Harnessing Relationships for Success

About the host: 

Steve Gray is the founding and senior pastor of Revive Church  KC. He has been in the full time ministry for over 40 years and  was launched into national and international recognition in the late 1990’s as the leader of the historic Smithton Outpouring, and again in 2009 when he lead the Kansas City Revival which was televised nationally on the Daystar television network. Steve is also a veteran musician, songwriter, recording artist and published author. His books include When The Kingdom Comes, Follow The Fire, and My Absurd Religion.

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Transcript:

**0:00:00** – (Steve Gray): Hello everyone and welcome again to more Faith, More Life podcast. You don’t want to miss today. I’m going to tell you a sad, so bad news of what it takes to be successful.

**0:00:10** – (Steve Gray): You were made for more than the status quo. I’m Pastor Steve Gray, and this is the More Faith, More Life Podcast. This podcast is for Christians with an ambitious heart who want to be more for their family, do more with their career, and see more of God’s promises in their life. I’ve spent many years as a worship, artist, minister, nonprofit leader, bold, truth speaker, and most importantly, father and spouse.

**0:00:35** – (Steve Gray): When I was in my early forty s, I was craving more. More from God and more from life. I’d done everything I was supposed to do. My life was good, but it wasn’t good enough. So I spent the following years diving into the word of God and searching for the biblical principles that would bring me closer to God and help my purpose and life flourish. That’s what I want to share with you. In every episode you’ll get practical tools based on real life experiences that you can put into action to redefine your faith and ultimately your life.

**0:01:09** – (Steve Gray): So if you’re ready to do more, subscribe to More Faith, More Life and hear an unfiltered biblical truth every week, it’s time to be and experience more.

**0:01:22** – (Steve Gray): Hello everyone and welcome to another More Faith, More Life podcast. Glad we could be together today. And I’m sorry I got to start with some bad news or sad news. I’m not sure which to tell you when it comes to your life and getting ahead in life because I know you want to get ahead. It could be on any level. I specialize in getting people spiritually ahead. But when you get spiritually ahead by more faith, you get more life.

**0:01:47** – (Steve Gray): I can help you get ahead financially, relationship, get the job, get the job that nobody else can get, get the raise, whatever it is. I can help you do that because we’re going to first go after the spiritual side that affects us personally. Because when we get the spiritual side that affects us personally, we become better people. We become the choice of the boss, right? Because we don’t have the attitude that other people have. We’re not lazy. We don’t have the attitude of all for me and nobody else.

**0:02:21** – (Steve Gray): We have a personality. We get a personality. Maybe even really, maybe you’ll even get a sense of humor because all of these things create the new you without you becoming somebody else. Totally. But we’re going to take what you are and transform you by the power of the word of God, by the power of the wisdom of God, and put all that together. Now this all works. It may sound strange because you’re not used to the religious jargon.

**0:02:49** – (Steve Gray): Maybe you feel like you’re not too spiritual. You’re sort of here and miss when it comes to God when it comes to church, well, I would encourage you to go for it, because I found that if you apply the principles that God has how long? Centuries, thousands of years, they work, and they’ll make you the better employee, and they’ll make you the choice. When a raise comes up, you’ll get it. When advancement comes up, you’ll get it.

**0:03:14** – (Steve Gray): When you need to hold your relationship together, there’s some tension in your marriage. You’ll be able to hold it together. When you got the kids, when they’re little, and you say, I don’t know what to do. How do you raise small children? We’re going to help you get the wisdom to do that, because all the spiritual wisdom you get is just it’s almost common sense, but it’s not because it’s not common, right?

**0:03:38** – (Steve Gray): But it’s the sense of God. When it comes to children, what do you do? Set a boundary. Set a boundary. They need to know where the boundary line is, and they’ll appreciate that. Teenagers, you know what? You don’t want rebellious teenagers, do you? You know how to get non rebellious teenagers to get the rebellion out. It’s give them more attention, get more involved. And the problem is that parents get involved too late.

