Supernatural Power of a Renewed Mind - Bill Johnson of www.iBethel.org

Disk 4 of 8 - Eyes of a Tender Heart - True humility causes a person to lean unto the Lord and see things others may miss.

Renewed mind makes it possible to prove of, thru experience, and demonstrate what the will of God is - this is the backbone of the Great Commission. When you come into submission to the primary mission, then you will be co-missioned to do as Jesus said to do. Out of intimacy, destroy the works of the devil. Mt. 6 - Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. What's the Will of God - the manifestation of the reality of Heaven here on earth. The renewed mind is the tool God uses to demonstrate the reality, the superiority, of the realm of heaven here on earth. If it's going on up there, it ought to be going on down here; and if it's not going on up there, it ought not be going on down here. The renewed mind is often dumbed down in pentacostal circles because we want to be spirit led - to be spirit led is really to bring the mind to a place where it's under the influence of the Holy Spirit ... when the mind is pure, God can give us impressions. Ministry is reduced to our ministry gifts without the realm of the supernatural (music, finance, leadership, business). Our ministry is not what we can do for God, but what can He do thru us? Jer. 33:3 Call to me and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things you do not know (God's phone number). The word mighty means mystery - something out of reach, behind fortification. You cannot discover it, it must be revealed. God has things hidden FOR US, not from us. The mystery of the Kingdom is His good pleasure to give to us. Call, or cry out, is very loud cry to God (desperation of man calling to the deep of God). This opening (intensity) determines the level of revelation we receive. Casual prayer gets casual revelation. When you allow the deep of you to cry within you, it moves the deep of God. I will hear you, answer you, show you, reveal to you, things beyond your reach, things you did not know. Eph. 3:20 is the NT equivelent of Jer. 33:3 Revelation is beyond the reach of natural, human reasoning. It's the prayer of desperation of the heart of man that initiates the beginning of revelation to a person. God is setting us up to be a representative of heaven on earth. (Bill shared a story that they just returned from England, and had the greatest breakthroughs in areas where the occult was the strongest. One old man, who was going deaf, was healed and disappointed, because he had lived in a quiet world. Now everything seemed loud to him, hahahaha. Another lady came in on a rolling chair/bed combination, fibermyolsia ? for 5 years; crippled. Received prayer, got out of bed, and was able to go home in her car - that's the will of God.) God is after an army devoted to the will of God.

Mark 6:30 The apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour (excited; saw miracles) and told him all they had done and what they had taught. 31 Then Jesus said, "Let's get away from the crowds for a while and rest." There were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn't even have time to eat. 32 They left by boat for a quieter spot. 33 But many people saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran ahead along the shore and met them as they landed. 34 A vast crowd was there as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he taught them many things. 35 Late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and said, "This is a desolate place, and it is getting late. 36 Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy themselves some food." 37 But Jesus said, "You feed them." "With what?" they asked. "It would take a small fortune F24 to buy food for all this crowd!" 38 "How much food do you have?" he asked. "Go and find out." They came back and reported, "We have five loaves of bread and two fish." 39 Then Jesus told the crowd to sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat in groups of fifty or a hundred. 41 Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and asked God's blessing on the food. Breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread and fish to the disciples to give to the people. 42 They all ate as much as they wanted, 43 and they picked up twelve baskets of leftover bread and fish. 44 Five thousand men had eaten from those five loaves! 

To Bill this is one of the funniest stories in the Bible:  Disciples came back all excited from mission tour, they had seen miracles. They were tired and Jesus acknowledges it. They get in a boat to go to the other side of the lake. They see all these bozos running around the lake; they know Jesus is going to do the compassion thing when He sees them, and we're going to be in another meeting (they wanted to be resting). The disciples hang out as long as they can stand it, it's late in the day, and the disciples fake compassion - they come to Jesus, and say, "Master" (trying to talk his language), the hour is late ... and these people, these that we 'love so much' have been here ALL DAY, they haven't eaten, you know they'll faint if they don't get something to eat, SEND ... THEM ... AWAY! Jesus said, "you feed them" Awww, suppose we had the money, where do we go to buy the food. Jesus asked how much they had (5 loaves, 2 fish) ... miracle of multiplication happens. Jesus divides the loaves and gave to the disciples 12 pieces (remember this). The disciples had to break the small portions of bread Jesus had given to them.

