Sid Roth - How to Set Your Mind Free
Sid Roth: Hello. Sid Roth here. Welcome to my world where it's naturally supernatural. What happens when the devil himself knocks on your door, presents you with disease, presents you with family problems, presents you with financial problems? Everyone knows these things happen. That is life. But what happens if there is a way to stop him cold? What if it is so simple yet so profound, so easy as saying to a waiter, I didn't order that. My guest says yes. Do you want to find out how?
Sid Roth: Rebecca, we hear the word all the time, strongholds. What exactly is a stronghold?
Rebecca Greenwood: You know, this is a great question. People ask me this all the time. And a stronghold, it is a lie that the enemy speaks to us in our thoughts or in our emotion. It is not true that we count it as true and we believe that lie, and therefore, it becomes a stronghold.
Sid Roth: Give me some examples of strongholds.
Rebecca Greenwood: Oh gosh. There can be strongholds of depression. This is a huge problem in our society and culture.
Sid Roth: It is.
Rebecca Greenwood: Fear and anxiety. We're seeing a lot of perversion, a lot with pornography. There can be unbelief. You know, some people, Sid, what I see that is so amazing as well, is people will read the Bible, believers will read the Bible, but there is this voice, this stronghold, this lie in their thoughts telling them, you know, that happened for that person but it can never happen for you.
Sid Roth: But you know what I have found? People that have been believers for a long period of time and they believe with every fiber of their being, but they've been prayed for personally so many times by the greatest evangelists in the world and they've never been healed. So they say, I believe, but there's a voice inside of them saying, but not, it's not going to happen to me.
Rebecca Greenwood: It's not going to happen.
Sid Roth: Is it a stronghold?
Rebecca Greenwood: That is a stronghold and that is one of the key things that is keeping them bound to not receive the full freedom and healing that God has for them.
Sid Roth: You say when you remove the stronghold.
Rebecca Greenwood: Yes.
Sid Roth: The healing flows.
Rebecca Greenwood: Yes.
Sid Roth: Is this your experience?
Rebecca Greenwood: Absolutely, it's been our experience. You know, one of the most powerful testimonies is there is a pastor and he had incurable cancer in his liver, and he actually, you know, he was an older man and he got this diagnosis, and we were holding a healing service, and he came right after he received that diagnosis, and you know, he had a choice. There was a choice. I can either believe this report or I can stand in a place of I didn't order this, therefore, I'm not going to receive this. And lots of times people think they have to receive something because it's been spoken to them or that lie has been repeated in their mind so many times.
Sid Roth: And you know what's coming to me, Becca? People do have faith. You do have faith.
Rebecca Greenwood: Yes.
Sid Roth: You have faith in a doctor's report. I want you to have faith in God's report. It's a no-contest.
Rebecca Greenwood: It's a no-contest. I put it in a real simple example that we can all have grab hold of. You know, I love Tex-Mex. Right.
Sid Roth: Me, too.
Rebecca Greenwood: And I love soft cheese tacos.
Sid Roth: Me, too.
Rebecca Greenwood: And I have my favorite restaurant in Dallas, Texas, So I go once a year because I live in Colorado. So I am waiting all year to get those soft cheese tacos. If I show up at that restaurant and I place my order after waiting a year and I get chicken fajitas I'm not going to eat those chicken fajitas. Why? Because I didn't order them. I'm going to say very kindly, "This is not what I ordered. I want what I ordered on the menu". The same thing is true in our thoughts and our emotions that if we didn't order it, if we're not wanting that we don't have to receive it.
Sid Roth: Becca is saying for you to say, just like you were in that restaurant.
Rebecca Greenwood: That's right.
Sid Roth: Waiting for your favorite tacos and they give you some spinach instead, I didn't order that.
Rebecca Greenwood: That's right.
Sid Roth: With that audacity?
Rebecca Greenwood: With that audacity. Sid, I will lay hands on my head and I will say, I take my thoughts captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ. I did not order that. And I start singing out or worshiping out on the goodness of who God is in teaching my mind to refocus.
Sid Roth: Okay. So what about this pastor with incurable cancer? He didn't order it. What happened to him?
