John Bevere - Stop Going to the Wrong Places for Answers
- Watch
- Donate
Welcome to another lesson on hearing God! I’m so excited about this course. Now first of all, I want to address: «Why, John, are you on a different set?» Well, we had a studio for all the other lessons, but there are two lessons that our producers felt we wanted to bring you right into Lisi’s and my home. This is actually my office in my house where I spend a lot of time in prayer and with God, and we thought it would be a really good idea for you to actually see what it looks like. We’ve already established in a different lesson the authenticity of the Scriptures, and it’s mind-blowing when you think about it: over 500 years and more, the Bible was written by over 40 writers. It was compiled in three different languages, by the way, and from three different continents, and you have this book that perfectly harmonizes. Did you know that the Bible is the only «holy book,» let’s just put it that way, of all religions in the world that was written by many different men? All the other religions of the world have one author, which again shows you how amazing the Scriptures are.
When I think about the Scriptures, I think of one of the last words the Apostle Paul penned on this Earth to his protégé Timothy. He made this statement—I’m jumping ahead of myself, but it’s important: «All Scripture is God-breathed, given by His inspiration, and profitable for instruction, for reproof and conviction of sin, for correction of error and discipline in obedience.» Man, that’s a mouthful right there! And for training in righteousness, in holy living, in conformity to God’s will in thought, purpose, and action—that is huge.
Now let me say this: reading the Bible without the help of the teacher, the Holy Spirit, is going to bring a lot of confusion. I remember reading the Bible before I got saved, and to me, it didn’t make a lick of sense. It was just a bunch of stories and a bunch of rules and regulations. Then I got saved in January of 1979, but I was not filled with the Holy Spirit until June 3rd, 1979. During those four months, I still struggled; I still had a hard time seeing the revelations, the wisdom, the insights of the Word of God. Because God calls it a mystery. Mystery doesn’t mean mysterious; it means something that needs to be unveiled, uncovered, dug up, so to speak.
It takes the teacher, the Holy Spirit, to open up this book. One thing you’ll want to remember here in your walk with God is that the Holy Spirit wants to communicate with you, but He’s never going to communicate contrary to this book. Anything He speaks to you—of course, there will be things He speaks to you that are outside of Scripture—because you know you won’t find in Scripture the name of the person you’re going to marry, although I’ve seen Him use Scripture to help people identify their spouses. It’s amazing how He does that.
But the Holy Spirit will never, and let me write this down big—NEVER, in all caps—speak contrary to the written Word of God. That is what Paul was saying to Timothy. The very last thing he wrote. Also, Peter writes this: «Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophets' own understanding or from human initiative. No, these prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.» So the author of the Scriptures is not human beings; the author of Scripture is God Himself. He used instruments, He used men, through which He flowed to speak to us.
And it’s so important because David makes the statement: «Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.» I really want to open up this lesson by talking about the fact that all Christians know we should read the Bible, but here’s what’s really scary: a lot of us are not reading the Bible. Barna did a study in 2018, so this is very recent. 48% of the people that Barna surveyed said they were Bible users. So half of the people—48%—read it, listen to it, watch it, or engage with content in any form, not including church services. But listen to the stats: 8% use it three to four times a year, 6% use it once a month, 8% use it once a week, 13% use it several times per week, and 14% use it daily. So the ones I would consider to be healthy would be the 13% using it several times a week and the 14% using it daily. We’re talking just 27%—one-fourth—of people that are really using the Bible as they should.
You may be thinking, «John, why would you say only they are reading it? Why not those who use it once a week or maybe once a month?» Well, let me ask you this: I want you to live on one meal a week. I’m talking about physical food—where you actually have your salad, your steak, and your vegetables. One meal a week. Tell me how you’re doing in life. You wouldn’t be able to function properly; you wouldn’t think clearly. If you ever had to fight to protect your family, you wouldn’t have the strength. Just as physical food is nourishment to our bodies, the Word of God is nourishment to our spirits.
Now why do we want our spirits to be nourished? Because it gives us a greater capacity for hearing God. If I’m eating one physical meal a week…you know, I’ve been in situations before where I’m famished, I’m weak, and I can’t engage in very important conversations. Everything has to be pretty surface-level. This is why you want to keep the Word of God building up your inner man. We are told constantly in the New Testament to build up our inner man. We are spirit, we have a soul, and we live in a physical body called this Earth suit.
Here’s a little bit of my background: I was raised in church, and our particular denomination thought we were the only ones going to heaven. I used to look at all the people in other churches and think, «Man, they’re wasting time because our denomination is the only one going to heaven.» Well, then I got saved in my fraternity in college, and I remember my college offered an extension course from a major university from the denomination I was a part of. It was an Old Testament survey, and the professor that taught it was renowned. I remember in the first class he stood up and said, «There are 656 contradictions in the Bible; you can’t prove that Jesus was raised from the dead from the Bible.» Although he didn’t realize that Josh McDowell spent seven years trying to disprove Christianity, and after all of his research through Scriptures and historic writings, he discovered God was real. But hey, let’s leave it there.
The third thing he said was, «When Moses and the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea, it was just a marsh.» That was my first class in Theology 175. Then the very next class, the professor came in and said, «75% of our teachings come from men, 25% from the Bible.» I threw up my hands so quickly! I said, «Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a minute! We’re basing our eternity off of 25% of what the Bible says?» He said, «Yes, 25% comes from our leader of our denomination and 50% from the ecumenical council.» I made up my mind right there in that class: when I read the Word of God, I’m going to believe what it says.
So in other words, I’m going to believe the Bible, whether I understand it or not. That was one of the wisest decisions the Holy Spirit led me to because that is the fear of the Lord, and the Bible says, «The fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding.» That is why one of the things people have said in reading the 21 books I’ve written is that they are amazed at the insights I get from Scriptures that they’ve read over and over, and I point out things they’ve never seen. I really believe that’s because of the fear of the Lord, and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding.
So throughout my Christian walk, when I read the Scripture, even if that Scripture seems ridiculously unrealistic, I just say, «I believe that.» Do you know that eventually the Holy Spirit shows me how that Scripture fits into the rest of the Scripture and how it is very important? Some of the greatest revelations I’ve received from the Holy Spirit in the Bible have come from some of the hardest Scriptures to understand, and that is because I chose to believe first and then understanding would come.
A lot of times I meet Millennials, especially, or any age group nowadays; they’re like, «We want the why first.» Sometimes, you have to believe, and then you get the why. If we live by wanting the why first, you’re going to have a lot of struggles in this life because that’s what faith is: I’m going to believe even when I don’t see, even when I don’t understand. That’s true faith.
Eventually, I came to the point where I started realizing that the way a lot of teachers teach the Bible is they teach it through the lens of their experience. Now, this is so important for you to understand: do not read what you believe; rather, believe what you read.
Now listen to those words again: don’t read what you believe when you’re reading the Bible; believe what you read. What do I mean by don’t read what you believe? A lot of times we have a colored lens from our experiences in the past, and we use that as a filter to interpret Scripture. When I read this Bible, I allow the Word of God to dictate my experience, not for the Word of God to be interpreted by my experience. I hope you’re understanding what I’m saying because it’s very important.
I have been saved now—this is really exciting—at the very time of this taping, I’ve been saved for 40 years this month! It was 40 years ago that I gave my life to Jesus Christ as Lord, Master, and Savior in my fraternity. So think with me: I’ve been reading this same book for 40 years. Do you know that one of my favorite times of the day, and I am not kidding you—you can ask my sons and my wife—is when I sit down and read this Bible. You say, «How can it be that exciting to you when you’ve read it many times over these 40 years?» It’s because every time I sit down to read this book, I say, «Holy Spirit, I’m asking You to reveal Jesus to me. Reveal Him to me like I’ve never known Him before!» I can’t wait to get in, and I’m going to share the practicals of that in just a little while.
So why is it important to read the Scripture? Because it reveals Jesus. The Bible says in John 1: «In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.» The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The Scriptures reveal Jesus. Jesus actually said this in John 5:39–40: «You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.»
In other words, they wanted their Messiah to be the way they wanted Him to be, not the way He would come. Now that’s very important for you to understand. A lot of times people want to create a Jesus that will serve their selfish needs, their selfish wants, their selfish desires, instead of saying, «I want to meet the Jesus of the Word, of the Scripture.» This is really tricky nowadays. You can create a Jesus who’ll give you premarital sex, who’ll give you the ability to get drunk, who’ll give you the ability to lie when your back is against the wall. He gets it; He understands; He’s okay with it. But are you really knowing—and I mean this—having an intimate relationship with the real Jesus that’s seated at the right hand of the Father? No, you’re not. You’ve made up a different Jesus.
I remember I was sharing with someone—a very high-profile businesswoman—and she had come to a conference at a hotel in Hawaii. I had just flown in, and I just wanted to sit in the sun for a few minutes. I remember I didn’t even have a bathing suit on; it was late in the day, so I just walked down there in my jeans that I’d just traveled in and plopped down in a chair. This lady came and sat down next to me; she explained why she was there and asked me why I was there, and I told her I was there to minister.
She started saying all this stuff about God: «Oh, well, God is this, and God is that, and God is this.» I could see right there that this lady doesn’t really know the true God that authored these Scriptures. I said to her, «Do you see that man sitting across the pool?» I pointed to a guy. I said, «Let’s say your name is Sherry. What if I walked over to that guy and said, 'Hey, you see Sherry over there? I want to tell you about her. Sherry is a vegan. Sherry loves synchronized swimming.'» I said some other ridiculous things, and I looked at her, and her face was getting more contorted every time I said something.
I said, «Do you understand, Sherry, that I totally misrepresented you to that guy? Do you like synchronized swimming?» She said, «No.» I said, «Are you a vegan?» She goes, «No.» I said, «But I got that guy to believe you were, so what I did was share with him a Sherry that’s not the real Sherry. If I would have spent time talking to you, I could have represented you to him accurately.» I said, «You’re telling me about a God you don’t know anything about. Have you taken the time to read the Bible and find out how He reveals Himself in the Word of God?» She said, «Well, you know, I’ve read it a couple times in my life.» I said, «You don’t know Him.» I said, «You’re telling me about a god that is really not the real God.»
As believers, we want to be effective communicators of who we know Jesus Christ really is. I want to move into the real practicals of reading Scripture. It is really important that we have—I personally try to do this electronically because I do a lot of things; I preach with my iPad, I read the Bible on my phone, I read the Bible on my iPad—but I still like when it comes to my time alone with the Lord, a physical paper Bible in front of me.
Why is that? Because I want to be able to highlight areas that God speaks to me. Usually, what I do is I’ll try to go through a Bible in a year. Can I tell you? I think I’ve only done it once in my life, and I’m going to tell you there’s a reason. There are these daily reading Bible programs, and people will miss three or four days. They’ll try to read the three or four days that they missed, and can I tell you, if you miss six or seven meals—let’s say you’ve gone two and a half days without eating—are you going to eat seven different meals? Are you going to have a steak and vegetables and a salad here and then chicken and noodles there? And a couple scrambled eggs over there? Are you going to sit down and eat seven meals?
No! You know what you’d do? You’d almost kill yourself! This is what I tell people: if you miss a day, first of all, don’t get upset with yourself. I’ve missed days—okay, many days. Don’t get upset! But don’t try to make up yesterday. Our goal is not to get through the Bible; our goal is to hear from God. When we sit down to read, we want the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus like we’ve never known Him before.
There are days that I spend 30 minutes and I haven’t even gotten through a chapter. Do I get upset about that? No! I’m going through this one now, and guess what? I’ve just finished it recently; I think it took me about two years to get through it—maybe a little over two years. You know that’s the thing: I didn’t care because I’m not setting a goal. Now, there have been times in the past where I’ve read the Bible chronologically. I’d say the same thing: if it takes you two years to do that, don’t let it upset you! Take your time and allow the Scripture to be digested into your spirit.
You know, when you eat, you don’t take one bite and swallow. You chew on it; you meditate. When you’re reading the Scripture, you meditate on it, allowing space for the Holy Spirit to speak to you. So let me just show you this. This is a New Living Translation, and now that I’m almost all the way through it the second time, I’m going to probably move to another version because I just like doing that.
