On the air since 1973, TBN’s flagship ministry and talk show Praise is one of the most recognizable — and most watched — Christian programs in the world. Taped before a live audience and hosted by TBN’s own Matt and Laurie Crouch along with other popular personalities, Praise features the best in contemporary Christian music and worship, fresh and impacting ministry voices, engaging interviews from a wide variety of guests, and a fast-moving hour of relevant talk you won’t want to miss!
and i realize that i have weaknesses but
i also have strengths
i do make mistakes but i’m not all a
mistake
and
i mean it took me a long time to really
get that i would go and stand in the
mirror and point at myself and say god
loves you
god loves you
and
because i couldn’t figure out why i
couldn’t love people i kept hearing as a
christian i needed to love people and i
just was not a very loving person
all right how about setting boundaries
yes
you know people that have been
wounded
we either do one of two things
we either
let people take advantage of us
because we’re so afraid nobody’s going
to like us that we
are afraid to say no to anybody
are
we turn it the other way around
and we try to take advantage of
everybody else because we feel like
we’ll never have anything if we don’t
stay
on top all the time
you know i came out of my abuse
very aggressive you know like nobody’s
ever going to push me around again and
no man’s ever going to tell me what to
do again and i’m not going to put up
with that and i’m not going to put up
with this
where
i know another pastor’s wife
who was
also sexually abused and
she came out of it like a little mouse
you know she just totally turned
in
and
wasn’t very courageous at all i was out
of balance one way she was out of
balance the other way and so to be
healthy for any person no matter what
your problem is it doesn’t have to be
that you were severely abused you know
different things hurt different people
and the thing is is god wants us to be
confident he doesn’t want us to be
insecure
so let’s just say you’re insecure well
if you’re insecure you need to not just
say well i’m just insecure
and use that as an excuse
to not live the life that christ died
for you to have you need to say i’m
insecure
and that’s not what jesus died for me to
have and i want to get to the root of
this
and i want to get over this
and so you have to start by setting
boundaries for your life where you don’t
let people take advantage of you
where you you know how to say
no to things if you believe it’s
something god would have you
say no to don’t you guys find that you
have to have some personal boundaries
for your life yes
and it’s it’s hard when people are
wanting you to do things
and you want to be liked
you know because i grew up not i didn’t
have friends i didn’t
and
and i was i had a real rough
way of dealing with things because i was
hurting so bad and so
um
i wanted friends and so then i i fell
into well if i can’t control you
then i’m going to let you control me
and so
i was always out of balance one way or
the other and thank god i’ve learned now
to
treat other people right
and
to not let them
i i’ve learned to not enable people
to keep their problems
i talked about that
at joel’s last weekend you know we have
to know
when helping somebody’s really helping
them
and when we’re just enabling them and so
boundaries i think are important and
knowing the love of god is absolutely
mandatory mandatory that’s
that is if if you are hurting inside in
your soul
and you don’t feel good about yourself
and
we need to love ourselves and i’m not
saying be in love with yourself
but you need to love yourself because
you cannot give away what you don’t have
and so god loves us
freely and unconditionally and receiving
that is the equivalent of learning to
love yourself
i mean if god can love me who’s perfect
then
i can love me and that doesn’t mean that
you know i doubt on myself and think i
have to have everything that i i want it
just means that i respect who god made
me to be
and i realize that i have weaknesses but
i also have strengths
i do make mistakes but i’m not all a
mistake
and
i mean it took me a long time to really
get that i would go and stand in the
mirror and point at myself and say god
loves you
god loves you
and
because i couldn’t figure out why i
couldn’t love people i kept hearing as a
christian i needed to love people and i
just was not a very loving person
i mean i just
wasn’t i was okay if i was getting my
way but if i wasn’t boy i’d look out
and
there was a lot of things that god had
to change in me
but i really am like a totally different
person i still got some things that need
to change in me and
i love working with god on changing what
needs to be changed i don’t
that’s not a problem for me i know that
his chastisement is love you’re not
fighting it anymore did you used to
fight it oh yeah because i didn’t want
something else to be wrong with me
i you know i already felt so bad about
myself
that’s why actually there’s some
scriptures in hebrews toward the end of
hebrews 5
and into hebrews 6 and he said that you
by now you should be teaching others
but you still need to be taught over and
over
the same messages
i can only feed you milk
and not meet listen to this because you
are unskilled in the doctrine of
righteousness
so he was saying i can’t tell you what
i’d really like to tell you
which was probably grow up
he said i can’t tell you what i’d really
like to tell you because you still yet
don’t know who you are in christ
and when you don’t know who you are in
christ
then you have a very hard time taking
correction from people yeah
are taking correction from god because
it just makes you feel worse about
yourself
than what you already do
but see now
i know the difference in conviction and
condemnation
and so
when god convicts me
