Praying From Presence - Bill Johnson | Bethel Church

[Applause] good morning good morning eric says hi sends his love he's uh on his way back from portugal we have these events that we've been doing in in the uk for quite a while ela european leaders advance us now european leaders something else alliance same initials european leaders alliance and uh i have one that i'll be doing in a couple weeks in the uk but this one was in portugal and eric was able to go so i'm i'm thrilled i love portugal just love love love it um saw a sign that was great church a picture of a sign at a church the marquee up front said it's too hot outside to keep changing this sign i thought man maybe they're from reading it's too hot outside keep changing the sign underneath it just said sin bad jesus good details inside that's that's one of the best church marquees i've seen details inside it's awesome the pastor dies and he's waiting in line at the pearly gates ahead of him as a guy who's dressed in sunglasses a loud shirt leather jacket and jeans saint peter addresses the cool guy who are you so that i may know whether or not to admit you into the kingdom of heaven the guy replies i'm dennis retired airline pilot from florida saint peter consults the list he smiles and says to the pilot take this silk robe golden staff enter the kingdom the pilot goes into heaven with his robe and staff next it's the pastor's turn he stands tall and declares i'm pastor bob pastor of christian life center anaheim california for the last 30 years saint peter looks at his list he says to him take this cotton robe and wooden staff and enter the kingdom he says wait a minute the pilot gets a silk robe and a gold staff now only get cotton and wood how can this be peter responds up here we go by results when you preached people slept when he flew people prayed [Applause] this is the second week of uh i think we're doing is it three weeks or four three or four weeks on the subject of prayer i think it's a three or four anyway there's more coming uh my wife started last week with uh a message on prayer wonderful word and uh they asked if i'd do the second one and i i love uh i love so many subjects i perhaps the one that rocks me the most in some ways is the subject of prayer i when i was growing up in my uh coming into early adulthood uh late teens i i hated reading and i read one book my whole life through school i've i faked every book report i oh i did and i just i hated to read i read one book in the eighth grade how about a hot rod go figure i still remember details of that book that marked my life just once but i i remember um when i i said that abandoning all for jesus yes i became an avid reader immediately and which was a miracle by itself i remember i would consume books especially on prayer i remember reading i think it was seven or eight books back to back to back just just continuously read about prayer so prayer the whole issue of prayer the privilege of communing with god of praying making a difference in the course of history is a huge part of life so i have many things that i've taught on through the years some that i i kind of had three different things chosen to do this morning to see flip flip a three-sided coin to see which one to do um but when it came time to speak in the first service here i my heart was just just turning towards one thing and it's it's not a teaching as much as it is just a conversation it's almost in fact it feels like a fireside chat if we go outside it'll be absolutely like a fire site it is hot out there um i had an interesting experience here about a week or two ago and another experience a week or so before that let me just take you through them about a week or so ago i i i woke up in the middle of the night i don't remember now it used a restroom or something i woke up but i began to ponder and think about a particular problem that concerned me and and if you're anything like me uh the wheels get going and it's really hard to get back to sleep and so i was i was locked in awake mode and that crazy thing is when you start when you function like that all you're doing is messing with problems you can't fix you know it's just it's got to be the worst waste of time ever but anyway i i i was contemplating thinking about that i just couldn't get back to sleep and finally it was maybe 20 minutes before it was time for me to get up i dozed off and and it's when i woke at that moment i was to wake up when i woke up i immediately had this thought that my worship was replaced by worry worship was replaced by worry let me give you a context something that i learned to do uh quite a few years ago was um if i were to i've been asked like by our students and stuff what's the strength of my life if i were to reduce everything that i am and do down to one thing i would say probably the strength of my life is my affection for him it's my adoration because it it uh what happens is you find your heart just burning for him in ways that don't need works although i'm not going to say anything correctly so just get used to it now and sort out my words and make it make sense all right just help me out here uh it's it's not a song that i sing it's not my hands raised it's not kneeling it's just a burning heart for him and and the the king uh king solomon made this statement in a song of solomon he said in the song of songs he said though i sleep yet my heart is awake and a number of years ago i i learned that i could as i was going to sleep at night i would just lay there and turn my heart of my affection towards the lord and in that moment there would just be this engagement with him as just the sensing of presence and and there would just be then this engagement with him and i began to discover that you have a better day if you have a better night and uh and in genesis it says on creation it says there was night and day which made up the first day so biblically our day actually begins the night before that's when it starts as is that night so i i've been learning that um i just turned my affection towards him and in that place of a presence of such presence and peace comes over me it's just very easy for me to go to sleep and in that place it