In this episode Gina has a conversation with her friend Nancy Joy Dozier. From Nancy’s upbringing as a pastor’s kid and her husband’s battle with a life threatening illness to the power of God’s word and the power of our words, Gina & Nancy cover a lot of ground. You will be encouraged, challenged and inspired!
Nancy Joy Dozier is a certified life coach, author, speaker, personal pastor, and mentor.
Click below to listen starting at 22:41 to follow along.
Declaring God’s Word Enforces His Truth
Nancy:
Me and my husband got married and moved to Atlanta. We started serving at our local church here, which was just a great journey, a time of growth and learning. We were newly married and we got thrown in. It was the newness of marriage and newness of ministry in a way. Us really serving together in ministry, because we had both been in ministry, but now coming together, doing it full time.
We did everything. From kids church to youth church, to youth camp to driving the van full of youth, worship, cleaning toilets. We were always in the posture of serving the Lord however Ge wanted us. It was never about a title or never about, “Hey look at me! I’m so anointed!” It was, “God, where do you want me? I will scrub this toilet in Jesus name. If that’s what you desire, if that’s where you want me.” Honestly that was our posture.
God began to create opportunities and create doors for us and began to grow us in the place of ministry and expand and enlarge us. We did that. We started building teams, started traveling, started doing a lot of things. Several years into that we ran into a crazy storm, a crazy health storm. Because up until that point, everything was good. We were happy and serving and sometimes tired and exhausted, but good.
Out of nowhere, my husband had this crazy like health attack, where he had gone down to a conference in Jacksonville and I get this call from a voice I don’t know. They’re screaming in my ear asking me, “What is your husband allergic to.” I’m like, “Who are you? What is happening?”And they’re like, “We need to know what he is allergic to, because we need to administer medication.”
All these different things that were going on with him. They’re trying to explain to me that he had had some type, what they thought was, a cardiac situation at the time. He had collapsed in this parking lot, literally. They picked him up by the ambulance, taken him to the hospital down there. All this crazy stuff ensued. It was one of those times where you’re so desperate. I was so desperate. I didn’t know what was going on.
I literally drove myself to the airport and was sitting there waiting on my flight. I didn’t even realize that I was crying and praying out loud. So out of it. I was just sitting there waiting on my flight, begging God, “Lord, this is not what You promised us. There are things that You have spoken. There are words that You have declared, over Eric, over myself, over us together that I haven’t seen yet. So either You are liar or this situation is a lie, but it can’t be both.”
I got there and a few days after we were able to drive him back. But it went from bad to worse. Because he was given some medication that he ended up having severe reactions to. That started to shut down his organs and started us through a whole three year journey of trying to get him well, of him being in bed, not being able to work, not being able to play his instruments, not being able to do much of anything, in and out of ERs, in and out of ambulances.
You know there’s a problem when you pull up to the ER and they know you by your first name, that’s not okay. That’s how often we were there. But Gina, in midst of all of that, there were so many miracles. I saw the power of God to resurrect. We saw God do things that were just unfathomable. Things that doctors don’t understand. We talk about creative miracles. There’s this one.
And I always tell this portion of our story, because we were learning things about our physical bodies that I never even knew. We learned that you have something called an Elio CCAL valve. I’ve never heard of that day in my life, but it connects your small intestine to your large intestine. When it’s functioning well, your body is able to synthesize your nutrients, then remove whatever waste. It kind of separates, this is good, this is bad. Take in the nutrients and synthesize them. That gives you energy and strength.
It’s not something that they typically would like to operate on or anything. They can’t really get to it. Whenever they were going through all these tests, we went to every specialist in the city, it took forever to figure out what was going on. There’s so many diagnoses, so many different things. They finally figured out that part of what’s happening with my husband is that his Elio CCAL valve had deteriorated. It just looked like Swiss cheese.
His body was not retaining nutrients. He dropped all this weight. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t hold down his food. He had no appetite. Once we heard that, then we could go to God and we could say, “Listen, you made his EIio CCAL valve, so You’re going to have to fix it. You’re going to have to make it better and do a creative miracle. Because they can’t even operate on it. There’s nothing they can do. So You’re going to have to do it Jesus.” And He did. To be able to go back and for them to say, “What happened? The Elio CCAL valve is perfect, and it’s totally functional.”
