BILL: It needs to be a virus, you know, a virus of what God intends to do in the hour that we live in and so I really appreciate the opportunity to encourage you to really, to really manage your heart well. Manage your heart well. If you have questions for God this is what I do. When you experience a loss I mean it’s just, it’s just so disappointing. It hurts so much when you lose a loved one or whatever it might be. A disappointment in a marriage, a family thing, whatever it might be. We have these things that go on in our lives and what I do is I get before the Lord and I, this is my process, I’m extremely honest. I will never accuse God. I fear Him too much to accuse Him. I won’t do that. And I know I’m wrong. In fact this is what I say. I say God, it looks to me like you promised this to me and it didn’t happen. It looks to me like you tricked me. Like you deceived me. And then I’ll say I know it’s impossible! I know it’s absolutely impossible! You are so absolutely true and so absolutely perfect in Your love for me that it’s impossible for that to happen! But that’s what I’m struggling with so I need you to help me! I need You to come in to heal that broken place in me that sees incorrectly! And then for me personally I always go to the Psalms. And I will read until I hear my voice. I will read Psalm after Psalm after Psalm until I can find my heart’s cry in the scripture. Once I find that I find a place to settle. I find a place where there’s comfort. I find a place where there’s answers, solutions. I find a place where I can shift my perspective on what I’m facing. And that’s what I need. Most of the people who are in pain don’t need answers, they need love! Most of the people in pain don’t need explanations, they just need comfort. They need people that will stand with Him even though they’re angry, even though they’re accusing God, even though all these crazy things are happening they just need friends that won’t judge them, won’t accuse them but will stand with them and just simply show them the love of Christ. Jesus did a fascinating job by embracing these twelve disciples that for quite a while still didn’t know who He was, which is bizarre to me. You know I mean He calms the storm that looks like it’s going to kill everyone and they’re talking. They’ve already seen miracles like crazy and they’re talking who is this guy? You know you would think they would know by now.
AUDIENCE: Yes!
BILL: And I heard this statement that I like so much. It says “the disciples belonged before they believed!”
AUDIENCE: That’s right. Wow!
BILL: They belonged before they believed! So there’s something about that goodness of God that enables us to embrace and to love people even in their very blemished and sometimes broken conditions without requiring them to change so that we love them. We love them period! And there’s something powerful in that and this is, this is really the heartbeat for me of what we live. And what happens when you live this way and you have a group of people around you it starts effecting, it starts creating a culture. A culture is an atmosphere in which things happen naturally that you used to have to work for. It’d be like a soil that is filled with right nutrients. Plants just grow easily in that environment. It’s the greenhouse where I was in Holland once years ago I was visiting the greenhouses and it was November. It was cold. It was nasty weather. If those tulips that they grow so prolifically there if those tulips were outside they wouldn’t last a day but in the greenhouse they thrive. And I believe a kingdom culture that I’m describing to you is a greenhouse that enables all the things that God wants to grow to grow easily! And that includes the miracle realm and I believe that the Lord really intends to heal people right here right now and that’s His heart for us always. The cool thing about miracles is that we don’t do them. We just get to participate, you know, we get to be carriers. I had my senior associate Kris Vallotton years ago had closed down some businesses to join me in ministry but he had some debt left and he didn’t broadcast it but I knew as his friend. And one Sunday morning a lady came up to me and handed me this check. It was folded in half and handed me this check. She said is Chris here today? And I said no, he’s not here. He’s preaching somewhere else this morning. She said – I said he’ll be here tonight. She said well will you give this to him? I said sure. So when she walked around the corner I opened the check.
AUDIENCE: [LAUGHTER]