doesn't matter if i'm on an airplane or or if i'm at home in bed or you know a hotel somewhere that's what i do is i turn my affection towards him and just as soon as that presence begins to settle on me um just great peace i just go to sleep if i wake up in the night for whatever reason uh it's been i don't want to say it's 100 because i don't think i do anything 100 successful um but the majority of the time by far the majority of the time if i wake up in the night i instinctively instantly turned my affection back towards him and this particular night i didn't and when i got up in the morning i felt like the lord spoke to me and he said worry replace worship and i'd probably done that a thousand times in my life but it was the only time i had him actually speak into the situation that i recall worry replace worship it'd be like sitting at a table and sitting at a table of worship and instead i chose to give seat to fear to anxiety to worry all that stuff and it it you know when you have the lord speak to you things become clear that have been cloudy for ever and suddenly in that moment i knew and it helped me to understand something that happened a week or two before that if if you can imagine with me again i've already said i don't do this 100 of time but but it's it is dominant it's predominant part feature of my life is this a sense of of affection for the lord in the middle of day just driving down the street sitting in my office it doesn't matter when i just consciously will turn my affection towards him and he's such a lover he's just drawn to that and i don't know if he comes or if i go or if i just become aware i don't care i'll let the theologians figure it out right now i just enjoy turning my affection towards him and he will come and he'll just rest upon me in it and make such a huge it's such a huge part of my life that burning affection for him i love that song by uh martin smith delirious my heart burns for you that's just that phrase is actually one of my favorite phrases in all literally in all of church history of of music that i've heard and if you can imagine doing that day after day after day for an extended season and then i remember i i woke up one day and it's very hard to explain to you how many of you remember when you were children uh small kids and you the first time you spent the night at somebody else's house and you felt homesick or you went to summer camp and you were just dying with homes i remember that maybe some of you are probably just glad to get out of the house but there was a few of us that struggled with homes chris was glad to get out of the house i was homesick so he never felt homesick all right well i have i woke up that morning this is hard to explain but let me do my best i woke up that morning and i felt homesick and i wasn't sure why in that initial moment i felt homesick just empty and i woke up and i began to ponder and think and i realized oh last night i didn't turn my affection towards him hard to describe were abiding presence actually becomes home abiding presence actually is like a room that you're in it's like it's like the place where you live i woke up with that homesickness feeling thankfully i could see it clearly so i knew what to do but the point i want to make is is something about this affection for the lord the subject for today is prayer so we'll get there but what i have found in my own personal life is that being a worshiper is what positions me to pray effectively i uh how many of you remember back in the caveman days when there was this thing called cassette tapes remember that and even before that eight-track and yeah all right but we'll just go to cassette tapes just i remember getting a cassette tape of a teaching by a great man of god named derek prince anybody remember derek branson great bible teacher especially from the 70s and um i remember listening to this this tape and in this tape he was talking about worship and prayer and he made this statement he said if you have if you only have 10 minutes to pray take seven or eight of them to worship and then he said you can pray for a lot of things in two minutes as as crazy as it may seem that statement changed my life because it marked me it marked me with a value that if i have ten minutes or i have an hour or two hours whatever it is if i let's say i have an hour that i'm going to take time to pray i'll take 40 or 45 minutes to this day just to worship because you can pray for a lot of stuff in a short period of time and i'd rather i would rather live from that connection of presence because something happens in in that in that moment something happens where you i don't know you subconsciously become aware of the heart of god it's not um i don't know i does anybody know what i mean when he's about striving in prayer you you strive to pray you strive praying and he's you know it's not that it's you just pick up the heart of god you find yourself instinctively praying his heart with insight on what he wants in this matter and sometimes our prayers are even shorter and briefer i i remember years ago i had i had purpose my aunt uh helen uh talked to me once and she said you should study the prayers of nehemiah and um and she called them rifle shots and if you go through nehemiah you'll find quite a few prayers in there but they were all one-liners you know when you're outside of that bubble of presence you pray along when you're inside a few words changes everything it's the effect of your prayer oftentimes is the place that you pray from complaining is prayer in reverse complaining actually reveals that i'm losing the battle over my thoughts complaining criticism resentment all that kind of stuff it just reveals i'm losing the battle over my own thought life say this with me rejoice always pray without ceasing in everything give thanks for this is god's will say it again rejoice always pray without ceasing in everything give thanks for this is god's will that's first thessalonians um chapter 5 verses 16 17 18. let me read it to you the passion translation let joy be your continual feast make your life a prayer in the midst of everything be always giving thanks for this is god's perfect plan