Rebecca Greenwood: He didn't order it. So he stood and he said, "I didn't order this. This is not the report of the Lord for me. So I'm going to stand in faith". And we prayed, he prayed and six months later he returned to the doctor, and the cancer was totally gone. He's cancer-free. And so he stood in faith on the truth of who God said he was instead of believing that lie and he moved forward with the report of the Lord. You know, I love it when medicine catches up with what God says in the Bible. You know, when we as humans, and so, you know, Proverbs 23:7 says, "As a man thinks in his heart so he is, so he becomes". And so the reality is if we learn to think on, we start thinking on the truth of who God says that we are instead of believing the report around us, you know, medicine will even say this, we have to dismantle our wrong thinking and rewiring our brain. And what happens is it trains not only our thoughts and our emotions, but our physical body to react to how we're thinking. And so not only can God set us free and dismantle strongholds, but we can totally rewire our thinking.
Sid Roth: You're a nice Christian girl. You get saved as well.
Rebecca Greenwood: Yes.
Sid Roth: But then the college experience.
Rebecca Greenwood: The college experience.
Sid Roth: And you go ballistic.
Rebecca Greenwood: I got ballistic. I was a prodigal. I was walking in rebellion. Loved my family, still related to them, but Sid, I was doing everything that I shouldn't do: drugs, alcohol, I mean, just everything for three years. But praise God for a righteous inheritance.
Sid Roth: Okay. Depression was your middle name.
Rebecca Greenwood: Yes.
Sid Roth: I mean, you were, because I guess you had, you knew the truth.
Rebecca Greenwood: Yes.
Sid Roth: And yet you had these strongholds that developed.
Rebecca Greenwood: Yes, it's true.
Sid Roth: And Becca says if she can be freed, you can be free, too. Depression does not have to be your middle name. Fear does not have to be your middle name. We're going to talk about that when we come back in just a moment.
Sid Roth: What is it in us as people that we need the approval of people that they're looking for approval? It's like the blind leading the blind. How are we so crazy, so meshuga?
Rebecca Greenwood: You know, the reality is God created in each of us, we have that desire to need him and we have that desire to love him and to connect with his Father's heart.
Sid Roth: So if we don't accept the truth we'll believe a lie?
Rebecca Greenwood: We'll believe a lie. We'll exchange the truth about God for a lie.
Sid Roth: And but you eventually came to your senses. You came back to God.
Rebecca Greenwood: Yes.
Sid Roth: And guess what? Things got worse.
Rebecca Greenwood: They got worse.
Sid Roth: What happened?
Rebecca Greenwood: You know, became to the Lord, became spirit-filled, you know. I was experiencing the presence of the Lord. I could go into church, Sid, and the corporate worship was awesome for me because it helped me. But there was a tormenting voice in my mind, a tormenting voice that said this, the lie of the enemy, "Remember all those sins you committed? God is not ever fully going to forgive you. You are totally disqualified from being used in the Kingdom of God". And it would get louder and louder, and that tormenting voice became so loud that I started to walk in depression. And can I share with you how I got freedom?
Sid Roth: Please.
Rebecca Greenwood: There is one day that I put, our oldest daughter, who is 24, she was two at the time, and she was already seeing in the prophetic. She was seeing angels and seeing demons. We knew that. I put her down for a nap and the Lord told me to read about the woman with the issue of blood, and I did. And he said, "Don't just read it, study it". And this particular day, that voice, that tormenting voice was roaring like a lion in my mind. And I began to study it, and I realized 12 years this woman needed healing. She spent all of her money. She couldn't have any physical contact for 12 years because people would be unclean. And then she had to shout, "Unclean! Unclean! Unclean"! And I could see this when I was studying it. And she pressed through, and we know what happened. She grabbed the hem of his garment. She was healed. Now when she did that she took her own life in her hands, because now she's touching people having to get Jesus, because there is a crowd around him. So I see this and the Lord just allowed me to spiritually, and I fell on my living room floor, and I shouted, "Jesus, I'm grabbing hold of the hem of your garment and I'm not letting go. If you healed her you can heal me". And my shouting woke up our two-year-old daughter, and I put her in her booster seat. I'll never forget this moment. The enemy was roaring in my mind: "I didn't leave. I told you if you called out to him he wouldn't help you". And all of a sudden my little two-year-old who sees in the Spirit starts laughing uncontrollably, "Ha, ha, ha, Mama, stopping bugging Mama"! And I'm like, what is so funny. And finally, I said, "Baby, what is it"? She said, "Mama, don't you see"? And she got up out of her booster seat and she started walking back and forth in front of me like warrior, ha, ha, and laughing. I said, "Baby, what is it"? And she pointed her little finger out the back window of our home. She said, "Mama, it's Jesus, an angel doing this for you". And she started walking back and forth.
