The only way you can do that, is being willing to let the Holy Ghost help you resolve your past, and to bring revelation truth about how you live your life and become effective. So I need to be willing to face - I've had to face things, I'm still facing stuff. It'll never stop, it's just a journey of walking with God, and layer by layer He opens our life, we face things that are painful, we talk with Him. He shows us the truth, and we begin to move on with our life. It's a journey. It's okay to be on that journey, but don't just pretend that your family was perfect. Don't sort of say something lik,e I heard someone say when I was counselling: well I've moved on. That's my past, all behind me, it's at the cross. I said: well you seem to have brought a lot with you. [Laughter] It looks to me like it's all just happening, just like it was in your family. It helps you to have a think about how you saw things in your own family, and how they're happening in your family right now. Chances are they're the same - unless you've actually been healed in that area, and allowed the Lord to bring truth to you.
The last one is the issue of conflict. One of the big issues, that is a problem for us, is the issue of conflict, handling conflict; and either spiritualising it away, or hiding it away, or putting it under a carpet hoping it'll die; but it's usually like cancer. It just spreads, it doesn't get any better, and one of the areas that Christians have to learn to do, is how to engage one another when there are differences, and learn how to enter into places where there are conflicts. It's not easy to do that, and we're going to share a session just related to that at some point, on how Jesus, interestingly enough, stirred up conflict wherever He went. What He did was He demolished the false peace, by exposing what was really happening, and when He did that it made room for change to take place. In some places, He actually said things that provoked out to the open, and created a huge conflict. So life has got lots of conflicts in it, and in church, we're not good at that.
I know for me growing up, conflict was a thing of tremendous emotional pain. It was an evil - you don't have it if you can avoid it, but actually you can't avoid it. You need to engage it. That's the truth, but sometimes we need to be healed in order to do that. If we're going to go out and have effect in the community, in a greater level than we have now, there will be conflict; and if you're unwilling to get enter into it, you'll be at a great disadvantage. You'll be beaten up, spat out, and you'll say: evangelism's not for me. I think I'll just carry on down to the church, and I'll cross by the other side of the road, and I won't be bothered about getting involved with those people. It just hurts too much. So God is calling us to grow up emotionally, spiritually, become mature, so that we are empowered to have greater impact in the community - so one and the other go hand in hand.
As you go to the community, as you touch the lives of people, you become aware of what's in your life, and you grow. As you grow, you do it again, and try different things. Listen, we're living in a great hour worldwide. We were just at a conference, 20,000 people, and I looked and I saw every province in China was represented there. I realised I had personally trained every one of those people in how to move in the power of God, and bring God to people. Even though at times it's been very difficult, you see what impact you can have. Thousands can be impacted, or just a few, or just one or two; whatever it is, we can all make a difference in someone's world. But let's not have a look, tut-tut-tut, and cross to the other side, and go to another church meeting. Let's make a decision: God, I want to grow in my maturity, emotionally and spirituall,y and I want to be engaged in reaching people that need You. I present myself to You to do that.