SID: You know, psychiatrists talk about people that live in denial. Well my guest Bill Johnson says he wants us to live in denial. Bill, how can you say that?
BILL: Well it’s a play on words. But I, you know, when the devil puts a request across my desk, I say, request denied. That’s me living in denial. I deny his perspective on anything, his influence. It’s, I don’t deny his existence. I just deny him a place of influence.
SID: All right. Give me an example of a decree you might use.
BILL: We live with a conviction that nothing happens in the Kingdom apart, except first through, a declaration. And so what we do is we get the heart of the mind of God in a manner it would make a decree. Sometimes things change simply because we’ve made a decree. This is not the purpose and plan of God for my life. I reject this. You have no place. And there are times where just a simple decree ends a matter. Other times there’s more intercessory prayer. Sometimes there’s worship. Sometimes, literally it’s just shifting focus and not being preoccupied by the size of a problem. Sometimes we ask—
SID: So if you’re not preoccupied by the size of your problem, what are you preoccupied with?
BILL: Well, with Him. Honestly, it’s with Him. It’s with His promise, it’s with His Word, it’s with His heart for me, it’s with His presence that is with me. I’m going to feed from that regardless and I’m going to live towards any challenge that I have from that sense of co-laboring with the Lord, His abiding presence, that dove that remains on me. That is going to be the way I approach any given situation.
SID: Tell me about, this sounds…awful situation. Woman is in a car accident. She loses the use of her arm. Tell me about that woman.
BILL: She actually was a part of another church in town, great church. And her daughter wanted to go to church on a particular day when they didn’t have meetings. So they came. I found out the story afterwards because I didn’t know her. But she had had several surgeries on her arm. It was several inches too short and she had no use. She had no feeling, I believe it’s from the elbow down and she had no movement. She couldn’t grip. She couldn’t lift. She couldn’t, she had a two-year-girl that she couldn’t even pick up because of no use of this arm. And so at the service we went into a time of praying for the sick and her daughter, one of her daughters said, “You need to go to the front.” She didn’t want to. Finally just out of yielding to her daughter, she went up and one of our ladies just prayed for her. And literally in just moments of time the arm grew out the full length. She had full use and they came and got me. So I ran over. I was obviously excited, thrilled with this report, trying to get information. And while I was there, the little girl came up to her and she reached down to her little girl, and the little girl, “No mommy, broken arm.” I heard this. “No mommy, broken arm, broken arm.” She had heard that her entire two-year life that her mommy couldn’t pick her up because of no use in this arm. And the mother said, “It’s okay, honey.” And she picked her up and the smile on that little girl’s face, I’ll never forget the rest of my life because it was the cry of the little girl’s heart for mom, and Mom could hold her now in a way that she couldn’t before. It was just stunning. Experiences like that change how you see any following problems.
SID: House of God, you teach on that. Why is that such an important concept?
BILL: We are the House of God. We are the dwelling place of the Almighty God. And when we lose awareness, consciousness of the Spirit of God upon us, in us, we live different. Everything changes. But when we live with the abiding realization that God is with me, not just as a point of theology, but as the companion, as the empowerer, as the one who guides and directs, that Person that I co-labor with, living with that realization changes everything. Everything I think, everything I expect, the way I pray, everything is different because now I’m not begging Him to invade. I am with Him trying to pick up His heart and mind so that I can be used by Him to bring about a change. Change is everything.
SID: There is a scripture that’s coming to me: “The Kingdom of God is not food or drink, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” What does that mean to you?
BILL: I love that verse for several reasons. One, is the Kingdom of God is in the Holy Spirit. So the realm of the Kingdom, the realm of God’s dominion and rule is in the realm of the Spirit. So realizing the reality of the Kingdom coincides with my discovery of the presence, of the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit. And so that’s why those two work together so well for me is because the more I discover Him, the more I pick up His heart, the more I become aware of the dove that remains, the presence upon me. The more that happens in my life or in our corporate gatherings, the simpler it is to see His purpose is accomplished in that gathering, because the Kingdom is in the realm of the Spirit.
SID: Now when we come back I’m going to have you pray for people.
BILL: Okay.
SID: But because you have this renewed mind, what is, you can tell me now, what is going to happen when you pray for these people?
BILL: Well there’s going to be miracles. We just had, just a few weeks ago, I just got a report this Sunday of a gal who stood up on behalf of her son who had milk and gluten allergy, food allergy. He was also autistic. But we were praying for food allergies. She stood up for the food allergies, went and got a pizza after the service. He was healed of food allergies and healed of autism.
SID: Okay. When we come back, get ready because I proclaim, Bill proclaims and even more important, God proclaims, by His stripes you were healed.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth