Bill Johnson, Thursday May 9, 2013

Final Blessings

• This couldn’t have been orchestrated better for Kris to have brought you the word on the value of people, community and belonging to others.
• I’m going to take you to the other side of that. You were born for that, and you were born to live in the glory.
• The Lord give us a taste now and then of what is to come, and according to scripture, there is no going back.
• I know how to stir up an atmosphere of faith, I know a few things to do to stir up passion for the Lord. But when it comes to interacting and inviting the glory, I don’t know anything about it. That is one area that I know it’s not what I do to bring him, it’s what I do when he comes that’s important. It’s learning to value the presence, the person…
• The glory is just there for the glory.
• I’m not making any sense, but it makes perfect sense to me.
• When the glory comes, don’t figure out what to do, just honour. Just turn your affection towards him. Sometimes it’s song, confession.. sometimes it’s beyond words so that all you can do is sit there and occasionally groan. I’ve been waiting for that to happen for two years. I’m so glad.
• I had an experience in Thailand years ago where there was nothing but volcanic praise and I knew that I was home in the glory. Everything else is just a field trip.
• We are coming to a time when entire cities will be rocked by the presence of God that falls on groups of people.
• There is so much value in being in family, loving people and loving God. You were born to be in the glory.
• I’m hungry for something I can’t make happen or take any credit for. That’s when the king of glory comes through the doors and he’s valued by a group of people who know he is the king. Everything else gets put aside at that moment. All agendas healing, evangelism… put it aside and let the holy spirit direct.

Grad Ceremony:

• When in doubt, worship.

Bill Johnson, Tuesday April 30, 2013

Guarding Your Heart

• Some Israelites went to John the Baptist and asked if he was the last days prophet and he said no. When they asked Jesus, he said, yes he is.
• It’s not always important that you know who you are as long as you know who you serve.
• The enemy loves to get us to look at ourselves either in self criticism or self discovery. He just wants to keep us from looking towards the lord.
• I don’t want to discredit knowing your identity, that’s incredibly important. But sometimes the Lord lets you know your assignment and others your title.
• Don’t ever become impressed with your title or role. Be enamored with the privilege to be faithful. Being able to navigate through your life without getting caught up with yourself will keep you from self promotion.
• If you start to discover who you are before others do, you will be dissatisfied with their lack of appreciation for you. The enemy would love to trap us into thinking we deserve more than we are given.
• Keep God in your sights.
• My goal in life is not to figure out who I am, my goal in life is to figure out who He is.
• Personally, I don’t go more than two weeks without tears. I’m interested in developing tenderness. Either about his
• I stay in a place of brokenness (not self criticism) but living with a sensitivity towards his heart his word… staying close to God is a huge part of my life. Any time I get too far from Him I get too self assured. He’s looking for someone who he can put on like a glove.
• One governing verse for me has always been “watch over your heart with all diligence because …
• What can take you away from the joy of the Lord? What can sour your attitude? Every bitter person is bitter for a reason. There are always reasons to be bitter. Outside of the kingdom, bitterness is reasonable. You have to call it something else as a christian to live with it. Allowing bitterness to live inside your heart will cause all kinds of problems.
• One of our school children was quite bitter against another student. And the parents were looking for something to do that would change the child’s heart. And the child came to his mom later and said “I think I need to have him over for a play-date” so they did and became best friends.
• If you don’t unstring a bow, after a while it will lose strength. If you don’t monitor your heart, you will stay in the same place and slowly be losing strength without knowing why. If you don’t spend time with people where the pressure is off, you will lose strength.
• We have to learn how to pour ourselves into something.
• I often compare ministry to farming. If you’re a wheat farmer, during harvest you might have to take a couple weeks with little rest which is an unhealthy lifestyle and you have to learn how to back off when harvest is over because the demand for work will remain, but you have to rest.
• We know to pour in when it’s a hard time or a time that demands a lot of work. If you’re in trial it’s like your a rubber band being stretched to the max. After your greatest victories you’re emotions are still stretched to the max.
• When Elijah had a face off with the priests of Baal, God vetoed the power of the demonic principalities so they could not manifest. Then Elijah prayed “for the glory of your name and for your servant…” it’s okay to pray those prayers. It’s heaven’s economy. Some people don’t pray for themselves with that kind of confidence because they are afraid of being disappointed.
• It’s easy to pray general prayers to avoid disappointment. The Lord is looking for those who know they are servants of the Lord.
• So Elijah went from there to pray for the drought he prophesied to end. Then he sends his servant 7 times to check on the clouds. Then he saw a cloud the size of the mans hand and they ran off the mountain because he knew that a small cloud could bring a mighty outpouring. But after that, his rubber band had been stretched with no chance to rest and he began to freak out when Jezebel determined to kill him.
• Breakthroughs can cause you to compromise on your personal life, but don’t let them because it will suck you dry.
• Sometimes the things that aren’t important are the most important things to do.
• There was a pastor who left his office for 30min each day to go sit on a ridge in the city and watch the train because it was the only thing in town that wasn’t pushing something.
• The stretching of your rubber band, wether for tragedy or great success after time will be emotionally exhausting. We must learn how to rest.
• As the Lord entrusts his presence to you it becomes easy to abuse it.
• What was so priceless once can become a part of so many other things. I tell our teams when they travel not to be distracted with their electronics because what can be a tool and is very important can also become the thing that pulls you away from what’s most important.
• Don’t let the things that are dear become a problem.
• Some of you have had the best and the most difficult circumstances of your lives in the past couple years and that’s important because it means that your life has been real. But many of you will be going out to create your own weather system in a place where there is not much of the Holy Spirit momentum already taking place.
• How do you live without constantly evaluating how well you are doing?
• We’ve just had another season of tragic losses and great victories in my family. When you are navigating through all of that, how do you maintain a sense of pleasure and joy in everything you do? I don’t know any other way than to remain childlike and a worshiper before the Lord.
• Our greatest temptation in worship can be to worship worship, to exalt the experience instead of him. That’s why tenderness before the Lord is so crucial. We need to be moved by something that He does.
• His wonders must remain a wonder. I can’t afford to become familiar because that will make me careless.
• In scripture the heart is portrayed as the soil that the seed is planted in. To have seed planted in soil it has to be tender.
• James says “in humility, receive the word implanted which is able to save your soul”
• That which you receive will change you. Which really relieves us from a lot of pressure because none of us can change anything about us that is eternally significant.
• I have a friend who every morning re-dedicates his life to the Lord.
• How many of us have been in that tender place where we’ve said “I will do anything” and meant it. But then you become accustomed to the lifestyle he’s brought you into and lose connection with the “I will do anything”.
• I would like nothing more than to see in 20 years you remaining childlike, delighting in Him.
• What does successful ministry look like to you? Your answer to that question will determine what could discourage you.
• Ryan Hall made a statement. “The world will tell you what success looks like, that’s not success. Success is doing everything God’s told us to do.”
• It’s one thing to believe that as a concept, it’s another to walk through it and see if you’ll be faithful through the losses.
• God lead Israel into 3 battles. The first two they lost. (Judges) It seems strange, but somehow it prepared them for gratitude, dependency.. all the things he’s valued in our lives.

 

What would you tell your 30 year old self?

• Don’t take yourself so seriously.
• I was so hungry for what I wanted to see God do that I didn’t enjoy the journey or the process. You have to know how good he is and how pleasurable he is.

 

How do you keep from taking God’s presence for granted?

• Always stay sacrificial.
• The bible says to make sacrifices to God. The problem is that what was once a sacrifice to give later becomes easy, so your sacrifice has to grow with you. Not in a works sense, but in order to keep you on edge.
• Don’t let your heart wander during worship. It’s for your sake. (honour the point)

 

How should we respond to the billion soul harvest?

• When the Israelites approached Jericho, they walked around 7 times, shouted and the walls came down but the enemy was still there. Prayer removes the obstacles, but we still need to evangelize.
• Prayer alone won’t accomplish it all, and evangelism without prayer is not wise. We need both.

 

How do we know which doors to take?

• Look for the biblical allowance, the ability and the internal peace. God will open doors that he doesn’t want us to go through because he trusts us and wants to see if we will respond rightly.

Bill Johnson, April 23, 2013

Wisdom and Excellence

• I drove here in a really nice car. Some people have asked me, do you deserve that car? And the answer is no, if I drove what I deserve I’d be walking everywhere.
• Everything given to us is God’s grace. 
• When we think we deserve something, we will get all kinds of offended when we don’t get what we think we deserve.
• You can’t be bought if you know everything is grace.
• Everything God gives you is to be shared. Look for people to raise up and empower. The fulfillment of your life is found in the success of those around you. 
• I was talking to a missionary who had two cars and he drove the cheeper car to churches when he went to raise support because if he drove the nice car to church they wouldn’t give him very much.
• I want to be a part of the process to expose wrong thinking, so I’d drive the nice car. There is thinking that sounds right, but it is religious.
• If there is anything I want you to go out from here and do, is to think “What is kingdom” not asking public opinion. 
• Jesus had no place to lay his head but he had a seamless robe. He didn’t have everything but what he had was excellent. 
• Being of the kingdom demands expression. 
• As your authority and realm of influence increases, your opportunities to express excellence increase.
• Perfectionism is religion, excellence is kingdom.
• Honour comes out of a culture of excellence. This is how royalty treats royalty. 
• There are several things that are looking for expression in every human being. Morality is one of them. Every human being has to express morality. That’s how you can have mafia who kill anyone but are devoted to family. Everyone has something they must pour into to view their actions either as right or wrong. 
• Every person in this room has a God given need to express creativity. The problem is that we’ve reduced creativity to common art forms. But it’s supposed to be expressed by how we do life.
• Unity cannot be obtained through uniformity, it must be obtained through uniqueness and valuing one another.
• Solomon made the world speechless because of his wisdom. It’s time that we did that, that some of the world will lose it’s voice. The queen of Sheba said “it’s better to be a servant in your house than a king in mine” and she said “half wasn’t told to me”. She came hoping to be impressed but not sure because what she had heard about him was so extreme, but when she got there he had so surpassed what she was hoping to run into that she was stunned. 
• Solomon is to become a prophetic prototype for this generation.
• I want to see you as a generation called wisdom. 
• When she saw the plates, clothes and stairs she became breathless… She was so overwhelmed by those things that the bible didn’t bother to mention the answers he gave to her questions. Wisdom has to be expressed through excellence, creativity and integrity.
• Wisdom doesn’t just see the surface, it looks behind the facade and is mindful of the structures behind something. Wisdom is prophetic.
• Wisdom gives you access to insight so that you can see beyond the obvious. 
• Solomon was able to capture the heart of this queen by how excellence, creativity and integrity touched the mundane parts of life: clothing, plates and stairs. 
• We aren’t talking about throwing money at something, we are talking about putting thought into something. 
• I want to stir up inside of you a passion to do things well. 
• I’d rather have a 2000 square foot house that is put together well than a 4000 square foot house that was just assembled. Or one really good pair of shoes than five mediocre ones. 
• I don’t want to show you what to value, but how to value. 
• ie. I will have a jet. The puzzle is that I know I will be challenged because people have problems with my decisions… that’s been going on for years. Here is my dilemma. We have been given a limited number of days on the earth. We have been given a limited amount of strength. We have access to unlimited resource. Most ministries sacrifice what is limited to save what is unlimited. My point is not for you to buy anything. The issue is that I can spend 4 to 6 weeks more at home per year and get the same things done. I only have so much strength and so many days, why not tap into unlimited provision in order to improve what I can accomplish with the limited resources I have.
• I grew up in an era where churches would go to shops and look to build what they needed with as limited resources as possible. But as christians we have access to unlimited resource, why not use it to bless the world and pay full price. 
• Don’t use opportunities to spend less for your benefit, represent God well and use your access to unlimited resource to bless people. Live from generosity. Learn the environment you are going to so that you can honour the culture you are visiting. 
• I’ve been to many protocol leaders in the past years with the Chinese church and I’ve gotten to meet with the leaders and I’ve had to discover how to bless them. Try to be a person of excellence and treat them well. 
• I love going out to dinner with someone who has a lot of money and beat them to paying the check. Because when you have a lot of money, everyone expects to receive from you… I want to be the opposite. 
• If you’re going into ministry, don’t use your title as a minister to go saying “I need…” 

Bill Johnson, Sunday March 31, 2013

What Jesus Paid For

Prayer for families to be put on track

• Whenever we pray, there are always testimonies of God’s goodness because as we agree corporately Gods power is released.
• I believe the Lord is going to restore entire family lines that are just off track or families who never succeed.
• Joshua 1:9
• Success not according to world standards but by God’s kingdom values.
• The Lord is going to restore entire family lines.

