All of us want to do amazing things for God, but many people want the promotion before they’ve gone through the preparation process. Without making it through this process successfully, it is impossible to have character strong enough to sustain your calling.
[Music]
hey everyone welcome today to
conversations with john and lisa and i’m
joined here by lisa and today lisa i’m
really excited about what we’re going to
talk about and that is what are we
talking about today you’ve been saying
the word today a lot what do you have
to we’re going to talk about how god
develops character wow because character
is a big thing right now so are you born
with character or does it have to be
developed it has to be developed wow and
that’s what we’re going to talk about
how he does it and before we jump into
this very important podcast we want to
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so
i’m going to read a review from beth and
it’s right thanks beth for doing a
reading yeah beth thank you in advance
these podcasts are amazing they are so
full of insight challenging and yet fun
and easy to listen to i listen to most
of them with a cup within a couple of
weeks and i’m now re-listening and
taking notes thank you john and lisa
still one of my favorite things to
listen to always faith building loving
and full of truth i love that i love the
way she spells favorites she is not from
the us oh yeah she’s not okay you’re
probably from somewhere like australia
or england i’m gonna guess some place
said no spell let’s go let’s jump into
this we’ve got so much to discuss so
john i’m really excited for this topic i
really believe that we have a
famine of character and i know that you
and i have early on in our lives and
continue to pray that god would work
character into our life and i have found
that every time i cried out to god god
give me your character i don’t want to
have an anointing on my life that my
character can’t sustain so we have a lot
of people who have incredible gifting
but they’ve never gone through that
wilderness that you talk about and god
where are you where you’ve gone through
that thing where the word of god tests
them where the enemy tempts them and
they they come out like gold and the
book of isaiah talks about this isaiah
48 and i love the book of isaiah it’s my
favorite favorite
book of the old testament prophets it
says behold this is god talking i have
refined you but not as silver i have
tried you in the furnace of
affliction affliction
not affliction for my own sake for my
own sake god’s like okay this is why
it’s happening i do it for how should my
name be profaned my glory i will not
give to another
okay there’s so much in this we see the
name of god the one when you you and i
have been around we’ve been in the
ministry now for almost 40 years
two of our three first pastors are no
longer really in ministry
and it all had to do with their platform
got larger than their character yeah and
who you are in private is very very
important and there’s a lot of people
that think that who they are in public
is the most important but who you are in
private when nobody is seeing is really
a test of your life because it doesn’t
really matter who you are in the pulpit
if you are living a double life lisa the
same thing is true in business
it it’s in healthcare every single area
if you’re a stay-at-home mom your
marriage because
if your character is not
uh as developed as your responsibility
your responsibility and your work or
whatever it is is eventually going to
cost you because you don’t have the
character to uphold it i look at
character lisa is like a foundation you
know when they build warships another
word for character would be virtue right
right yeah when they build warships they
put these big cannons on them and these
are these are 50 millimeter cannons
these are even bigger and you know what
they’ve gotta they’ve gotta really sink
those things down in so when that thing
fires it doesn’t destroy the ship it
doesn’t just flip everything so your
character is your ship
and your your gifting is your weapons
and so i look at
i had no idea
that it took character development
to get us to finish well because
finishing well was always important to
you and i especially when we saw our
first pastor fall after being one of the
most renowned well and talented and
talented gifted in the united states and
so i remember i kept crying out god i i
i want to i want to be holy i want i
want to i want to
i want to truly walk in godliness
and
i remember one day the holy spirit spoke
to me and he said son i’m going to begin
to do this work in your life i’m going
to begin to show you how to deny
yourself take up your cross and follow
me i’m going to do a working voice can
you pause for a second because that is
the dynamic that begins the work the
take up your cross deny yourself follow
me that that trifecta yes is the
beginning yeah and he said i’m going to
teach you how to do it so i was so
excited i ran back
to the apartment we were living at we
had only been married a couple years and
i said lisa god just spoke to me i heard
so clearly he’s going to work a work of
holiness in my life and
and i said all the excesses in my life
they’re going to go away well over the
next three months lisa the excesses like
doubled in my life and i was i was twice
as excessive in everything and i
remember you were always sneaking away
and getting frozen yogurt oh yeah yeah
absolutely and i remember after three
months i said god i don’t get it you
told me you were gonna work a holiness
in my life i’m twice as fleshly as i’ve
ever been as a christian before what’s
going on he said son that’s because
you’ve been doing it your way he said
now i’m going to do it my way and he
said holiness is not a work of your
flesh it’s a product of my grace well i
had no idea what he was talking about
but over the next six months i started
going through trials like i had never
encountered before and what was amazing
was they were not self-inflicted trials
you know what do i mean by
self-inflicted when you do something
stupid and you go through hardship i’m
talking about i was doing what was right
and i was going through hardship like
i’d never faced emotionally especially
and um i remember at one point the you
know during all of this i was terror to
live with and i’m so sorry again
i’m yelling at you i’m yelling at
addison was only like nine months old
i’m mad at my friends i’m mad at my
pastor i’m mad at everybody
and one day um i remember putting my
head in the corner of the wall i closed
my office door because i was working for
a big church at the time
and i said god why do i hurt so bad
inside and the lord said because you’re
dying he said there’s always pain and
death and he said son you want to know
how you’re going to be how you you’re
going to know when you’re dead i said
how he said you won’t have any pain
anymore.
and so i remember
uh in that time period i’m i’m so angry
at everybody i’m getting actually
alarmed
at my own behavior and i went out one
morning i said god
i’m actually working acting worse now
than before i got psyched
what is going on
and this is the scripture he used that
you just read about isaiah 48. and you
know i’ve got a technical background he
said son you see the gold ring on your
finger it’s 14 karat gold which means
it’s not pure gold
you know about 40 percent of this ring
is made out of impurities
he said what happens if you put that
ring into a furnace and heat it up a
couple thousand degrees i said well it
liquefies he said then what happens i
said the impurities because their
lighter molecular weights start coming
to the surface he said
so they appear right
i said yeah they appear
and he said you keep asking where the
anger the bitterness is all it’s coming
from he said
i saw this
you didn’t
so that’s like not seeing the impurities
in my gold ring right now he said but
the furnace has caused you to be able to
see it he said now what you do with it’s
going to determine your future yeah you
always have a choice if you own it and
repent i’ll take it out of your life
yeah he said if you justify it he said
we’ll go right back down we gotta start
all over again yeah one of the things we
love to say is once you own a mistake a
sin
a flaw it no longer owns you you’re like
that’s that’s me that’s me you know john
and i should have learned from what you
went through because you went through
that refining process and that was
actually a real
pivotal uh it was really a catalyst for
some of the things that you still preach
and i think a lot of times people think
when they’re going through a hard time
it’s just it’s just an obstacle to get
over and god’s like yeah that’s going to
be a testimony someday but i made the
mistake uh we had i had addison we had
just moved to florida and i was crying
out god i want you to excavate my life
and i remember thinking two weeks later
what did i say
why would i say excavate i should have
said landscape i should have said
accessorize my life because i went
through the same process i started to
see this anger that i had in my life
that was once a month or every other
week start being constant i’m like every
week and then every day and then living
on edge all the time and god was turning
up the furnace to say
you can actually you’re dealing you this
i’m going to show you how bad this is if
you do not allow
me to do something and that was a
private both of these were private works
and i don’t think people understand
david’s faithfulness
in
private
when he
rescued the sheep from the lion and the
bear when no one was watching that
private victory set him up for a public
victory and so if you’re in a hard
season right now and you think well this
is just hard this is hard i’m going to
tell you god never
wastes a private victory god will take
this and go take take you to another
place and you know one of the things
when coveted beginning of covet i
remember god saying to me
tests are designed to bring out the best
in you okay that’s that furnace going up
that’s that that prayer
excavate my life and that everything is
crazy
temptations are designed to bring out
your worst so god isn’t the one who
hates he’s not the one trying to tempt
you but he will bring you into places
where you are tested and that testing is
him saying
john i’m i’m going to let you find out
that you don’t live by bread alone but
by every word that proceeds out of the
mouth of god lisa i’m going to let you
know that this thing that you think it’s
just every once well thing it’s not a
big deal it could become a big deal
so i want to deal with your character in
private because i want to be able to
trust you on a larger level lisa listen
to what james 1 13 says in the light of
this blessed is the man who endures
temptation for after he’s been
tested he shall receive the crown of
life now if you look at this this gives
you something to look forward to when
you’re in the midst of this
i look at jesus he went in and was
tested by the enemy for 40 days right
and the bible says he went in filled
with the spirit but he returned in the
power of the earth now james says to us
after we’ve endured the test we get the
crown of life right now what does crown
speak up speaks of authority yeah so
in the area we’re tested we get
authority in that area if we pass the
test if we pass
you know because when it says let
patience have its perfect work or let
that trial have its perfect work that
you might be mature and perfect lacking
nothing meaning you’ll have that
authority in that area when you
win that area and it starts off with
something count at pure joy
not mixed with any sorrow when you fall
into so again why because when we go
through these hard things god is working
character in us and so even though i can
look back at my life john i’m sure you
feel the same way you can look back at
my life and i have learned more
about the character of god
my lack of character and my need for
character in a hard season than i’ve
ever learned in a season of ease and so
god will use hardship to develop
character in our life but we can we can
whine we can complain like you know what
god said to you you want it to all go
back down you know we can have this cool
off and you will have those impurities
in your ring or you can let me take my
ladle and i’ll deal with the drops i
look at the children of israel and you
look at the wilderness for one group of
people it thwarted their destiny and
that was for the people over 20. for the
other group of people under 20 they
learned how to obey and if you look at
joshua and caleb if you look at the book
of joshua there’s very little
disobedience why because in the same
hardship one group learned how to obey
the other group learned how to complain
and complaining says to god i don’t like
