Participants: Wintley Phipps (Host), Adly Campos, Dr E T Stoddart, Ruthie Jacobson
Series Code: PFM
Program Code: PFM000006A
|
00:27 Hi, I'm Wintley Phipps, and welcome to our program
00:30 Perfecting Me, Becoming More Like Jesus. 00:34 I'm so glad you've joined us. 00:37 My guests today on our program are Ruthie Jacobsen, 00:40 Head of Prayer Ministry of the North American division 00:42 of Seventh-day Adventist, Pastor Errol Stoddart, 00:45 Senior Pastor of the Church of the Oranges 00:47 of Seventh-day Adventist in Orange, New Jersey, 00:50 and Mrs. Adly Campos, Speaker and President 00:53 of Family Well-Being International. 00:56 You'll hear from them a little later. 00:59 When God gave Adam the woman Eve, 01:04 God gave to Adam much more than a wife. 01:10 In Eve, God gave to Adam one of the keys and blessings 01:14 that holds His entire universe together. 01:18 He gave to Adam a gift 01:20 that is a prerequisite for living in heavenly society, 01:24 a precondition of citizenship in the kingdom of God. 01:28 In Eve, God gave to Adam something 01:32 that is at the very fabric and foundation 01:35 of perfecting our character. 01:38 In Eve, God gave to Adam in the Garden of Eden 01:41 the gift of a reciprocal, loving, 01:45 spiritual relationship. 01:48 In God's kingdom, relationships are essential 01:53 to our growth and development of character. 01:57 Even today, God looks at our relationships 02:02 to determine the fitness of our character 02:06 for heavenly society. 02:08 Remember the young man that said, 02:09 "Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" 02:11 The Lord, God said, He said, Jesus said to him, 02:15 "Love the Lord God with all your heart, 02:17 with all your soul, with all your strength, 02:19 with all your mind," that's the relationship to God, 02:23 "and your neighbor as you love yourself," 02:26 our relationship with others. 02:28 This world we live in 02:30 is a character training ground for heaven, 02:33 and our relationships with our families 02:36 and those around us are a key indicator 02:40 of our readiness for heaven. 02:43 Yes, God looks at our relationships 02:45 to determine our fitness for heaven. 02:49 That's why I try to always remind myself, 02:51 always love God with all my heart 02:54 and my neighbor as myself. 03:03 In the Garden of Eden, God made it abundantly clear 03:07 that He created us for reciprocal, loving, 03:11 spiritual relationships. 03:14 A relationship is the joining of two hearts 03:17 in sympathy and compassion with one another. 03:21 It is a quiet trust between two individuals, 03:25 a precious trust between two souls. 03:29 Relationships are invisible, unexplainable, 03:33 imperceptible, and yes, often indescribable. 03:38 How we feel about children and grandchildren 03:41 is often very difficult to describe to others. 03:44 I have a friend who once said to me, 03:46 "I've always heard people say something happens 03:49 when you have grandchildren, 03:51 but I didn't understand it until I got my own." 03:54 He said, "Let me explain. 03:56 My baby granddaughter was by the house the other day, 03:59 and she was fishing behind a credenza for a toy 04:01 she couldn't reach. 04:03 So she picked up the credenza, 04:05 and on it was my wife's most expensive lamp, 04:08 and that lamp came crashing to the floor." 04:12 He said, "If that was one of my children," 04:15 and then he said, "But you know what I heard myself say, 04:18 "Oh, look how strong my grand baby is." 04:22 Through relationships, one heart bonds with another. 04:26 And we find, in healthy relationships, 04:30 comfort, confidence, rest, and repose. 04:35 Godly relationships are conceived in sympathy, 04:39 and nurtured in love and compassion. 04:42 And those relationships 04:44 shape our character and our destiny. 04:50 The best relationships are authentic, positive, 04:54 and constructive relationships. 04:56 The best relationships provide support 04:59 in times of trial and adversity. 05:03 Often our careers and our noblest aspirations 05:06 are fulfilled by the relationships 05:09 we developed with people we respect 05:12 and people who took us into a mentoring relationship. 05:18 Now not all relationships are healthy. 05:20 When motives are impure 05:23 and misguided in a relationship, 05:25 that relationship can become our greatest curse. 05:29 Because of how it destroys the beauty of character, 05:34 many negative relationships in this world 05:37 are built on injustice, greed, and power. 05:41 When motives are misguided and impure, 05:44 those relationships become toxic and poisonous, 05:48 erratic and unstable. 05:51 Someone once said, "We learnt to fly the air like the birds 05:54 and swim the sea like the fishes, 05:56 when will we learn to walk the earth like brothers?" 