Sid: You know, I was thinking before we went on the air about a well known prominent Bible teacher by the name of “Joyce Meyer” and I got a hold of a series of her teachings on humility and then I heard the saddest story about this teaching, she would put these CD’s on her table and it was called something like “Humility” and no one picked it up, no one was interesting in it. And then she changed the title and people started to buy it. What a sad commentary on Christians. My guests are Ken and Jeanne Harrington, I’m interviewing them on their new book “Shift, Moving from the Natural to the Supernatural.” Jeanne, there’s seems to be such a deficiency among American Christians, I can’t speak about Canadians, which is where you’re from about Canadian Christians, but I think that it’s pretty much universal in reference to something that causes the whole world to want or dislike what we have and it starts with just plain character.
Jeanne: That’s why we actually wrote the book, one of the reasons was that we saw the gifts in the Body of Christ, we saw power, but we did not see the character of Christ. We did not see humility, we saw men that when they got to a position they wanted to be a king, they wanted to have every one serve them and carry their bags, look after them. But we…
Sid: Well, it gets downright embarrassing when I go out to speak and I’m holding my Bible and I go into a church and someone grabs my Bible as if I can’t hold my Bible. I mean they’re doing what they’ve been instructed to do, but I am getting the wrong message, you know.
Jeanne: If a person wants to honor you that’s up to them, but if you demand that honor, if you demand the servant hood. Saul became a king, Solomon was a king and Saul was a king and Saul demanded servants and David had a different heart and I believe God wants us to have a heart. The more we to up the more we bend down and I really feel that to get higher in the kingdom we must go lower. I once a heard a man, a prophet come into our church and said, duck. In other words we need to get very low and I don’t see it in the Body of Christ, that’s why people fall, is because they don’t have the character with the gifting. Power only amplifies, and money amplifies and if there’s a crack in us that amplification causes us to blow apart.
Sid: Well, you know in the late forty’s there were all these healing evangelists that got started and they had instant miracle ministries and people were getting saved and it was wonderful, but they had never developed character and just about everyone of them fell.
Ken: And I think that this is a, it’s a sad really against the Body that that really happened and so what we’ve done and I really feel this is that we have actually prostituted the gifts. That we have been more concerned about the power and the ability that the man had and we wanted to use his gift and as a result we didn’t look after him and that allowed people then with great power, but no character to move into places that their character couldn’t keep them. And I think God is putting His finger on this now, He’s developing a character and He’s going to come up with more of a Body rather than big powerful men, although there will still be that, He wants powerful Body where He’s the Head.
Sid: But, you know what, I believe that those that develop their character God will trust with His gifts.
Jeanne: When you develop your character then God can trust you with the supernatural and He wants all of His children to walk in the supernatural; but he doesn’t want them to hurt His other children with it.
Ken: And part of what God was doing I, agree that the Bible says that like produces like, and so what do I want to reproduce? Do I want to reproduce myself or do I want to reproduce Jesus, so I need to get to look more like Jesus so that I can reproduce that aspect rather than trying to have disciples of me, have disciples of Him.
Sid: You know, a good example you give in your book about a Biblical principal that develops character is when you lost your job. Now there are a lot of people that are listening to us that have lost their jobs.
Ken: Yes, and it didn’t have to be just once, it happened a couple of times, and what I had to do is “Am I operating in faith?” Actually I had, the first time this happened to me, I was just a young journeyman and even though I was a good hard worker, I actually spent too much time talking to people about Jesus, and when they came along and said, “We’re laying you off.” I was so shocked that I actually went to God right there and I said, “I should be the last person that that they lay off, I should be the most valuable person they have, because I’ve got Jesus inside of me.” And I had to repent for stealing the company’s time to do what I considered kingdom business, and didn’t give the company a full day work. And you know in two hours my foreman who actually was also a Christian came back and said, I don’t know what’s happened but they want you to go to the other job site and they want you to be foreman over there. And I went from getting laid off to being promoted and the only thing that I did was repent in between.
Sid: And as you shared, or I believe Jeanne shared earlier in this week, that the Children of Israel kept going in circles because they didn’t know how to repent and change their behavior. Once you repented and changed your behavior the supernatural of God appeared.
Ken: Yes.
Sid: That’s what I’m saying, when we learn the character to walk in the character of God, there’s nothing blocking the supernatural of God.
Ken & Jeanne: And we’ve watched over and over again when Ken has lost a job, we actually go out for dinner, and we celebrate and we say, “Were not depending on the job, we’re not depending on a union, we’re depending on God, and so we go have a nice steak dinner even though it doesn’t make any logical sense.
Sid: You must drive the devil nuts!
Jeanne: Yes,
Ken: Ken, early in our life we decided that we were going to actually tithe on what we needed rather than on what we had.
Sid: That is so illogical, it’s Biblical.
Ken: But it works.
Sid: Tell me about the time that you were demoted.
Ken: I was actually building the largest drag line in the world.
Sid: What is that?
Ken: A drag is a big crane that takes the dirt off the coal; I was at a coal mine. This thing is longer than a football field, it’s huge. And I had gotten the job because head office had hired me but there was political maneuvering going upstairs and the regional office ended up getting control of the job and they had their own man. And they said, they walked into my office about eight months on the job and said we’re going to replace you, I was the superintendant of the job. And I was upset, but because God had been training me for a particular purpose that He started to walk through with me and speak to me and say, this is good thing, that actually I was a better number two than I was a number one, but I didn’t like that, I wanted to be number one. And so what God did to me when I got demoted He started to show me, well actually the job shifted, it had gone into, from a five days a week ten hours a day into seven days a week into twelve hours a day. And so I lost my job but I also lost my pay scale. I went from a salary, which was a fixed salary to a wage which depended on hours. I actually ended up making Twenty-five thousand dollar more with no meetings and things like that to deal with. But what God was doing was He was actually training me in the natural so that in the kingdom, I could be a good number two and not end up being somebody that would try to usurp authority above me and God trained me in the natural so that I could operate in the spiritual in that way.
Sid: You know Jeanne on yesterday’s broadcast we were talking about you two were in supernatural evangelism and you had a story you started to tell me.
Jeanne: I had a man come in he was from England, and he was about 6’2” 6’4” and he was probably about 300 pounds and he sat in front of me and I was a little intimidated and I asked him if he has any religious affiliation and he said, “I’m an atheist,” and he was really firm and I said, “Well the only person I hear from is the God of the Bible, are you okay with that?” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “I’m going to pray in a heavenly language, are you all right with that?” And he said, “Yes.” And so I began to pray in a heavenly language and he began to cry. And the Lord gave me a picture of a little boy who could never please his father and so I began to share with him, how God loved him and wanted to be the Father to him that he never knew, and that God was not disappointed with him. And as I’m sharing the tears keep coming and coming and then I shared with him, how that Jesus is the bridge to God the Father, and the Father so longed to have a relationship with Him and as I shared that with him, I told him how Jesus took all our sin upon Himself and that if he would cross the bridge of Jesus to God the Father that he would have the relationship with his Heavenly Father that he always wanted to have. And when I was done he accepted, the Lord.
Sid: Yeah, but Jeanne you’re special you have all these gifts.
Jeanne: No, I’m ordinary I’m a housewife, I’m just an ordinary person, but I believe an extraordinary God.
