Sid: I have on the telephone a man that normal for him is abnormal for most Christians; normal for him is to do the stuff he sees in the New Covenant. His name, Pastor Bill Johnson, Senior pastor of Bethel Church in Redding California. Bill your latest book “The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind.” I happen to like the subtitle better, the subtitle is “Access to a Life of Miracles.” Most Christians believe in miracles or they wouldn’t be a Christian. To me the two don’t go together, however, it’s a big mystery to most Christians. It’s not a mystery to you what was the purpose of this book, “The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind?”
Bill: We have a sense of obligation indebtedness to the Lord to produce a life of miracles, He’s set up everything to where it’s possible. The only remaining factor is what are we going to do with what He given us? And so my purpose in writing that book is to encourage and motivate the Body of Christ to pursue what He made available to us. When the Spirit of the resurrected Christ comes to reside in our physical body, a powerlessness become inexcusable. God has made it possible for us to seek His face, to have divine encounters so that we can bring others into a Divine encounter.
Sid: Okay Bill, the Body is divided in many different flavors if you will.
Bill: Sure.
Sid: But let’s say the Charismatic Pentecostal type people talk about miracles, believe in miracles, but see very few why?
Bill: Well, we don’t… a relationship with the Holy Spirit is primarily theory, we love the idea of Him empowering us but it’s been mostly for comfort in the hard times instead of learning how to cooperate with Him. Jesus gave us the secret to miracles, He said, “I only do what I see My Father do, I only say what I hear Him Say.” Which means He is aware of Heaven, the heartbeat of Heaven, He’s aware of the passion of the Father, and He’s simply works to mimic, or to copy, or to demonstrate what is going on in the heart of the Father here on earth.
Sid: But a lot of people say “I believe it and they go out and they…I remember myself as a new believer I started reading the New Testament, I got so excited and my daughter who’s a married woman with children now, at that time was a little girl and she was sick and I laid my hands on her and she wasn’t healed. And then I remember today even she said to me “How come Jesus didn’t heal me?” You know these were times where I didn’t have any mentors, I have an answer today, but what would you say to that little girl and that father if they came to your study.
Bill: We have people all the time that come and don’t get healed we have to deal with that on a constant basis. The problem isn’t on God’s end of the equations, the problem’s on our end. He’s the one that made a baptism of fire available. If a person is not getting a breakthrough as they pray for people then they must have a more profound encounter with God. And the only way to do that is with fasting, prayer, setting time aside to seek the face of God until He touches us. If we look throughout history those who were just so disturbed that they weren’t able to produce the life of Christ in affect of with miracles signs and wonders. When they set aside time to just cry out to God for more, not matter the cost God met them and these folks became household names. But they didn’t start that way, they started as people that were frustrated with their own personal lack of anointing, their own personal lack of power. You can’t give away what you don’t have and the only way to get it is as basically two ways one is seeking the face of the Lord, the second is through impartation. But impartation from other people doesn’t replace the need to seek God’s face personally. But there is a grace that people walk in a grace, a gifting from God to work in the miraculous that when they lay hands on you and pray it comes in seed form, but if you use what was given to you and just simply don’t stop it will grow to maturity. Gifts come free, maturity is expensive.
Sid: You know as you sharing this I’m thinking about many of the great men and woman of God that I’ve interviewed over the years and what your saying is what my experience is. Most of them, I remember Rodney Howard Brown saying I went into a room and I said “God I’m not coming out until you touch me or take me home.” But I mean it was that type of desperation that got that presence of God on him and now from what I understand it’s there, you know it doesn’t leave, but he had that moment of desperation.
Bill: Yes, it’s been my cry as well I had a profound encounter with the Lord as a result of continuous prayer night and day for about eight months. The Lord just came upon me in power was October of ’96 and it changed everything since then.
Sid: Tell me just a little bit about that moment what was it like?