Mark 6:45 Immediately after this, Jesus made his disciples get back into the boat and head out across the lake to Bethsaida, while he sent the people home. 46 Afterward he went up into the hills by himself to pray. 47 During the night, the disciples were in their boat out in the middle of the lake, and Jesus was alone on land. 48 He saw that they were in serious trouble, rowing hard and struggling against the wind and waves. About three o'clock in the morning F25 he came to them, walking on the water. He started to go past them, 49 but when they saw him walking on the water, they screamed in terror, thinking he was a ghost. 50 They were all terrified when they saw him. But Jesus spoke to them at once. "It's all right," he said. "I am here! Don't be afraid." 51 Then he climbed into the boat, and the wind stopped. They were astonished at what they saw. (the key verse:) 52 They still didn't understand the significance of the miracle of the multiplied loaves, for their hearts were hard and they did not believe.

God gives us miracles to teach how to see (more in chapter 8), to train us how to see differently. It requires an abandoning of our ways, our way of seeing things, thinking. Repentence - change the way we think; radical shift of our view of reality. God calls us to himself, not to just get us to Him, but to get heaven into us; transformation in us so that we are not only delivered, but to make us deliverers! God is not looking to rescue me week after week, but to equip me to rescue others week after week! Some food items, nutrients, our body will not extract. Every situation and encounter with God comes filled with the nutrients necessary to make us strong as representatives of God on this planet; transformed people that can adequately display the will of God in circumstances around us. We go thru life experiencing God, encounters, but we don't extract what was intended for us in that miracle. Disciples had been involved in the feeding miracle; as they gave away the bread, at their hands, it was multiplied (Jesus didn't create a lump sum amount of bread). As the disciples gave away the bread, it was replenished. The disciples had been obedient, but their hearts were hard. Hard heart doesn't mean I'm going to hell, it means there was something there for me that I didn't get. A crust over the surface of the soil, the seed that was to bring further transformation in me could not penetrate. Perfect obedience, the miracle came, were thankful, but when it came to the next problem (rowing against the storm) they hadn't learned the previous lesson. Mark 6:37 (you give them something to eat) Disciples didn't have a clue what to do. Jesus knew He was going to have to walk them thru every step. When Jesus gave them the command to give them something to eat, He didn't say, if you're not going to do it, I'll do it. The food did not multiple at Jesus's hand. The hardness of heart forbid the disciples from seeing their roll in the miracle. Because they couldn't see their role in the miracle, the next time they got into a problem, and Jesus wasn't in the boat, there was no help. The church is so concerned about being arrogant, they embrace stupidity and call it humility.  You give them something to eat Jesus said, but when they were clueless, He didn't say, I'll do it for you. He set them up to give them something to eat. It was at their touch, their obedience, them taking their rightful place in expressing the will of God on the planet, they became the essential ingredient for the miracle to take place, and they never caught it. Much of the church today thinks that Jesus His miracles as God. Jesus did NOT do His miracles as God, but as a man, in right relationship to God. He set aside divinity; setting a model for us to follow. If He did them as God, I applaud and am impressed, but I have no compulsion to follow (I can't do something as great as God). I cannot mimic. But when we discover our whole commission that God has for us is to bring us into service, where we truly demonstrate His will and purposes, we realize Jesus put Himself in self-imposed restrictions, so He would have to do everything he did as you and I would have to do once sin was forgiven, and we were filled with the Holy Spirit. He was training the disciples, not to have to be delivered every week, but to be sent out as deliverers. His goal was not to send them out into a storm so that He could show up and be a hero once again, He planned to walk by on the water. They did not get the lesson, extract the nutrients, in the last miracle. The lesson was: the miracle happened at your hands, it was your touch (tearing the bread into pieces). It was like Jesus saying, you just came back (from mission tour) telling me all the great things the Father did thru you, when you spoke the word, He showed up, miracles took place, then I get you in a situation to feed and you think it was me (Jesus, as a man) that did it. All I did was give thanks for what was about to happen; I gave you guys the food (and a little organization with the groups to make room for the miracle), that's all I did. You guys spread the food out and it multiplied, and you guys missed that the fact that you were an ingredient in the miracle. That hardness of heart prevents us from seeing our purpose. In the name of resisting pride, pursuing humility, people lose their sense of identification. Two greatest temptations in the Bible (see it in the first Adam, and last Adam): First temptation (not to partake of forbidden fruit) "Has God said" ... If satan can get me to try and question what God has said then he can get me to follow with stupid actions. Last Adam (Jesus) (not to turn stone into bread) "If you are the Son of God" - trying to get Him to question His identity. 95% of counseling of people is trying to get them to 1) Stop questioning what God has said and 2) stop questioning who He said they are. It's not humility to deny who I am; it's stupidity; it's abandonment of purpose. God feels completely justified in demanding the impossible from me because He said I'll be with you. Moses asked, who am I? God didn't ignore, as if his question wasn't worthy of an answer, rather He said, you're the man that God goes with. Who are you? You're the one God hangs around; I'm a friend of God and He likes to hang out with me. Enemy tries to get us to question what God has declared over our lives and question our identity. Everything God has made finds it's ultimate joy, gratification, life, all in serving Him. God doesn't show up to Mary to announce the birth of Jesus - He gave an angel the privilege of carrying the message; to be a part of His unfolding plan. All creation finds it's identity and purpose is in the place of service (as He has called us to do). Declaration: Your Top Priority, is to Seek FIRST my dominion (Kingdom - King's Domain) that it would be expressed on earth (and all things will be added unto you). Jesus talked a message and then clearly demonstrated it, showing us what the will of God is. We should never be confused; if you are, you're probably not reading your Bible. What do we do now: we must cry out to God, desperately, in those private times, so that anointing and power increases in our lives, so that when that impossible case confronts us, we're able to step in and say, I'm going to believe God with you, agree with you, there's going to be a miracle in this situation. Backslidden child will return home, that disease in your body, we break it in the name of Jesus, we become expressions of the will of God, instead of the people constantly crying out for Jesus to show up again to calm the wind and the waves, so we can live happily ever after. He wasn't intending to go into the boat because He had already given them the equipment to still the storm. It's not God's will for us to go thru suffering. We should confront the storm, tell the thing to sit down and shut up, and watch the dominion of the Lord released over nature itself. God gives us the tools to defeat the giants that come into our lives. But anxiety/fear causes to forget where the tools are. The disciples are so on edge, that even when Jesus himself shows up (walking on the water) the disciples are scared. God shows up, and He has been gone so long, we call him the devil. Who's that? I don't know, it's a ghost.