Why do I do that? Because just as you know, it’s very difficult to translate Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek into an English language, the very fact that there are several translations means different translators are capturing different emphases of various verses. I make sure that I’m going through even paraphrases to get more of a feel of what the Holy Spirit is saying in that Scripture. It really opens things up.
A couple of years ago, I chose to go through this particular Bible—that’s the New Living. If you come close, you’ll find out that I have a set of these pens. I actually have these in my drawer. My guys didn’t anticipate this, but you can buy these anywhere; you can buy them on Amazon. But these are special pens that, when you open them up and use them in your Bible, they don’t bleed through.
So they’re actually special ink! I used to get so frustrated because I’d highlight something and then turn the page over and find, «Oh my gosh!» And these don’t bleed through. I find a highlighter, and I use a pencil, so I have seven different colors of these pens. I think they come in packages of seven, that’s why. I use blue to highlight the promises of God or something that’s very, very important. I’ll use black for names—important cities, let’s say the king’s name.
Then I have many other different colors, and you can set up your colors however you want—just figure it out before you start. I just flipped open today to the book of Ephesians. Let’s look at this; I’m looking at chapter 4, verse 11: «Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church.» I’m not rushing through this; I’m absorbing this.
«The apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and the teachers"—so I circle the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and the teachers. I see there are five different ministries—most of us know that. But look at this next statement: «Their responsibility.» I highlight «their responsibility» because that’s important. I happen to be one of those five categories, and I want to know what my responsibility is.
So I highlighted «equip» because my responsibility is to equip you! I want your time reading the Bible to be rich so that you hear from the Holy Spirit. «God’s people to do the work and build up"—there’s the second responsibility: to equip and to build up! So I highlighted both of those—"the church, the body of Christ.»
If you keep going, that’s a very important Scripture to me, so I highlight it. It’s not a promise, so it’s not highlighted in blue. If I come over here to the end of chapter 4, it says, «Instead, be kind to each other, tender-hearted, forgiving one another just as God through Christ has forgiven you. Imitate God.» Now a lot of times, people separate the end of the chapter from the next chapter. This is all one thought, and I see it as one thought, so it’s a very important thought.
It’s not a promise, but it’s important, so I highlighted this in blue. If I come over to Ephesians 6, you’ll find out: «Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do. Honor your father and mother; this is the first commandment with a promise.»
So you can see, okay, blue highlight—promise! One day I’m reading my Bible, and I realize, «Oh, I’ve heard so many teachers say the New Testament is not dos and don’ts; the New Testament is all dos.» Well, I went through and counted 11 total don’ts in Ephesians: «Don’t be drunk with wine, where is in excess? Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Don’t be idolaters. Don’t be fooled by those…» on and on.
That was a real revealing moment for me. I actually was planning on reading a different book in the New Testament, and the Holy Spirit said, «No, son, I want you to read Revelation.» I was just getting ready to look for a book to read, so here’s a time where I divert from my normal reading plan. I was going to read a different book in the New Testament, but I felt the Holy Spirit say, «Read in the book of Revelation.» Even though I had just read it about five months ago, I didn’t argue because I’ve learned when the Holy Spirit interrupts my reading plan like that, it’s because He wants to say something to me.
I get to the third chapter of Revelation, and I get a word for our messenger team for this coming year. You can see, I hope you can get this camera close enough, I wrote «123118,» and I put a bracket there because that’s the word that God gave to the messenger team for 2018. I shared it at our New Year’s party that we had with our team.
Let me show you from a different book how this has happened with me. In 2010, my wife was in England. She was speaking at a conference for women, and I was in our basement, casually reading the book of Daniel. At the time, this was the New King James; this was the book I was going through. You can see I got a lot more colorful later; I wasn’t so colorful here. I was just reading the Scripture in Daniel chapter 2: «Then the king promoted Daniel and gave him many great gifts, and he made him ruler over the whole province.»