Bill: Oh, it’s hard to describe, but the Lord came to me in 3:00 in the morning with such power that I had no control over my limbs, my body I had no ability to control my legs, my arms. It was as though a thousand volts of electricity was pulsating through my body. I had, I ministered to an individual the night before and told them that God was going to visit them and it could be at 3:00 in the morning.
Sid: Hmm.
Bill: And when he showed up in my room I saw the clock and the only thing I could move with control was my head, I turned my head towards the clock, it was 3:00 AM exactly and I said out loud, You set me up because I remembered that word I had given a friend of mine. And the only thing that I knew was that I had no control of my limbs and He reminded me that I had prayed for more of Him at any cost. And He was asking me, reminding me what any cost looks like, that I may never be able to function as a normal human being again. To be honest with you I didn’t know if I would ever recover the use of my arms and legs. And as I laid there in the bed with the tears going down the side of my face onto the pillowcase I knew He was asking, I said at any cost, so He was wanted to know if I was willing to look foolish for Him. If I was willing to sacrifice or give up my dignity and I said, “Yes, if I get You in the exchange you can have anything you can make me look anyway you want.” And that particular encounter lasted all night long lifted in the morning. I got up and it happened three nights in a row where I just simply had no use, no control over my limbs, it sounds very strange, but something happened, you know I don’t know how to describe it but something happened where everything is different as a result of that. But I said yes to more of Him at any cost even if it meant I couldn’t function in life as a normal human being if it meant I was sidelined for the rest of my life as a result of a God encounter. You know Jacob limped the rest of his life, and if it meant I couldn’t function normally that was fine with me if I got Him in the exchange.
Sid: Now what were you doing, I think you said, “Eight months previous.”
Bill: I had been to Toronto, I had seen things happen there that we had experienced several years earlier but I didn’t know how to maintain it. I said “God I’ve got to have more of your, I’ve seen what I know to be true and I give you the rest of my life for this.” And so I just begin to pray day and night, “God I know there’s more and I’m thankful, but I’m not satisfied.” And I would wake myself up praying, and I would actually be praying while I was sleeping and wake myself up praying, and this just went on for eight months.
Sid: Now were you praying mostly with your understanding, or in unknown tongues or both?
Bill: Both, both, both, both but there was a lot in the understanding, I mean obviously in a moment like that you run out of words and so you pray in the Spirit. I was real specific I knew that that God touched people powerfully throughout history and I didn’t want to miss my chance, I didn’t want to live a whole life knowing that there was more available that I didn’t, that I didn’t grab a hold of so I just cried out.
Sid: Just out of curiosity in this last week or so, what type of miracles have you seen or heard of from your people or yourself praying, just this last week or so?
Bill: Just this last week we’ve had three different, in fact yesterday I met with our staff we had three testimonies of Parkinson’s disease healed, we’ve never had that many in one week. We had a woman that was healed while I gave a testimony during the service Sunday morning or Rheumatoid Arthritis. Another gal was there who had just joined us five weeks ago she had to be fed and bathed by her husband, she was in a wheelchair she couldn’t move her limbs. Her testimony came forth Sunday; she was healed of Rheumatoid Arthritis as well. A father met me at the back door and reminded me of praying for his mentally retarded adoptive son about six months ago and they’ve taken him back to have tests and he’s completely normal God has completely healed him. We’ve had testimonies this week of cancer, we had a gal healed; we shared the testimony this week and actually happened three weeks ago, but she was a missionary from Sudan who had a dream Jesus came to her in the night and said, “If you go to Redding I’ll heal you.” She had fibromyalgia, she had multiple sclerosis, she had ME and the West Nile Virus, all four of those diseases and she could barely walk 10 – 15 feet without getting winded. And prayed for three weeks ago Sunday night and she was completely healed, she’s heading back to the mission field this week.
Sid: Bill, our times slipping away…Mispochah do you like what you hear? Bill says and I say and better than that God says that is normal; it’s time you get normal.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth