Sid: My guest is red hot for the Messiah his name is Pastor Bill Johnson, Pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California where miracles are normal; lack of miracles is abnormal. Bill just out of curiosity if you woke up one morning with a pain in your back let’s say how would you pray?
Bill: Well, I’d probably wouldn’t pray I’d probably just command it to be gone. Jesus actually didn’t pray for the sick that we have record of, it’s legal, but I mean the Lord’s given us authority. It’s best to exercise that authority and command certain things to change. If you’re persisted at it I’d probably have my wife into it and have her minister to me she may pick up something that I missed. What you tolerate will dominate so we can’t just allow little things to go on in our body and then ignore them.
Sid: I think most Christians, even Christians that understand the healing of God tolerate the little. They just don’t even pay attention to it, but we shouldn’t have to put up with those little things.
Bill: Yeah, you’re right.
Sid: Okay, Bill were talking about your book “The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind.” On yesterday’s broadcast we were talking about this is a very abused subject some are taught a mindless gospel, other people elevate the mind to point it reduces God to a powerless image of man. These two extremes if you will what should it be?
Bill: The mind is supposed to be the canvas the Holy Spirit paints on. The mind is so useful to God. Jesus died in sense to protect the ability of men to think on his own. And when we make the gospel a mindless gospel we do a tremendous disservice to the Lord, it’s usually those who promote a mindless gospel usually do so in a reaction to those that have made the gospel in an intellectual item. And the reaction maybe legitimate but the outcome is horrible because the mind is just makes a better student then it does a teacher. The mind is a better follower than the leader, it’s supposed to come under the influence of the Spirit of God in the spirit of man. And when it does, it is a clean canvas that is able to receive the impressions of the Lord and we learn to function and cooperate with Him. Faith doesn’t come from the mind it comes from the heart, we don’t believe because we understand, because we actually understand because we believe. Hebrew’s 11 says as much, “By faith we understand that the worlds were made by that which is not.” And so it’s the human intellect that’s a tremendous tool even in the miraculous, but it has to come from a renewed mind experience which is a divine encounter.
Sid: You talk in your book, and there’s so many wonderful nuggets, but one of the things that intrigues me greatly is you talk about Jacob’s ladder and breaking the demonic so we can live under an open heaven. Explain that.
Bill: In my way of thinking most closed heavens are between the ears. It’s a way of thinking that we have actually allowed the enemy to steal from us when he has no authority or right. The Father is jealous for the Spirit of God in me. There is no power of hell that can separate and make a brass heaven, so to speak, between the Spirit of God who is in me and the heavenly Father. So if I think I’m in a place of warfare where I’m in a place where there’s just brass heavens it’s something that’s in my imagination. I have to adjust my way of thinking to where I realize it’s impossible for me to have a closed heaven. Because the Spirit of God is in me the Father is jealous for His fellowship. I simply step in line with what the Father is saying and doing. There is no break in that relationship it has to do with a lot of misconceptions for example people who rise up in places of leadership will come to me sometimes and they’ll say “Bill I’m really being attacked by the enemy I know it’s because I’ve just become a board member of the church or worship leader or whatever.” Most people think that if they grow in maturity there going to be more vulnerable to spiritual assault; there is a measure of truth to that because the enemy would like to destroy leaders, generals more than privates. But in our armies who are more protected the generals or the privates? God does not raise up leaders so that they’re more vulnerable, He raises up leaders because they’re insolated more by divine protection to walk in the integrity and the lifestyle and power that He’s assigned them to. And for us to have that miss conception in our mind is an agreement with a lie, and lies when we believe a lie we empower the enemy. The enemy has no authority in our life accept through human agreement. Jesus said, “All, authority was given to him which means the devil has none.
Sid: Wait a second that’s too important to slip by so quickly, you’re saying the devil has no authority in the lives of anyone listening right now unless there’s human agreement explain that a little.
Bill: Well, Jesus said, “All authority was given to Him, which means the devil has none.” And so if the devil has none, but he seems to be using some measure in realm of authority, where is he getting it from? He can only get it from those that have it. God gave us the keys to the Kingdom and in doing so when we come into agreement with the enemy we actually empower him. The devil couldn’t come into the Garden of Eden and posses Adam and Eve all he could do was talk until he brought them into agreement. When they agreed with him they empowered him with the authority that was given to them. The same thing happens every day in the life of a believer, whenever we become anxious or fearful we are putting in faith an inferior reality and we actually empower the lie to take on the power a power almost equal to truth.
Sid: Okay, let me give an example and tell me if this is what you’re saying. Someone wakes up one morning they have some symptoms, they go to the doctor. The doctor says “cancer.” What should their position be? Are you saying that they are empowering the cancer by talking a lot about it and saying maybe well, I guess it’s God’s will and maybe He’ll heal me and maybe he won’t. What do you mean by agreement in that particular example?
Bill: Well, if they do what you just said they talk about it and say that they think it maybe God’s will to do something in their life, absolutely they are empowering the enemy; they have made a covenant with words, with the powers of hell to kill, steal and destroy. We got to repent for this stuff because we empower the enemy and we face so many battles that are…
Sid: I almost feel like we zip out mouth 24-7, [Laughing] the more I think about this anyway.
Bill: [Laughing] Let me tell you what we have purposed to do as a church family. I only feed myself on what he is doing and what He has done, I do not feed myself on what He hasn’t done, if I do that I create the atmosphere for a spirit of offense to arise and I will empower the enemy.
Sid: That is a great statement, on your book “The Supernatural Power of the Transformed Mind,” do you find that when people read a book like this and really grab hold of it and follow the directions that you give in this book, this should be normal, or this is just people that have certain gifts of the Spirit that will be moving in as you say access to a life of miracles?
Bill: No, it’s for everybody and something happens to people when they expose themselves to truth in teaching and truth in testimony. Something ignites in the hearts of people and we have…
Sid: You talk about the power of the testimony, what do you mean by that?
Bill: Testimony in the Old Testament comes from the word that means do again, and in the New Testament the scripture says the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy. It basically means this and any time you give a testimony of something that God has done either spoken or written, a testimony it carries with it a prophetic anointing that is catalytic. And that means it changes the environment and makes that miracle available again. And we have seen it unbelievable amount of times. We’ve seen it just this week giving a testimony of healing. As I gave the testimony a woman was literally knocked down into her chair on a Sunday morning and she was healed or Rheumatoid Arthritis as I gave a testimony. It’s available all the time you just have to learn to recognize what is in the unseen so we can work with the God.
Sid: But we have been trained in a superstar culture, and even in the church that’s been invaded where we look at the pastor, or the evangelist to do these things, not us.
Bill: No, you right and in our situation I would estimate probably 85 to 90% of all of the people healed, have been healed when the church prayed for them, not when our ministry team. I get a very small percentage because I refuse to get down there and let everyone line up in front of me. I’d rather they get in front of teams that have trained, I let them be prayed for by the church otherwise we unintentionally create an appetite for the superstar and I won’t cooperate with that.
Sid: The first church didn’t have different levels of believers they just had Jesus, and us, and the believer. Now we have a whole hierarchy and I think people like it that way and maybe that’s why most Christian babies as far as the supernatural goes.
Bill: Your right. In the past when the Lord gave an extraordinary anointing to somebody that anointing was used do draw crowds so that they could minister to them. What’s happened today is that anointing to individuals and they instead of them trying to equip those who come to them so that what used to be a high level of anointing on one person becomes the new norm for the body of Christ. And that’s what many of us are working very hard at doing. Our whole life is spent on equipping the church to be the church and to live as Jesus lived.
Sid: Do you envision a day coming soon where an entire city in the United States will be so touched by a group of Christians that move like the those one or two men or woman of God in previous generations and the whole city becomes believers?
Bill: Yeah, absolutely, I know it’s going to happen and I am very convinced that my city will be one of them. We have so much happening all across the board in our city.
Sid: Wait a second, that’s wonderful for Bill, but what about you and your city?
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth