reading this week in Chronicles about this crazy war that Israel had to engage in. They were so outnumbered— not only outnumbered but outclassed! The enemy’s army was much more skillful, much more prepared. But yet Israel was called to this conflict, to this war. Literally, all they did was show up, and God destroyed the enemy.
There are times when you just need the courage to show up, and He’ll take care of it. There are other times He won’t bring a victory apart from your involvement. Sometimes He’ll do something for you; sometimes He’ll only do it through you. Sometimes there won’t be a breakthrough without your fast! Sometimes there won’t be a breakthrough without your marching around the walls of Jericho, so to speak. Sometimes there is no breakthrough until you take your position with the word of the Lord and make the prophetic decree. Sometimes it doesn’t happen without your unreasonable, generous gift to help that poor individual; sometimes that act is what brings the release. Other times you just show up, and He fights for you. The point is victory is guaranteed if we follow His lead. He does not lead us into a battle to lose. He uses your obedience to shame the powers of darkness.
He can do it by himself, but He has chosen to do it through us. I’m facing things right now that I’ve just been waiting for God to come and do for me. I happen to be in a season where that’s not working. There’s only victory as He does it through me. Just figure out the season you’re in, do what He says, and it’ll work well.
So here’s this Promised Land idea. There are promises that God has given us that are occupied by an enemy. I remind you, the battleground for the believer is the mind—not the mind in the sense that it’s all in your head, as in it’s your imagination. It’s not that; it’s over our thought life. We battle not against flesh and blood but against powers, principalities, et cetera, and they are exalted or honored through ideas, thoughts—things that have been raised up against the knowledge of God.
Oh goodness! Your purpose, promise over your life that you haven’t entered into is occupied by a lie, or you’d already be in it. All right? I got one more chance after this to get it right, so I’m going to work at it. The Promised Land is a picture of us coming into the fullness of God’s intent and purpose for our lives. Each of us has promises we’ve not tasted of. Each of us has fulfilled promises that we’ve seen in our life. The cool thing is every «yes» that you’ve had, where there’s been breakthrough, you’ve created momentum that future generations will feast from. Your «yes» will actually make a provision for people you don’t even know.
But then there’s what’s possible and what’s potential. The Lord’s invited us into something greater. You know, Jesus said, «Greater works than these shall you do.» Well, we can’t do greater until we’ve done the same! So He’s drawing us into a possibility through promise. Paul makes it clear to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:18, when he says, «Timothy, take the promises, the prophecies given to you, and with them wage warfare.» What he’s saying is between where you’re at and where you’re going to be, there’s a conflict, and you’ll have to take that which I have said over you and use it as a weapon to come into your potential, into your future.
The implication is the Promised Land is occupied by an enemy, and I’d like to suggest to you that if the battleground is the mind, then the enemy is a lie. Oftentimes, as believers, we embrace self-doubt because it feels like humility, that’s right! Oftentimes, we embrace things like self-doubt, self-judgment, self-criticism because we don’t want to do that arrogant pride thing, not realizing that as long as I’m focusing on me—even if it’s self-doubt—it’s still pride. Help us. He deserves better from me!
At some point, I have to believe I’m saved! Little joke there! But anyway, at some point, we have to come to grips with the fact that, wait a minute, the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in me! He expects something from my life of a supernatural nature that I could never take credit for. My agreement with what God has set over my life is essential for me to step into that Promised Land—more of what God has designed for me.
There’s a very unusual picture given to us in Zechariah. This—typically what I’ve got going today is I have too many scriptures, too many references, too many points, too many everything. It’s more suited for a Sunday night when people come, and they don’t care how long you go! That’s really what I’ve got: I’ve got a Sunday night message that I’ve got to butcher for a Sunday morning because we have more people coming through that door in just a little bit.
So let me make a reference for you. One of the most unusual portions of scripture for me is in Zechariah chapter 1, where the Lord says there are four horns that rose up in the earth, and they rise up to destroy people, to deceive, et cetera. Horns in scripture represent authorities or powers; they’re strengths. So the Lord is now describing four horns that rise up to destroy humanity. Four is the number of the earth—north, south, east, and west. When we see the number four, he says four horns have been raised up. He’s describing a worldwide phenomenon of deception and destruction. Are you with me here?
The Lord’s answer to those four horns was to raise up four artisans or craftsmen. Those anointed with the wisdom for creativity. Now that’s strange—since He would send choirs into battle first, we see such an unusual solution for a global problem. I would like to suggest to you that when the Lord said He was going to raise up craftsmen, in other words, a worldwide movement upon His people, artisans, it was not describing just the dance or the song or painting with art. Creativity through the lives of believers is to illustrate freedom in thinking.
