It's Supernatural

Sid:  Mishpochah the presence of God is strong on this broadcast I think it has to do with my guest Pastor Bill Johnson, pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California.  Bill the presence of God has just descended as I just started the introduction I had to stop the introduction. I happen to believe that if you will pray whatever the Holy Spirit inspires you to pray with this anointing things are going to happen you are going to be a demonstrator of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

Bill:  All right let’s do it.  Father I’m asking right now especially right now for terminal cases for those things that have declared impossible by the experts I’m asking Spirit of God come and invade, we stand in the Name of the Lord Jesus against the Spirit of Infirmity that has stolen life, time, resources, strength health from the people of God, and I declare in the Name of Jesus be released from infirmity now, be released now.  Rheumatoid Arthritis dissolve be out of that body in Jesus Name, I command cancer, I rebuke you in the Name of Jesus you have no place in the people of God, we declare that our body is a cancer free zone.  And Father I cry right now for the invasion, the outpouring of the Spirit of God in household, after household, in church family, after church family restore us to the normal Christian life I pray in Jesus Name.

Sid:  Amen that means…

Bill:  Amen.

Sid:  So be it.

Bill:  Yeah.

Sid:  And I believe that that’s not just an expression Bill I believe so be it.  Now when I think about you and in everything you write you talk about this from the Lord’s Prayer “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”  What does that exactly mean to you?

Bill:  Well the word kingdom is the Kings domain, the realm of His dominion. When it comes upon the tormented mind that torment leaves and there is a structure the order of Heaven comes into the way of thinking for a believer.  When it touches the human body affliction, infirmity leaves, homes that are divided, businesses that are becoming bankrupt, cities that in chaos, all these things are affected by the presence of the Lord.  And the Kingdom of God Paul said in Romans 14 he said, “The kingdom of God is not meat or drink, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.”  The kingdom of God is in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit contains or manifests if you will the dominion of Jesus over any situation that we’ll invite Him into.  And so when we pray for the Kingdom to come we’re crying out, we’re declaring that it is the will of God for God’s dominion over all things to become manifest and realized in a person’s life.

Sid:  Well, as you talk about this in you book you say when you see something, if you see someone with one leg shorter than the other you say “That’s not the way it is in Heaven.”  And what do you do about it?

Bill:  Well, then we pray we ask for permission if it’s in a meeting of course it’s usually more normal because we do that in every meeting. If it’s in public we just ask for permission to pray for them and tell them that we see God heal people all the time and encourage them and then we set them down and we command the leg to grow.  And it’s just amazing what Jesus does we have had deaf mutes healed in our mall, we’ve had just you know amazing things just happen right in public places as people just step outside of their little comfort zone and take some risk and give God a chance to reveal His extravagance.

Sid:  Now you have a Bible School there of which I know a number of people that have gone there and graduated. You give them assignments, give me an example of what an assignment might be.

Bill:  We’ll send them to a restaurant for example and they are in the course of the evening they are to ask the Lord to show them five things about that person the waitress so that they can use them as tools to minister God’s love and kindness to them.  And they write them down on a napkin and then in the course of the evening through conversation they may ask them by any chance were you born in San Diego?  If the person says “Yes” then it’s an open door and they’ll step a little farther.  They may ask why?  And they’ll say “Well, I’m just learning to hear from God and I feel like He told me that just so that I could confirm to you that He is really in love with you and then they use that as a ministry point. If it’s not correct and they ask “Why do you ask?”  You say well, I’m just learning to hear from God and I thought that might have been something about your life, but you know we don’t stand up and say “Thus saith, we give them a way where they can learn how to hear from the Lord.”  And then when they get it right then it really opens the persons’ heart for ministry.  We had a guy going down the street here awhile back and a lady walked past and was extremely angry. So he asked if he could stop and she did but she was anxious to get going and he say’s “Could I pray with you?”  And she said, “No.”  And he says, “Well how about if I tell you something about your past?”  And this guy is very prophetic and he didn’t have anything, but he just felt like God loved this woman so much that he would speak to Him about her.”  She stopped just out of curiosity she said, “Okay,” and he paused for a moment and then he lifted up just the bottom edge of his shirt where his stomach could be seen and he pointed to a part of his stomach, he said, “You’ve been stabbed right here haven’t you?”  And she looked with absolute shock as she lifted up part of her shirt to show him that she had been stabbed and had a fresh stab wound there.  And it opened up an amazing door for ministry.  We just teach people how to hear from God to take risks, and then try to just love people.

