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#29 Possibility Thinking Reaches Across Borders With Love (15/06/02) By Robert H. Schuller My son and I are continuing our series of messages on what many people would call the greatest chapter in the Bible, the love chapter, found in I Corinthians 13. These fabulous words were written by St. Paul, two thousand years ago. I'm astounded the more I read the Bible through the passing years, how insightful and brilliant were these persons who wrote the Scriptures. They didn't have training in psychology or philosophy or some of the human arts that today helps us to understand human behavior. The Scriptures are definitely a collection of inspired writings, which is why we call it the Holy Bible. And I'm sharing with you some thoughts this morning from the second verse in this love chapter. The text is: "If
I have faith to move mountains, I just returned yesterday from a two-week trip into China where this ministry is becoming very well known and profoundly respected. It is an astonishing thing to see all the computers in China and our website, www.hourofpower.org, is there and we are known at the highest level of the government in China. They have done their research on us. They respect us and are opening the doors to our ministry. I arrived in Beijing and was assigned a guide named Martin. He is a young communist and not a religious person assigned by the government to escort me. He escorted me to the University of Beijing where I was told that I was the first Christian leader allowed on the campus to give a lecture to the students. It was a small group of select students who spoke impeccable English and I shared my possibility thinking and my self-esteem theology. I had to be very discreet about how I spoke in religious terms. But I gave them eight words that I hope they will remember and could carry with then. We have used them often in this ministry and in this church. I am ... I can ... I will ... I BELIEVE! I am ... I emphasized the fact that I am a person, not an animal. I am a human being. I am not a computer. I am not subject to simple indoctrination. I
can ... I
will ... I
believe ... At Beijing University one bright young girl was the first to question me. "Dr. Schuller, I'm a graduate student in strategy management and I'm a good student. But in strategy management I'm asking how can I believe in myself as I go out into the world for a career? How can I believe that I will succeed? How can I? What is your strategy for developing that positive belief?" With great caution, I said to her, "Well, you have to have a faith. For myself it happens to be religion. I believe in God." Then another student, a girl asked the question, "How can I handle peer pressure." There were more questions from these very attentive young men and women. And the questions were the same questions that university students ask here in the United States of America. Without enough time to answer all of them, I was ushered out by the officials and as I stepped outdoors and looked up at the sky, a thought came to me and my thought was a prayer. "Oh God, how the world needs our message of possibility thinking and self esteem. I am! I can! I will! I believe! On the way to the airport as we were leaving Beijing, our second escort, a young man said to me, "You know, Dr. Schuller, I really enjoyed your comments at the university. I'm not religious at all. I'm a communist but I've connected with your website on the Internet and it's very exciting. I want to learn more." I said, "Well, stay logged onto our website. We're putting more and more materials on there all the time." Our website was started a few years ago by Tim Milner, my son-in-law, and he has been connected with the power people in China who allowed us to get on their Internet programs. We went then to Nanjing where I had an appointment with Bishop Ding. Bishop Ding is one of the most respected Christian leaders in China. He had been reading my books and was anxious to ask me some questions. At 86 years old, he does not usually give interviews or appointments. But he was extremely generous to me and we connected in an unbelievable way. Instead of a twenty-minute appointment, it went on to one hour, then to two hours. Listening was my guide, Martin, who had been with me last year, and the same Martin who had listened to all of my lecture and comments at the university. Now he is listening with his eyes wide open, head straight and alert, listening intently to the deep theological dialogue between Bishop Ding and Robert Schuller. Our next stop was Xiamen, where I was also invited to speak at the University there. Now this was very significant because Xiamen used to be called Amoy. And this was touching for me because it was in that city where my mother's brother, my Uncle Henry, did his missionary work. As I walked through the streets, it struck me that in this place, 75 years ago, my uncle, hearing about my mother's pregnancy prayed for that unborn infant in her womb, and got the vision that this child would become a minister. Five years later he came to America, put his hand on my head and gave me this message from God that was given to him in prayer in Amoy. I felt that my life started in Amoy because that is where the dream first came from God to a messenger who would deliver it to me. Again, in Xiamen I spoke this time to a much larger class of university students. And I shared my possibility thinking attitude and psychology. I shared the same self-esteem concepts as in Beijing. At the end of my lecture, I wrote on the board the words that I wanted them to all remember. I am! I am a person ... not a computer ... not just an animal. I am a person. I am loaded with potential and talents and gifts. I can! I can think. I can make decisions. I can pass judgments. I can choose my future. I can set my goals. And then the words ... I will! I will think. I will talk. I will become. I am ... I can ... I will! And then finally, the words ... I believe! Again, I said to the students, "I don't know where you will find a belief system. It is not my privilege to be able to share with you in detail how I found my belief system. You can go to your computer and find our website, www.hourofpower.org, to know more about our belief system. You must learn to live by faith. Living by faith means you make decisions before you can be sure. Living by faith means you can make commitments to issues you probably can't prove. When you become the kind of human being that makes decisions before they are provable you are entering a new level of personhood that is profound." "You all understand English. You are bright, attractive, young and intelligent." And pointing to the words on the board I said, "Say these words with me and you'll get the same feeling that I experience. I am! I can! I will! I believe! Go to the window every morning, if you're in an up time or a down time ... if things are going well or things are going very, very badly ... go to the window, look at the light in the sky and say: 'I believe! I believe! I BELIEVE!'" Then, after my hour and a half lecture time was up, the students came forward with so many questions. One young girl who I thought didn't look very interested in what I was saying came to me and she said, "Dr. Schuller, after listening to you I have a dream." "Oh," I said, "what is that?" She said, "My dream is that some day I'm going to be your secretary." I thought that was quite a compliment. The professor said, "Dr. Schuller, is there a way you can come back to Xiamen to teach this self-esteem concepts for a semester?" Well, I don't know, but it was a compliment to our message. What a message! There isn't a message like this in the world. Have faith and you can move mountains! There were more questions from these very attentive young men and women. Well, my guide, Martin, listened to all these lectures and discussions. And he said, "I've heard things on your trip here I've never heard in my life." In Hong Kong I gave a lecture to 600 top managers of insurance companies. There were very few Christians, and again I gave the same message of possibility thinking and love. And the response was overwhelming. Then again, on the same day, it was awesome to speak at the convention center in Hong Kong, in their primary venue with two thousand seats, jammed packed and overflowing with young people. (I was the only one that had white hair.) They listened to this same message of possibility thinking: Nothing
is impossible ... IF ... And I let them know that the words came straight from the lips of Jesus in the Bible, and they grabbed hold of it. In our hotel room that night I said to Arvella, "Wow! Wow! What a message ... the whole world needs it. The young people are hungry for it - and old people need it." The message is: "If
you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, All these comments I've made so far ... what do they have to do with this series on love? Everything. St. Paul said it, read it again, I Corinthians 13:2: "Though I have all faith so that I could move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." Allow me to state these powerful words in two sentences to remember and live with. Faith without love is unacceptable. Love without faith is impossible. Faith without love
is downright dangerous. Faith can be demonic if you set your goals,
run over people, deceive them and be duplicitous. Faith
without love is unacceptable. Well, the most memorable time in this visit was when Martin said to me in Xiamen, "Dr. Schuller, I've been looking all over to try find that church your uncle started. I don't know if I found it or not, but I found one and it might be your uncle's church. It was built about the time he came. So I want to take you there." He took us down a side street which happened to be the fish market. It was early in the morning and probably a hundred people, each sitting squatted next to the other under their bamboo tent hats were selling their fresh fish - shrimp, eels and larger fish. It was a fascinating scene and there, behind iron gates was an old church. It was padlocked and Martin said, "Just a minute." He disappeared and after a while a janitor came, unlocked the gate and let us in. Then he unlocked the front door and we stepped inside. It was a beautifully maintained church with wooden pews, platform and pulpit. Behind the pulpit on the wall was a large gold cross and three large gold Chinese letters on either side. And I said to Martin, "What do those letters say?" And Martin replied, "They say, 'God loves everyone.'" "Oh," I said, "that's wonderful. Yes! Yes! Martin, I want to feel like I've been to church. You go up there and be the preacher." (We'd teased each other throughout the trip.) Smiling broadly, he replied, "Okay." He walked up into the pulpit and behind him was the gold cross with the bottom of the cross coming just above the top of Martin's head and the Chinese letters, "God loves everyone." And there he preached our possibility-thinking message ... "I
am. And with that I got a tear in my eye and said, "Martin, when you said, 'I believe' your body was shaped like a cross. Do you know what the cross means?" He said, "No." I said, "It means that God, from heaven, came down to love us through Jesus Christ. God loves you, and then you give God's love away to someone else. God loves you, so do I." He listened intently and seemed moved. When we had to say good-bye he came up to me at the airport and he hugged me and just held on. And then he hugged Mrs. Schuller. And I'll tell you that I know, even if he doesn't, that he was born again! That's our message! Possibility thinking plus the grace and love of Jesus Christ. If you have faith to move mountains, AND you have love, you have everything. Have faith ... wrap it in love! Add heart ... let it be the heart of love that we find in Jesus Christ. Lord, I thank You for
this message that You have for us and You are calling us to give
to the world. I thank You that we are here for a time like this.
I pray that you will thank all of the people who give their tithes
and their offerings to make this ministry happen. Amen.
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