That just goes to show that our Father hears us. When we posture ourselves to speak back to God, there’s three things that happen. When we speak the word, when we decree the word. Even the word decree is legislative. It is legal language. It’s not random. It’s not this nice, if you feel like it, say something. No, it is “Make a legal declaration, a legal announcement or announcement of what God has said.”
What happens is that as you’re speaking, as you’re decreeing, you are bringing your life into the realm of on earth as it is in heaven. Your decree brings you into the reality of what God has already spoken, what God has already declared over your life. You are just echoing that. You’re just speaking. You’re enforcing that. Like a police officer, they don’t make the law, they enforce the law. They have a legal right. They have a badge that is an authority that allows them to enforce the law.
When someone trespasses or someone breaks the law, they’re going 95 mph in a 65 mph. A police officer has the authority to say, “Wait a minute. That’s not okay. You are going over. You’re trespassing.” They have authority. Three things happen when I decree the Word of God, first of all, I remind God of what He said. Listen, God is not a liar. God is not a two timer. He’s not schizophrenic. He’s not changing His mind every other day.
The scripture says there is no shadow of turning with Him. He is constant. He will not change His mind. If He spoke it, the Bible says in the book of Isaiah, His word will not return void. He’s not going to sit up there and say, “You know what, Gina? I know I made you a promise, but girl, I’m not feeling it today. I’m going to change my mind.” Every word that proceeds out of His mouth, the Bible says, He’s watching over His word to fulfill it.
It says that He’s even placed His Word above all His names. He’s been given the name that is above every other name. The scripture says, “He’s got the name above every other name, but above the name, which is above every other name is the Word.” Second thing that happens when I speak the word, is that hell is reminded. “You can’t touch me.”
Gina:
I’m so glad you said all of this because it’s a kingdom. There is a spiritual realm and there are boundaries. The enemy knows exactly what his authority is and what it isn’t. He knows how far he can go and how far he can’t go. He knows where he is invited in and where he can’t breach that border. The problem is believers. We don’t know our authority. We don’t know what the boundaries are. We don’t know all of that.
We are tossed by everything, from our unbelief and our fear to the enemies, leveraging his knowledge of what he can and can’t do. If believers could step into and recognize and believe who they are, who God is, the power of His Word, the authority in His Word, the authority that we carry as sons and daughters, then immediately so much of the spiritual warfare and the things that we come under would not be of issue.
Nancy:
It would not. Because the Word of God is alive. The Word of God is quick. It is sharper than any two edged sword. I can make the decision to wallow in my pity party trauma, whatever it is. Not discounting any of the things that we go through. It’s very real. If you’re going through grief, because maybe you’ve lost someone that you love, your child, your mate, your parent. It’s very real. We’re not discounting that.
But God is saying, “I’m giving you a choice. You can allow that grief, or you can allow that situation to arrest you and you just stay locked in that place. Or you can begin to decree your way out of the grave. Decree your way out of the tomb. Decree your way out of oppression and anxiety, experiencing fear and torment. You can speak the Word of God, until those things break. Because as you’re speaking the Word, you are reminding the devil, you’re reminding the enemy, “I know who I am. Take your hands off of my mind. Do you not know that I know who I am. I know who my Father is.”
Our Posture of Prayer
Gina:
Earlier, you talked about posturing. I had a situation, we may have talked about this, one of my daughters was going through something that was very scary, spiritual attacks. And I was praying, I was interceding. I was taking authority and doing all the things that I know to do, but it was coming from a place of desperation. It was coming from a place of fear. Even though I was praying, I was taking authority. I was doing all these things, but the Holy Spirit stopped me. God said “Stop. You’re desperate. You’re fearful. What are you doing?”
It wasn’t a reprimand, but it was this sweet conviction. It was like, “Hold on. I’m here. You need to change what you’re saying. You need to change what you’re praying.” In that moment, I went from, “God, please break this!” to, “You are on the throne, Lord. I thank you that You have victory. I thank you that no weapon formed against my daughter will prosper. I thank you that You said!” That’s that posturing.