what you’re doing in my life and if i
were you i would do this differently
that is an insult to his character and
his ways and so that is why we never
want to complain one of the quickest
ways to fail a trial a test is to
complain in the midst of it yeah i
remember my boys hated it because i used
to always sing to them do everything
without complaining do everything
without arguing that you might i do
remember that claimless and pure
children of god blameless and pure
children of god is about our response to
hardship and about our character you
know godliness with contentment is great
gain so there’s people that pursue
gain but it’s godliness the ability to
adapt god’s perspective god’s character
to walk in virtue to bless those that
curse you to do good to those who
despitefully use and abuse you to turn
the other cheek to say i’m going to be a
servant when other people try to make me
a slave when we actually live counter
culture
that is when the development of our
character when we don’t post the thing
that we really wanted to post we don’t
make the comments but we repent yeah but
yeah we say god that’s wrong it’s a
terrible attitude and god always give it
or we give it to god yeah who judges
righteously said that jesus committed
his soul to god he’s being falsely
accused beaten he just said okay god i’m
giving this to you so character
is something that we all need to pursue
not celebrity not celebrity
character i remember a very wise man of
god said to me when i was in my 20s he
said john what you don’t deal with now
will end up causing you to fall when
you’re in your 40s and 50s and and that
riveted me and i remember
at some time during that time it
probably was after i prayed a prayer
that i didn’t realize how important that
prayer was i said god never allow
never allow
what you do in my life as far as what
i’m doing in ministry grow beyond the
character that you have developed or i
have permitted you to develop in my life
and i love that you said at the
beginning this isn’t just ministry this
is marriage this is your your any
mandate that’s on your life whether it’s
work whether it’s school you don’t want
to cheat whatever that is and you know
i’ve heard what you uh said said a
different way if you don’t deal with it
now it will deal with you later and so
it’s worth doing the hard work now maybe
somebody’s out there and they’re saying
john where do i even start with that
like
how do you start to develop character in
your life i think we both kind of
alluded the first thing is you pray and
you ask god for wisdom you say god is
there areas where i am compromised my
character god excavate my life it’s a
dangerous prayer i remember when i when
i turned 50 lisa and you know we were
talking about 20s now but when i turned
50 i said god i’m i feel like i’m at
halftime and half times when you assess
and you go over what you you know needs
to be changed in order to win because
second half is when you win right
and i said god if there’s anything in me
burn it out cut it out i don’t care what
you gotta do and i remember it was the
hardest summer i’ve ever lived through
oh my goodness and i remember one of our
board members who’s a very wise pastor
was laughing at me on the phone he said
john that’s prayers you pray when you’re
in your 20s not when you’re in your 50s
but i remember laughing you want to
finish as well and i thought to myself
but i i actually don’t resent praying
that i want to finish well and and just
to bring a real cap on everything lisa
and i’ve been saying i want to tell you
we’ve been talking about refining let me
tell you some of the three really great
things that happen
once
gold or silver has been refined number
one
okay
silver once it’s been refined or excuse
me gold once it’s been refined it will
never tarnish
wow okay now now it’s brass which it
looks like it won’t corrupt yeah it can
corrupt
brass can tarnish brash can be corrupted
gold can wow all right so here’s the
next thing gold in its pure state is is
is
flexible
you can shape it so now god can
shape you how he wants you right you’re
not hard whereas if you look at my 14
karat gold ring it’s very very hard you
can’t you can’t bend it and shape it
here’s the biggest thing i like if you
look at the pure gold in heaven the
streets are made out of it and they’re
transparent you can see right through it
wow so golden’s purest state nothing to
hide nothing in the world they don’t see
you they see the treasure in you i love
you so if you want people to see jesus
in you instead of you that’s what paul
said i’m crucified with christ yet
nevertheless i live christ lives within
me you need to pray that god would
purify you and build your character now
get ready you’re going to go through
some stuff it’s okay god will walk you
through it and he will help you get to
the other side to where you are now a
pure vessel and now you’re able and
ready for the master’s use so i just
want to highlight this gifts are given
the gifts of the spirit the talents that
the ability to preach those are things
that are
given gifts are given fruit is
cultivated character is attached to
fruit it has to be
cultivated that means there’s pruning
there’s planning there’s weeding there’s
watering so character needs to be
developed and i hope you know that john
and i didn’t take this time attacking
other people’s character i hope that you
understand that character doesn’t go
around attacking other people’s
character characters said i’m going to
judge myself i’m going to see where i
stand right now what my relationship
with god is and how i’m relating to
other people we’re so busy actually
making sure that we’re pleasing to god
that we’re not going to talk about how
everybody else is displeasing
well lisa we’re out of time and i just
want to thank everyone for tuning in and
i hope that you have grown from this
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