Mark 8:13 So he got back into the boat and left them, and he crossed to the other side of the lake. 14 But the disciples discovered they had forgotten to bring any food, so there was only one loaf of bread with them in the boat. 15 As they were crossing the lake, Jesus warned them, "Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod." 16 They decided he was saying this because they hadn't brought any bread. 17 Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he said, "Why are you so worried about having no food? Won't you ever learn or understand? Are your hearts too hard to take it in? 18 'You have eyes – can't you see? You have ears – can't you hear?' Don't you remember anything at all? 19 What about the five thousand men I fed with five loaves of bread? How many baskets of leftovers did you pick up afterward?" "Twelve," they said. 20 "And when I fed the four thousand with seven loaves, how many large baskets of leftovers did you pick up?" "Seven," they said. 21 "Don't you understand even yet?" he asked them.

Jesus gives a sermonette about the leaven. Warning about the influence on the mind (fear of what man thinks). The fire of affliction and difficulty (like oven heat making leaven rise) causes the leaven (sin) in your life to rise to be exposed and surface. Leaven of Herod - political system, popular opinion, persuasion, to get our will done (God helps those who help themselves). Leaven of Pharisees - religous system; God present in theory, but not in practice or experience. The concept of God is central, but the experience of God is removed. Both minds are influenced (motivated) by the fear of man. Both have as a primary motivation, or concern (fear/anxiety), over what people think about what we are about to say, or do, or decide. God is raising up, not a people who are inconsiderate and don't care, who not motivated by a fear of man, but instead in respect of God. Realm of mystery - music, business ideas opening up to those that to Him in realms of mystery. Two fears - one where people run from God, and those that come low to Him (humility/respect). I must answer for my life; that supreme value keeps me seeing clearly. Jesus warns them about this influence on the mind. You're afraid of not having enough lunch? When He started with the least, He fed the most and had the most leftover. When He started with a greater amount He fed smaller group, and had less leftovers (it's not the amount that's important). Nutrients in every miracle where we learn the reality of the kingdom, and it's to teach us how to see. Jesus disappoinment: Disciples are afraid of not having lunch after he had multiplied food for them twice. Jesus starts with this question: Why do you reason that you have no bread? WHY DOES YOUR THOUGHT LIFE BEGIN WTIH WHAT YOU LACK? It's illegal for anyone who has had supernatural provision. Any thought that begins with what we don't have has to be repented for. Jesus was trying to teach them to see thru the miracle they had just experienced. Why can't you see? Hard-heart is equivalent of blind eyes. Jesus asks a series of 3 questions: Can you see; can you hear; and don't you remember? These help us to learn. Hearing opens up the seeing realm. How do you activate hearing? By remembering. Not everyone hears the voice of the Lord, or the impressions of the Holy Spirit. But what can everyone do? Study the works of the Lord. Remember; take time to review so that it shapes the way we think. How do you keep a testimony? (To keep a commandment you obey it) Voluntarily live under the influence of the record (history) of God's supernatural intervention, the work that He did, so that your lifestyle is transformed in anticipating yet another word or miracle. Jesus asked, why do you reason that you have no bread? (disciples reasoned out of fear and felt condemnation - we forgot the bread) Can't you see? (they just surveyed the boat and found no bread) What did He expect them to do? They have a history of bread multiplication on two occasions - that's their (record) history. A history of miracles is to change the way we see present situations. Miracles are tutors; teaching us about unseen realities. Not just what to think, teach