Sid Roth: Walking in victory.
Rebecca Greenwood: Like a critter. And I said, "Lord, if you're here fighting for me I'm going to fight with you". And so I got to the church that night and I stayed in prayer, felt the presence of the Lord, went up to my home group pastor, grabbed her arm. I said, "Tonight is my night for freedom". And she looked at me. She had been praying for me and she wanted me to see it, and she said, "You're right". Sid, the prayer she prayed was so simple. She laid hands on my eyes and she said, "Lord, show her what you want her to see". And I had this vision, and there was this ancient book, and I knew it was in the hands of Jesus, and it had writing, and this light shining across it, and I couldn't see it. So the Lord brought it to my face and I saw my name, "Rebecca Long", my maiden name, "Greenwood" written in gold in the Lamb's Book of Life. And I fell on the floor and I began to weep. And another pastor came from across the room and he laid hands on me, said the same words, real simple, "Lord show her what you want her to see". And at this time the Lord took me in another vision and it was Jesus, and he was coming toward me on the cloud and the wind, and the Holy Spirit. And he got right here. I could just see him face to face, and he said, "Becca, take up your cross, follow me. It is over. It is finished". And when that word "finished" came out of his mouth, every bit of the torment, the guilt, the shame, the condemnation, depression, it flew off of me. It couldn't stay. And I got up off that floor and I have been filled with joy and haven't had one moment of depression. That was over 21 years ago.
Sid Roth: It's hard to believe that you had depression.
Rebecca Greenwood: I did.
Sid Roth: I don't see any.
Rebecca Greenwood: It's not a part of me any more.
Sid Roth: And God doesn't want it a part of you.
Rebecca Greenwood: That's right.
Sid Roth: And when we come back, Rebecca is going to pray one of the greatest secrets that God has shown her. It's what this generation, what you need and that is to experience the love and acceptance of Father God. We'll be right back.
Sid Roth: Now you may not be dealing with depression and maybe you are. But there are other traps that lead to strongholds. Tell me what these traps are.
Rebecca Greenwood: There can be trauma. There can be abandonment. There can be people who are steeped in occult practices or maybe they've had past family members that have been involved in sin or occult practices, and then that stronghold can come down the family line.
Sid Roth: You know that almost sounds unfair.
Rebecca Greenwood: Right.
Sid Roth: You had nothing to do with the person, but some relative who they might not even know.
Rebecca Greenwood: Right.
Sid Roth: Was involved in these things and they pass on to you. Tell me about Frank.
Rebecca Greenwood: Frank, oh this is a powerful testimony. Frank was a leader in the Body of Christ and he had gone into the doctor, and he had 80 percent blockage in one of his arteries to his kidneys. It was between 40 and 60 percent on another artery going to his kidney. So he knew that his family had been involved in the occult. They had been involved in witchcraft in past generations. Not him. He had been raised a believer and Christian. But the enemy has never nor will he ever play fair. He comes to kill, still and destroy, but God comes to give life abundantly and God was using Frank powerfully. So the enemy wanted to take any way that he could have an open door in that family generational bloodline to cause that infirmity because of the occult activity to come on Frank. So he called.
Rebecca Greenwood: Hello.
Frank: This is Frank. Rebecca, I'm gonna need your prayers.
Rebecca Greenwood: I prayed for him over the phone, administered deliverance and freedom, broke all of those strongholds in the family bloodline.
Rebecca Greenwood: I renounce the occult practices of my parents and any holding they have on me.
Frank: I renounce the occult practices of my parents and any holding they have on me.
Rebecca Greenwood: And he went back to the doctor the next day to have the ultrasound before they took him into surgery. All the blockage in his arteries were totally gone. He was completely healed and they cancelled the surgery.
Sid Roth: You told me when I talked to you on the phone, of all the things God has taught you, the most significant is understanding the acceptance and love of God. I want you to teach on that right now.