Wow! It’s supposed to illustrate that person is actually free to think. As long—and this is just proven in the natural—as long as you’re trying to remember 100 different details about what you need to do tomorrow, the bigger the fight it is to remember those things, the less you are able to function creatively. The answer of the Lord is, yes, it’s creativity! Yes, it’s the new song! Yes, it’s the art and all the stuff we do. It includes all that. But it’s not about that; it’s about releasing into the Earth a people who are free in their thinking—a people who are not encumbered by the natural mind that says, «Well, that’s impossible! Oh, that can never happen through me! I don’t have that gift! Oh, I know the Lord promised it, but it’s got to be for somebody else!» Self-doubt, self-denial—those kinds of things are actually evidences of the influence of a lie.
I can feed from either meal: the one that takes me into my future or the one that reinforces my unbelief. Jesus, before He performed one miracle, stood before people and made this confession over His own life: «The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind,» and He goes through this list of the realm of the miraculous He was about to function in—but had not done so at that moment.
See, great faith looks like great arrogance to those with unbelief. Sometimes it’s easier to criticize the person with great faith to try to bring them down to our level instead of to receive from their example to become more what we were designed to be. I can feed from self-doubt, or I can feed from the promises of God. I feed from either meal, and what I give my heart to develop will actually be what is formed in my own life. I will either come into agreement with the enemy who inhabits my future, or I come into agreement with the Lord and realize I have a purpose! It may be that all I need to do is show up, and this thing heals before me. It may be that I have to march around Jericho as a prophet or fight or do whatever. But the point is, you and I must be unsettled in part of our life—thankful but unsettled—unsettled with the fact that there’s a lot of territory that has not been taken yet.
To insulate my heart from what is possible works against me. Yes! So the Lord’s answer to a global demonic movement to destroy the lives of people is to have a global release of His people that are actually free to think—not encumbered with the burden of yesterday’s failure.
Let me illustrate something for you. Let’s pretend for a moment that I was a professional car thief. I was not. I am. But all of you that like to take YouTube clips don’t take just that part! So let’s say that in my past life I was a professional car thief, and I stole great cars from people, and I pretended I was Robin Hood. I would take the money and spend it on myself. So I come to the Lord, I get saved, and I repent for all that stuff. It’s not a part of my life anymore. I can actually look at your beautiful car and not lust after it anymore. I’m not trying to manipulate and maneuver to how I can gain wealth. I’m actually honestly following the Lord.
Here I am, giving thanks to the Lord, and I remember what I had done. Now, if I look at my past apart from the blood of Jesus—now remember, I’ve been walking in repentance, God has forgiven me, and has made it as though I am not the person who did that: I’m a new creation; the person who did that is actually dead!
Come on! So the enemy reminds me—this may be somebody that I stole from—maybe it’s a particular car. Somehow, he wants me to re-engage with this past part of my life. If I look at the past apart from the blood of Jesus, I will be looking at a lie. I will be observing something that does not exist in the way I see it. The enemy has two basic ambitions: one is to reawaken in me a desire for what I used to do. You got it?
Yes! Now, you can’t do that! I’m not allowing it. That’s not me! So I’ve passed test number one. But here’s number two that many of us fall for! If he can’t get me to reawaken old appetites, then he wants me to carry shame for the old appetite! The thing about thinking about past sin or things that we’ve done is—I don’t know how this works; I just know it does—somehow it reawakens in us as people an emotion connected to sin. It may be illegitimate gratification; it may be a sense of power; it may be guilt and shame; it could be any number of those things. But the point is, if something happens to us emotionally that there is no grace for because we’re visiting a lie, when you believe a lie, you empower the liar! That thing that was buried with Christ, I am now using my authority to raise the dead! Wow!
Right? To empower that which has no power. Our thought life is so incredibly powerful! I’ve asked you many times in the last couple of years, if God inhabits my praise, who inhabits my complaints? Words give the unseen world permission or places to occupy. Ephesians 4 gives us this incredible insight on unwholesome words versus words that give grace.
So here you and I have been invited into a co-laboring role with God, where we can say things to an individual. You just pick one. You say things to that individual that are perfectly suited for the circumstance and for the divine moment in their life, and you speak those words. The Bible says you give them grace. But think about that! Only God gives grace! He is saying that you have a role where you target somebody with words of edification and encouragement. You are actually releasing the hand of God to impart to them through your co-laboring role—through your proper use of words—to establish the grace of God into that person’s life. It’s extraordinary!
That you and I can take something so priceless by which we got saved, take such a priceless gift, and actually direct it into something in somebody else’s life simply by our proper use of encouraging, strengthening words. So His passion then is to raise up a global movement of people that are actually free to think—not encumbered by yesterday’s sins nor encumbered by religious restraint and restriction.
