Why Character Is Necessary | Dr. Myles Munroe

my friends there's some examples of character that you need to write down now why do we call for example the alphabet characters because a is always a B is B at 2 am in the morning C is still C whether it's in Africa Asia or in the Bronx it doesn't change that's why we call them characters why do we call numbers characters because one is always one and two is always two whether you are using it in the night or the day it doesn't change this character why do we call statues characters because like Victoria

no matter what happens around them they never change why do we call principles characters because principles are laws they never change you know one of the secrets to my success as a coach of government leaders and Business Leaders one of my secrets of being an effective communicator one of my secrets of being a good teacher is simple it's not my education the secret to my success is I only teach principles that's it you can never disagree with the principle you can ignore it you can hate it but you can never disagree with it for example

gravity is a principle you can fast and pray and speak in tongues but if you jump up a building you're gonna die why you are violating a principle characters that way that's why a person with character does not live on what's popular they live on with his principle and this is why it's very difficult for politicians to have character because politics is based on popularity which means you will literally sacrifice your principles to protect your popularity which cancels your character which means you cannot be trusted there are preachers who are politicians they would sell their

principles for a pot of porridge no character counter therefore is simply that which is unchanging write it down my question is how often do you change who are you are you the same person all the time are you consistent are you predictable leaders must have character why write this down people will not follow you if they don't trust you so character attracts loyalty I want to give a few more definitions of character freedom understand how serious it is first of all character is a commitment to a set of values without compromise what are values values

are things you value that's all not complicated for example if you value your marriage vow you will never commit adultery so when a person commits adultery they don't value their marriage nor their marriage vows so you can't respect them and they lose the trust of their spouse and their children and even their in-laws and perhaps even the church that they are part of see your values will protect you secondly character is the dedication to a set of standards without wavering what are your standards that you've set for your life my standards produce my character I

will never violate my standards you got to say that every day I do not tell lies that's a standard I do not steal that includes stealing time from your job telling people you are sick when you are not sick this is a lack of character you are a thief who are you smiling see you don't understand character is so subtle there's no excuse in life for breaking your standards you know I've heard business people say and I talk to them I've even you know in some of my business dealings and my negotiations for business Investments

I separate people many people come to me they want to do business with me and they want me to invest in their companies and you know I do a lot of this stuff and they and I hear people say sometimes honesty is my best policy now whenever you tell me that I do what Joseph did honesty should never be your best policy never because best policy means I have second best third best fourth best fifth best I can't trust you you have no character a person of character would say honesty is my only policy thirdly

character is self-imposed discipline for the sake of moral convictions character is what self-imposed discipline that means a person of character doesn't need the police they police themselves a question of character locks themselves up in the prison of their own convictions and they throw away the key do you have character are you for sale see your future depends on your character not your charisma and most leaders whether they are politicians preachers or parents they try to live of their charisma they try to live up their talent they try to live up their gifts your gifts will

never protect you as a matter of fact your gift will destroy you because the only thing that can protect your gift and your talent is your character this session is the most important session you ever sat in in your life because this is where you learn what protects your entire future and it's your character and you've never been taught this in your whole life I know you haven't your Seminary never had a class on this and that's why preachers are falling like flies you know I think about it character is really what I call a

constant effort to integrate your words your deeds and your actions as one everybody say integrate the word integrate into great means to become one this is very important write that down to integrate means what to become one so character is when your words your Deeds and your actions are one you are not schizophrenic a person without character will say one thing do another and promise something else so you never know who you're talking to when you're talking to them no character now here's a surprise number five character is sacrifice for principles it's a character means

you are willing to sacrifice friendship to protect your principles you are willing to lose your best friend in order to keep your principles do you have character who are you with right now that you shouldn't be with think about it what are you doing right now in secret that you shouldn't be doing are you willing to sacrifice that to protect your principles somebody offered to pay your mortgage off if you just sleep with them once would you sacrifice to protect your principles character unlike this last one character is simply integrity everybody say Integrity now look