us how to see, transforms the heart to a place of tenderness, where the Holy Spirit brings His influence into a realm of creativity that's outside of what we've ever thought of, or considered before. People who are anticipating what God's going to do next just hear better. God is faithful to His word; look. There are no coincidences with God. What are you trying to say to me (Psalms 27:4). Lean into hearing. We miss times of God speaking because it seemed too natural, familiar, or strange. The more you follow after God the more you disbelieve in coincidences. The Master who arranges circumstances to bring encouragement to me or to bring another enemy in front of me to be defeated in His name. If I'm experiencing a conflict or spiritual battle, it's because I've been trained for the moment. Israel was taken the long way, because they never learned in the early days to trust. The Lord, in His mercy, said, when they see war, they're going to fear, and want to turn back, so I'll take them the long way. In the mercy of God, He takes us around the situation we are not trained for. He does take us headlong into the situations we are trained for. The devil has never been a problem (challenge) for God. Only issue is God wanted to raise up people, made in His image, that would enforce His will and would bring a defeat for the powers of darkness in His name. The people, out of intimacy, that love God, would in that role, bring about the destruction of the powers of hell. Why did the storm come to the disciples? They had been trained, equiped for battle, prepared, but because they were so hard (blind) in the last miracle, they never extracted the nutrients, they didn't realize that they were the essential part of the miracle - they thought Jesus multiplied the food; they didn't know they did.

Bill's church had a huge history of broken bones being healed. A young man in his church fell in the back of the church breaking his arm. They came to get the man of God to pray for a miracle. He called for medical help. He knows, and God knew, he feared, and paniced. He had forgotten the many miracles before. Sometimes fear masquerades as wisdom. Bill lost his awareness of his history with broken bones. He had forgot what he had seen. Why do you reason you have no bread - only by forgetting. Repent, get in the renewed mind. The level of revelation, mystery (in fortified walls), in the next 10 years is coming. Things you didn't have the faith to ask for, or the reasoning to imagine. That's the time we live in. Revelation requires obedience; it's not to make us smart. Revelation comes to transform me. I must be more transformed (not out of shame/guilt thing). God gives us vision/revelation to show us where He's taking us. Prayer: We ask in Jesus name, release on this house a spirit of knowledge and revelation that will raise a people that do not fear man, who are familiar with risk, and love the danger. Provoke us; stir up in us the cry that can be heard around the world, that you will show us great and mighty things. Transform us.

Highlights:

Out of intimacy, destroy the works of the devil.
Our ministry is not what we can do for God, but what can He do thru us?
Jesus did not do His miracles as God, but as a man, in right relationship to God.
95% of counseling of people is trying to get them to 1) Stop questioning what God has said and 2) stop questioning who He said they are. It's not humility to deny who I am; it's stupidity; it's abandonment of purpose. God feels completely justified in demanding the impossible from me because He said I'll be with you.
Leaven of Herod - political system, popular opinion, persuasion, to get our will done. Leaven of Pharisees - religous system; God present in theory, but not in practice or experience. Both systems have as a primary motivation, or concern (fear), over what people think about what we are about to say, or do, or decide. 
WHY DOES YOUR THOUGHT LIFE BEGIN WTIH WHAT YOU LACK?
A history of miracles is to change the way we see present situations.
The Master who arranges circumstances to bring encouragement to me or to bring another enemy in front of me to be defeated in His name.
Sometimes fear masquerades as wisdom.