I. Character is Acquired

Today, let's delve into proactive learning. This is a crucial concept. If you've followed my previous lectures, this fourth part, The Character of a Proactive Learner, focuses on the idea that character is acquired. Do not be fooled by the notion that character is innate. Who you are now is not as important as who you aspire to become! Everything is learned, even character. Were you aware of this? You are born knowing nothing.

The formation of character has two aspects: the innate, which we cannot alter. Some children are born crying, while others do not cry at all. Which type do you think I was? I was the type who wouldn't cry, no matter what, and didn't feel distressed either. Where do you learn that? It's innate, but the innate aspect isn't as significant because we can't control it.

Consider twins, where the elder is born five minutes before the younger. There is no reasoning with that. We cannot manage what is innate, but we must manage what is acquired. Regardless of your starting point, whether you were born crying or not, or the nature of your family of origin, know today that the innate is useless; it is what you learn that matters! Why? Because we cannot control the innate; only what we learn later is useful. This isn't difficult to understand; a child is born not knowing a single word. You can't be born with knowledge, unless you are a mythical figure.

Therefore, human cognition is learned. Why do I emphasize the importance of method? Because if you learn the wrong way, you certainly won't learn. We then assume we're incapable of learning, but that's not the case; it's the method that's incorrect. I say this to give you confidence, to let you know that you just haven't got it right. If it’s not done right, it will not turn out well. If it did not turn out well, it is not your fault, we will say it is moon's fault. It's not that you can't learn; it's that you don't know how. Today, I will teach you how to learn. Proactive learning is a character trait, and if you develop it, you'll be formidable! If you say you can't learn, then study how to learn; that's learning itself.

I must tell you today that I often say, If you hadn't met me, your life would be much harder! For those brothers and sisters who have met me, have they changed the stubbornness and obstinacy in their character? Yes, they have. Have they strengthened the timidity in their character? Yes, they have. There were many with depression; how are they now? Healed. All have been transformed. Meeting me means you are fortunate. How wonderful to meet someone who can change our destiny and our character! Today, I feel that your fate is better than mine. My life hasn't been so good, and speaking of it brings tears, but I can improve the lives of others.

In my early days of seeking God, I wanted to find a God who could change destiny. When I approached some, they told me it was due to my past lives. I found this unhelpful. Later, I found the church. When I got to church, they said anything can be changed, which was good. Later, I encountered the God who can change everything, the God who enables the blind to see and the crippled to walk! Can He change? Yes, He can. Later, I read Genesis, and even the order of birth can be changed. Jacob and Esau, one wanted to be the eldest, the other did not value his birthright, and Jacob became the eldest. So, in our hearts, we must know there is a God who can change everything!

God has good intentions for each of us. Do you think there are still good intentions for me living like that in the past? In the past, you lacked character, and the core of character is faith! Today, learn faith; today, begin to learn character. Faith can release God's power—believe, believe, believe! It doesn't cost anything—believe, believe, believe! Anything can be changed. How difficult is that? Not difficult at all; just believe. From today on, stop shirking responsibility, stop blaming heaven and earth, and stop blaming this and that. From now on, with faith, with learning, and then knowing God, knowing God's good intentions for us, you can live out God's glorious image!

Know that when I give this lecture, I was a little concerned at first. I was concerned that those who do not believe in the Lord can also listen, but it is a bit hard to go back and forth, and without God, these would be useless! How to do it? There is no way. Teaching this must be built on the foundation of God, so a colleague reminded me, he said: Teacher, you do not need to avoid this. You say today is Sunday, what should I talk if I don't talk about this? No need to avoid God, nothing can be changed without God, then what is the use of talking about it? That knowledge is useless. So when you encounter difficulties, when you encounter obstacles, you believe in God, you don't believe in yourself. Today, which of us has not received grace because of trusting in God? All of us have! And there are many changes. I saw a sister on the list who used to cry when she saw me a few years ago, and she was very tired in her bones, but now she is amazing.

One day she drove a big car to find me, she used to be very poor, but now she drives a big car. That is to say, everything is learned. At first, she was doing Taobao store decoration, learning, doing, so troublesome! But as she did it, today her performance is rising rapidly. Sometimes she feels uncomfortable and doesn't want to do anything, and her old personality comes out again, and she doesn't even want to pray. That feeling is very real, but it doesn't matter. What matters is what kind of person do I want to be? I trust in my God, and my God is the source of my strength! Really, you are not good enough, you are not worthy, how can you be worthy of driving a big car? But this is God's grace. Some people hear this and think I am talking about success theology. No, I am not talking about success theology, nor am I talking about grace theology. I am talking about how a person can obtain many graces through learning and through drawing on God's power. Remember, our God is originally a giver of grace.