for you in christ jesus rejoice always pray without ceasing and everything give thanks any situation that i cannot rejoice in or give thanks in i'm losing the battle over my thoughts see one of the problems for us is that the angel comes to us as an angel of light okay look up here the angel of light what does that mean that means he will always come to us different than what he's trying to accomplish in other words he never comes with a red rubber suit horns and a pitchfork he comes for example a fence will come into a person's life because they think they're functioning in discernment many times people in prophetic ministry will be angry and bitter but they'll call it the burden of the prophetic it's true i'm so thankful for our team because they don't function enough but we have we have history been exposed to that for years and it's justified because the enemy has come in like an angel of light what happens for every one of us our gift will determine what we're most susceptible to but for every one of us the enemy comes as an angel of light trying to sneak something in to our our our place or our hearts sneak something into our heart that actually works in opposite of what we are buying into so this whole notion of being discerning i actually opened myself up for a spirit of offense and resentment and all those things are actually outcroppings of of receiving this angel of light so to speak what rejoicing and thanksgiving do is they completely dismantle that mindset they expose truly for once and for all the root system that the enemy has the the lie that he has used to persuade people to buy into a lie and rejoicing being able to choose joy what does it say rejoicing always pray without ceasing never think of things so we have joy and thankfulness sandwiches and effective prayer life rejoice rejoicing and thankfulness are absolute pure expressions of faith it's what sets us up to pray effectively is the fact that i'm in the middle of a conflict a situation i don't like i wish i could change but until i can honestly move into a place of absolute surrender and celebrate with joy and give thanks in the middle of what i don't like i'm losing the battle over my thoughts amen bill that was a very very good point very good point [Applause] what happens to the person who who learns a lifestyle a man named a catholic priest from many many years ago called father lawrence wrote a book called practicing the presence and and his whole ambition was to stay conscious of god 24 7. he never claimed to have arrived to that but his point was is that whether he was washing pots of pans or he was in the prayer house praying his awareness of the presence didn't change and there's something about the the presence if you can look at it this way there's nothing in heaven that is separate from the presence of god yes so in essence god himself is the person of heaven and we are seated in christ it is a foretaste of eternity it is a foretaste i'm not saying he leaves us i'm not saying we leave him i'm just saying there are times where my affection my thoughts are anchored in things that are very inferior and it doesn't mean he's left me it just means i have i have i'm it seems that all the things that i am born for are out of reach in this moment until i repent and deal with these wayward thoughts and these wayward affections stepping back into that place it's not it's not guilt and shame that doesn't get me there in fact i i had a thought this last week that i've got to work on but um the thought is this we experience guilt and shame in the same measure that we over emphasize our role in our own conversion we are susceptible to guilt and shame in the same measure that we overemphasize our role in our own conversion well i found god yeah yeah you actually didn't he found you first but i put my faith in christ that's right but he gave you the faith to believe him with everything the stager said he called my name i responded to his invitation he initiated i love god yes i do but he loved me first right and anytime we over emphasize our role in this equation we are much more susceptible to guilt and shame because it's a product of not being enough doing enough but this will sound kind of dumb but i i just in some way wish that that we were just known as the church of the burning hearts it's a dumb name but i sure like the meaning [Laughter] i'm already in trouble i don't want to change the name burning burning hearts but the burning ones the the people who who know how to just in that place of deep affection i remember back uh how many of you remember the energy crisis of the 70s when there's the long gas lines and all that well before that so it's this goes way back um i remember uh listening to a man speak he said his home he lived in a second his he and his wife their master bedroom was in the second floor uh second story of a home that they lived in and he said it just took forever to get the hot water from downstairs water hot water heater up to their bathroom and so what he finally learned to do was right before going to bed he would just turn the hot water on just a little bit so that it would just constantly stream water just very little bit all night long so that when he got up in the morning he could just turn that thing on and he had hot water instantly that's what a burning heart of affection is like you don't have to work your way into the presence to pray effective prayers you're you're there you're there why because you carry a burning heart of affection there's this there's this continuous stream of presence continuous stream of being one that burns for the lord it's it's not it's not a works thing although works come from it it's it's not performance thing it's it's not just singing the right songs and all that stuff it's just being conscious it's it's you do that for a week and you're homesick when you miss a day that's all that's all i know to say is you can tell you can tell because things aren't as clear in your mind things aren't as clear in your heart your understanding of scripture is not as sharp why because it's not something you did wrong it's not punishment it's not sin it's just we were born for the glory we were born for heaven that's what we're designed for and all these little things that come in the offenses and questions and you know what if you have a problem with an individual get a breakthrough in thanksgiving you have a problem with somebody if you can't give thanks you're losing the battle and here's the cool thing you don't have to you were designed to win you were designed to win to give thanks in that situation the job you have is troubling to you you know what you can either be the victim of bad circumstances or you can be the victor you can be the person who turns it around literally through the simplicity of rejoicing and thankfulness just to give thanks consciously bringing someone to mind that you've had conflict with and giving thanks that god causes all things to work for good the lord i do i celebrate i honestly celebrate the fact that you're able to use anything that comes my way what i'll do is i'll actually look into that person's life especially when it has to do with believers i'll look into that person's life and find the gift or that thing that they were called to do that has made such a difference in my life or such an impact on this church or whatever it might be and just truly become thankful sometimes we're not thankful for people because we haven't stopped long enough to consider who they are in christ the bible actually says we're supposed to fear one another in the fear of christ [Applause] uh to celebrate the value of a person my dad would have this statement that's honestly probably one of the most important things i've ever heard anyone say he said wash a person's feet until you know why they walk the way they do i remember being in the service not here it was somewhere else and i'm not going to tell you where but far away i remember being in the service and it was worship and it was the worship was great but there was just somebody close to me physically close it was just making all kinds of noise i found it quite annoying because they didn't seem to be singing the same song in fact i had this happen once in another country where the the gal would only sing in between the lines and would not sing the words and she had one of them piercing falsetto soprano voices and there were two teenage girls standing in front of her that were trying so hard to worship and then they would break down and laugh and then they would i watched the entire meeting they would fight their way back and they would worship god and then she would right behind her singing this false just piercing they would find themselves laughing and then they i mean they fought so hard i mean it was a well-fought battle they fought so hard when the worship was over i walked up to him i gave him both twenty dollars i said here you earned this one i give us [Applause] well it was one of those meetings and there was somebody over here that was just doing that doing that stuff and and i i i've been around this mountain enough i know it's stupid for me to think critical so i'm not going to think critical i'm going to press into worship i and i didn't have hard feelings i just wish she would stop absolutely true worship came to a close heidi baker stan standing uh just a few feet away she comes over she points to this woman she goes isn't that amazing and then she said 35 years as a prostitute and now she's free [Applause] all of a sudden all that noise that was annoying was a symphony heidi took the time to wash her feet find out why she walks the way she does and that limp became beauty you know see it's it's that it's that heart of tenderness towards presence that that makes us more prone to that conclusion than all the others that we that we run into there's this crazy idea that the church is made up of mary and martha's and nothing would ever get done if it wasn't for martha's i mean remember that story mary sat at the feet of jesus martha was angry with marriage because she wasn't helping with the work so i've heard people say nothing would get done if it wasn't for martha's and i'm pretty confident it was a martha that made that up [Applause] i'm pretty confident a martha made up that statement to justify their reasoning for making sandwiches jesus never ordered see something happens in the glory this is absolutely true in the glory things happen at such a higher level and a higher pace and greater efficiency and effectiveness that you get done in one hour what might have taken days otherwise outside of the glory there's something about being a people that cultivate awareness of presence this glorious one that changes everything i know of situations where that glory has shown up without presence because of the affection the adoration of worshipers that affection just comes crashing in around a crowd of people that are literally surrounded by friends to kill them they are there to kill them and then that glory comes because there's these yielded surrendered hearts of lovers of god and that glory comes and this army that is surrounding them to kill them fall on their faces every one of them get up born again every one of them get up healed every one of them get up speaking in tongues every single person in this group why because something happened they could preach for 20 years and not get that conclusion but when the presence comes and that measure everything changes and it's the ambition should be the ambition of the burning heart the church of the burning hearts changing the name here it is right now just to just that's just between you and me church of the burning hearts saint burning hearts no no something happens in the hearts of those who anchor themselves in that glorious presence i want to read a couple verses and then we'll wrap this up open to matthew 14. i've literally got just a couple minutes but matthew 14. it might be good to take a look at what impresses jesus do you remember the story of the centurion in the bible he has such clear understanding of kingdom authority and unusual faith that jesus stopped in his tracks and acknowledged his wisdom and his faith remember the syrophenician woman who was refused to be offended at jesus's comment that he couldn't give the children's bread to dogs she overcame offense and stepped