at integrity and look at integrate they're the same word integrity means you are one with yourself integrity means that you are one with yourself do you know when I did some research some years ago on the word in the Hebrew for holiness write the word holy down I discovered that the root word for Holy is one one the Hebrew concept of Holiness is integrity one that means you are one the number one confession in the Bible about God is the Lord our God is one now some you don't understand why that's important if you were

to talk to a Jewish rabbi right now in this city and ask him when you meet them ask them when you see them ask them what is the most important confession in the Bible they will tell you the Lord our God is one what does it mean it means he's holy what is Holy you are one this is very interesting Holiness means you are integrated you are not more than one person you are not a different person on Monday that you are on Tuesday you're not a different person in the night at 2 am than

you are in the Pulpit on Sunday morning you you are one you are not multi-personality when the Bible says be holy it's telling you be one stop being a hypocrite it's character the foundation for trust is integrity write it down tweet that to somebody right now what did I say the foundation of trust is integrity when you are one people will eventually trust you that means your word is always good you say what you said you do what you said and then you act what you said that's holiness so wearing a long dress or a

white collar with a purple shirt turned backward with a big chain in your pocket it's not holiness wearing a long robe with a turban on your head doesn't impress me I want to know if one person is under that robe just one foreign you can call me you know you can bring your car to me and show me all your titles right Reverend honorable Bishop Eternal sacred man of God I don't care what you say I still don't trust you I don't because I don't know which one of you I'm talking to [Music] um that's

why the Bible says know them that labor among you don't just bring anyone into your church to preach they are on TV [Music] [Applause] don't be attracted to Charisma seek out character you know some years ago my wife and I posted a marriage conference in our church and I met this guy when I was doing a show for the 700 Club with Pat Robertson in Virginia Beach and I was doing a series of programs with him and the people there and I met this guy and he did a show on marriage you know and strengthening

marriages it's older guy and I was so impressed he had a book and everything and sounded good I didn't know him I just met him for the first time and we were having this marriage conference in our church in the Bahamas and I said you know this guy sounds good so I approached him and I invited him to come to the Bahamas he was so excited to come to the Bahamas so he came to the Bahamas and he did the seminar with me and it was wonderful session and everything he bought his wife with him

and then two months later I saw an article where he got a divorce from the woman that was with him his wife I was confused so I I called him up living in Colorado at the time and I said I just want to make sure that this article I'm reading is not true are you divorcing your wife who was with you when you did a seminar for my people who believed you and he began to try and explain himself I said you will never come back to our church and you will never come back to

our Island I hung the phone up and called the bookstore I said take every one of his books of the Shelf because if what he is teaching is not working for him it shouldn't be taught to us [Music] write this down lead with your life foreign is the weight of your words what did I say tweet that right now to someone see that's the problem with us we we think that we are impressed by our language you know these deep things we say and how good we can speak and preach and how we can Hallelujah

listen brother you ain't got no life you know it's like it's like a guy who sells Diamond but he ain't wearing none never trust a Salesman who don't use what he's selling clap I am faithful to my wife so that you could believe my words I am a good father to my children so you could believe my words let me put it this way there's no such thing as a personal life write it down there's no such thing as a private life write it down so don't you ever tell people what I do in private

is none of your business it is my business because it determines whether I trust what you say publicly it's called character as a matter of fact I have come to the conclusion that a person of character doesn't need to talk they don't need to talk they just show up when I first met Nelson Mandela it was the most overwhelming moment in my life private dinner 16 people he had just come out of prison his first trip was to the Bahamas he wanted to meet my prime minister Lyndon penley who was the first one to agitate

for his freedom out of prison so he wanted to come and thank my prime minister personally so his first trip out of prison was to my country and the Prime Minister called me and he invited 16 people to the dinner and I was one of them I don't know that's such an honor to meet an icon I think some of you saw the photograph of us together a couple of times when I when I my god when I saw him I saw character on two legs he didn't have to speak do you know why he

went to prison for 18 years plus seven and never changed his conviction hey boy said never change that's why you respect him when I come back to New York will you have the same wife don't answer it no answer the question it's just a rhetorical question I want you to think about it this is a serious question how stable are you that is why the young people are so confused you know the Bible says about uh parenting the Bible says fathers do not exasperate your children now some of you don't know that big word means

