Sid Roth - Faith Magnified
Hello. Welcome to my world where it is naturally supernatural. How would you like to have every one of your prayers answered? I mean all of them. Would you really like that? Would you? Would you like all your prayers answered? Well my guest has gone through and learned how faith operates the hard way. I don't want any of you to go through what she went through. But as a result of the process, she saw the most amazing supernatural answers to prayer, and through revelation, God has taught her how to teach you to have your prayers answered. You want it? Now I know Jennifer LeClaire as the news editor with a major Christian publication, "Charisma Magazine". But it wasn't always that way, Jennifer. In fact, when you were three years old you came from a non-Christian home. You actually could see something. You saw a spirit of fear and it has plagued you, it plagued you most of your life.
Jennifer: It did. I saw that spirit of fear, Sid, in my bedroom. I didn't know what it was, of course, at the time, being there years old. My mother thought it was my imagination and would come in with a broom and try to chase it away. But it was. It was a spirit of fear that targeted me from a very early age to destroy my destiny.
Sid: Now you had a boyfriend you were living with and you had an altercation, and you called 911, and the police came. And then you decided this is going too far, don't want to do it. And so the police officer didn't like what you did. There were some charges filed because you didn't want to file something against your boyfriend, and they haul you off to jail. But then they release you, but you're not allowed to change cities without notifying them. And everything is going along fine. You then eventually marry this boyfriend and you're married, and you have a child. And he says, "I'm going on vacation for two weeks". And you say, "Okay, bye-bye honey". And then he never shows up. And so she files for divorce. Her attorney in searching things finds out that the paperwork she was supposed to have filed, which she did, to change cities, since she was on probation, she didn't do. And then in the middle of the night, minding her own business, the police show up at her door. What happened?
Jennifer: Yeah, they did. I was falsely accused seven years earlier. And I thought it was cleared. I thought it was done. I had done my paperwork. I had done my duty. And sure enough, the police come knocking on my door in the middle of the night. Now I had hired a defense attorney who told me this is a paperwork issue, don't worry about it, we're going to take care of it, and I believed him. Then not before I had a maid who tried to actually extort money from me. She wanted to be paid more than what I was willing to pay her, and she had seen the paperwork from the attorney, and decided, you know what, if I can't get what I want from you, I'm going to call the police on you, and that's what she did.
Sid: Okay. So now you're taken away in the middle of the night. You're put in jail. You have five years of hard time facing you. You're worried about what's going to happen to your three-year-old. Your husband has totally disappeared. And some evangelists come to the jail and they start telling you the Good News. Coming from the background you came from, how could you just simply become a believer? Wasn't that was called jailhouse religion?
Jennifer: That's what a lot of people thought when I got out of jail, Sid. But you know, the testimonies, there's such power in the testimonies, and the testimonies were so powerful. One of the women had been delivered from heroin. She was a heroin addict. And my best friend at the time was a heroin addict. And when I saw what God had done in this woman's life it so touched my heart. The Holy Spirit, the conviction fell on me, and I decided, you know what, I'm going all the way with Jesus.
Sid: You went all the way in the world and now you're going all the way with Jesus. She gets a Bible and for the first time in her life, she devours the Bible. And then the Spirit of God talks to her and says, you'll be out in 40 days. Now you tell people you'll be out in 40. Why was it impossible to be out in 40 days?
Jennifer: It was impossible. First of all, they denied me bail three times, even with an ankle bracelet and even with home arrest, despite the fact that I was working for a Fortune 500 company at the time. So it was incredible that I couldn't get out. But nevertheless, the judge was going to be on vacation on the 40th day. There was no way I could even stand before the judge on day 40.
Sid: Well day 40 comes and what happened?
Jennifer: Day 40 came. I was waiting to see another judge, sitting in a cell by myself for hours, where it seemed like hours. I get a phone call from my attorney and he said, "Jennifer, you don't have to stand before the judge. This has all been taken care of. Get ready to go home. You're walking free and clear".
Sid: Forty days! There's something about the number 40. Okay. But what about all the pills you were on for depression and for anxiety? How many years were you on these pills?
Jennifer: At that time, about 11 years.