Rebecca Greenwood: Well Sid, you know, despite what we said earlier, Satan wants us to exchange the truth about God with a lie, and he wants us to believe that God does not love us. He wants us to not understand the Father's love. He wants us to rob us of that inheritance. And the reality is, is the Father's love, when we begin encountering him, see, he gives us blessings. He did it with, you know, he did it throughout all the Old Testament. Jesus blessed the disciples before he ascended. God wants us to have a Father's blessing. So I want to share from my personal testimony about the Father's love. I was a daddy's girl. I loved my daddy and I realize many people don't have that with their biological father and mother. Just listen to this testimony, because while I'm speaking this, this is what happens in the nations. God is going to touch you with the Father's love and you're going to have an encounter as I'm sharing this. And so I loved my dad and we were very close, and he went to be with Jesus, January 21, 2008. And that father's blessing was so important, and it was one night, it was the last week of his life, and I walked over to the mirror, it was in the hospital, to get myself ready for the day, and I thought my dad had drifted off to sleep. And I heard him call my name from the bed. He said, "Becca". And I said, "Oh Daddy, I'm sorry I woke you". He said, "You didn't wake me. I want to tell you something. You're so beautiful. I love you. I am so proud of you. Don't you ever stop studying the Word. Don't you ever stop teaching it". It was a father's blessing.
Sid Roth: But Becca, so few people watching us right now have had that wonderful words from their parents.
Rebecca Greenwood: Our Heavenly Father can release those words and fill every void. See, my dad used to always tap me on the nose three times when I was a little girl, and he'd smile that proud daddy smile. And the last day of his life, the last physical touch I had from my daddy was those three love taps on my nose and that smile then he drifted off into eternity. And I told the Lord that night, "I'm so going to miss those love taps". Three weeks later, I'm in a meeting and they're praying for me because my father just passed away. And I closed my eyes, and all of a sudden a friends walks in front of me, I didn't know she was there, and I felt those three love taps on my nose in the exact rhythm that my daddy used to do. And I opened my eyes and I said, "My dad used to do that". She goes, "Well I don't know why, but when you told me to tap you three times, when you opened your eyes to look at me, I'm supposed to look at you like I love you a whole lot". And I just said, "This is what my dad used to do". And I never told her that. And she said, "Do you know your dad was prophesying over you"? I said no. She said, "Becca, you're called to the nations". And she said, "Do you know when the children of Israel would ride into battle to possess the land, the Promised Land, they would choose war horses and they would pull them out by the bridle, and they would designate the one they were going to ride to extend the Kingdom of God into the nations by tapping it three times on your nose".
Sid Roth: Pray right now.
Rebecca Greenwood: So right now for each person that is watching, Lord, release those love taps, the Father's love that they need, right now every place where they have had abandonment, where they have had rejection, where they have had an orphan belief that God is far off and he can't touch them, and meet them right where they are. I break every lie right now, stronghold of the enemy, that he has spoken over you, that you cannot have the Father's love. And I release that even what we're feeling in the studio now this Glory, this Glory of the Lord on the love of the Father. I speak and release that Father's love to you and where you need, where you need those taps, where you need your heart touched the Father's love is invading you now from the top of your head to the soles of your feet. Now I see right now that there are people that have had a problem with suicide and have thoughts of suicide, and cutting, and I break that stronghold of death, and pain from the hurt from the past in your life, and the fatherlessness, every lie of fatherlessness is cancelled now. And I speak and release the Father's love in Jesus' name.
Sid Roth: Can everyone have and is it very important to have Divine encounters?
Rebecca Greenwood: Personal encounters with the Lord are awesome, and yes, everyone can have a personal encounter with the Lord. If you make time, if we make time to pull aside, we make time to worship him, Jesus, I want to know you. Jesus, show me. Holy Spirit, I want to know you. Become my friend. I welcome you. Teach me the ways of God. And we begin to cry out for those encounters with Jesus, we will meet him. And it is those personal encounters, Sid, that once we have them we can never be shaken from them because they become our truth and our reality, and we know that we know, that we know who we are and how much we are loved.
Sid Roth: And these personal encounters will give you the faith to just break those strongholds.
Rebecca Greenwood: That's right.