The Power of Repentance and Growth

Intro: The Lance Wallnau Now Show is coming at you live from the master himself with a special broadcast taken from one of Lance’s most recent appearances. Tune in and get ready for some major revelation. 

Lance: So, Peter gets up here and talks. I’m just giving you the background that his experience qualified him to say, look, let me deal with this thing because he could see what was happening with them was the residual of the same belief system he had. Some conflict is about priorities and both sides can be right. Is it about the people or the project? Now, this is amazing. I could see the leaders in my generation needing a good healthy conversation because a bunch of them don’t want to get involved with politics. They don’t want to get involved with anything and they don’t realize that to the degree they don’t get involved. The devil’s happy to get involved until he circles us and takes us out.

So, we need a conversation and we need to have the leaders come together and have much dispute. How many can see where that might be necessary for the church? Because right now, we don’t have much dispute. We have an artificial unity where we’re all trying to get along and be loving and our fake unity and inappropriate loving is making us so polite, we’re getting killed. It’s not the spirit of the apostles. They were contending. They were out there carving up the culture, engaging it. Does that make sense to you guys? I see Steve back there as his hand up. Thank the Lord that the worship leader is with me. Thank you.

Alright, so here we go. After some days, Paul said to Barnabas, let us now go back and visit our brethren in every city where we preach the word of the lord and see how they’re doing. That makes sense? Let’s go back and check up on everybody and Barnabas was determined. Watch this. He was determined to take John called Mark. That was we find out his sister’s kid, his nephew. But Paul thought it not good to bring with them someone who departed from the work. So, we see contention dealing with outside teachers again in the church. We see contention among leaders in the church because they got to get on the same page regarding what God is doing. Now, we see contention on teams that God put together. To me, this was an unfortunate footnote in the Book of Acts. These two men of God should have been able to work this thing out. I’m saying this wasn’t God‘s will if they break up like that. Book of Acts it’s the Lord said separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work.

Now, the devil Barnabas and Saul from each other so that they can’t work as a team. Now, the kingdom goes on but this will give you peace of mind. So, don’t make the book of Acts so lofty and so unrealistic that you elevate the people in it to the point where you in your own head can never imagine yourself. Doing what they do because this tells you that even at the apostolic level, they could be dysfunctional at times and break up a ministry. This will give church split you’ve ever gone through some hope. Sometimes conflict is in character it’s a collision of styles and values. The contention was so sharp between them. This wasn’t like, well okay, I appreciated working with you. I guess we’re at the parting always is that it okay listen, I’ll tell you, you do this and I’ll do that and let’s keep in touch and for the sake of the churches. They’re going to hear about this, let’s at least walk this out in unity, okay. Neither them had the ability to do that.

The contention was so sharp they departed asunder from one another. Barnabas Mark and Sale disciples and Paul chose Silas and departed. What I want you to see right there is two men of God who both were right and history doesn’t tell us which one was wrong because we continue on with the apostle Paul with his exploits. But later on, he says, hey, regarding Mark bring him with you to this in case he’s useful for the ministry. Interesting statement, because it just means that Barnabas stuck with the kid who screwed up and the kid ended up being an asset. No, thanks to Paul who would have ditched him but Paul also is to be understood. And the reason why we understand Paul is because the favor of God is on your assignment, but your assignments can be different even if you’re on the same team.

So, let’s take a look at how this works. Barnabas is a people person. You remember, what his name is? Son of encouragement. Barnabas is a people person. And a person who’s a people person is the guy who’s going to go down to Tarsus is going to see Saul. Everyone else is backing up from Saul because he’s kind of like he’s a terrorist working for Isis. And then the rumors out. Oh, he’s converted so he can find out who are some of the Christians he can talk to. It’s like, yeah sure. He’s going to flush out some people and kill them. But Barnabas pushes past that. Barnabas is anointed as a builder of the body of Christ by connecting people and investing in people. He goes and meets with Saul. Saul tells what’s going on. Barnabas says, come on. He already has favor with the apostles. He’s not at the door trying to get in. He hangs out with them. So, he brings him in, says, hey, hey, hey, you won’t believe this. God, Paul, Saul, tell them what happened to you.

This is amazing and he and it’s like they’re looking and here he goes. ‘I was on the road to Damascus and then a light hit me. Boom. I’m on the ground and I was blinded.’ They knew right away by the way. Is legit? Wow. This guy, this is going to be a hot potato they knew right away the whole city is going to be disturbed by this development. So, they’re talking to him about, listen isn’t going to be good for us if you’re hanging out with us. Believe it or not, you got to move on but we’re with you. So, Barnabas was the key to building that relationship because Barnabas is a people person, the son of encouragement. He’s a great connector and Paul owed him a debt because he’s the guy that brought Paul into the inner circle and introduced him and you could think that what’s happening now is John Mark screws up, and what do you think the people person is going to want to help him and give him a second chance. That’s what high nurture people do.

On the other hand, you have the great apostle Paul and what’s his job? He’s got a job to do. He’s got a task to do and it’s to go preach the word of God and every member of that team has to be competent and committed because if they screw up and leave or quit, it affects the quality of the mission we’ve got. Can you see how that works too? There’s sometimes when the task is more important, let’s face it. If you’re in surgery, do you want the surgeon to be giving a second or third chance to that shaky hand person that keeps nipping arteries? It all depends on the task.

Air traffic control? Is Charlie hungover again? My gosh. Well, his uncle runs the place. He’s back. No, there’s certain. Paul treated the subject like that. He said, ‘This is too important a mission to be sentimental, Barney. If he goes, I’m not going.’ Barnabas goes, ‘Well, I’ll tell you what, he’s going. He’s going with me and you and I are either going to go together or I’ll just go without you.’ Oh, is that how it is? You can just see it’s almost like a couple having a fight and so boom. The contention was so sharp. What does it mean when the contention is so sharp? And the Bible use that language? That means their voices were raised sufficiently so that all the brethren in ear drop distance were all prone to gossip about it once the news was out. Oh my God. Were you there? Oh God. I swear. I thought they were going to come. The blows are like what? Oh,and you know somebody’s enjoying that. It’s like really?

So, this is the Bible folks. They make their decision. Welcome to the Book of Acts chapter 29. Those of you that don’t know, I had to check myself. There’s only 28 chapters in the book of Acts. So, that means, where we are now, I’m really believing is the beginning of a next chapter. We’ve got so much already restored. What we don’t have now is a book of Acts Church. We don’t have a church and I think we’re going to break out of the wineskin to go there. Make sense to you? I think it’s a Jerusalem wineskin. I think we’re going to break out and do something different, but I want you to know something. The Jews that didn’t believe here in Acts 15 were moved with envy. Remember these words. I’m trying to repeat them so you remember it. “They move with envy. There are people that are ideologically moved with envy”.

Now, here’s a weird proposition I want to give you. I believe the radical left is a counterfeit religious movement. I do not believe it’s political anymore. I think there’s something almost messianically delusional and utopian driven by their worldview. They honestly in a sense are a counterfeit messianic movement. Looking for a Messiah figure politically that can lead them. Bernie’s a bit weird and eccentric and old. He looks like Larry David and he sounds grumpy. He’s not a sexy figure out. Arcasia‘s a little too flaky. They’re looking for their leader but understand something. They are a religious movement. The reason I know that is because like the Pharisees of old, they are searching for your sin in order to stone you. It’s an unusual political movement that is trying to find something you did a decade ago, two decades ago.

When you’ve got a Supreme Court Justice that could be accused of having something inappropriate like date raping at a frat party 35 years ago when there’s no witnesses. But it’s someone’s own subjective memory and that’s brought before the public and your kids and your wife and your colleagues and you can’t even teach at Harvard because you’ve been smeared that way. It’s over someone who 35 years ago has a memory of something nobody else can confirm including the people with them. Tell you what, man. That’s some wild witchcraft going on. So, what they did was they rounded up some back. Welcome to Antifa. And I’m sorry, welcome to Black Lives Matter on a bad day. Welcome to LaRosa. Welcome to the organizations that are the anarchy industry and they’re no different than the Book of Acts. They’re religious political movements that are threatened by genuine apostolic expression, and because they’re move with envy and it’s going to happen.

The more anointing is on you, the more influence you and the more revival that comes to the church and the way that we’re talking about it, the more political opposition we’re going to have. Don’t think revival’s going to be an end run around this thing. A revival will actually amplify it because revival impacts the very people they want to control. And that’s the persuadable middle. That’s the people that are halting between two opinions suddenly saying, oh, I like this. It’s like no you don’t. Those people are all bogus bunch of hucksters selling coins. But the Jews which believed not moved with them. He rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace formed a mob and started a riot in the city. It’s the Book of Acts folks. Formed a mob, hired the activists, and created a riot. I saw it in Washington. They rushed to Jason’s house in search of Paul’s size. They’re looking for, they’re looking for the ring leaders and in order to bring him out to the crowd.

Well, that’s a wonderful thought what the crowd was going to do with him. They troubled the people and the rulers. You guys catch this? This is what you’re up against. Do you understand why this is relationship weekend? Because I’m touched on something right here which is very important. It’s how to keep yourself in the love of God and sharpen your discerning, so when you’re dealing with somebody where the love of God is going to be the solution or whether or not you have to resist. You have to know what’s what, you have to increase your discerning because not all people are the same.

Break: With the instability happening in the market right now and with inflation going up at the dollar and it’s like seems to be like in his free fall. We’re watching the stock market make some terrible reckoning adjustments. And where are people going? Well, when cash is unstable, people put their money in a store of value gold and silver and precious metals. What I didn’t know till recently and I should have known it is that you can take your 401K and you can actually convert it and put it into an account that has silver and gold. That means that your 401K retirement savings is going to be in silver and gold. So, the dollar starts get unstable or decline, your gold and silver value is guarding your retirement. Now, this is the tax-exempt strategy that Birch Gold can advise you on. You want to go to “Lancewallnau.com/Birch”. Talk to one of the consultants. Download the report and learn how you can convert a 401K or your retirement plan into gold and silver accounts secure and protect your money and have peace of mind. “Lancewallnau.com/Birch”. Download the report, talk to the consultant. There’s no obligation,that’s what I’m recommending people do.

Lance: Anyway, they trouble the people and because and they went to the rulers, they’re going to go to the rulers they’re always going to try to go to the big, the decision makers. Now we come to this interesting Segway. I want to talk to you about the subject that Henry Cloud first introduced to me and it’s a very powerful one. It set me free, because I was of the opinion that if you really love people and you and you really are trying to be like Jesus that you treat everybody with love. This is something which is classic error and you got to hear this with sharp ears. If you are a trusting, loving, supporting person, your tendency will be to see everybody else as trusting, loving, and supporting, and that’s the trap.

Did Jesus trust people? Now you know this must be a trick question. But in your thinking, you think Jesus just trusted people, loved people, and that’s what you’re called to do. First chapter of the book of John, “But Jesus trusted himself to know man for he knew what was in him”. You bet you never saw that verse on a refrigerator. Jesus trusted no man for he knew what was in him. Now that didn’t mean he didn’t have a special relationship with those who were in his inner circle. But he’s the opposite of naive. That’s why he said, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Our movement is largely harmless, but not shrewd. Be shrewd as serpents. That’s a strange verse in the Bible but let me go on and say this. The apostle Paul says, “I pray that we will be rescued from perverse and evil men for not all men have faith”. Another translations put it this way, “Pray that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men”.

So, therefore, Paul saying, there’s a certain group you need to get delivered from. So, this is the Antifa crowd that burned the limo that my wife and I wrote in on the day of the inauguration of President Trump. Instead of the media covering the lawlessness and the riots and the activity that was being done by the left, they were covering Donald Trump’s exaggerated statistics regarding how many people were in the crowd. Truth is, a large part of the crowd couldn’t get there because they were barricaded off because the riots. And you guys don’t know that, because you didn’t get the news. But my friend Matthew is here. Matthew you hear Are you in the room? Well, he’s got his wife and his children here.

So anyway, one of the business guys, he got the limo for Annabelle because she had hit, had to have a hip replacement. So, he got the limo. We get out of the limo and as we get out, we see a picture on the foyer on a plasma screen TV and then my friends say, ‘Isn’t that? Didn’t that your car?’ I just took, I said, ‘Oh my God. It’s like Antifa come around the corner after we got out.’And the guy was the driver who was a Mexican actually gets hit in the head. They were trying to throw a brick through the window to hit his head and he got out and he had to go to the hospital but this is the amazing thing. The left actually tried to attack a Mexican who was driving and we ended up, we did some crowdsourcing and Matthew, we did a job to get some money for the guy’s limo service. It was a Muslim who owned the limousine. This is the story of the century. How the radical left trying to fight the white supremacist Trump who’s filled with intolerance is beating up immigrants and Muslims.

So, let’s talk about the wise, the foolish, and the evil. There are three kinds of people. You got todeal with and you don’t rebuke a mocker or heal, or he will hate you. Rebuke a wise man and he will love you. You read these proverbs, they get very confusing because on the one hand, it says, don’t rebuke then it says do rebuke but what you got to catch is you’re supposed to be withstanding a certain people. Remember this, if you’re a good person, a nice person, a loving person, you tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, you love them more than Jesus would in terms of trusting them. So, to love somebody is to wish them the highest possible best. To trust them means that you believe that they’re trustworthy and that’s the mistake. If you hire people and you treat all people as though they’re like you, you’re being naive because they’re not like you. You don’t let anybody into the nursery and church because it could be the very people that are the most attracted to children are the people that shouldn’t be around children. Same with the babysitter. You find out who wants to get into your house to be with your kids. Does that make sense?

That’s why we don’t let anybody get on the plane and fly it because they have to be instrument ready to approve. We got certain people that are supposed to be doing certain things. So, let’s hit this thing. Whoever you are, God‘s called you to be a steward over a vision, some kind of thing that you’re in charge of. And since everyone is not the same, you can’t deal with everyone the same and that’s what responsible leaders do but it’s also the mistake. You have to deal with each person appropriately or it will lead you into trouble. Some people are wise, some people are full or severe evil. What’s the difference between the three? I’ll read you some notes ahead, so I think they’re worth considering. The truth is, you care about other people and how their actions affect people that are around you. And since you have a concern about what you do that affects others, it makes sense that everyone else is like you and they have a concern for you but that’s not true. The truth is not many people take responsibility for themselves or care about how their actions affect other people.

So, there are three types of people that you’re dealing with. The wise, you don’t to worry about,because the wise doesn’t mean they’re the smartest, the brightest, or the most talented. It simply means that the wise have traits that enable them to grow in wisdom. The wise person, it says here, instruct the wise men of hubby wiser. Simple test. Wise people are open to feedback and interested in insight. I’m telling you guys; this is major key. This will help you. Remember, you’re going to put your radar up, because you’re going to start to attract people to you that you want rather than people to you that you’re collecting. One of the main drains that you’ll have in your life is you’re a good person, you make a place for other people, you invest in other people, I’m going to tell you right now, stop doing it if they’re not teachable If they’re not teachable, they’re going to waste your money and your time, and what’s worse is you gave a seat at the table to somebody who blocked someone who is trustworthy from sitting there. Because you only got so many seats at the table.

So let me say this again. The truth is in these three types of people. The bottom line for is that a wise person is someone who is open to feedback. It helps the wise, they value it. If a person is willing to take feedback, you will likely get your return on investment. That means a person can screw up, a person can make a mistake, a person can blow it. And the idea is that repentance is a beautiful thing. In fact, we got great stories you probably heard about the person who made this big mistake in this company and they went to submit the resignation. The CEO said, wait a second, wait a second that was $50,000 we lost on that mistake think after I invested that much in you, I want you to leave.

In other words, if a person learns from the mistake, they’re a bigger asset. The wise aren’t necessarily the brightest, most talented, but they put the least amount of energy into resisting their own growth. If you’re not around people that are interested in their own growth in the name of Jesus, let this be the moment the Lord delivered you from false guilt and bad decisions. Oh,invest in the people who are invested in their own growth. The only exception you can make to that has to do with those relationships that are your family where you have spiritual authority to shape the person and you’ve got to work that so that they become teachable.

The number one thing you want is them to become teachable and to release themselves from victim mentality, so that they aren’t going to blame, justify, and defend everything that’s wrong with their life. Which is a large part of the problem in America is that many people are being trained and taught to be victims and to resent those that are achieving who are doing so rightly.That’s the great controversy that I’ve got with what the left is doing is that they’re poisoning the minds of a generation to make them resentful when they could be resourceful, and they’ll lose the opportunity to have anything if it continues in the direction, they want to take it. so, the foolish person projects feedback. They resist it. They explain it away. They do nothing to adjust to meet requirements. They’ve never met. Let’s put it this way. A foolish person is a person who does not receive correction. That’s pretty much what this says. The mocker will hate you.