Sid: Well what happened with that addiction?
Jennifer: Well you know, they came to give me my medicine and after I got saved they still wanted me to take these medications, and I said, I don't need this medicine. Jesus, I had joy in my heart for the first time ever. I was free. And they said, you have to take this medication. You know, we went back and forth. Eventually I decided I'd just better do what they say. So I took it. My body rejected it. They didn't like what they saw next, and they said, okay, you don't have to take that medicine any more.
Sid: Yes, but what happened to your anxiety and your fear, and depression?
Jennifer: That all went away. I still had to battle to face with fear, but the depression was gone.
Sid: And you didn't take the pills?
Jennifer: I never took the pills again.
Sid: Not only that, she learned faith to such a degree, and I don't know how you pulled this off, when they let her out in 40 days, all the records were erased. It's almost like what the Messiah does to our sins. How did that happen?
Jennifer: You know, there's just no record of it.
Sid: I tell you what. We're going to come back and I want you to learn how to pray like she prays. I want you to learn how to exercise faith like she exercised faith.
Sid: So Jennifer has a great miracle. She has a relationship with God. God begins answering her prayers. She's out of jail. Her record just totally disappears. She's back and reunited with her daughter. She's making $3000 a week. She has an extraordinary gift for writing. She's making 3000 a week. And then all of a sudden she loses her job. She's now making zero a week. She's on food stamps. That must have been quite a comedown.
Jennifer: It really was. It was very humiliating, honestly, having to go from having sort of everything to nothing. But what I had was worth more than all the money in the world. At this point, I had Jesus.
Sid: Well and because she had a relationship with the Messiah things began to change as you began to pray. Tell me what happened.
Jennifer: Well I began, as I said, to devour the Word and I never stopped. I began to meditate on the Word, and I began to put the Word into practice. And it's one thing to read the Word and it's another to study the Word. But when we put our action on the Word, that's when we begin to see results, and that's what I did. I plugged into a good church, I got equipped and I began to take the Word at face value. You know, if the Word says it, I believe that's what it means.
Sid: Well speaking of the Word saying it, one day, God speaks to you and He says to you, you're robbing me. What did He mean?
Jennifer: Yeah. I was living, very little money at the time. But what I did have I was generous. I would let people borrow it. And they kept stealing it from me. I wouldn't be able to pay a bill because someone had taken the money that I borrowed from them. And I was really very angry and annoyed. And I was down on my couch on my knees, and I said, "God, you know, what is going on with this? I'm generous, I'm trying to help people. What is going on? I'm tired of all these people robbing from me". And I heard the still small voice, and my heart says, "Well stop robbing from me". And it was then that I learned really to tithe, to give the 10 percent to God. And I tell you when I did that, Sid, things slowly, it didn't happen overnight, but step by step, began to turn around for me.
Sid: Well give me kind of a review of what's going on with you right now about the turnaround. How many books have you published? Have you ever seen those books for dummies in bookstores? She's written a couple of them. Tell me about that.
Jennifer: I've written several of those now, and those were the first books that I began to write long before I began to write religious books. And so I've written a number of those. I've now written eight Christian books on top of that. And God has taken the gift within me and used to bring increase and to bring prosperity into my life, and He'll do the same thing for anybody.
Sid: Okay. Tell me about the oceanfront condo. I mean, from food stamps to an oceanfront condo. Tell me about that.
Jennifer: It's really supernatural. What happened was I began to understand the law of confession, and I'm not talking about the name and claim it. I'm talking about standing in line with what God's Word says. And so I began, I had a desire in my heart. I wanted an oceanfront condo. And so I began to confess: I have an oceanfront condo and it is paid for, back in 2005. I have an oceanfront condo and it is paid for. And I just, everyday, I had a list of confessions and I would read that. At the same time I would tithe, I would give offerings and I would work hard. And sure enough, within five years I have an oceanfront condo. And guess what?
Sid: What?
Jennifer: It's paid for.
Sid: I like that. How would you like that? Anything God will do for her, God will do for you. But let me ask you something. You struggled with fear and doubt, and unbelief. What did God show you about doubt and unbelief?