The battle over our mind has to do with a political system, a religious system, and the kingdom of God. The political system is humanistic in nature; man is at the center of everything. Humanism is the great religion of the hour. The religious system has God at the center of everything, but He’s impersonal and powerless. It has to do with routine, not relationship. Yes, and then the kingdom has Jesus at the center of it all.
I want you to look with me at Matthew chapter 16, and we’ll read a passage there that I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this, but I’d like to actually take maybe three or four weeks just to work through this and do a little better job covering these things. I have felt strongly that the Lord is wanting to draw us into promise in a greater way than we’ve ever known.
All right? You guys all right? Is everybody still alive? Bless our online family; we love, love, love, love you! So glad that you join us week after week. Matthew chapter 16: this great chapter where Jesus asks His disciples, «Who do people say that I am?» Then He asks them, «Who do you say that I am?» Peter says, «You’re the Christ, the Son of the living God.» This is where Jesus said, «Flesh and blood didn’t reveal that to you. That was for my Father.» He wasn’t putting Peter down; He was acknowledging he heard from the Father. He was affirming the fact that you’re right, Peter. You stepped right into the flow of divine information; you got it right!
The problem with being right—I’ll tell you the problem with getting it right; it happens so much in the prophetic culture of what you and I are a part of—the biggest danger to the prophetic culture that gets it right is they tend to think they’re always right. True, you probably know people that needed to hear that, so you just tell them. So Peter gets it right, and the very next moment, verse 21, from that time, Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, be killed, and be raised the third day.
Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. We’re not talking subtle suggestion; we’re talking about a rebuke! Rebuke him, saying, «Far be it from you, Lord! This shall not happen to you!» That’s quite a prophetic word! «This shall not happen to you!» Jesus turned to him and said, «Get behind me, Satan!» That’s quite an affirming word! «Get behind me, Satan! You’re an offense to me!» That word «offense» there means to set a trap to catch an animal. «You’re being used by the devil to try to trap me.»
I remind you: what the Lord is releasing into the Earth is people who are free. Everything you think, everything you say, everything you do, every ambition you have in life, either comes from the motivation of fear or love. Fear entraps; love enables and empowers. «Get behind me, Satan! You are an offense to me, for you are not mindful of the things of God but the things of men.»
Okay, let’s walk through that phrase, «Get behind me, Satan! You are not mindful of the things of God.» You’re mindful of the things of men. «Get behind me, Satan! Your mind is not filled with the things of God; your mind is filled with the things of men!» Humanity without Christ at the center is demonic in nature!
Wow! I remind you: witchcraft, as demonic as that is, starts as a sin of the flesh in Galatians 5. Without Christ at the center—can I say? Without eternity in view, without that due north for our compass, we tend to make wrong decisions and embrace wrong values. It’s very easy to embrace—to marry the inferior. So here, Jesus confronts Peter, and He says, «Your mind is not filled with the things of God.»
I don’t personally think He’s saying you need to be dreaming about angels in the room or anything. He’s talking about a perspective. How did you come into this place of faith? You only came in through repentance! Yeah! «Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.» Repent means to change the way you think.
The entrance into this reality—can we just call it this? The entrance into this land of promises begins with repentance. It begins with a godly sorrow that provokes a change in your way of thinking. Again, most believers repent enough to get forgiven but not enough to see the kingdom. Wow! Come on! He said, «Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand!» It’s uno a purpose!
You’re going to lose sight of this that was inferior and has been manipulated into controlling your life. You’re going to shift and come into a realization of a reality that is so far greater than everything you’ve ever seen that the evidence of real repentance is beholding the reality of God’s dominion in every aspect and part of life. Good!
So we enter this kingdom through a change. It’s not just a discipline. I believe in discipline, but you can’t discipline your way into discovering the kingdom; you surrender your way! Come on! It’s not the result of self-determination; it’s already been His determination. I yield to it!
Honestly, it’s like stepping into a river with great momentum. You give yourself to the momentum that’s already been created, and that’s what grace is. It takes you into the purposes and things of God. It’s when we fight the current and we work to protect things that are not worth protecting.
Take your Bibles and open to Philippians 4. Now, oh goodness! I just shot the clock. I missed the clock! I’m sorry! All right, let me quote two passages for you for the sake of time because I want you to catch this one lesson, and then we’ll conclude with Philippians 4. Two references: number one, Romans 8, I think it’s around verse 38. No, no, no—it’s further down. It’s the bottom page, verse 32, I think it says: nothing can separate us from the love of Christ—not angels, not principalities, not powers, not dominions. Then he goes on and says, «Not things present, not things to come.» Nothing can separate you from the love of Christ!
Okay, that’s talking about our place of security in God’s love. Then you go to 1 Corinthians chapter 3, the very end of that chapter. It says, «Don’t boast in men; all things are yours.» The context was they were starting to divide themselves over who they followed. «Well, we follow Peter, we follow Paul,» etc. He says, «Don’t do that! Competition is arrogance!» All things are yours! What is he saying?