And so, listen to this. It’s amazing how the Bible has the answers and we haven’t seen it, because it’s like we don’t really read the Bible. We think we read the Bible. But I’m giving you the Bible right now. We were all foolish at one time. We were all foolish, the Bible says. What’s the difference? Somehow, we got here. I’ll tell you the difference. Remember what the lord said to Paul’s great when Paul gets saved. The King James says it and I everything I know is I quote as King James because it’s was what I memorized. But it’s like, “Is it not hard for thee to kick against the pricks?” What does that mean? Paul How’s it working? How’s it working? Do you feel like things are going smooth in your life right now?

In other words, the Lord had been working on him the whole time. What it means to kick against the prick? A prick is a sharp stick that was used to go the oxen or the bull or the cattle or something in the direction. It was to prod a leathery butt in motion. And the Lord says, we’ve got these pricks, I can do this all day long. You want to keep kicking? I’ll be right here and so, if you are, it was Bob Mumford had this great illustration was in a vision and he was seeing people that were just so frustrated, so angry, so irritant. Things weren’t working out and they were just getting more bitter and more angry, and he had a vision of a hand. Stroking a cat like this except it was stroking the fur backwards. Stroking the fur backwards and the cats go and he hears a voice say, turn around kitty, just turn around. Repentance is when you turn around because that hand isn’t going to move in another direction. God‘s not going to change the way the games played. He’s not certainly going to accommodate you because you’ve outlasted him and you’re more stubborn than he is he’ll just keep rubbing you the wrong way and you’ll keep on kicking against the prince.

The worst one is when you exhaust yourself, your resources, your life, and your time because you invested in people that God would have given you the discerning to not invest in. Worst thing in the world is when you’re trying to be a nice person and God didn’t require that of you in that situation and you were drained and abused and taken advantage of because you lack discerning. So, that’s why the Lord want me to hit this in this conference, because he’s going to make us excellent lovers of people. Hey, even the fool. Here’s the point. Even fool can be instructed but what do you got to do? You got to help the fool to see consequences for their choices. What did the apostle Paul say? We’re the divisive person. Let’s say you got a person that’s sowing stripes, discord, talking bad about you, talking bad about the company. Talking bad about the vision. Check this out. The apostle Paul. After the first or second admonition, I believe it’s Titus. Have nothing more to do with them. How about that for apostolic grace?

In other words, if after the first time, the person has told them what they’re doing is destructive, it’s not loyal, it’s hurtful to them, it’s hurtful to the organization. If they screw up, you extend grace to them again. They do it again. Second time, after the second time means the third time. Now, you’re the sap if you keep them around. Because even the Word of God says, have nothing more to do with them. Now it might be that when they’re fired, terminated, or they’re no longer in your social circle and they realize that they’ve lost something, that might be the pain that makes them grow up. How many of you know, we’ve all learned by the spankings we’ve got? How else do fools become wise but they have to live with the consequences of their foolish choices. If you keep on bailing people out, you’re going to have to keep on bailing people out. Sometimes the kindest thing you could do is be biblical. And then you allow the person to experience the consequences of their choices and then the prodigal son comes to himself. Oh, how many of my father’s servants are better off than me? And so, you they’re not going to come to themselves if you keep on rescuing them.

So, after two admonitions with somebody who’s divisive, strifeful from now on, they no longer have a seat at your table. Can we agree on that? Unless you’re wise of the apostle Paul and better than the word God and you’re no longer going to trust everybody. Can we agree on that? That it’s not, there’s nothing wrong with you. It’s not like we’re not being a good Christian. How you think we should just be trusting the Lord and trusting people? The Bible says, “Love believeth allthings”. Well, everything in context. The apostle Paul was the one that said, pray for me that we’re delivered from wicked and unreasonable people because not everybody I’ve found out actually has faith. In other words, pray that we are delivered from the evil. And the rest of it is going to be preaching to fools and the wise. But know that there’s wise, there’s foolish, and there’s evil and when you’re dealing with the evil, you’ll find out that the evils are full of the devil.

It’s time to quit talking about the problem with a foolish person. How many of you know that there is always this one guy you’re talking about this one person you’re talking about? We’ve learned two things. One, if they are not teachable, if they cannot take responsibility, if they continuously push back on advice and guidance and feedback, then they fall into the foolish category. And because they are not teachable, they’re disqualified from further teaching. So, what you have to do then is you have to create consequences for the next time it happens, and this is the wisdom part. You have to say, so basically, I’m not sure that we’re really, we’re going to that this is helping you right now and it may not be a perfect fit for you. We want you in the will of God. We want you certainly to be doing what God call you to do.

So, this may not be the perfect place for you. There may be something else God has for you. If you’re talking to an employer or member or somebody who’s in your organization in some capacity, and what you do is you say, but you know I’ll tell you what? Here’s what we need and if that’s something you could do, then I think we can keep going. But if not, then it’s likely that the best thing for you would be not to be doing this anymore. You have to set the test for the next failure, because if they’re learning they’ll demonstrate that they’re learning and if they’re resisting, they’re going to do it again. And they’re going to do it again and they’re going to keep doing it again.

So, you might as well create the litmus test so the next time you do it, you’re no longer here. A friend of mine flipped flip and puts it this way. He says, you just simply have a contract with people that’s a social contract and here’s what he says. I love his statement. He says, nobody ever, when they come in our company, nobody ever gets fired. Nobody’s ever been, not once, we never fired a single employee. We made some mistakes, hiring, that’s true but we never fire anybody. No, no, no. Your behavior way in, because we’re impressed with you and by the way, you’ll behave your way out. And then at some point, he’ll have that moment where he’ll say, remember what I told you, we never fire people but they behave their way in, they behave their way out. Which way do you think you’re behaving right now? You favor in or out. And then you set the parameter. If this keeps happening, we have no choice. God has something else for you. Well, it isn’t this. You understand what I’m saying?

You think you can avoid that difficult conversation? The best that you can do is practice the script. Because the person’s going to make you the bad guy when they leave anyway. Are you ready for a bit of shrewd, miserable truth? I just heard this this week. I thought, ooh, that’s true. You don’t necessarily want people to leave you. Because you know what happens when they leave you? They get the initiative on branding you. You want to terminate them. Because when you terminate them, you’re teaching your organization that you really do take seriously the values that you’re talking about. I can see that’s going down like a rat sandwich. Let me try that again. If somebody is going to go and smear you, they have the initiative if they leave you. It makes you look like you’re culpable. It makes them look like they’ve actually got the character choice. But if you terminate somebody because they are not living up to the criteria you’ve established for the culture that you want to have. You at least then get to utilize the currency of that lesson.

The whole organization knows that person was talented. That person made money. That person has this, but they weren’t consistent with the value. Because you don’t fire people for mistakes,you fire them for the behavior. And people behave their way into your world and they behave their way out and you got to stop excusing bad behavior. That make sense? Hey, man. You could screw up. I’m not saying don’t be gracious. How many of you want to have grace extended to you? I certainly do. It all depends. If you’re teachable, are you learning? That’s all. That’s all Jesus really wants. He wants to be teachable.

So, I’ve given you two important keys and I pray to God, you remember it. Not everybody is as deserving of trust as you are. People in this room, we almost know everybody in this room. This is a good room of people. These are good people. These are people you could trust. God will introduce you to people of character and confidence you can build with but if you as though you’re obligated to embrace everybody that comes along your path, because that’s what Jesus is like. Then you’re operating maybe under a sentimental definition of the word of God and not actually the spirit of truth. Because the people that’ll hurt you, are the people that you trusted that weren’t worthy of that trust and deserving of that trust. And that means that you are naive or lacking and discerning.

Now, it might be that you’ve got a rascal and you keep them on for other reasons, but at least not surprised when they show up with lanterns and torches and a group of temple guards ready to arrest you. So, Jesus knew what was coming with Judas. It was kind of an interesting story. Jesus trusted him and they just didn’t trust him but he empowered him to be continuing in a role. And that’s also an interesting thought right there and that is that God trust you and God allows you to have the privilege of something but you still have to manage how you’re handling it. That make sense? The wise listen to instruction and grow. The fools can be intelligent, brilliant, charming, captivating, charismatic, and high performers. But when it comes to learning, they resist. They kick. They don’t take in the truth. They will not grow and they explain, justify, and defend every single thing that’s going on in their life and therefore, they resist maturity. That’s a fool. They are wasting your energy because the person won’t grow. And not to mention, they’ll going to end up at some point sabotaging the trust that you have in them because that inability to learn is going to bite you at some point. But a learning organization where people aren’t perfect, but growing, hey man, I’m talking about the church. So, how do we grow? How do we grow? Here’s the two words.

Now remember, wise people are growing people, not necessarily the smartest people. Foolish people, blame circumstances, other people, the weather, the devil, or whatever. Foolish people have a tendency to go victim instead of responsible. And because they don’t take responsibility, that tendency to go victim will eventually make you and your organization a victim of their inability to grow and you might as well see that. The foolish do not receive instruction.

