THE RENEWED MIND
This teaching inspired me to renew my mind and to host God’s presence. Pastor Bill said: “Don’t live in reaction to the devil, but rather, in response to the Father.” That simple phrase changed the way I react to the world around me. It all starts with a renewed mind. As a result, I no longer want to change people, but rather focus on what I carry as a daughter of God.
Credits: Teaching by Pastor Bill Johnson, BSSM First Year 2015/2016
‘THE RENEWED MIND’: BSSM LECTURE NOTES
Don’t live in reaction to the devil but in response to the Father. Know who you are and simply radiate that.
THE RENEWED MIND ENHANCES FAITH
Faith is hearing the Word of God (present tense!). Your capacity to hear the voice of God comes from spending a lot of time in the Word of God.
What is discipline? In John 15:3, we see that pruning is God’s discipline. The discipline of God is His voice – it is not punishment.
Mark 8: 13-21
“And He left them, and getting into the boat again, departed to the other side. Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and they did not have more than one loaf with them in the boat. Then He charged them, saying, ‘Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Phari-sees and the leaven of Herod.’
The disciples didn’t know what Jesus was talking about.
“But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, ‘Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened? Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up?’ They said to Him, ‘Twelve.’ ‘Also, when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up?’ And they said, ‘Seven.’ So He said to them, ‘How is it you do not understand?’”
Jesus is after your mind to renew it. The renewed mind enhances faith. Faith shapes the mind and intellectual process. We understand because we believe. Faith leads us to understand.
WHY IS THE RENEWED MIND SO IMPORTANT?
Romans 12:2
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
The renewed mind displays the will of God. What does God want? Jesus prayed: “Let you Kingdom come, let Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
If you understand everything that is going on in your Christian life, you have an inferior Christian life. There has to be ‘mystery’ in your relationship with God. You don’t have to know every ‘why’. Bill Johnson says he has a ‘mystery file’ and doesn’t ask God why. He trusts that God knows best. Rather, he asks God: “God, what do you want me to learn in this process?”
If you want the peace that surpasses understanding, you need to let go of your understanding.
Jesus says in Scripture that you need to be careful of the political system and the religious system: “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees (religious order) and the leaven of Herod (political order). Why do you reason? Don’t you understand?” Jesus equates the ‘hardening of the heart’ to having no understanding.
Faith sees things that are greater than what you can see with your natural eyes. Your experience in God is supposed to help you to see. Miracles and breakthroughs are the lenses through which you need to look. Miracles need to change the way you think, otherwise they didn’t have the full effect that they should have had.
Sometimes, when you can’t see or hear, you need to go back to remembering what He did in the past. When you focus on that, it will make it easier to have “eyes to see” and “ears to hear.”
In John 5:38, Jesus was drawing back the disciples’ memory to their experience with God.
“But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe. You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.”
When you have a revelation, it needs to lead you to an encounter with God, otherwise you just become more religious. It is the Presence in the Word that makes it powerful. When you read the Word it needs to change how you think, and therefore, renew your mind.
If you don’t change the way you think, your prayer life will ask God to change the problem. Rather, decide to become like Him and learn how to solve the problem. Abide in Him. He is the Vine, you are the branches.
The renewed mind knows that sometimes God doesn’t want to do things for you, but through you.
God delights in us becoming who He created us to be.
To be exposed to the miracle realm needs to change the way we think, otherwise we become callous to the things that we’ve been exposed to.