Sid:    You have a story in your book about a team that was out in Johannesburg, and they encountered a homeless man and do you remember that story?

Bill:  That was an amazing story actually, he had been robbed, he had been taken out of town some distance and left to die, he was paralyzed. Miraculously his life was spared and they found him and began to minister to him and he forgave the individual and ended up getting completely healed right there in the parking lot.  And the strange part of the story is the people who actually kidnapped him and took him out and beat him, actually drove up into the parking lot at that time. It was was just an amazing, you know, God just restores everything He restores relationships, and He restores physical body, emotion, mentally, all of it. There was an amazing healing between one of his assailments, the rest drove off in terror.  But as I recall it was only the one that got out and was somehow reconciled, really amazing stories like this are just continuous.

Sid:  I’m curious Bill you as long as I’ve known you and it’s been a number of years what your sharing now has been the norm with you, but are you seeing increase within your students and with yourself, or is it the same as it’s been for a few years.

Bill:  Oh no, there’s absolute increase.  We had a leaders gathering here 800 leaders around the world gathered here last week. I asked them the question, I asked “How many of you had miracles on a consistent weekly basis ten years ago?” Out of 800 plus leaders three people raise their hand.  I said “How many had it five years ago?” Somewhere between 8 and 10 people raised their hand, and then I asked them “How many of you have seen it consistently over the last year?”  And about 75% of the people raised their hand.  There is such a traumatic increase this is just simply the time to cooperate with God let His extravagance be displayed and to learn how to take risk and how to walk in this anointing.

Sid:  Can I get you to speculate as to why the increase now. Because what you’re telling me doesn’t surprise me this is what I’m hearing all over the world also.

Bill:  Why because I don’t know, I think, I think some people really paid a price 5, 10, 15 years ago and their message caught on. God has really honored, you know, many of them suffered so much rejection and stuff because they would preach to this message and yet they stuck with it.  They’re fruit is credible, their life is filled with integrity and the message has caught on.  The bottom line is that it’s natural for us to hunger for to see the impossibilities of life bend their need in the name of Jesus.

Sid:  Now, what would you say to someone that says, I want to be hungry, and I want that desperately but not desperate enough to pay the price, what would you say to them?

Bill:  I’d say repent.

Sid:    [Laughing]

Bill:  Repent your wrong, it’s not normal.

Sid:  But I’d say I don’t feel like paying that price, fasting, praying but I want the results.

Bill:  Well, I don’t know what else to say. It just comes down to at some point they’re going to have to recognize that what’s going on in their heart is not consistent with the authentic gospel. At some point the person has to break before the Lord they may not be hungry, but if you can at least recognize I’m not on track, I’m not hungry for what I should be hungry for.  The absence of hunger in a small child is a sign of sickness, disease. In the Body of Christ the absence of hunger is sign of disease and there has to be a time of yielding and breaking before the Lord where He restores what is natural to us and that is to hunger for his name to be honored by the impossibilities of life yielding to his power.

Sid:  The book we’re making available called “The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind,” you start out by saying that this is a very abused subject because believer’s go to two extremes what do you mean?

Bill:  Well, there is a lot of self discipline involved in one camp on the renewed mind where if they feel they can quote a scripture in response to a problem they consider that to be the renewed mind.  And it just simply isn’t the renewed mind is where you see from God’s perspective. I like to illustrate it with the word repent. This isn’t the actual formation of the word but it illustrates the word perfectly. “Re” and “pent.” Re means to go back, penthouse would be top floor of the building.  Go back to God’s perspective on reality and when we see things from perspective that is what the renewed mind is.  And we have people who are trying to get renewed minds without divine encounters and it’s really a big deal that we cry out to meet with God so that we are changed.  And when we have those encounters our way of thinking is transformed.