• John 19:31-37
• I have a special affection for the gospel of John. He was a david of the new covenant. He was a warrior, but he also set the high water mark for the love of the heart of the Lord and passion. God called John a son of thunder.
• We are going to walk through the story of the crucifixion but we are going to start in a strange place.
• These prophetic words were not given to represent the messianic prophecies, but they were woven into prophetic words for the generation. Woven into their prophetic words, was a hidden word about Jesus.
• It’s amazing to me how close we are to miracle breakthrough.
• It’s extraordinary how often we’ve leaned into the possibility that God might be saying something and found out he is. For me whenever we break into extraordinary realms of breakthrough, it rarely comes with fanfare. It’s usually a passing thought and when you lean into what he is saying or doing, you discover it was God.
• Many people lay back and let life happen to them, but when you lean into what God is doing, breakthroughs become a common occurrence.
• We have an unusual story. They went to break the legs of the men who were crucified but because a prophet had spoken that his bones would not be broken, he was already dead.
• It’s no wonder that Christ died so quickly because we all know the affect of sin in our lives.
• When the priest went into the holy of holies, they washed with blood and water. In christ’s death, in the same way that a wife was made from adam’s life, a bride was cleansed by the blood and water that poured forth from Jesus’s side.

• I read through all the conversations that Jesus had between his resurrection and when he went up to be with his father.
• When Mary looked into the tomb, there were two angels, one at the head, and one at the feet. When you look back at the ark of the covenant/testimony, on both ends were two cherubim. She walked in and saw heaven’s mark. It was the mercy seat of God.
• None of the disciples understood the significance of the resurrection at first.
• This story is so extraordinary if you can go back to where jesus was born. The first person to touch Jesus at his birth was Mary, his mother, a virgin. But this time, the first person to touch him was another Mary who had been freed of many demons. It’s appropriate that she found the mercy seat.
• Mary was mourning the end. But Jesus came and told her that this was only the beginning.
• What is it about the passion of people that can stop God’s time clock? Jesus was on his way up to heaven with many of the resurrected saints, and he stopped to talk to Mary.
• v30 “and truly Jesus did many other signs…”
• All the conversations Jesus had could be summarized to pertain to the kingdom of God. He wasn’t talking about where they would go when they died. He was explaining to them the present day reality of the kingdom that had been made available to them through his resurrection.

 

Jesus wanted to communicate two things to his disciples before he left:

1. These things were written that you would believe. It’s hard to have great faith if you lay back and let life happen to you. There is something about leaning in, believing and anticipating, that makes thing possible. Nothing is impossible for those who believe. Jesus wanted us to believe. A believer becomes a witness, a witness becomes testimony, and testimony translates to the word maryter. It means that you verbally give witness to something that you believe with your life. “I am born again because the spirit of the resurrected Christ lives in me” and that is something that we are willing to die for.
2. Love. Peter denied christ three times so Christ asked him 3 times “do you love me?” He gives everyone the opportunity to step into freedom and redemption from anything they’ve ever done wrong in the past.

Bill Johnson, Tuesday March 12, 2013

Delivering the World from Sin

After a time of talking about San Francisco. 

• A city can only fall into sin to the measure it’s been called to greatness. The devil is not creative, he can only manipulate what exists.
• Matthew 11:20
• Jesus just revealed to us the key for sin filled cities. Miracles, signs and wonders could have transformed Sodom.
• Miracles release glory.
• John 2:11
• If Capernaum was the city where the most miracles were done and glory is released in miracles, then logic would say that Capernaum was the most heaven-like city on the earth. But the faith there was not sufficient enough to sustain a habitation of heaven.
• There is a difference between visitation and habitation. Visitation is much easier to get than habitation.
• The miracle realm is very expensive.
• Miracles signs and wonders are necessary to transform people and they release the glory of God to create an atmosphere of heaven.
• These cities that are known for darkness are only displaying a counterfeit of what they are called to in light.
• Because the devil is not creative, whenever we see a city in sin, that sin factor is only the counterfeit to what we would see in light.
• The same is probably applicable about individuals.
• My brother is a street minister in San Fran and he put his arm around one of his friends who is a drug dealer and said “You know Carlos, one day you’re going to be preaching with me” and Carlos looked back and groaned “I know”.
• Much of the church looks at a city like San Fran and believes that it needs to be judged.
• But the fear of God is to draw men to him, not from him. People who truly fear God want to be with Him.
• God calls us to administrate grace.
• Unless you’re born again, you cannot see. This implies that if you are born again, you can see.
• John 4 says lift up your eyes and look on the fields because they are all ripe for harvest. Jesus is saying that everyone is ripe.
• There is an anointing equal to every person’s bondage and deception. In the same way that a cities sin is only a reflection of their potential, people are as ready to receive God now as they will be ever.
• When the disciples got off the boat a man with 2000 demons comes running at Jesus. I doubt that any of the 12 thought this man was close to freedom. But Jesus carried an anointing greater than that man’s bondage. Then he was introduced into Christ’s one step program. (out of darkness into light)
• The process that we have to use to get people free reveals the measure of anointing in which we live.
• 1 Corinthians 12
• Pursue earnestly the things of God. Because they are not imparted at the revelation, they are made available then but you need the anointing for the impartation.
• There is an incredible tension between what is in your account and what is in your possession.
• You can sit and rev the engine to a 500hp car all day but you won’t move anywhere until the power of the engine is connected to the drive train. You have all authority in Christ but it’s faith that moves the power from the engine to the wheels.
• There is an anointing available that makes everyone harvestable now.
• So that’s what you do in the secret place, you cry out for the anointing that is equal or greater than the bondage that you see in the world around you.

 

Q&A

Is authority and anointing the same?

• I look at them as different. I have unlimited authority that gives me access to unlimited anointing. Anointing is the Holy Spirit in his different flavors.

How do you continue going after greater things without getting disappointed?

• I don’t think you can. I think learning to walk through disappointment that qualifies you to use grace and authenticity when you do get into a place of authority.

Jesus told us to heal the sick and raise the dead. Is it right for us to operate out of our own will when healing them?

• First of all, it is always the will of God to heal sick people, but it may not be the most important priority for their life right now. So we have to operate out of presence.
• But Jesus healed everyone who came to him. My approach is it’s always God’s will but I want to be sensitive to the HS to know how to do it.
• Learn what the father is doing to bring healing to their life.
• Side note: I always teach people to heal the sick, everyone needs to be healed. Then once that is happening, I train them to follow the guidance of the spirit to know who to heal. If I teach that message first, people won’t get rolling.

Could you give us advice on looking for internships?

• I don’t think everyone is supposed to, but it’s a great opportunity to get into a system and culture and learn how it’s done in the practical.
• A lot of the ministry done here is not actually healing the sick and raising the dead, it’s a lot of showing up and being faithful with everything.
• Internships give you the opportunity to learn more about who you are and how you are equipped to serve and minister.

What is one of the reasons there is not more victorious living among christians today?

• Often in america, caution has been called wisdom, not making a mistake is a supreme value, looking foolish is frowned on…
• People need to let the spirit and the heart lead, not the head.
• Faith requires taking risk.
• Until that’s valued, we won’t get into what God has called us to be.

We read about John G Lake and how he spoke against the use of medical treatment. And I know that the view of this house is that medical attention is not a second class healing, but how can we reconcile the two?

• Don’t try to display faith by not going to a doctor. Any effort to display faith will probably lead to presumption. But if I am called by God to seek him first, then I am walking in faith.
• A boy once broke his arm during our service and I was asked to come pray for him
• If someone comes to me and says “I’ve heard from God not to seek medical attention” then I will join my faith to theirs. But if they ask me for advice, I will often pray with them and seek the lord on whether they should get a doctor’s advice. I never tell people what to do.

Bill Johnson, Tuesday March 5, 2013

The Language of the Spirit

• God talks so different and english is not his first language, neither are any other worldly ones.
• When you wake up in the morning, God always has something to say so we need to figure out how He is speaking. If we expect him to speak the way he did yesterday, we might miss what he’s saying.
• I went through a period where I had to make a decision in two weeks and I was trying to make him talk. You really look stupid when you think you know how he is going to speak.
• I’ve been learning how he talks and it’s through many ways.
• If I wait for the audible voice, I will die standing right here.
• 1 Corinthians 2:1
• Paul had been ministering in Athens (Acts 17) and speaking with the philosophers of the day. (Paul’s sermon on Mars hill is one of the most studied sections of scripture by scholars).
• We’ve all had moments when we’ve preached and for day after thought about how bad it was. This was Paul’s blue Monday, his time going from Athens to Corinth thinking about what he had just said. Paul was a genius, and he has had heavenly encounters that gives him insight to things that your average joe would be clueless about. But in Corinth he laid that all aside and chose to be dumb because he realized that the power he had forgotten to demonstrate in Athens would be more powerful than words.
• Sometimes to minister in power, you’ll have to say no to what you are good at.
• There are times where functioning in your gift cancels out your ability to flow in power.
• I’ve had a number of times when in a teaching mode, a spirit of wisdom will come to me and I’ll operate beyond a level of wisdom that I’ve ever had before. Usually when that anointing comes, there is very little anointing for me to minister to the individual. Often the Lord will not release the miracles when you are operating in your giftings. Why? I think its because there are times in our life when we can’t be trusted with power and anointing together.
• When God gives you power, don’t mess it up by displaying your gift.
• So here Paul says, I so wanted you to experience the power of God that I didn’t do what I’m good at.
• It’s not that we can’t do both, but don’t be surprised if you have one without the other.
• The Lord is grooming us where he can trust us with personal anointing and giftings and then with power.
• Don’t become convinced that your gifting is bringing the presence and the power.
• Don’t tell anyone I said that, because I only think it’s true 🙂
• It’s not a hard and fast rule, because there have been times when both have come together, but it’s not guaranteed.
• Don’t seek to look good in your gift.
• 1 Corinthians 2:4-
• What you don’t know is as important as what we do know. If you know everything, you don’t need faith. We are called to walk in faith. It’s not called the walk of understanding.
• If you want to understand everything, just get used to living in a very small world. If you want to live in a world without borders, learn to live in peace with mystery.
• v8 The Lord played to the devil’s weakness to get him crucified.
• v9 this verse has often been read at funerals which bothers me, because it’s not about eternity. Don’t read v9 without v10 because it says “but God has revealed to us by his spirit.” The spirit searches for the deep things, the things in verse 9 that has never been seen before. He is looking for things that will make us the generation of incredible wonders.
• He is searching for things to encourage us.
• “His thoughts of us outnumber the sand of the sea”… that’s a whole lot. (Jeremiah 21:11) his thoughts are all good. So here we have God, who’s had a long time to think before anything was made, and he had you in mind as an individual, and his thoughts about you were powerful, creative, prophetic… and they’ve been going on for billions of years. The Holy Spirit is looking for those very thoughts that God has thought about you to bring you into the next level of your breakthrough. To encourage, give insight, strategy… The Holy Spirit is doing this always for every one at once. He’s looking for the things that “no eye has seen…”
• Often times we prophecy off the surface, but the HS goes into the deep end.
• The problem is that when the HS brings you one of those words, it’s hard to believe, because there is no logic to it.
• v11 No one knows the God except the spirit of God, so the only way to find out is to ask the HS.
• v12 HS is for a lot of things, one of those things is to help us know the unknowable.
• In our hearts, we have AM and FM. When we have it on AM, we can quote all the scripture we want but if God is speaking on FM, we won’t hear what he’s saying. The natural man cannot receive what he’s saying, he doesn’t have a dial that goes far enough to hear what he’s saying. You have to actually change the way you hear from Him or you won’t hear his voice.
• So he is constantly speaking correction, promise, encouragement… but if I’m on AM, I won’t have the faith he’s giving me and won’t step into the destiny he has for me because I’m operating in the natural man.
• God is spirit. He looks for those who worship in spirit. The HS has been given to us to connect us with him. Spirit doesn’t minister to natural man. The HS takes up residence in your spirit and your spirit begins to dictate to your body, emotions and mind. But the HS just speaks to your spirit.
• So it comes down to (Romans 8:6) most obedience comes because you’ve prepared yourself before the Lord spoke.
• If I’m set on the flesh, I can’t minister life. So if I’m upset on the way into work, I have to confess to the Lord and repent, turn your heart to him, and then I can minister life. Don’t set yourself up for failure.
• If God sends someone to you to give you a word of life, if your set on the flesh, you won’t be able to respond appropriately.
• As a parent, if your kids have to stay up late for an event, you will probably lower the requirements you expect of them in the morning because you’ve set them up to fail. Why? Because we want them to succeed, so we have to lower the requirements in order that they succeed.
• When the Israelites were heading towards the promised land, there was an enemy army in the way. They were equipped to win the battle but they weren’t ready with confidence so He had them wait. He won’t take us into a battle that we aren’t equipped and ready to fight. A battle is not the right place to discover whether you are ready.
• The heart that hears the voice of the Lord is humble and tender.
• People sometimes become calloused because they have seen someone else abuse a gifting and they will disregard it.
• When your heart is humble, you lean into the Lord.
• God speaks to us in amazing ways. Sometimes he brings out little coincidences just to say He’s there and he’s proud of where you are. Don’t get intense and serious. Don’t try to decode, just let the breath of God waft across your heart.
• When I went to Wales this year my room number was 308 and I thought, “that’s a good number, that’s the calibre of my rifle”. Then after a few days, we arrived at our next place and the room number again was 308, and I thought… “I wonder what that means” but I didn’t know so I waited. Then in the morning I woke at 3:08 and thought “ok, what’s up?” and I didn’t hear anything.
• Sometimes he wants to speak to us off the book. We don’t need to look at our book to see what the number might mean, sometimes he just wants to get our attention.
• In Jeremiah, the “I see an almond branch”. The hebrew word for almond branch rhymes with the word for watching. It’s a riddle. God is saying I’m watching over you.
• When you hide easter eggs for a two year old, you hide it in obvious places because the goal is for them to find it. When God speaks to us, it is for us to find things.
• Later I remembered that I had asked the Lord 18 years ago for the chance to write and he spoke to me in the night and said “Isaiah 30:8” so when I got up, I read it and it said “go now and write”. God spoke to me in such an unusual way.
• His presence and voice are the same.
• Some people say they can feel God’s presence but they can’t hear his voice. They just need to adjust the dial because he’s speaking to us and communicating to our spirit.
• The scripture doesn’t contain God and hold him in.
• In Joel it says that when the spirit of the Lord would be poured out there would be dreams, prophecy and visions. It was quoted in Acts 2. But none of those things happened in Acts 2. We tend to look at the list of signs, but the HS said it was a perfect match. All the things in Joel 2 happened eventually. But the Holy Spirit said it was happening now.
• God is not revealed in the list he is revealed in the nature of the list.
• Moves of God come with different faces, but the same presence. So we need to learn to discern his presence not his face.
• When Jesus walked with the two men on the road after the Resurrection, they didn’t recognize the face, but they felt the presence.

Bill Johnson, Wednesday February 13, 2013

How Jesus Healed

• Mark 9:14-25
• Why do you think the enemy put on such a scene? Intimidation… it worked on the disciples.
• “all things are possible to those who believe”
• I love this story.
• Jesus called the demon out before a crowd formed because he’s not a performer and he always redeemed people.
• Jesus didn’t always forbid a return from the disease in the body. I wish I knew when it was right to do that.
• A few times I’ve been ministering to people and I could tell that they were so broken that I needed to draw a line so that the healing would be permanent, but not always.
• Jesus didn’t let them build theology based on what didn’t happen.
• He explained to them that the only way for healing to come in this case was through prayer and fasting, at that time he wasn’t praying or fasting though. We often fast into a problem, but Jesus didn’t, he fasted for 40 days to set himself into a higher realm of intimacy with God, and the overflow of that was that miracles became possible.
• Jesus corrected low faith, but he was never withheld by it. He will speak to the position of the heart, not for shame but instead to teach them into a lifestyle that will open them to lasting change.
• Jesus responded to every level of faith.
• v17 the man said “I came to you for healing…”
• I often have people come to me for healing, and I need to make sure that I’m directing them to Jesus.
• When I come in before church on Sundays to pray over the room, I can see more with my eyes closed because when my eyes are open, what I’m “seeing” is cutting down what I’m “seeing”.
• That’s why the demon threw the child on the ground, to distract Jesus from what he was seeing in the spirit.
• Jesus knew to set his eyes on the Lord because the spirit of the Lord was upon him.
• So I will close my eyes, open my heart and then open my eyes to see if I can still have my heart open and my awareness on Him.
• That is how I cultivate living in His presence.
• The overwhelming theme in John is miracles. So when he says “if I don’t do the works of the father, you don’t have to believe me” he meant miracles. Miracles validated his ministry more than angles, witnesses and God’s voice.
• I’m waiting for the day when the church will say “if we don’t do miracles, don’t believe what we say”.
• Isaiah 61
• When Jesus declared that, he was demonstrating the prototype for every believer, so he was declaring the normal christian life.
• Jesus was the most normal christian in the bible.
• The lord plants secrets in the gospel to open us up to what is possible for him.
• Jesus never got to see the repair of ruined cities even though it was what he announced in his declaration.
• Perhaps part of what Christ meant when he said “greater things you will do” was that we would see the influence of miracles change culture and society to rebuild ruined cities.
• Luke 11 talks about how a clean house that’s empty can still be filled with the enemy.
• Jesus revealed how evil returns to people but in this case, he’s removed legal access.
• I’m trying to figure this out.
• Sometimes I feel called to pray an environment around someone which will allow them to break the cycle and survive and get coaching.
• I feel like if you are aware of that, you’ll know when to do that.
• We need to protect people until they build their own natural defenses.
• Some of us are doing good only because of where we’ve started.
• We are working more and more with people who’ve come out of broken lifestyles.
• Some people have climbed a long way already, and you’ve got a momentum that will keep you moving forward.
• It’s also good to note that the disciples were so used to miracles working for them that they were confused that the boy was not healed.
• Fasting is not a hunger strike (I’m going to stop eating until I get what I want) fasting is declaring that you are more hungry for God than you are for food.
• Sometimes people aren’t healed because of the issues of their life. Jesus didn’t drill people about their sins, so neither do I. But I have been in situation where I could feel from the Lord that they needed to forgive someone and so that’s when I do that… but it’s not the norm.
• Usually I hope that people will people encounter God without working for it, but sometimes we need to set ourselves up for breakthrough.
• You can’t disregard true compassion. (don’t mix up with pity, pity is counterfeit to compassion)
• Listen to the Holy Spirit, he knows what they really need.
• Prayer and fasting is to give us eyes to see how and what to dismantle so that people can be freed.
• We don’t have to understand, but it’s just great to when you can find out.
• The disciples were so confused that they got alone with Jesus. We should do the same, when we don’t understand, we shouldn’t create false theology, we should get with Jesus.