I'll explain it to you the word exasperate means to frustrate because of instability you tell your child don't smoke and you are smoking you are creating a monster in your house you tell your daughter who is 16 don't get pregnant and you had her out of wedlock see don't feel bad I got you today see the problem is my daughter could tell you but he did it everybody say leave with your life [Music] you see your words mean nothing character protects your words write it down what did I say you know I was reading the

Bible and I saw this passage here in Genesis 1 26 and it blew me away You're about to get some Revelation sit up straight take a deep breath okay Genesis chapter 1 my favorite verse in the Bible I talk about it every day because this verse is a summary of why he was created it says and God said let us make man in what our own image remember now the word man is plural so he's talking about the whole species let us make a species called man out of our own spirit and in our own

image and he will be obviously like us us referring to the plurality of God's Oneness now what's the next statement let them have dominion I want you to notice something here this is very important write this down image before Dominion what did I say one more time do you remember the definition we gave of character do you remember the word image okay this is important you see the word image is the word for character so every human being was designed to lead that's what God gave you Dominion for and Leadership was never given over people

it was given really in an area of gifting everyone in this room was born to lead but not to lead people you were born to lead in an area of gifting and your gifting attracts people the attraction makes you a leader did you understand what I just said so you've been taught that leadership is only for a certain group of people that's a lie from the pit of Hell he told all of us to have dominion everybody is a ruler but not over people you were created to have leadership in an area of gifting and

your gift is what makes you valuable to the world the Bible says your gift makes room for you where in the world and will bring you before great Kings not your education your gift that's why most people with phds are failures because you can have a PhD and not know your gift most educated work educated people work for people who dropped out of school did you know that like Stephen Jobs Bill Gates these folks that finish school but they found their gift that is probably why you still broke because all you are is employed you've

never been deployed [Music] your gift is when you deploy yourself you are powerful but you don't know it because your culture trains you to get a job not to find your gift so most of you have been miseducated and your life is miserable you are 50 years old and still don't know why you were born because your culture taught you to get an education to get a job and then when they finish with you they lay you off they retire you and they throw you to the curb your gift is what you want to find

all of my books that I've written all of them I make sure each book has in it how to find your gift if you bought a book for me today you're going to be transforming you read it because if you find your gift you become very dangerous you become unemployable [Applause] your gift is your leadership fruit write that down what do I mean by that have you noticed that uh a fruit tree when it Bears the fruit it never brings the fruit to you let me say it again over here these folks look a little

wise over here I said manner a fruit tree Bears its fruit it never brings the fruit to you is that right exactly it just Bears the fruit what happens you are attracted to the tree your gift is your fruit that God gave you on the inside to serve the world that's why Jesus said if you want to be great you become a servant to everybody what do you mean you serve them your gift and they find you [Music] this is why true leaders never seek followers write it down what did I say yeah followers are

attracted to true leaders but they are not attractive to you gotta be careful they are attracted to your gift so because people are coming to you doesn't mean they like you you got to protect yourself from them they are coming for what your fruit [Music] so tell your neighbor I don't trust you you just want my fruit everybody clap with me just clap praise God you are my food [Applause] so God made you to be a leader with a gift now that means you were born to dominate in an area of gifting but now watch

God work okay write this down very important the character is the very essence of God that's why the Lord our God is one so God himself is character that's why you can trust him he never changes he's the same yesterday today and forever I wonder if you are who are you man are you this person all the time sitting in this room what do you do at 2 A.M in the front of your computer if you don't know about it character God is character number two God boasts that he never changes am I right alter

the Bible he says I never change I never change there's no shadow of turning with me I am the same yesterday today and forever the Lord is one I never change he's telling you about character therefore that is why we can trust him he's stable God said Heaven and Earth would have to pass away before I break my word now that's character he would sacrifice the universe in order to keep his word so watch God go to work now so God is going to and the first gift God gave the man was not power the

first gift God gave the man was not Dominion you know many of you get excited about the Dominion Dominion you know I got Dominion Hallelujah I got Dominion no shut up man that's not what God gave you first reading the Bible the Bible says the first thing God gave you is what he gave you image which means that character is more important than power there are people who would come to me and say Dr Monroe I want you to pray for me to receive the anointing of God it's them do you have the character contain

it power will kill you without character and God knew it and God says the first thing I must give this creature is character the image of God so God's priority is character God's commitment is that character is necessary before Dominion God is more concerned about your character than your dominating the Earth Charities God's prerequisite for dominion and rulership character is God's foundation for leadership because look before I give you power let me give you the most important thing here's image with his image characteristics you are stable just like me I could trust you with power

now let me just say this and those who bought the book on character is going to change your life and tell you 40 Years of research write this down here's what they discover and it's in the book I do a whole chapter on it I discovered this three things will test your character only three things there are three things that will manifest your character they would tell you whether you have character or not three things first one is power when you give a person power the character shows up number two money when you give a

human a lot of money their real self shows up and number three access to sex if you give a human access to sex their character shows up all their lack of it only three things so if you want to know what a woman really is give a power money and access to sex you all know what a man who's really like giving power money and access to sex and that is why every human on this Earth that have ever failed was because of either power money or sex period character I wonder if you're going to

make it to the end man see that's the question don't don't answer the question please this is serious because you don't know the Bible says the race is not to the Swift see you could be famous instantly man but in the kingdom of God the race is not to the Swift who gets to the top first the race is to him who endures to the end will you still be around when I come back 10 years from now and will you still be the same person that's the question character Queen Victoria is still there 289

years later she outlived Every Storm every hurricane I wonder can you still be standing and all the Temptations have passed only way to test character is by temptation write it down the word temptation is not a negative word someday I'll come back and teach on it but in the book I do a whole chapter on Temptation because tempering to Temple right away temper to to to tempt or to Temple means to test for weakness that's all it means you will never ever have a time in your life when you are free from Temptation never so

get over it get used to it Jing will constantly be in your life to monitor your character thank you your character is as strong as the Temptation you fell for do you know what made Eve pick the fruit it wasn't difficult Satan says look do you want to be like God that was the temptation what is God power of course he lied to her because she was already like God but Satan and all the tempted with what you already are so your greatest danger is ignorance of self you cannot tempt me to be what I

know I already am so somewhere if became ignorant of who she was so Satan tempted her for weakness do you want to be like God well read the verse let us make man in our own image and like us she already was like God but ignorance will make you disbelieve yourself character number six God gave character before power say it God gave character before power say it again one more time God created you and you were given the mandate to dominate Earth with God's character it's not a difficult thing you're a king just like your

father but your territory is Earth therefore image is the first thing God gave you and God gave you that because he knew that without character the power will destroy you you know people say power corrupts and power corrupts absolutely I used to believe that that's not true power does not corrupt power simply reveals corruption [Applause] you are already defective you finally got a chance to show it power is pure character so the fall of Man distorted the image of God what is image character so Man became a defective character and the result of it is

that his self-worth fell man didn't know how much he was worth anymore so ever since that man has been hiring Read My Lips Read My Lips image Consultants why would you hire an image consultant because you ain't got none you ain't got no image you lost it if you know who you are and you decide to be who you are you don't need nobody to create another person an image consultant is someone you pay to create a person that doesn't exist politicians hire image Consultants why they ain't got no image so they pay people to

tell lies movie stars entertainers they hire image Consultants why they have no image so they sell you an image that don't exist and you buy it and then when the real person shows up like that young guy in Florida the other day what's his name Bieber or something Justin Bieber all you all are shocked I'm not I knew that that wasn't him who was on stage many pastors are just like that little boy tomorrow morning this city will be filled with performers in the pulpit they haven't been caught yet that's all you know most people

ask for forgiveness simply because they got caught character oh I have 129 slides this is slide number four foreign you went to Bible School and they gave you a diploma but they never gave you character so you could preach but you ain't got no principles you're not going to make it your future is predictable you never worked on character a guy from a hotel called me the other day general manager Hotel he says I need to order 80 of your character books so I said why he says I just read it it changed my life