When Jehoshaphat, when they were surrounded and he was afraid and he went before the Lord, “What do we do?” And God said, “Do not be afraid or be dismayed, this is not your battle, but Mine. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.” There’s an act of stillness, and there’s a passive stillness. He didn’t just stand still and coward and fear. He commissioned his army, “You praise His holiness, you worship.”
He activated the army, but he activated them in the Spirit and he activated them in their identity. And he activated them according to the Word of the Lord, that it was His battle. As soon as they did that, their enemies were defeated. There’s power. It’s so significant when we recognize the goodness of God and we speak it.
You talk so much about the Word, the power of the Word, the Word became flesh, the Word in the beginning. Then leveraging the truth and the power of God’s Word in my life. I had a woman prophecy over me when I was in Dallas this last year. It was awesome. She was amazing. She had a word from the Lord and there was all this encouragement.
But then there was a little rebuke from Jesus. And it was, “You have to pray the prayers for me to answer them. You stopped praying. You stopped asking. I can’t move until you ask. You’re praying too small. You’re asking too little. You need to start praying it so that I can answer, so that I can move on your behalf.” Sometimes it’s hard for us.
God’s not a genie in a bottle. It’s not about bossing God around. It’s about coming into an alignment with His Word and His will. We take, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” We start here. “I’m going to delight You.” But we don’t go back to “Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land. Feed on His faithfulness.” Then you can delight, because you’ve oriented yourself and postured yourself at His feet, in dependence, trusting His Word, trusting His character.
Nancy:
It’s powerful. With the journey that we went through, this is when God really began to teach me about the power of the decree. I was this good Christian girl, this little, mission trip going, Jesus loving, sign me up for Lou Engle’s The Call, True Love Waits type chick. You think you have all the tools, you think you know everything. Then you hit this storm and God is like, “I’m going to give you the keys to the kingdom.” And the keys to the kingdom come in the form of revelation.
It comes in the form of God unpacking, giving us the hidden things. Isaiah 45 talks about that. He will give us hidden things, secret things in hidden places. God begins to give me this key of the decree. I learned that three things happen. When I speak the Word, I remind God that He is a just God, I remind God that He has a reputation.
Because Moses was like, “Listen, if something happens to us, what are these people going to say about You? If something happens to us and we die in the wilderness and we are destroyed by our adversaries in the wilderness and we told all of these people that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was calling us from slavery, was calling us out of this 400 year of bondage and calling us to this place, flowing with milk and honey. If that does not happen, what are they going to say about You?”
Gina:
Old Testament under the law, pre-cross, pre-indwelling Holy Spirit. These fathers of the faith had that intimate, that relationship. That’s not authoritarian dictatorship, and I am just submitting myself. It’s relationship. You don’t have a conversation with a dictator. You don’t wrestle with a dictator. You don’t have a conversation going, “What are you doing?” “I’ll sit here and let you correct Me.” But that’s relationship.
Nancy:
It’s has to be. And that’s what makes the decree different from the “name it and claim it” different from the manifesting, which is the trend now. Everybody’s like, “I can manifest a husband, I can manifest a house. I can put a bunch of pictures on a board and just imagine, it’s going to happen. I can take a bunch of monopoly money and stick it on that board, and I’m just going to get an avalanche of dollars in my bank account.”
But the reality is, it’s knowing your Father. It’s having intimacy with Him. If you think about the things that God says about Moses, the things that God says about David, like, “A man after My own heart.” The Bible says that Moses was the most humble man on the face of the earth. He was a friend of God. He could go to God and say, “I just think You should know that if something happens to us, people are going to be looking at You kinda crazy, because You’re the one that told us You were bringing us out.”
Your decree is not based on religiosity. It’s not based on manipulating God. Because the Bible says, God is not mocked. We can’t manipulate God. But if you have relationship with the Father, if you have relationship with Jesus, if you walk with Holy Spirit. There is this dimension of intimacy where you can begin to commune with the Father in such a way, the Bible says He delights in prospering you. He delights in the prosperity of His saints.
You can go to God and remind Him of what He said. Then, when I decree it reminds the enemy, “You are not going to punk me. You are not going to destroy. You’re not going to come here to steal, kill and destroy and think I’m just going to stand here and act like, I don’t know who I am and what God has spoken.” And the third thing that happens is you remind yourself “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.”