Q&A

After this year, I’m going out and I really want to sustain the move of God. Could you give us some practical tools?

• The environment could not dampen what Jesus was carrying inside of himself.
• Nobody around you can ever control what is going on inside of you.
• I am responsible for my fire.
• God lights the fire, it’s the priests who keep it going.
• The fiery presence of the Lord always falls on what we sacrifice.
• The sacrifices of yesterday become todays convenience, so we always have to be finding fresh and new ways to sacrifice.
• Sometimes our faith is used to a certain expression and we need to work a new angle in order to continue growing in faith.

I have a heart for divine health and I would love for you to share on how people live out of divine health.

• I try to eat bacon without nitrates. (joke)
• You can be as healthy as you can be and still die, but there are men who have had revelatory encounters with God for health.
• Kenneth Hagen experienced that and we follow his formula but the power came from the encounter.
• There are people who live in divine health and who just being with them, sickness and disease leaves them all the time. I want to walk in that, but we are still moving towards it.
• It’s important that we don’t have divided desires or stress or anything at a soul level that affects your health.
• It would be tragic to come to the end of eternity and have the only generation to experience divine health be the Israelites while they wandered the desert in rebellion under an inferior covenant.

It says that nothing is impossible for those who believe, so is the absence of miracles directly linked to unbelief?

• Faith is one of the principles for the miraculous but it’s not the only one.
• Don’t get too heavy in your mind and lose the strength in your heart.
• Sometimes when I have a subtle inkling in my heart, if I act quickly great power will be released.
• Delayed obedience is disobedience.

When the father says “help me with my unbelief” how do we apply that to when we go out and things don’t go the way they should?

• In this story you’ve got two groups of people. The disciples, and the unbelieving father.
• The father wasn’t asking “prove to me that healing is real”.
• The disciples had faith for miracles.
• Sometimes when we relieve the pressure to believe we come into faith.
• We can always pray “God help us in unbelief”
• The father here is in a place of spiritual weakness and he knows it. We can’t always pray this because we are not always weak, and we shouldn’t wallow in weakness… but when we pray, we live with the realization that our faith is not the determining factor, it’s useful but it’s not the whole thing.

How do you choose who can come to speak at Bethel?

• Out of relationship with people and with God we will look for a timely fit and let them in.
• Usually we choose people who agree with us, but other times I bring people in who we don’t agree with because I want to see how they respond to it.
• We need to learn to honour those we disagree with.

What are we trying to achieve in terms of new covenant glory?

• I feel like we have just cracked the door on what God is releasing.
• I believe there will actually be geographical locations where people live in awareness that God is in a certain place for certain times and we can see His inhabitation.
• It’s not that God inhabits buildings but the residue of God’s presence seems to linger and we are learning how to sanctify the land.
• I think the Lord is going to mark certain groups of people and I think he’s testing those groups to see what they will contain without turning it for selfish purposes and when He can find people who he can pour his glory on without it destroying them, He does it.
• God will give us the measure of his presence that we are jealous to guard.
• He has given us His spirit without measure but there is a difference between what is in our account and in our possession.

What does favor with God look like, as opposed to favor with man?

• After David’s sin with Bathsheba, God spoke to David through Nathan where he said “You’ve captured a place in my heart where I will do things for you”
• Great responsibility comes with the favor of the Lord because we’ve been given something that must be used for His glory even when it could be used for our own.
• Resources, power, presence… all these things are marks of God’s favor. It’s when you have His attention and he is smiling.
• It’s hen you have his attention and he has it in His heart to give you what you want even before you ask.
• Go woke me up years ago and spoke this phrase “He watches over the watch of those who watch the Lord”
• God has said He will watch after your responsibilities if you will watch Him.
• He likes doing things for you because He loves us.

Bill Johnson, Tuesday February 12, 2013

Impact of Encounters

• Divine encounters are a central issue for a faith lifestyle that has been put into the peripheries of the church.
• We cannot do anything without a divine encounter.
• I got married to have relationship with my wife, not to have a ring on my finger.
• In this relationship with the Lord, you are designed to get to know God, never to fully comprehend because that’s impossible, but to know in a measurable way.
• What I want to see happen is have a generation of revivalists who get to a place where we can actually measure the affects of presence.
• If He’s as large as he says he is, he shouldn’t be that hard to find, and we should be able to measure his impact.
• 2 Chronicles 5
• You see tribes and families taking on the responsibility of experiencing the presence and the legacy that it leaves.
• For those of you who don’t have children yet, God is calling us to have godly lineage.
• 120 priests sounding trumpets.
• Acts 2
• 2 Chronicles 5 is the Old Testament equivalent of Acts 2.
• Tongues is a language of prayer and praise.
• The fruit of revival was that they were confused, amazed, perplexed and marveled.
• One of the most difficult things in this present church era is that so many people come with their own agenda shaped by scripture and it’s good but in the glory you lose the agenda. You lose sight of what’s most important to you. Something happens to what brought you here.
• Any time we come together in unity we are tuned to one master note.
• Unity is very valuable and often misunderstood.
• The bible doesn’t talk about unity with us separate from unity with him.
• If we tune to each other, while we have the appearance of unity and a harmonious sound, you can still be out of the master tune and unaware of what He is doing.
• We have this hunger and passion for the Lord even while He is here because he can always increase.
• The presence of the Lord is the main thing and I’m never going to change the subject because that is what satisfies.
• The Lord, when glory comes, hits the tuning fork and suddenly everyone begins to lay down their stuff. Not bad stuff, but our focuses (healing, prophetic, helping the needy…) and we become re-oriented to follow him.
• The Lord is training us to tune into Him.
• This has been my message for years and while it hasn’t changed although more has been revealed.
• Jesus died so that people could be reconciled to the father.
• Our message is the pure raw gospel of salvation out there, but in here we have been allowed to discover and pursue the kingdom.
• I keep realizing how much I don’t know what I’m doing.
• When you feel like you know what you are doing, there is a certain bent to your steering, and there will always be a resistance to what God is calling you to. But instead we need to realize that we are above our pay-grade and recognize the slightest whisper from God because He must be in control.
• We’ve got a few months left in this race and even though I can’t do it for you, I endorse you that my heart for you is to experience His glory. That every other value, assignment and experience is measured compared to the manifest glory of the Lord.
• It’s amazing to be in a crowd of 1000 people that isn’t dominated by anyone’s agenda. I’ve seen it happen twice. Once in school here and once on a sunday at worship.
• It’s amazing when nobody is trying to turn the moment into anything but instead all be tuned to His heart.