Well, «the whole province» jumped up off the page! I mean, literally, it was like a neon light went off; it jumped off the page. The Holy Spirit starts talking to me and said, «Son, you’ve been faithful with the English-speaking community; I want you now to get your messages into the hands of pastors and leaders in every nation of the world.»
Now that was May 31st, 2010—you can see I circled that and put «53110.» Well, that was the beginning of our initiative to get our books and resources into the hands of pastors and leaders all over the globe. Now today, it’s 2019, and at this very moment, we’ve been able to get 21.3 million resources into the hands of pastors and leaders in 97 nations in 111 languages. That’s mind-blowing! But it all began when the Holy Spirit caused that to jump off the page.
Can I tell you? It’s always been in my heart to give more books away than we’ve sold, but the time came when He gave that rhema word. See, rhema means spoken word; logos means written word. When that rhema word jumped up off the page—that Daniel was promoted over the entire province, not just a section of Babylon, but the entire nation of Babylon—the Holy Spirit used that Scripture to say, «I want you to get your books into the hands of pastors and leaders around the world.»
We tried doing this in 2001. We tried giving 100,000 resources to pastors in the underground church in China. I wrote a two-day-long letter, and I thought it was the best partner letter I’d ever written. I thought, «Man, this letter makes me want to give!» Do you know hardly anybody responded? That project almost broke us financially.
But then God spoke this to me, and now we’ve given away 21.3 million resources. We run a golf tournament and an Alpine event here at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs. Do you know last year $3 million came in to give books to pastors and leaders in all these nations? And I stand in awe! Here I was trying to do it without the rhema, when it was in my heart. But when God gave me the rhema, all of a sudden, I had team members looking at me and shaking their heads in disbelief: a golf tournament bringing in $2 million to give to pastors around the world? Who’s ever heard of such a thing? I haven’t! Only the grace of God could do this!
But you see, this is why Paul said, «I commend you to God and to the word of His grace.» Did you hear that? Paul the Apostle said to the Ephesian elders, «I commend you to God—not just God; he didn’t stop there—and to the word of His grace.» In other words, this word empowers us to do what we couldn’t do on our own ability. When the Holy Spirit breathes on it, now we have understanding that we never could have gotten on our own. We have revelation we could never get on our own. We have wisdom and insight we never could have gotten on our own. We have the ability to give 21.3 million resources to pastors and leaders around the world.
We could have never done that in our own ability; it almost broke me 10 years prior. This is what happens when you start reading the Scripture. If you’re in the marketplace—if you’re a businessman or a businesswoman—you’ll be reading, and all of a sudden a Scripture will jump off the page. Now all of a sudden, God just gave you an inspired idea for a new revenue stream, a new business, maybe a new investment. He’ll do this!
So why aren’t we reading the Bible? Why is only 27% of us reading it at least multiple times a week? It’s because we don’t understand. This is the way I look at it: often the Holy Spirit will bring up a Scripture I haven’t read in months, but I like to say it this way: Pretend I’m a dental assistant, and I put out the knife, the scraper, the shot of Novocain, and all the tools. Then you know what happens? The dentist comes in and says, «Give me the Novocain shot.» Bam! Okay, the Holy Spirit’s like the dentist.
If we’re reading the Word, all of a sudden, He can pull that and speak to us. You know, Lisa and I are in the process right now of building a house; it’s something that God really put in my heart to do for this next phase. I remember I got a little anxious midway through, and I remember the Holy Spirit spoke to me a Scripture I hadn’t read in probably nine months. All of a sudden, the Scripture comes bubbling up: «Having begun in the Spirit, are you now going to be made perfect by the flesh?» I thought, «Wow! This whole thing started by the Spirit of God. Why am I now being anxious?» See, He had tools to pull from.
That’s why I can’t emphasize enough: it’s so important to hear God, that you spend time in the Word of God. I believe this lesson is so valuable practically for you because I don’t want you under pressure. Man, oh man! I didn’t read my four chapters today! I don’t care if you just read four verses! If the Holy Spirit spoke to you out of those four verses, you got more than the person that read three entire books of the Bible without getting a thing.
So remember, it’s not quantity; it’s quality. Allow Him to reveal Himself to you in the Scriptures.