i know that that’s him loving me
and i can say god thank you for loving
me enough to not leave me
the way i am the voice
why is it important to hear god because
it changes you perception change me
that’s
right it does change you you know what
it does
you know what it does yeah it ruins you
for church as usual oh hey
ruins you yeah that regular old mundane
christian rediverse a day to keep the
devil away sit in church go because my
mama went my grandmother went this is
what we do
all of that goes away okay because
you’re hungering for what you know
you’ve experienced before actually
sensing the voice of god his presence
near you listen sometimes hearing god is
less about having a specific word and
more about just the nearness of his
presence
just knowing that he’s near i’m talking
about where your physical body responds
to the presence of god there are times
when you know he’s near because he’s
only present there are times where he
manifests himself in a way where the the
hair on the back of your neck stands out
kind of fail goosebumps yes and in those
moments once you start sensing the
nearness of god in that way you’re
ruined for all just doing stuff because
it’s what you’re supposed to be doing
and you want more of that and i think
what a lot of people need to understand
and he also speaks through his silence
very much so you know i’m not saying
anything
you know think about the years in the
world where you know from the old to new
testament he was just silent yeah
and his silence means stay still don’t
move i got you yeah does somebody your
size ever feel goosebumps does that ever
happen to you ever i it is big you know
you know i’m get have goosebumps right
now oh hey hey
hey hey hey yeah how much time we have
left in the show they’re needing to get
out okay um
and by the way uh we’re going to unpack
this so get right back into the subject
it’s an important subject matter even
the idea well way the publisher and all
that kind of stuff this is this is on
the heart of god right now this is the
people being
dissatisfied with the mundane yeah we
are wanting to hear god’s voice wanting
to know
you know i don’t i mean you know not
what to to eat today yeah necessarily
but needing to know to help their kids
yeah to their jobs their you know in
every area of your life i believe god is
speaking or wants to speak or wants to
have a say yes and i want to say too
that just that sense of dissatisfaction
that that someone may be feeling that we
all feel when we’re going to be launched
into the next level in our relationship
with god sometimes that dissatisfaction
makes us so upset and so frustrated
because we just want to know the answer
we want to get to the answer but the
dissatisfaction itself is a sign of
god’s spirit working with this
absolutely and the satisfaction the
journey that it is going to lead you on
the lessons that are meant to be learned
they’re going to be learned because the
dissatisfaction sent you on a journey
the journey itself is not a waste of
time discerning the voice of god is
never something you’re going to arrive
at it is never something you’re going to
be successful at it is going to be a
journey with god as you walk in the
rhythms of grace you will be on your
deathbed still wanting to know whether
or not you have clearly heard the voice
of god because we are human wow he’s
mysterious he is god and aren’t we glad
that he’s not just a big version of us i
don’t want god to just be a big me i
want god to be so far beyond my
imagination that i can never arrive at
the knowledge of him that i have to
constantly and consistently be growing
well because it takes faith
it takes faith to say okay you know what
that that’s why i always say if we step
out in faith kind of
no matter what it is but if we walk in
faith how can we ever fail in that
that’s right that’s right if we’re
believing that we’re doing what god’s
called us
in our
yeah yeah even when we’re when we’re
unsure and we’re unsteady
in in the book i list several of these
but i’ll tell you just a couple of them
i believe that he allows us to have the
mercy of confirmation i call them the
five m’s of hearing god when you sense
that god is imparting something upon you
um impressing conviction um
just a
push towards something or away from
something ask him for the mercy of
confirmation he knows you’re just a
human he knows that you need to make
sure that his fingerprints are on this
assignment before you move forward i
believe that he honors the sincere
request of his children when they say
lord would you just do something to
confirm not not because it’s the primary
way you speak i think you’re speaking
would you confirm that by some external
means to point me in the right direction
and then one of the other m’s is the
ministry of eli do you remember the
little boy samuel he had an older wiser
guy in his life named eli who was the
one who pointed out to him that the
voice you’re hearing is the voice of god
you need to have a wiser more mature
believer in your life who you admire not
the car they drive the house they live
on
live in the success that they’ve
achieved but the
ongoing conversational relationship they
have with god the victory you’ve seen
them experience in your life you go to
them and you say here’s what i think the
lord is saying would you pray through
this with me i listen i’ve got those
people in my life the majority of the
things that we have done in ministry as
a couple we have not done
i’m talking about big things that would
have marked our lives in our children’s
lives we have not done before we have
called people that we are submitted to
their authority
ask them would they pray through and
give us their wise counsel before we
took a step so we’ve submitted ourselves
to the ministry of eli we’ve got eli’s
in our life
talk a little bit about uh your