II. Difficulties Will Always Exist

You say, Teacher, after listening to your lecture yesterday, I made up my mind to be a proactive learner! But upon opening the book, everything hurt except my hair. Does that happen? Of course it does! Difficulties will always exist, and then there are many voices inside: It’s too difficult! You are not smart enough to learn this. Then you get upset, and then what? Go to bed, and when you wake up, there are still difficulties. So I tell you, difficulties will always exist, and that feeling will always come, why? Because these are all ghosts, and what do ghosts do? Ghosts just want to ruin you. So what is needed at this time? At this time, what is most needed is faith! Pick up your faith again, even if it is dying, I know that the difficulties are as big as mountains, and at this time you can read the fable The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains, and we will just dig it one shovel at a time! It is people digging little by little with faith.

Why can't people do it? They always want to eat a fat man in one bite, always want to take a big one in one bite, but they are not down-to-earth. Difficulties will always exist, but overcoming difficulties is like the foolish old man who digs one shovel at a time. Then people laughed at him, how did the foolish old man react? I will not be able to finish digging in my lifetime, my son will dig; if my son cannot finish digging, my grandson will dig. People laughed at him even more and asked him: Can your son dig? He said: I don’t know, but I believe! I believe my son will do as I do and dig. Asked him: Will your son support you when you get old? He said: I don’t know, but I believe! Asked him: Will your grandson dig? He said: I don’t know, but I believe! He is all about believing in faith, digging one shovel at a time.

What happened in the end? As he dug and dug, God was moved, and it was one shovel at a time, digging into God's heart. Today, as you do a little bit at a time, you will dig into God's heart, and as a result, God is moved. Oh, how can there be such a person in the world, who else should I help if I don't help him? God sent two powerful angels to take away the two mountains. Why didn't God say: You silly fool, why don't you just move your family to the other side of the mountain, what are you doing digging the mountain? I think so too. But if you go around and cross this mountain, and move your family there, that is not a way to practice faith. Because difficulties will always exist, and the mountain in front of you will always be there! But God will definitely help you move this mountain away. Do you know who are the people who tell these stories? They don't believe in God, but they all tell this story.

So difficulties will always exist, this sentence must enter your heart. But you still do things little by one step at a time, and implement one thing at a time in a down-to-earth manner, this is character! What do you think character is? I have to tell you, when I established the church, this small place in Singapore is as small as a bullet, and there is a church in every square kilometer. Now there may be more than two. I tell you, it was too difficult to establish a church at that time. People came to the Sunday service, and on the way, they went to another church to take a look, and they would not come to me. You think you are going to preach there, and the seats below are empty, and it is very uncomfortable in your heart. Have you ever organized an activity? It is very painful if no one comes to the activity you organized. Those days were so hard, but I have a character, and that character is full of charm!

So what happened to this matter later? Later I tell you, the church we built is a reflection of my character! An old pastor once told me, he said: Xiao Liu, do you know? Whether a person starts a company or a church, it is a reflection of who you are. What kind of person you are, that is what kind of church it is. I was very encouraged after hearing this. I thought it was definitely possible. We don't lack character, and we don't lack faith! But after a year and another year of persistence, the desolate scene continued for many years. But I thank God! It was in such a desolate situation, I tell you, that all were healed! There are so many people who have received grace, and God is really with them.

Faith, I am a person who practices faith, and faith is a character in my bones. Today, our brothers and sisters are starting to think, what we are afraid of is not difficulties, but what we are afraid of is that you have no character. You are starting to develop a character, and this character is a faith that is cultivated in difficulties! It doesn't matter if you are in the wilderness, but it is troublesome if you have wilderness but no character. If you have wilderness and have character, you will be victorious. The desert is not terrible, and the wilderness is not terrible. The most terrible thing is that we have no faith and no character in us. Both faith and character are learned.

III. Faith is the Foundation of Character

Does it sound like I am teaching a class when I say this? It doesn’t sound like teaching a class, it sounds like preaching. Whether it is preaching or teaching a class, what I am talking about is that faith is the foundation of character! Why do you have character? Because there is faith inside. Why don't you have character? Because there is no faith inside. What things do you do that do not require faith? At the beginning of doing things, you say: I can't make it! Do you think you can make it? As you do it, you give up, and as you do it, it becomes a failed project. The judgment of the future is negative, then that is not called faith; the judgment of the future is positive, then that is faith!

For example, the people I serve have many miracles. Three bones on the back of the foot are fractured, and the foot is swollen like that. After praying for the first ten minutes, the foot is still swollen. After twenty minutes, it has not changed. After thirty minutes, it has not changed. Are you going to stick to it? I will not give up. Later, after praying for an hour and a half, the swelling of the foot disappeared, and I could walk on the ground. There are many such things. There is a thorn in the throat, and it is gone after praying. How is it gone? It is not a second, but it is still persisting for fifteen minutes.

What I do is done because of faith, and faith is the foundation of character. If you interact with me, you will find that I have a strong character. I am not good-looking and my words are vulgar, but this character is very obvious, that is, I am not afraid of difficulties. When some brothers and sisters are with me, they will say: Why are there so many things to do? That is because there is work to do in your eyes. When you see that this is a problem, is it not work for you if you don't solve it? Then when you see that this is another problem, is that not work? There is a lot of work to do. I am not afraid of having a lot of work to do. I am afraid of not having any work to do. If you are unemployed, you don’t need to work, and there is no work to do.

Therefore, judging the future is an act of faith. For example, if I encounter something like building a church and I don't know how, I'll just learn! Can you learn it? Why couldn't I? I even wanted to learn fortune-telling before, but they wouldn't teach me. I believe everything can be learned. So people with faith are especially powerful. Today, I hope that brothers and sisters can cultivate the habit of having faith, the habit of having character. When you encounter difficulties while actively learning, don't lose faith. Just keep inching forward with faith. Some people inch forward little by little, year after year.

When my first group of coworkers came to work, it was very interesting. They said to me, Teacher, I've resigned. I said, Do you have a job lined up? They said, No. I said, What are you going to do? They said, I'm coming to work at the church. I said, Who told you to come? They said, Teacher, didn't you ask us to come? I got the wrong end of the stick. Because I often release faith, they trusted me too much. Then I said, If there's no salary, how long can you last? They said, We can probably last half a year. I said, If you can really last half a year, then come! As a result, everyone followed me on a path of prosperity, because in my faith, there will surely be prosperity!

You need to know that when they came to work, what was I worried about? I was worried about their parents! Their parents thought, Oh no, is my child's future ruined? Actually, a bright future started from there. What is this? This is faith! And when they came to work, I tell you, I worked alone, going to and from work, for five and a half years. So when they came, I couldn't help but cry, crying like a child. Finally, the days of going to and from work alone were over.

Faith is the foundation of character. When you have faith, you have character. When you have character, you have charisma. You are a very powerful person, very powerful indeed! So later it became more and more prosperous, and later we changed the name of the church to Chinese Mingding Doctrine, and founded a theological system, all because of faith. Even today, do you know what? Genesis is a depiction of faith! Some people say, What is Genesis about? Writing about God's creation. That’s rubbish! You are pretty impressive ah. No, it's faith! Abraham opened up the path of faith, and Isaac and Jacob pushed this faith to a new level. The highest level is Joseph, who pushed faith to an extremely high level, where even being a slave and a prisoner couldn't stop him from becoming a prime minister! Genesis is about faith, starting with faith, learning faith.

IV. Faith Can Draw on God’s Power

Faith can draw on God's power. Do you know how it's said? These signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on the sick, and they will get well. Faith can draw on God's power, but in this world, there are not many people with faith. If you can become a person with faith, you will be very powerful. Faith can draw on God's power! Sometimes I wonder, how can faith draw on God's power? The reason is very simple: God is looking for people with faith.

If you take a close look at the first half of your life, if you weren't a person of faith in the first half of your life, today you must be in a state of corruption, doing things that peter out. Although God has provided for you until today, ordering takeout at any time is quite impressive, and you can live, but that kind of corrupt state is not what you want. I know you definitely don't want this, your mother doesn't want you to be like this, and you yourself don't want to be like this, but the things you do turn out this way. Why? The reason is very simple: faith! Why? Because people's faith is often built on themselves, and they are only half-baked, so they lose faith after a while.

But today I want to tell you that your faith can be built on God. You say, Teacher, I don't know how to build it on God. When you are doing this thing, like the foolish old man, you inch forward little by little, digging one shovel at a time, doing it one shovel at a time. That's okay, when will you see the mountain can be dug away? Can’t see it. But the foolish old man continued to dig, constantly digging. Why? Because he knew that God's power could be manifested, and this mountain would be moved away! Today, which of the brothers and sisters among us who have turned around did it in a quarter of an hour? None of them did. They all went through round after round of faith. If it's not the contest of faith, what is it? It’s all a contest of faith. So from knowing nothing to being able to support a business, isn't that faith? It's not that he was a top student since he was a child, but how he grew up little by little later.

Some time ago, when people came to see me, I thought it was great. He said, Teacher, drive my car. It's nice to drive a Mercedes-Benz, of course. How did he grow up? That's faith! I thank God, this is a person with character, this is a person with faith, as long as I often give him faith, he insists, starting from a faint breath of faith to today, our pastor has been accompanying him all the way. How many of you have received grace today? Many! For example, there is one person among us who was so lazy before, owed debts outside, and couldn't do anything well. Although the problem of laziness is still there a little bit, often overflowing, but he now has savings and is doing well in his performance. Why? That's all because faith can draw on God's power! What does this have to do with active learning?

V. Active Learning is the Practice of Faith

I am a person who practices faith. If I want to solve a problem, there must be a lot of knowledge that I don't know. So this practice of faith, whatever thing you learn, is from not knowing to knowing. If you can hold on from not knowing to knowing, and you keep holding on until you get things done, and solve the problem, it's all faith! God does not despise a faint breath of faith. When I was building the church, I was really desperate sometimes, to the point where I couldn't control my tears from falling. I tell you, I could collect several bottles of mineral water with my tears, but even that faint breath of faith, God does not despise. So don't say your faith is small, faith is a process of practice, and it is all practiced from small things.

So what do you want to learn today? In fact, what you are learning may be what you encounter in the workplace. The things you need to learn in the workplace, you will definitely encounter difficulties, and what can support you is faith, having a very positive judgment about the future, and moving forward little by little. There are many among us. There was a small accountant who came from Shandong and worked very hard. When he was in Shandong, he only made two or three thousand yuan a month, and then he didn't have a job. His aunt borrowed high-interest loans in his name, and as a result, he was blacklisted. Isn't that life-threatening?

How hard did he work in those years? He couldn't understand the accounting books, so I had to teach him how to read them, but in fact, it was his own faith that saved him later. He really didn't study well, because he graduated from junior high school, and he didn't study well in junior high school. He has now become the chief accountant, and he does things clearly. What is it? Faith! Active learning is a practice of faith. He doesn't have a college degree, he doesn't have a high school diploma, he started mixing around after junior high school, but he has an active learning attitude. With this active learning attitude, what happened? Today it is getting better and better. He bought a car some time ago. I said, How much money do you have now? He said, I bought a car. I can't get a loan. I bought it with cash. He is driving very well now. Being blacklisted can't stop him from driving. Was the problem solved? The problem was solved.

I tell you, the road ahead is getting more and more prosperous. When it prospers to a certain extent, if we really can't do it, we will pay back the money we owe, and then we will be removed from the blacklist, right? That's simple. So I tell you, no matter what the situation is, it can't stop us from actively learning. Don't think that actively learning is in college, or studying for a graduate degree. No, active learning is learning in society, learning in the university of society, and then training yourself in a skill. He is now the chief accountant. You ask me how his spiritual condition is? In fact, having this set of practicing faith is pretty good.

VI. God Will Accomplish It for You According to Your Faith

Today, many of our brothers and sisters have returned to work. In 2019, they were taking care of children at home. Because of the continuous promotion of his pastor, he has now become a partner in an accounting firm, which is great, isn't it? It is not difficult to become a boss in the future. You say that I am talking about worldly things, but the problem is that practicing faith has to be practiced on earth, right? Practicing faith is practiced on earth. How can you practice it in heaven? You don't need to practice it when you get to heaven. It is on this earth that God will accomplish it for you according to your faith!

The faith we are talking about today is real faith, not the very empty faith of dying and going to heaven. I basically don't talk about that. You say I don't talk about eternal life? I talk about eternal life. But our faith, our hope is real faith, but it is not a love of the world, but a love of God! Learning, constantly growing. If you are dirt poor, who are you going to bless? Today I have to tell you, why am I so bold in talking about these things? The parable that Jesus made, giving you a talent, some people earned five talents, and some earned ten talents. Why can't it be said that this talent is a metaphor for something else, can't it be a metaphor for talent? Because earning ten talents from one talent is an operation of faith, a practice of faith! Because he believed, God accomplished it according to what he believed. Today you believe, God will accomplish it according to what you believe!

Today, the brothers and sisters among us who have relatively weak faith are eating this faith that I preach and teach from the Bible every week, and they are getting stronger and stronger, and as a result, they are now beginning to prosper. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. So after a person practices faith, he says, Wow! My God is so awesome. Love God, and keep and follow His words, saying, Oh, it's so good to keep and follow His words! Do I need to persuade you about things that will benefit you? Seeing that this is good, oh, this is a really high return, isn't this loving God, learning, and actively learning to practice faith in God's word. If you use active learning to study God's word, to know God in your understanding, and your faith in your understanding continues to grow, your faith will surely bear fruit, you will surely grow in your understanding, and there will surely be great growth in your understanding and wisdom!

Religious faith is not faith. People with a strong religious flavor are not called faith. People with a strong religious flavor hope that they will not move or learn anything, and they will know everything all of a sudden. Saying, Teacher, lay your hands on me and pray for me, so that I can receive knowledge and wisdom. If I lay my hands on you, can you receive it? He said, Teacher, give me a little gift. People who always want to do something all of a sudden are actually a tragedy. So today I teach you the character of active learning. Have you learned it this time? Just practice it. Every learning is a practice of faith, and every growth is the result of the practice of faith. Every time you practice faith, you please God. Amen!