Then it says this, “Without faith, it is impossible to please God, for he who comes to God must know that He is God. And He’s a rewarder for them that diligently seek Him.” I’m looking for a reward from God. I’m looking for a breakthrough from God. I’m looking for a healing. I need this thing to break off of my kid. I need this thing to break off of my business. God is like, “You not even pleasing me right now, because you’re not in faith.”
Gina:
Isn’t that the enemies tactic, “Did God really say?” His tactic is to sow that doubt. When you’re repeating God’s Word back to him, that reminding of the enemy is also declaring, “You are not going to pull me to doubt. You are not going to cause me to move into unbelief. Because this is who my God is. And this is who He says I am.”
I love page 64 of your book, Decree a Thing by Nancy Joy Dozier. You said, “He is not looking for us to be creative or impressive. He will not override your will. You have to give Him permission by aligning with His Word through your decree. He’s just looking for us to simply repeat back to Him what He’s already said. There’s no need to be deep. It’s as simple as saying, “God, you said in Your Word, that those who put their trust in You will never be put to shame. I believe it. And I decree It”” I think we try to make it so complicated, but the invitation is so simple.
Nancy:
It’s so simple. This is something that you can teach your babies. You can teach your five year old, your four year old, how to declare and to decree. What is it that God says about me? I’m fearfully and wonderfully made. I’m the head and not the tail. God said that about me. It just gets down in their heart. It gets down in the soil of who they are. It doesn’t have to be this deep Greek and Hebrew lexicon and Strongs, where you just feel sanctified because you’re out here, using all these big words. He’s saying, “Literally echo back to Me.” And here’s why that works.
Here’s here’s the key to that. We are made in the image and the likeness or the similitude of God. That means I have the ability of God. He didn’t make me to desire to be like Him and never have the ability to be like Him. He made me to be like Him. He’s like, “What did I do? I spoke and we got stars. I spoke and we’ve got oceans.” He speaks all these things into existence. Then He’s like, “Wait, but with you, I’m going to actually give you My DNA, so you have the ability to do the same.”
What does God do? He breathes into man. And he becomes a living soul. Do you know that there’s DNA in your breath? DNA is released. If I were to breathe on somebody’s hand and they go get their hand tested, they will find my DNA on their hand. He inserts Himself into us. He breathes into us and we become a living being. We now have His DNA.
We now have His ability. He’s like, “If I spoke and I call things that were not as though they were, and now they’re here, they’re existing. I need you to do the same. I just need you to be like your Daddy. Be like your Daddy, call the things that be not as though they were.” Call the healing to manifest. Call the different organs to be made whole, that the doctors are saying, failing. You’re in heart failure. Command your heart out of rebellion and into alignment with the will of God.
Gina:
I’m so glad you made that last statement. This is why I love your book so much. You go into what’s the motivation for what you’re asking. There needs to be a redemptive purpose in what you’re asking. What we’re saying is not, “God is a genie in a bottle and because His word is powerful and because you’re His daughter is your son, He has to do what you say.” No, no, no, no. This is alignment with His will, His purposes and His plan. This is alignment with the Kingdom. Does the desire align with the purpose of God?
This is your book, page 70. “I would do you a great injustice, if I just told you to name it and claim it and wait for the check in the mail. Do you want to be healed just to be free from affliction? Do you want to be wealthy just to live lavishly? Do you want great anointing just to be regarded as being special. There must be redemptive purpose in the healing.” And I just love that, because it goes back to aligning our will with His, posturing ourselves in His presence and His purposes, which are for our good and for His glory.
Nancy:
For our good and His glory. That’s the thing that is so different from, again I don’t mean to harp on this, but it’s such a big thing where even believers are really embracing some of these like new agey type of ideologies. Where I’m going to manifest all this money so I can live the life that I deserve. I can jet set and do all of these things that I am owed. Nobody owes you anything.
Check out Nancy Joy Dozier
Check the rest of this conversation A Story of God’s Calling in Crisis & Are Declarations Biblical?
Check out the Dwell Meditations