relationship and and where god where did
what you know i love you good bad
i really love alvin yeah i really love
that i loved her first um i loved your
lovely first right okay
did you tell her you loved her before
she told you back that she loved you
definitely like i wasn’t gonna tell him
first yeah like back in those days i
told her i loved her
and and then she would say like thank
you yeah yeah
i love it
i love it
yes that’s my girl right there i love
you
well you got to be cool okay she’s okay
thank you my last name was love she
thought i was just making it up yeah i
was like
give me another line
love
when did you meet
we met we met um at a bowling alley
actually the first time it didn’t sound
really romantic but in detroit bowling
alley the young people were out on the
outing i was living in charlotte at the
time came home
met him he belonged to my church um
and and so yeah he was friends with my
brother and you guys were really young
yes well i was really really young yeah
i was he was i was he was young i was
just because we have a really big gap
between i was older
[Laughter]
but but love
you know you you have those
butterflies you know and then you
realize love is a choice
[Music]
because the butterflies will leave
they fly away they fly away
laurie and you realize
thanks
i was trying to get her well they flew
away from me too
probably 11 years into our marriage we
went to our first marriage conference
yeah you you kids are really good enough
tonight thank you for calling us kids
yeah they’re younger than us yes younger
than we know we went to our first
marriage conference and i got nervous
going to the marriage conference we were
like we’re okay but we’ll go since our
church was having it and when we got
there and they started really talking
about what love is i was like
did i say i do to that
unconditional love
unconditional love and
and how it’s no room to be selfish yeah
yeah you know i think when i went down
the aisle if i’m to be just totally
honest when i went down the aisle i
think my mindset i shouldn’t say i think
i know my mindset was as long as he
makes me happy wow then i’m in
yeah um because as you can tell i love
the laugh life is too short not to
um and but i had made up in my mind a
plan b if it didn’t
you know
that you know i wouldn’t hold it against
them i forgive them but i i’m out of
here yeah wow
and the lord had to teach me
what love really is
you know and i can remember a time
when we were going through a rough time
and
thank god the
the good times have away the bad times
by far
but i remember going through a time and
i was just like you know what
i’m gone you know
and i remember the holy spirit speaking
to me
and it’s amazing that the holy spirit
will speak to you even when you don’t
want to hear him wow wow he speaks loud
wow and i remember him saying
cece what’s more important what’s the
most important thing
your feelings are my perfect will
yeah i was like whoa holy spirit why did
you have to come and come to me like
that
you know
and i was like lord your perfect will
your perfect will
and all i can say is
that when you say yes to his perfect
will
and you learn how to love the way he
loves
then you experience love yes on another
whole level wow
you saved each other yeah
we try to out out love each other yeah
without serving yeah we do that’s that’s
our thing now she’s still trying to
catch up
[Laughter]
yeah i think so many people though when
they are walking down that aisle they’re
thinking he makes me happy
you know now now everything’s good well
we’re not
brought into each other’s life to make
each other happy come on come on there’s
a book out that says marriage doesn’t
make you happy it makes you holy it
makes you
holy that’s true you know and i haven’t
read it but that’s true i thought it was
a great title great title
because you know what i’ve told people
for years laura it’s funny you should
i’ve told people marriage will either
save you or make you backslide totally
yeah right yeah because the goal in
marriage is to become one yeah right
become one and
and um that means you both have to say
gotta crucify your flash marriage is an
amazing institution
if you enjoy being in an institute
[Laughter]
just keep the camera on her that’s my
favorite thing
this line is flat this is valentine’s
day oh my gosh
do not put that camera
so
let me let me look
wait let me let me just say one thing
the the the the the thing is that i’ve
always adored her okay always it was
never hard for me marriage was super
simple yes
super simple for me i won the cosmic
lotto as it were with her okay
and and so but the lord showed me
something that really helped
me and i it didn’t feel like a super
chastisement like yours was i mean yours
was like a two by four kind of thing you
know yes and so but the the
the lord just said i didn’t call you
and use kind of one finger to point at
me in this kind of daydream i called you
and used two fingers yeah
and then she was just next to me in this
daydream i didn’t call you i called you
use the same word
so
we are a you to the lord that’s good so
here’s the thing
but but listen here’s the point to that
the point is when you
know
that your destiny
is because of who you’re married to
then the fighting just kind of stops i
mean it’s not like irritation doesn’t
happen i mean she can irritate me
every day wholeheartedly it’s not it’s
not irritation but there is nothing
but there is
ever a deal that if look
here’s the point here’s the point with
me i wouldn’t be divorcing her i’d be
divorcing my destiny come on
come on that’s not that yeah that’s
right
that’s right
and so ultimately
if i want to just if i want to derail
that’s how i would say
but it would be a full-blown derailment
okay that’s right
maiming death misery horror kind of you
know yeah
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