as a general manager and I'm going to give every staff member in this hotel this book and I'm going to pay them to read it he says he said this is the only thing that's missing in our lives character he asked me to come and do a seminar in the hotel now so you know we're going to sign a contract and I'll do some work with him he said this is what's missing at all levels managers supervisors downline workers secretaries people are not stable cannot be trusted because they never learn character let me close with

this as my time is gone the principal trait of Fallen man is unpredictability you cannot predict a sinner you don't know what they're going to do next am I right some of you all married one of them you don't know what they're going to do next humans are struggling with unfaithfulness um they're not stable and so I put it to you my friend as we take a break before the last segment which to me is one of the most important or did I go to files did you go to I'm controlling it girl not them

me you writing too slow take a photograph of it it's my friend over there come on right fast quick quick you're holding me up oh they in the way move the camera man you guys get into trouble today these folks want to get the notes don't stand in front of that screen all right is this good stuff today [Applause] I came here because I want you to make it are you gonna make it that means you got to make a decision in this room before you leave that you are going to get rid of things

that can destroy your character and that might include some friends that includes some habits you are in danger all that you've built everything you've built with your whole life could be destroyed in five seconds ask Jimmy swaggett you think you're safe huh you better protect your character you are as safe as your character I want to give you these last two slides before we close what's the source of values values again remember they produce character okay so you got to get your values right the most powerful component in leadership is philosophy why philosophy is your

belief system your belief system is a result of the things you value whatever you value you believe in your belief system produces your values and your values produce your morals so morality is really a product of your values if I value my marriage vow then morally I will be faithful to my wife it's related and then when my morals are in place morals inform ethics so it is unethical for me to sleep with another woman why because my morals dictate that I cannot violate my values so I protect my character and if my ethics are

in place my ethics produce my character and my character becomes my lifestyle remember I told you you don't lead out of your position you lead out of your life I want to remember one thing I say you may never see me again remember this there is no private life get that through your head quickly you must live loudly thank you a person of character doesn't care if you discover their private life if you are afraid that I might find out about your private life you have no character you are a character [Applause] [Applause] what's your

problem over here these folks are slow over here we got to pray for them you're trying to take a picture now remember if you take a picture of my slides you got to give me credit when you use it otherwise you are stealing and if you got character you don't steal all right so every time I usually got to say Dr Miles Monroe says Hallelujah here's Desmond Tutu what a man when Nelson Mandela was released from prison they had to deal with some issues with the oppression and Desmond Tutu was really active in that he

had to manage the Forgiveness process you know uh I'm moving too fast right now maybe I'll come back next year and do some of this stuff you see I just wanted to give you this last slide write this down Vision Without values is Destiny without discipline no matter how great your vision is it can be destroyed if you don't have values so your destiny depends on your personal discipline character will always protect your vision Samson had an awesome vision God trusted this man he was supposed to save the people of Israel but his private life

destroyed his public vision whenever you decide to do something and you hope no one finds out you are in danger so never do anything from this day forward that you don't want anyone to find out about and you'll have character and that's what they never taught you in seminary they never told you that in high school and now you've got a double life and I used to wonder why men especially like superheroes but I figured it out eventually men like superheroes like Batman and Superman because they got two personalities [Laughter] every Superman has a clock

cleanse trapped on the inside every Batman has a Bruce Wayne somewhere every Samson should have a Joseph on the inside I wonder who you are right now character Vision protects values sorry vision is protected by values vision is interpreted by values and vision and values is the marriage of purpose and principles your purpose for your life is your assignment your principles protect that assignment so don't violate your principles I am a virgin I gotta protect my virginity and I won't sell it to anybody I got married to my wife at age 25 I was a

virgin so was my wife nice to wonder why God tells us not to have sex before marriage until I figured it out my wife and I have no memories that we don't like yeah so God says look do right so you can enjoy your memories write that down look at your face some of you are looking down right now oh oh Dr Monroe please lead to move on quickly yeah that's why you should live right so your memories will be happy God was trying to save you from your memories when he said live right character

gives you good memories