Prayer of blessing 

Could you explain to me the difference between pursuing the truths of God and pursuing His presence?

• Whenever I discover a truth about God it’s always to increase my experience with Him.  It’s an invitation to deepen our relationship. It’s no to make me smarter or a better theologian.
• Sometimes I will understand a concept before I have the experience but the experience give flesh to the word.
• What you don’t want to do is reduce your christian life to what you feel but to seek the truth about the Lord.
• Learning to recognize the presence and honour it.
• Sometimes we think that the Lord has come on our agenda, but instead we need to set those down and let Him pick them up if he wants to.

Bill Johnson Nov 20, 2012

Money/Biblical Finances

• In the OT, favor showed up in the form of financial blessing. In the NT favor showed up in the form of selling all you had and giving it to the poor. So it’s a complicated issue, biblical finances.
• How do we balance being sold out to the Lord and stewarding finances.
• Generosity is the begging place of kingdom finance but it’s not the whole story.
• God gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater.
• There have been few times when I’ve eaten seed, but I’ve definitely planted bread.
• Generosity is planting seed. Taking things that you’ve been given and sowing them into someone else.
• My bent towards generosity has lead me to make the mistake of giving people things that were supposed to belong to me. But I’m sure I’ve eaten things I should have shared too, I’m human.
• If I were to buy the nicest guitar I could find, give it to Bryan and then he gives it to another band member, I’d be proud of his generosity but I’d be sad because Bryan wouldn’t get to enjoy it. God is a father too.
• Sometimes it’s easier to give than it is to steward.
• Sometimes people give out of the fear of having to manage well.
• People are very quick to say that we are not supposed to judge, but we are supposed to discern right and wrong. We shouldn’t condemn people to hell, but we should be evaluating and discerning the motive of people’s actions.
• Zacchaeus said he would give people back a double portion and Jesus was satisfied
• Being a disciple is not meeting a list of qualifications. Being a disciple is listening to the Lord’s heart and doing what He has told us to do.
• The love of money is the root of evil but money in of it’s self is not.
• Jesus said you cannot serve God and Mammon. He spoke of Mammon as if it was a person. He was dealing with a power that influences the economies of the world. Then He modeled what serving both of those entities would look like. You would love the one and hate the other.
• Often times, our love for God is demonstrated by what we hate.
• Or you will hold to the one and despise the other.
• When the issue is settled, you are not drawn to the other side.
• When you give an offering and there is an internal reaction, it is only because the issue has not been settled.
• We as a people often feel justified in reaction to something based on the errors in the church.
• Do not legitimize resistance towards a subject. Don’t over-react to something that has been abused and then respond with resenting the issue.
• The devil will only counterfeit something of value. So don’t think that the whole topic is useless just because you have seen someone react to it wrongly.

• I’m into wealth but I don’t want to measure someone’s spirituality with what they own or don’t own.
• Lets say that you are all pastors, you all have churches of 1000. Say in your church you have someone who is a watchmaker. It’s impossible to do that trade without a standard of excellence. Say it takes him a long time to make them, but each one he makes, he sells for $50 000. If you want him to prosper, then there have to be people who are willing to spend that amount of money on something. If it is illegitimate for him to own a watch then he is in effect no better than a drug dealer because he is selling something that is wrong for something to own. If I have a view that excess is wrong, I cannot bless this man.
• This is an issue for a whole bunch of issues. It’s hard not to have the perspective that owning excessive things is wrong. Are you feeling the tension of the perspective here?
• I don’t want to equate money to spirituality.
• Neither do I want to destroy the fact that God can put things in people’s lives as monuments of a season in their life that marks the Lord’s abundance.
• There was a time in my life when I wanted to buy a gun, but I had bills to pay so I put the money into paying the bills and then a man in my church gave me a gun.
• It’s not wrong to be wealthy, it’s not wrong to own things. This is something I had to wrestle with during a season in my life.
• Abundance is not measured in what you have, it’s measured in what you’ve given away.
• There are times when God gives to you for your personal consumption and we need to be able to do that with grace.
• Fear of God is often wrongly translated to respect.

Parable of the talents.

• The one who has emphasized so strongly giving to the poor is now taking from the poor and giving to the richest.
• Giving to the poor is not the whole picture. God’s perspective on things is very unique.
• If having much is sin, then God just sinned by giving to the rich.
• He will always reward the one with the greatest responsibility.

• Mark 10:23
• First he says how hard it is for people who have riches. The second time he says people who trust  riches.
• The deception is when we put our trust in wealth instead of The Provider.
• It is fascinating to study the effect of trust in people’s life.
• Psalm 115 there is a description of false idols. Everyone who trusts in blind idols is blind. Worshiping the wrong thing deadens our senses to the rest of reality.
• Oh Israel trust in the Lord.
• If you trust in an idol and it’s deadness makes you dead, what happens when you trust in God who is fully alive? You become fully alive too.
• Imagine you need a car but your friend has three. Now imagine that your wealthy friend gets given another car. It would be tempting to think that they should give it to you.
• The story of the talents was a story of someone becoming a steward of someone else’s blessing when they got what you needed and you didn’t.
• What qualifies you for your own blessing is your capacity to celebrate with them when they get more.
• This is the key to killing jealousy.
• The notion of adding taxes to the wealthy sounds good but it’s stupid. If you let someone rich increase their wealth, they will end up paying for someone else’s paycheck.
• When I go to the airport, I get my shoes shined because someone else makes their living that way.
• They aren’t paid by the government to stand there, it is our job to become wealthy so that we spend money.
• Being wealthy isn’t a sin.
• If you can’t celebrate someone else’s breakthrough instead of your own, it will reduce you.
• The Lord will reduce you to only what you can handle because greater blessings are greater opportunities to sin.
• Mark 10:28 Peter wanted to know what he would get out of it.
• Jesus replied that they would get abundance.
• So Jesus says “be careful of having much because it will kill you, but if you are faithful with what you have, I’ll give you more of what might kill you”
• This money issue needs to be settled by a generation.
• “I prefer peace, but if trouble must come, I’d prefer it come in my time so that my children might have peace” – American hero (name?)
• I want to learn how to manage money well. Because if we manage it well, it will speak to the world that they will see God’s blessing on us.
• Psalms 60:1-2
• Scientists discovered that children have a part of their brain called the joy center that is activated only by the facial expressions and character of their parents.
• Here the psalmist is praying, let your face to shine on us.
• A lot of the church doesn’t have joy because they’ve never seen His face.
• Many don’t know the responsibility to pray for blessing.
• We must pray for blessing so that God’s way could be shown on us.
• We’ve rarely heard preachers speak on the evangelistic tool of God’s blessing fall on us.
• We have the responsibility to pray for blessing so that the world will know God.
• The test that you don’t know you are in is the hardest test. When the prophet had the king hit the ground with an arrow, he did not tell him the goal.