06:00 Many think that their relationships to God 06:03 is all that matters and that they can then live 06:05 in any kind of way they want to 06:07 and treat people any kind of way they want to. 06:10 I want you to know God's church can never grow 06:14 with that kind of thinking. 06:16 We live in a world 06:18 where the only thing that keeps us from chaos 06:22 are healthy relationships. 06:25 Father, mother, children, and yes, even leaders, 06:29 the character of a leader can profoundly influence 06:34 the character of a nation. 06:36 As Dr. King once said, "We are bound together 06:41 by an inescapable network of mutuality." 06:46 In our world today, 06:48 there are relationships of blood and nationality, 06:50 there are casual relationships, professional relationships, 06:54 there are short term and long term relationships, 06:57 but all of those relationships were given to us by God 07:02 to strengthen and build our character. 07:06 I want you to see this video about strengthening 07:09 and building healthy relationships, 07:12 brought to us by our friends at the 700 Club. 07:17 It is a video that will inspire you, 07:20 and motivate you, and strengthen you, 07:22 and show you how you build relationships. 07:30 We were very much in love. 07:32 He asked me three weeks after we met, 07:34 if I would marry him, and I said yes. 07:36 We dreamed of serving God together, 07:39 we had a dream of having some sort of 07:41 world wide music ministry. 07:44 Pat and Gayle Hadley had high hopes 07:46 when they married. 07:47 But the daily responsibilities of work and family 07:50 soon took a toll. 07:52 The dreams that I had of traveling the world together 07:55 and, you know, singing for the Lord, 07:57 none of those had happened. 07:59 I think I took all that disappointment, 08:02 all that hurt, and I turned it towards Pat in a way 08:05 because I connected him with those lost dreams. 08:10 I wasn't really aware of how bad things really were. 08:14 So I just got to a point were I thought, 08:16 "Well, this is as good as it gets, 08:17 this is just the way it is. 08:18 This is the way it's going to be, 08:20 this is normal marriage." 08:21 I started focusing on the children, 08:23 and my relationship with my husband 08:26 became more of a business partnership. 08:30 Pat pastored a church in Alaska, 08:32 and Gayle served as the worship leader. 08:34 But as their ministry responsibilities increased, 08:37 so did the tension at home. 08:39 I always felt pressure to have a perfect marriage 08:43 as a pastor. 08:44 You're an example. 08:45 When marriages failed for pastors, it's, you know, 08:50 you got to find a new career. 08:52 Pat and I couldn't even be in the same room together. 08:55 I mean, without argument, 08:57 without there was constant arguing, 08:59 fighting over things. 09:00 I was living downstairs, she was living upstairs. 09:03 We meet together in the kitchen, 09:05 talk about things that we needed to talk about, 09:07 and then go about our lives. 09:09 For 23 years, Pat and Gayle went through the motions. 09:13 But after a blow up on the day 09:14 their daughter left for college, 09:16 Gayle told Pat she'd had enough. 09:19 Everything I did was either for my children, 09:21 or for my husband, or for the church, 09:23 you know, it was... 09:25 I felt like I was gone like, there was no me anymore. 09:30 I didn't want to do this anymore. 09:32 I didn't want to be married. 09:34 I didn't want to be a pastor's wife anymore, 09:37 that I was just done. 09:40 That was the lowest moment because I never, 09:43 I never stopped loving my wife. 09:46 I didn't want my marriage to end. 09:48 I didn't want my family to suffer divorce. 09:52 And then I heard God's voice. 09:53 And He said to me, "Come to me, 09:55 and I will heal you." 09:57 And at one point I said, "Heal me? 10:00 I don't need to be healed. I need you to heal her." 10:03 Pat heeded God's voice 10:05 and in an attempt to find his own healing, 10:07 met with a local Christian counselor and author, 10:09 Art Mathias and began reading his book, 10:12 Biblical Foundations of Freedom. 10:14 In that book, I learned that I needed to forgive 10:21 that if I was going to be obedient to Jesus 10:24 and obedient to God, I had to learn 10:26 how to really forgive people from my heart. 10:31 Not only my wife, 10:33 but everyone in my life that had hurt me. 10:35 I began to pray for her. 10:38 And I'd never really done that in my marriage 10:41 because as long as I was bitter, 10:43 I wasn't going to pray for her, 10:45 because the bitterness was blocking it, 10:47 so I started praying prayers. 10:48 I had a little bit more authority 10:50 of having behind them. 10:52 You know, in the name of Jesus, 10:54 Satan, you cannot have my family, 10:55 you cannot have my wife. 10:57 You need to get out of here and leave her alone. 11:00 Some nights, I went into our bedroom, 11:03 I laid down on the floor by the bed and I prayed, 11:07 I prayed silently so she couldn't hear me 11:09 but God could hear me. 11:10 It didn't take long for Gayle to notice, 11:12 there was something different about Pat. 11:14 He wasn't even fun to argue with anymore 11:17 because I couldn't get him to argue with me. 11:19 So I asked him, I'm like, 11:22 "What have you been doing because you're different. 11:26 You're giving me lots of space which is good, 11:28 I needed that but you're different. 11:31 What's going on?" 11:32 And I talked to her about forgiveness. 11:34 And I said, you know, 11:35 I have a lot of things to fix in me. 11:38 And it's not about you, it's me, 11:41 and God needs to fix some things in me, 11:43 and so I'm going to do that. 11:44 I have been trying to fix things 11:47 by my might and my power, 11:49 and I was learning how to fix things by His spirit 11:52 so that and that's the only thing that worked. 11:54 Gayle began to see God on her own 11:57 and to try to understand forgiveness in a new light. 12:00 These things that I had been holding on to for years, 12:03 all these things that have happened to me, 12:04 I had the wrong focus of what was wrong, 12:07 and I though Pat was the enemy, 12:09 and that people in the church were the enemy, 12:12 and even my family, you know, 12:15 I had seen them in the wrong way. 12:19 And that they were not the enemy, 12:21 and that I could forgive. 12:27 And I just started feeling joy again. 12:31 And it was such an amazing thing 12:34 to feel this warmth, and this love, and this joy 12:37 that I hadn't felt for years. 12:40 Hope was springing up in me 12:43 that my marriage could be saved. 12:45 She was becoming a new person. And I watched it. 12:49 And I was like, "This is what I've been praying for." 12:52 Now God was showing up, and reworking her and me, 12:58 and it was beautiful. 13:00 These were things that were new to us. 13:02 So what we were really learning is we're learning 13:04 how to take the teachings in the Bible 13:06 and make them real in our lives. 13:08 Today, Pat and Gayle say 13:10 their marriage has never been stronger. 13:13 I never knew that it could be this good. 13:16 I never knew that this is what life could be 13:20 like being married. 13:22 She is my best friend, and she is my partner, 13:26 and we face life together. 13:29 And it's awesome. 13:31 He's the first one that when something happens to me, 13:34 I want to share it with him. 13:35 And I have hope for our future together. 13:37 Well, I'm so thankful that God showed me the way, 13:41 showed us the way of life, 13:44 and showed us how to live life together. 13:51 Joining us again are my guests 13:54 Ruthie Jacobsen, Adly Campos, and Errol Stoddart. 13:59 I wanted to start of by asking each of you, 14:04 do you have a memory of probably 14:06 the most influential relationship 14:10 that you've had with another human being 14:13 in your life? 14:14 I know, most of us would say our spouses, 14:17 but I wanted you to go beyond your spouse, 14:20 maybe when you were growing up, in terms of understanding 14:26 the importance of surrendering to Christ. 14:29 Can you think of the person, or a person 14:33 that has influenced your life profoundly, 14:36 the relationship you had with them, 14:38 influential life profoundly? 14:40 Sister Campos? 14:42 Yes, I'm thinking on Dr. Charles Taylor, 14:45 he was the president of the Montemorelos University 14:49 at the time I was a student. 14:51 He inspired my life, 14:55 he tried each and every day in everything he did 14:59 to resemble the character of Christ. 15:03 And how about you, Pastor Stoddart? 15:06 Probably, two people. 15:08 Dr. Benjamin Reeves, 15:09 my homiletic's professor at Oakwood. 15:11 Yes, he was mine teacher too. 15:13 Just a steady man, levelheaded, calm spirit, 15:17 and probably the opposite of him 15:20 was Dr. Cleveland, EE Cleveland. 15:24 He was the firebrand but Dr. Cleveland, 15:28 sitting in his class was really the thing 15:31 that drove home to my heart 15:34 how special I was in the eyes of God, 15:38 and how God saw me, and how God sees us, 15:41 His deep love for us. 15:43 Dr. Cleveland's class was where 15:46 that transformative moment took place. 15:48 How about you, Ruthie? 15:52 Well, I'd have to say that one of the people 15:55 who influenced me was Elder CD Brooks. 15:59 Many, many years ago, I was living in Dayton, Ohio, 16:03 working in Nursing Service Administration 16:05 at the Kettering Medical Center. 16:08 And this is before we were married. 16:10 I used to go out 16:12 to Germantown Church near Dayton, 16:15 and CD Brooks would come out there every Thanksgiving, 16:18 and he'd come out at other times too. 16:20 And he sometimes had evangelistic crusades 16:22 in Cincinnati or other places. 16:25 And I would be so thrilled to sit at his feet 16:28 because he taught Jesus. 16:32 He taught amazing grace. Yes. 16:35 And I think it was, although I've grown up 16:38 in an Adventist home and my parents were praying, 16:42 godly people, I was first influenced by them. 16:46 But CD just was somebody that waters your soul. 16:52 Yeah, yeah. 16:53 You know, when we all think back, 16:57 different names come to our minds. 16:59 And for me, Elder EE Cleveland, 17:03 I was a teenager, I was a teenager. 17:07 And I remember, they said this, 17:11 "Preacher from the general conference 17:12 was coming to speak at Oakwood College then, 17:15 now Oakwood University. 17:17 And I remember so clearly sitting there, 17:20 and as they were reading his vitae 17:22 and his long list of accomplishments, 17:25 I was focused on him. 17:26 And he had his eyes closed, he had his hand on his chin, 17:29 he was patting his feet, 17:30 and he was rocking back and forth. 17:32 And when he got up to speak, he soared, 17:36 and I deduced that his soaring probably had something to do 17:39 with his preflight checklist, you know. 17:43 Whatever he was going through, 17:45 that was going to help him fly, you know. 17:48 And so when they would introduced me as a teenager 17:51 at Oakwood, I closed my eyes and I put my hand on my chin, 17:55 and I pat my feet, and I had rocked too 17:58 when they were introducing me. 18:00 But little did I know that I was entering into 18:03 what would become the secret of all of my blessings 18:07 and success in life and ministry. 18:09 And that is, I was learning to go to the mountain 18:12 before I went to the multitude. 18:15 So when I came down off the mountain, 18:18 my voice was shining, my face was shining, 18:21 my relationship with Christ was being reflected. 18:24 We all know that relationships profoundly 18:29 impact our character. 18:31 The Bible talks about bad associations 18:35 corrupting good morals, for example. 18:38 But, Pastor Stoddart, in what way do you see 18:42 the power of relationships 18:44 impacting profoundly our character? 18:49 It has a tremendous impact, you know, 18:52 the old folks would say, when I was growing up, 18:54 if you hang around dogs, your cats flee. 18:56 Yeah. 18:59 There is this sling of assimilation 19:02 that takes place up based on association. 19:06 And there's no doubt, Moses on the mountain, 19:09 his being in the presence of God, 19:12 when he came down, the Bible says, 19:14 his face was shining so much 19:16 so that they had to cover his face, 19:18 they could not look at his face at all. 19:21 And that's the reflection of association 19:25 in being in the presence of God. 19:27 Elijah with Elisha, and so on, and so on, and so forth. 19:32 If you see the biblical examples 19:33 over and over again of people hanging around somebody 19:39 who had a connection with God, and by their association, 19:43 they experienced in their own walk 19:46 a connection with God. 19:47 How about you, Sister Campos? 19:49 How important do you think relationships are 19:52 in the development of Christian character? 19:56 So important that specially in the family, 20:02 parents are to be very careful on how they reflect God 20:07 in their own lives at home, because children learn more so 20:13 from observing the conduct, the behavior of the parents 20:18 than words or punishment. 20:21 So therefore, it has a lot of influence on us, 20:26 what we learn at home. 20:28 Even though our parents might not be perfect, no, no, 20:33 according to their world standard, 20:35 they still are reflecting Jesus' character. 20:40 Especially, I teach in my seminars, 20:44 fathers, the figure, the male figure 20:47 has to be so careful in the way he behaves, he conducts himself 20:52 because children tend to think of God as a male. 20:57 Yes. 20:58 Father, we say our father which art in heaven. 21:02 And they will compare their father on earth 21:06 with the father on heaven. 21:09 So we have to be so careful in how we represent 21:13 God's character before our children, 21:16 before our little ones, before our own family, 21:18 and then to others. 21:21 Ruthie, what do you think about that? 21:24 What do you think, and why do you think 21:26 that relationships are so important 21:30 in developing character? 21:31 And as you think about that, 21:32 I want to ask you two questions. 21:34 And the second one really is, have you seen miracles 21:39 in prayer to transform relationships, 21:43 and how they've impacted other people's lives? 21:48 Absolutely. 21:49 I'm convinced there's nothing else, 21:52 there is nothing else. 21:54 I have seen people who have been sure 21:57 that they were at the very bottom, 21:59 and suicidal, you know, and just had no place to go. 22:05 And when they came to prayer meeting, 22:07 and they were surrounded by loving people 22:10 who placed hands on them and prayed over them, 22:13 believing and praying in the name of Jesus. 22:17 You know, heaven, it's just like 22:19 the Peterson song. 22:21 Heaven came down and glory fills your soul. 22:24 But it comes through people, it comes through people. 22:29 God works through His people. 22:31 Wintley, I have to tell you, one of the things 22:34 that I still remember about the prayer meetings 22:36 at Capitol Hill 22:37 was how those young professional people 22:40 would line up to give their testimonies. 22:43 Yes, you remember that. Everybody has a story. 22:46 Every body has a story. Yeah. 22:48 And God uses those stories to encourage. 22:51 And when you share your story, 22:54 it not only blesses people who hear this story, 22:58 but it encourages your own heart. 23:00 So relationships are just... 23:02 I think this is a paramount subject 23:05 to the heart of God. 23:06 Pastor Stoddart. Let me say this, Wintley. 23:09 I took a class recently called theories of personality. 23:13 It was a very interesting class. 23:14 I just wanted to sharpen my soul as they say. 23:18 And one of the things they talked about in the class 23:20 was, they talked about a religious personality. 23:24 And they said that the way 23:26 a religious personality gets developed is that 23:29 it's passed on through heredity. 23:32 It's comes from grandparents to parents 23:35 down to grandchildren. 23:37 I thought to myself, "That is unbelievable." 23:40 There is a thing in psychology called a religious personality 23:44 that seemingly has the capacity to be transferred generational. 23:50 And the teacher says, 23:51 "Sometimes it may skip a generation 23:54 but catches up with the following generation." 23:56 Right, right. 23:57 And I thought to myself, "That is so powerful 24:00 to know that what a parent is doing today 24:04 or what your grandparents did 50, 60 years ago 24:08 were seeds that were sown in preparation 24:12 for who we are today spiritually." 24:15 It was so profound to me. 24:16 Yeah, yes. Amen. 24:18 I made a statement at the beginning 24:20 that God looks at our relationships 24:24 to determine our fitness for heaven. 24:28 He looks at our relationship with Him, you know, 24:32 He wants to be sure we are happy with Him, 24:37 and happy in Him, because He does not want us 24:41 to come to eternity unhappy. 24:45 And then He looks at our relationships 24:48 with those, as Sister Campos was saying, 24:51 those who are closest to us, you know. 24:55 I often tell my wife, 24:57 we just have a few more seconds. 24:58 I tell my wife that I have to speak to her 25:04 the way I planned to speak to her 25:07 in the kingdom of heaven. 25:09 Amen. 25:10 I love that. 25:11 Yes. 25:13 So I envisioned myself sitting in heaven 25:16 across the table, you know, for my wife. 25:19 And the way I planned to speak to her there 25:23 is the way I want to speak to her right here now, 25:27 because the Lord looks at our relationships 25:31 to determine our fitness for heaven. 25:35 Thank you so much, you guys. 25:36 If we had all think that way, Pastor, 25:39 then there will be no divorce. 25:41 That's right, there'll be no divorce 25:42 if we all thought that way. 25:44 God bless you. 25:45 Thank so much for being with us today. 25:52 Sin entered the world 25:53 because Eve's relationship with God was compromised, 25:57 shattered, ruptured, and broken. 26:00 And with the broken relationship 26:02 came a deformed character. 26:05 Jesus came to this world to live and die, 26:10 to repair the relationship between God and man, 26:15 and to restore the character and image of God in man. 26:21 And now everything in eternity hangs on a relationship. 26:28 For us, it is a relationship with Jesus 26:31 and our relationship with others. 26:34 And Satan knows that, and that's 26:37 why when the enemy wants to discourage 26:39 and dishearten us, 26:41 when he wants to disappoint and depress us, 26:44 the first place he attacks is our relationships. 26:50 Satan knows that before he can destroy us, 26:53 he has to first damage, devastate, 26:57 and destroy our relationships. 27:00 Servant of God said, 27:02 "I saw that it is in the providence of God 27:04 that widows and orphans, the blind, the deaf, 27:07 the lame, and persons afflicted in a variety of ways 27:10 have been placed in close Christian relationship 27:14 to His church to prove His people 27:17 and develop their true character." 27:21 I want you to know, God's blessings 27:24 will rest upon our relationships. 27:27 He uses relationships to determine our fitness 27:32 for heaven. 27:34 And so thank God for the relationships 27:37 that you have. 27:38 Thank God for the relationships He's placed in your life. 27:43 I'm Wintley Phipps, and remember, 27:47 to be a Christian means to be Christ-like. |
Revised 2018-01-25