Jennifer: God showed me a couple of things. Doubt is the doorway to unbelief, and unbelief will lead to fear. But the Holy Spirit showed me something even last night. He said, "The battle is in the mind, but the war is for you heart". And the reason why is because...
Sid: Wait a second. Explain that first.
Jennifer: The battle is in the mind. So we have thoughts. The enemy launches his fiery darts. And really the battle is in the mind. It's the thought, it's the imaginations, it's the suggestions that we hear: well you'll never prosper, well you'll never be healed, well you'll never do this or that. And that's the enemy bringing doubt, causing you to bring doubt that you will doubt God's Word. See the battle is in the mind, but the war is for your heart. See because the Bible says that we believe with our heart and we don't believe with our mind. Believing with our mind is simply mental ascent. But believing with our heart, having pure faith in our heart, that is where the miracles happen.
Sid: We're going to come back in a moment and I want you to share the revelation that she had of how to believe with all of your heart, because that's the reason that many of you are not having your prayers answered. There's fear, there's doubt, there's unbelief. And even though you say, I believe, you really aren't believing in your heart.
Sid: Now Jennifer coined a new word. You've heard of alcoholism. She didn't coin that. Her word is "doubtaholism". What are the symptoms of doubtaholism?
Jennifer: That's right. Doubtaholism, it's a spiritual disease, is how I characterize it. And some of the symptoms include confusion. If you're confused it means you've been reasoning in your mind a little bit too much. God gave us reasoning. He expects us to use our natural intellect. But when we go beyond reasoning into confusion we just don't know what to do any more. We're wavering between two opinions. We're confused. We become double-minded. And the Bible says that a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways, and he shouldn't think he's going to receive anything from God. So if you're not receiving from God then it's possible that you've got doubt in your heart. And doubt is so subtle. It's sneaky. And again, talking about mental ascent, we sit in church. We hear great messages every week. We say amen. You know, we give a nod, we give a clap, we give a shout. We go home. We read our Bibles. And what we have a tendency to do, Sid, is we read what we believe rather than believing what we read.
Sid: Oh. That is profound. Would you say that again.
Jennifer: We read what we believe rather than believing what we read. And what I mean by that is we've been taught, many of us, we've sat under great Bible teachers for decades or we've been taught by our families, or we've just been taught by life experiences. So we have these filters, these glasses, and we're looking at the world, we're looking at the Word through our worldview. And that isn't always what the truth of the matter is. We have to begin to look at God's Word and take it for face value, take it literally. If God said, that's exactly what He means.
Sid: Okay. But there's an obstacle as we talked about, this doubt, unbelief. What did God show you? How did you get rid of that?
Jennifer: I was studying Kenneth Hagin's material and just devouring that material some years ago. And I remember studying and studying, and studying, but my faith didn't seem to be working, and I was really frustrated. I'm like, how can I be studying...
Sid: You know what I'm reminded of, because I read his material, too, and Jennifer quotes something. She says, "God is not moved by your need. God is only moved by your faith". And we say, oh God, how come you're healing everyone else. I need you to heal me. God, where are you? None of you can relate to that. Right? You can. Explain that statement.
Jennifer: Well God already knows what we need before we ask Him. What God is really after, again, He's after our heart. He wants a relationship with us. He wants us to interact with Him at a heart level, and when we do that we cultivate that intimacy with God, our heart connecting with His heart, there's no more room for doubt. Doubt has to go. There's no more room for fear. Fear has to go. But it's about cultivating that intimate relationship with God.
Sid: The revelation that God gave you as to how you, because if she can do it, you can do it, and if she can do it, you can do it better. So tell me what God showed you that you had to do to get rid of your doubt and unbelief.
Jennifer: There were two things, really. It's the combination of these two things that's so powerful. It taps into the supernatural at every level. It's meditating on the Word of God and praying in the Spirit like Paul taught.
Sid: Let's start with this meditating on the Word of God. That's a word that a lot of people don't understand. What does it mean to you and what did you do?