Bill Johnson Sunday November 18, 2012

“We Are To Be a City That Loves God Well”

Prayer time for people with terminal illnesses. 

• Jesus paid a price to destroy the power of sin and disease. 
• We pray for the sick because we want Jesus to get what He paid for.

• Every once and a while the Lord will wake me in the night and give me a message. Rarely, but it does happen about once a year.
• A few of the dreams I’ve had included several years ago praying for a couple in our church for financial blessing and giving to them. A few years before God told me to honour another church in town that had historically been opposed to us.
• And one time, God woke me to speak audibly to me and He said: “He watches over the watch of those who watch the Lord” God has only spoken to me audibly twice in my life.
• Last night, I woke 7-9 times not with a phrase but with a subject: “We are to be a city that loves God well”
• We are learning how to honour everyone in our city and bring the Lord’s blessing to the world.
• The Lord is looking for cities that will love Him as a city.
• We aren’t just looking for cultural transformation (pursuing kingdom principles)
• He is looking for a city that will adore the Lamb and love him well.
• I had an experience a few years ago at the mission in Vacaville during a prayer meeting. While I was standing there a pastor leaned over to me and said “Bill, God is looking for a city that will devote itself completely to Himself and once one city comes to the Lord, all other cities will fall in a domino effect” He believed it was for NYC and I for Redding (jokingly, not competitive). Then I walked over across the room and a lady leaned over to me and said “Bill, God is looking for a city that will devote itself completely to Himself and once one city comes to the Lord, all other cities will fall in a domino effect”. It was like they had rehearsed it. This time we both agreed it was for Redding.
• Looking at things the way God sees them, gives us the perspective to view things rightly.
• Everyone could say amen to an entire city being saved. Everyone could say amen to the culture of a city being transformed culturally. But few of us have considered what it looks like for a city to love God.
• How do we get a city to love God?
• How does an abused child respond when it is time to give, love and serve others? It’s hard. Until we have experienced love, it’s hard to show love.
• We love Him because he first loved us.
• I love him because when he loved me, he equipped me to love him back.
• He gave me a capacity to love like I couldn’t before.
• What about a city? If we want a city to love God, they have to be loved well.
• We are no longer poverty flats.
• Redding in Dutch means salvation.
• And the River of Sacrament flows through the city of salvation.
• God is looking for cities that will love Him well.
• Before this is over, we will see cities saved and loving God well.
• Our job is to love people well so that they can love Him. The same is true with cities.
• Practice good works before men so hat they will see your good works and glorify your father.
• Do something practical, let it ignite in other people and they will love God.
• A wise man scales the city of the mighty and brings down the stronghold in which they trust. What are the strongholds of any given city? They are the things people trust in other than God.
• What is a stronghold? It’s a demonic realm that gains authority of an area after people worship the demonic (trust in it).
• By the blessing of the upright, a city is exalted. But by the mouth of the wicked it’s torn down.
• Love the city enough to bless it.
• We pray before offering for the blessing of the upright to declare that a city will be exalted before God.
• Hebrews 11:10
• This chapter is the hall of fame for faith where God honours men of faith. And Abraham is the father of faith. It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. If faith is hard, it’s hard to please God, but if faith is your nature than it’s easy to please God.
• Faith looks for community that has structure and blessing.
• Faith doesn’t look just for personal breakthrough, it looks for a citywide impact that is marked with the blessing of God.
• Abraham never found this city.
• Hebrews 12:22
• We are prophetically at the city of Zion. Zion is where David’s tabernacle existed. It’s the people of God as a worshiping community.
• Part of what Abraham was looking for is now. In order for that to happen there has to be an impact on cities that is measurable.
• I want to be part of a city that loves God well.
• Hebrews 13:14-15
• Since there is more coming… don’t ever stop offering the sacrifice of praise, doing good and living in fellowship.
• Those three realms of sacrifice are very pleasing to the Lord.
• In praise, what you say is the offering, but when you worship, you become the sacrifice.
• These three things will effect and occupy the culture of a city.

Praise:

• Acts 2 When people heard people praising the Lord, thousands came and asked “what must I do to receive salvation?”
• It was the transformational power of presence that changed things for Jerusalem on that day.
• What initiated citywide transformation? People praising God.

Works:

– Let them see your good works and glorify your father in heaven.

Fellowship:

• They will know you by your love.
• We see transformation going out in our city at every level.
• Some people are being ignited with a love for God and others are just being turned and changing their perception of God.
• This is happening because they have seen you. Your good treatment of a waitress, your effort in business to bless everyone and not run over somebody else.
• I want to be blessed because I want to see my city blessed.
• The mark God has on you should effect the people around you.
• Acts 2 reveals that the most immediate impact of revival was a sense of community, love and devotion. The first fruit was that they learned to love each other well.
• In Acts 4, they were arrested because they had been bold and they prayed that more boldness could come to them.
• “hey God, you know the stuff that got me in trouble? I want more of that!”
• I want the whole package now.
• There was a british test pilot who realized that a rat was chewing on the fuel line and because he didn’t have time to land, he flew higher so that the rat died. The church often freaks out and tries to land, but we need an increase that can kill the enemy.
• Acts says “there was not one person among them who had a need”. WOW
• I want to be part of a city that loves God well.
• The outpouring and the presence are in order to prepare people for a sense of community so that there are no more needs.