The gifts of the Spirit of God—the gifts of Jesus functioning that function on Him—are distributed to people, and those people are given to you as a gift. It’s there. He says, «Don’t boast in men; all things are yours.» And then he says, «Life belongs to you.» Excuse me, «The world is yours.»
This interesting list is like pretends you’re in a lawyer’s office, and he’s reading off what you’ve just inherited. He goes, «Hm! The whole world is yours! Oh, this is interesting. Life is yours! Oh! So is death!» Strange list of inheritance, and then he says «things present, things to come.» What’s missing from those two passages? Things present, things to come. Both passages—one to do with the love of Christ, one to do with our inheritance. What’s missing? The past!
Why? Because you have no legal access to the past! Wow! Your past was bought! It’s no longer your possession for you to dwell on! The past apart from the redemptive work of Christ is for you to invade another man’s property!
The more we enable past failures or whatever successes, perhaps, to define who we are, the more we live under the influence of a lie. Now, remember, the goal is not just to have people who know they’re forgiven. The goal is to release people that are free in their thinking—from the restraint of religion and the political system, the fear of man—into a place to actually be a redemptive solution to humanity, bringing solutions, answers, free thought, creative thinking.
That was better than your response, but I’m good with it! I’m good with it! I’m good with it! All right, I’ve got to end here. So let’s get moving into Philippians 4. I remind you that this instruction Paul is giving to the church at Philippi—he’s writing to them from prison, so his suggestions are not careless, random ideas. These are things that he has fought for and paid a price for.
Philippians 4:4—"Rejoice in the Lord always! Again I will say, rejoice!» In other words, this is worth repeating: rejoice! «Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand! Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.»
Look at that again: «Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.» It’s an incredibly important passage. Let me tell you why. I have prayed countless prayers out of fear and anxiety. If that’s where you find yourself, pray. Pray! But when you come into the presence of the Lord, if you leave the same way you came in, you weren’t praying; you were complaining!
Wow! If we come into the presence of the Lord and we exchange—He says, «Come to me, you who are weary and heavy laden. I will give you rest.» In other words, «Come to me! Here, let’s make the exchange! I’ll take your heavy stuff; I’ll give you my light stuff.» The evidence of prayer—many people pray just to check it off their box, so there was never an engagement, an encounter. It was a routine! That’s the nature of religion: routine instead of relationship.
So he says, «Everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.» Thanksgiving is the best vaccine you’ll ever take! It inoculates you against entitlement, perverse thinking. It realigns the source of life; it realigns us with the one who is the giver of life. Yes! It realigns us in a posture—a place of humility—where we receive, and our life actually depends on Him.
And the peace of God, verse 7, which surpasses understanding, will guard your heart and mind through Christ Jesus. If you want the peace that passes understanding, you have to give up your right to understand! It’s interesting because I’m emphasizing understanding.
Oh goodness! Yeah! This is the only service we are allowed to go over on, and I just went over on the other ones we can’t! Count! But the next service—I’ll just leave it there. Just trust me; I know what I’m doing!
If Hebrews 11 says, «By faith we understand,» the worlds are made out of nothing. Listen to the wording! «By faith we understand!» Wow! There is a brilliance available to a believer! Wow! Because of faith! Faith doesn’t come from the mind; it comes from the heart, but it’s a result of surrender, not striving! The mind creates the contact; the renewed mind creates the context for great faith—like the banks of a river.
There is a brilliance that the Lord is wanting to take His people into in this hour—a brilliance, unencumbered thought—not the fear of man, not the regret for yesterday—unencumbered thought. Why? Because you’re in a posture to believe for things that are absolutely impossible, and there is an understanding of the nature and ways of God that will influence your creativity where you satisfy the cry of an aching planet for a God who is real, a God who is present, a God who actually cares.
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there’s any virtue, anything worthy of praise, meditate on these things. He just gave us the prescription! The doctor just wrote the prescription! This is what you need to have a sound mind! Think on these things!
Any of you wake up in the night and have a hard time going back to sleep because of anxiety? No? Not you?
I have! I have more times than I can count in the last two years! I either go back to sleep quoting the Lord’s Prayer—which I’ll do over and over again—or I move into a place of thankfulness and begin to dwell on the things that are noble and right and praiseworthy. That brings a peace, brings me back into a place of rest.
All right, we’ve gone way over. Jesus! Help us! And help the next group, please! Help us! Help us!
Let me ask a quick question: is there anyone in the room who has never surrendered your life to Jesus Christ? You’ve never made that confession of faith to follow Jesus as Lord, as Master? If that’s you, put a hand up right now. You say, «Bill, I don’t want to leave the building until I know I have found peace with God.» If that’s you, put your hand up.
Okay, I’m assuming you’re all in!