Now, the evil, I didn’t really cover this enough. Evil people, according to Henry Cloud, that’s why you have security. It’s not because you have a fool that’s a zeal. There certainly are many fools that are agitators, because they want to do something with their life. But you see an evil person is only interested in causing you harm. And because they’re interested in hurting you or hurting what you have, then you have to protect yourself from the evil person. Not to mention you have to protect other people from the evil person. So, Paul said pray for us that we be delivered. He didn’t say pray that we’re going to have an anointed to convert him, he said pray that we don’t have anything to do with them.

So, there’s some people you just have to have the ability to avoid. One time, I was walking down the street with a friend of mine as a former San Jose sharpshooter and it was really a deliverance from God. Because I’ll be honest with you, I’ve always thought that everybody was either wise or foolish and foolish people should be given a second chance or third chance. And even if you know, just be like Jesus and forgive them seventy times seven, but that didn’t mean rehire them and put them back in the same position. It means forgiveness. There’s no personal issue with you,but you don’t empower them to go rip off your finances after they embezzled money the first time. Make sense?

Anyways, I’m walking down the street and my friend Dave, there’s a guy in the street and he was like acting kind of crazy, just acting. Now, he’s probably a high in drugs or something, and he’s like acting kind of crazy. I was kicking stuff and he was right down the street in front of me and I’m with my buddy Dave, former cop. We’re walking down but thank God this guy’s a former cop. He says, ‘Hey, come here.’ I said, ‘What?’ I know I’m heading up to this guy and I’m thinking, well, maybe he’ll be evangelism or maybe God will do something or God will have to deliver me and protect me. What if I know I’m heading towards some crazy moment? And that was my problem. I was going to continue walking on this side of the street and see what happened when I got there. He says, ‘Come here, come here, come here.’ He crosses the street and he goes down the other side of the street and it’s like, dang, I never would have thought of that.

That’s brilliant. But the wise man sees evil and hides himself. The wise man sees an evil person, you don’t have anything to do with them. Don’t answer their call. Don’t get engaged in the conversation. Don’t have them. If you know they’re evil. And what Henry Cloud says is there’s three things that protect from evil people. Money, because that money creates a barrier. It could be your fence, your gated community or your security gardens with you. The other thing is lawyers. If you got somebody out for you. Hey man, I know a guy who did programs right here. Right here at Paradise Point. And I hate to tell you what happened. He did this program there and somebody had called up and said, ‘Do you have someone that could do hand signs for the for the hearing impaired?’ He said, ‘If you want to come to the program, I’ll get somebody.’ This is really sad.

So, they called. They said, ‘No, no, no we just wanted to know if you have it.’ He said, ‘I’ll be glad to provide it.’ And so, they didn’t sign up for the program. They just showed up at the program and then they sued him for not providing and an organization was actually behind the lawsuit. Man, I’ve had that happen to me. Unfortunately, it was like a $30,000 rip off, and thank God I had the 30,000 to do and I was dealing with evil. You know what the Lord said? The Lord said, ‘Cut it off.’ I said, ‘It’s not right. It’s an injustice. We should fight it.’ Lord said, ‘Well, you could fight it for $50,000 and $60, 000 and you still be out $60,000 and win.’ So, it’s going to cost you money to deal with it. Lord said, ‘Not to mention the psychic space is going to eat you up while that thing’s going on. Let it up.’

Alright. Cut it off. Foolish? How many of you are hearing what I’m saying? It’s after the first or second admonition. If a person is somebody who brings strife into your family, into your life, have nothing more to do with them. And think about the fact that you bless them coming in and you bless them going out and you don’t wish them evil. It’s very likely that God will then be able to bring them teaching and instruction, because you’re no longer interfering with his process. Makes sense? And you’re going to be a lot shrewder in who you bring in your life and what you put up with and what you tolerate. And you raise the bar as long as you’re, then you have to be teachable. What does that mean? Then you have to be able to have feedback coming from other people the wise actually ask for feedback. They’re not so fragile and ego invested in their success that they can’t handle it. And start to think about that the more feedback you get, the faster you can grow.

Closing: Thanks for listening to this Lance Wallnau broadcast. If you enjoyed today’s show,make sure to subscribe and share the episode. See you tomorrow.

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