into great faith jesus stopped and acknowledged that faith do you remember when jesus was ascending to the father his resurrection he was ascending to the right hand of the father to be forever with the lord on his way saw mary out of whom seven demons had been cast was at the tomb weeping and jesus was on his way to the father and he was so moved by her love that he stopped the procession and went and communicated with her for moments before he went to the father what moved him that love in john the baptist jesus was moved by the faithfulness of a man that would pour out his life for jesus to come on the scene and he said he's the greatest of all the prophets when john the baptist is killed it's in chapter 14 of matthew it says herod sent in verse 10 and had john beheaded in prison verse 12 his disciples came took away the body buried it and they went and told jesus look at the next phrase when jesus heard it he departed from there by a boat to a deserted place we don't know what jesus is processing but we do know he had the same emotional framework that we have the bible says he was tempted in all points as we are yet without sin so there must have been some sort of a challenge emotionally mentally to this that he was facing that he saw this man that he had just praised three chapters earlier as the greatest prophet greater than all of them in the old testament he acknowledges his significance and now he hears that john the baptist has been beheaded it was so challenging that jesus the son of god sought for a place to get by himself the very next scene he's with a multitude and he multiplies the food they are all fed what does he do after that it says in verse 23 when he sent the multitude away he went up on a mountain by himself to pray what's the point in crisis get along with god in victory get along with god the very next story is it says every person that came to jesus that was able to touch his clothing was healed the very last verse of this chapter what's the point stewarding our moments we all know how to pray when we're in trouble we pray instinctively when there's a problem people that don't believe in god pray instinctively when there's a problem if you're up there right but not all of us get alone after a great victory and it's it's in those moments the metal that we are made of so to speak is formed and the great breakthrough came following that second time praying get along when there's victory it was in that next moment now anybody in the crowd that just touches cloth is healed it was such an extraordinary anointing that anyone that just bumped against him had access to a miracle it followed not prayer and trouble it followed prayer in victory i believe this heart of adoration that the lord is i believe wanting to impart for us today as a church family i know i've made reference to this uh for years so i i i understand it's not new but i do believe there's an impartation uh today i i believe he brought this to my mind because in declaring it there would be burning hearts all over this room that would find would find it easy to just turn affection towards him to anchor into that place of glory of presence in that place to draw from this wonderful wonderful god and from that place see effective prayers i want to shape the course of history with my prayers like you do but sometimes the strength of our prayer is actually determined by the place i pray from so father my cry for us as a church family my cries that you would impart a grace for this right now that we would find our hearts burning for you at the most unusual and sometimes awkward times sitting on the plane in the hotel at our neighbor's home wherever driving to get groceries just that we would be a people that just knew how to cultivate the burning heart of affection that refuses to be offended that refuses to embrace resentment all the stuff that just a people teflon people because our hearts are burning for you nothing sticks nothing of the inferior sticks to a burning heart nothing of the inferior sticks to a burning heart god i pray that you impart this grace to us today amen we're gonna i'm gonna let you go in just a moment but before i do i want to make sure that everybody in this room has a personal relationship with the lord jesus christ he came he suffered he died so that every person here our whole bethel family that is watching online everyone can know what it is to be born again it is the most important moment of your life and if you're i need to ask for people not to be walking around because this is too precious a moment if i can except for those up here if there's anybody here that would say bill i don't want to leave the building until i know i have found peace with god till i know what it is to be born again then i want you just to put a hand up and i'm going to make an agreement with you right right down here is one right over here is another one anybody else put your hands up high it's wonderful all right i see it there's at least two that i can see i want all of you to stand that's what i'm going to ask you to do if i could have the two of you that raised your hand and anyone else that i missed or or you want to get in on this i want you to come right over here to my left there's a banner and there's people that we know and trust all they're going to do is talk and pray with you because i want to make sure that you leave with what you came here for so just come on down church why don't you bless them as they come let's have our ministry team come to the front as well come on up ministry team coming up bless you

Channel: Bill Johnson Teaching (Official)

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Keywords: bill johnson sermons, bill johnson, supernatural, bethel church, miracles, christian, bethel, holy spirit, revival, sermon, holy ghost, spiritual warfare, bethel.tv, knowing god, presence of god, seeing god, signs and wonders, bill johnson 2020, bethel redding, bill johnson bethel, bill johnson healing, healing, faith, Jesus, presence of God, Gods presence, Bill Johnson 2019, best sermons, online church services

Id: 1MNTvD9VhIU

Length: 41min 31sec (2491 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 23 2020