Jennifer: Meditating on the Word of God is to chew on it, to roll it over and over in your mouth, in your mind, to confess it, to say it, to say it over and over. And what I like to do is I like to take a certain scripture, whatever scripture it is that I'm trying to get down in my spirit at the time. Because I like to build my faith before I release my prayer. So what I'll do is if I need provision I will take a scripture, "My God shall supply all of my needs according to its riches and glory," and I will say each word. I will emphasize as I go. I will say, "MY God shall supply". It makes it personal, talking about MY God. And I say, "My GOD shall supply". That makes it about Him. So it's about me, it's about Him. We're in this together. My God SHALL. And that's a promise. That's the strongest word in the English language, the word "shall". And I go on down the line in that way.
Sid: You know, meditating is so important. Doctors have proven that if you say a lie long enough, you will believe that it's true. What if you say the strongest thing in this world, the Word of God long enough, a light bulb coming on. And people don't, as Jennifer said, chew on the Word of God. They just swallow it whole. Now you talked about a second thing God showed you.
Jennifer: Praying in the Spirit. Paul teaches about praying in the Spirit in several places in the Bible, but so does Jude. He says, "Building yourself up in your most holy faith, praying in the Spirit". And so when you pray in the Spirit, you're strengthening your spirit. You're strengthening your heart. And it becomes easier to believe with all your heart, because the more full your heart gets of the Word, the more full you get of the Spirit, fear has to go. Doubt has to go.
Sid: Now you've come up with something I have never seen, the revelation she has on doubtaholism. You've come up with 12 separate steps that if someone will do this, they will supernaturally remove doubtaholism. And if you can do that, guess what? You will believe with all your heart and what you say will come to pass. Tell me one of these principles.
Jennifer: Well like anything else, the first step is to admit that you have a problem.
Sid: Now why wouldn't someone admit that they have a problem?
Jennifer: Pride.
Sid: A-ha! A-ha. The devil made you do it. No.
Jennifer: It's pride. We don't, or just that we don't know, we don't recognize, we don't discern that voice of doubt. It's so subtle. You know, you think it's you, but it's not you. It's the enemy trying to rob your faith.
Sid: You just said an interesting word. Doubt, the voice of doubt is subtle. Explain that a little to me.
Jennifer: It's almost as if it's your thought. You know, when Eve was in the garden with Adam, the serpent came and basically caused her to doubt God's Word just by asking a question. Did God really say that? And that's what the devil does with us now. The enemy, he will pose a question, well did God really mean that? Did God really mean that healing is for today? And cause you to doubt that your healing will not come to pass because Jesus isn't healing any more, when in fact he is. The Word says he is.
Sid: Now you've been healed of high blood pressure. You've been healed, you used to go on missions trips and every time you'd have ankle problems. Do you have them today?
Jennifer: I have nothing of that. I'm walking.
Sid: How's your blood pressure?
Jennifer: My blood pressure is perfectly normal.
Sid: Okay. Would you pray that we would be able to discern the subtle voice of doubt and unbelief right now.
Jennifer: Yes. Yes. Father, I thank you for everyone watching and everyone within the sound of my voice. I thank you, Lord, that you give us discernment, a sharper edge, God, to understand and know that voice of doubt, to recognize it at its onset, that we might not meditate on the word of doubt, the word of the enemy, that we might meditate on the Word of God. I just release right now by the Spirit of God an anointing to discern, an anointing to hear. I unclog the ears of those who have been listening to doubt. I bind it and I command it to go in Jesus' name. Amen.
Sid: Yeah. I'm not moved by feelings. But I can tell you, I felt as if light bulbs were going on, and people are beginning to recognize. I've got some advice for you. Forget what lies behind. Forget the failures and the mistakes. Do what you were just instructed to do. Number one, meditate on God's Word. Number two, pray in supernatural languages. You know, Jennifer, I've been praying an hour a day and it is, I'm going to tell you, I've walked up, in the last couple of months, I've walked up to people and this never really happened before. People, the presence of God is pouring out of me and people are falling over. One waitress said, what happened to me and I was able to explain that to her. Well it's wonderful that I'm doing this. It's wonderful that Jennifer is doing this. But you are called. You are chosen. You have a purpose. You have a destiny to dust yourself off, stand up and get back into the play.