**0:04:05** – (Steve Gray): They wait till they’re almost 14, 1516. By then it’s too late. But if you get involved early enough, they’ll be used to you being involved. You can’t ignore them. Let them play all the video games and do whatever they want, and they watch whatever they want, and they think whatever they want, they have their friends, whatever they want, all that. You don’t even know when anything’s going on. No homework. You don’t know anything.

**0:04:28** – (Steve Gray): And then all of a sudden, you panic because now the boys are looking at girls. The girls are chasing boys. Now they’re talking about getting their driver’s license and going out and Should I let them go? And here’s a group of kids, they want to go to the football game. They want to go to the movies. Oh, do I let them go? And then you start to. Now, here’s the rules. I want you to be back here. I don’t want the boys in the car. I don’t want girls in the car, whatever it is.

**0:04:53** – (Steve Gray): No drinking. All that stuff. And all they go like, hey, where were you the rest of my life? And now all of a sudden, you want to control me? Sorry, not going to happen. And so the same thing happens all of a sudden. Now you drag them to church. Now you’re telling them, hey, I want you to sit up straight and pay attention. I want you to go to the youth group. And they’re going like, you never cared about me before.

**0:05:13** – (Steve Gray): So listen, rebellion doesn’t come because of too much love. Nobody rebel against too much love, too much attention, too much caring. They only rebel against neglect. And then after neglect, the authority jumps in and tries to control a neglected life, right? See how much wisdom you just already got today? But what about that sad news? What about the bad news? Well, I want to tell you, as I look back on my life, I don’t have regrets, really, but I have some misconceptions.

**0:05:46** – (Steve Gray): And one of the misconceptions that I had growing up and I remember I grew up in the it was sort of different. Liberals then were peacemen, let’s all love each other, and everybody’s got a right to their own opinion. Today, the liberals, there are only one opinion, right? Okay, never mind. We learned then that all you need is love and we’ll get along, and everybody respects everybody’s opinion. And so you didn’t really think about other people that much. You just think, if I’m talented or if I have ability, if I go to college, I get my degree or whatever, then it’s all going to work out for me. Now, here’s the bad news and the sad news for me, and I don’t want it to be for you. The misconception that I had was, listen, sorry, I haven’t told you what it is yet, but listen, then I became a Christian. I wasn’t in college.

**0:06:49** – (Steve Gray): I got married, and later my life got shattered a little bit, and our marriage was struggling. And I looked at my family, and they were doing great, and I said, I want to do great. And that was the answer. And once it hit me, that was enough, I knew, this is it. Where has this been all my life? Okay, so at that point, then I made the same mistake, though, the sad, bad news. And I thought, okay, if I follow God, I do what he wants. And if I got some talent, which I did, I was a musician, had abilities, and I was developing, and people were starting to recognize some talent, I thought, okay, so God is going to speak to all these people for me and other people, they’re sensitive to God, they’re sensitive to the Holy Spirit.

**0:07:35** – (Steve Gray): They’re going to be kind, and they’re going to recognize somebody moving up and moving on, and they’re going to want to help people because they’re Christians, and they’re going to want to help people because they’re loving Christians, all that stuff. Okay? So it was misconception. Guess what I learned through it all that I want to share with you the misconception that if I could change it, this is what I would change.

**0:07:56** – (Steve Gray): Listen, it’s all in who, you know, zip. Too bad. So sad, right? So sad. Too bad. I didn’t want to believe it, and I didn’t believe it. I didn’t believe it. For 30 years. 30 years, I stayed on the course of talent, ability, honesty, integrity, and then other people will recognize it, and then they will want to help you, and they will help you get along. And then other people who don’t have talent, don’t have integrity. Maybe they’re dishonest, lazy, whatever.

**0:08:26** – (Steve Gray): They’ll fall away to the side, and you will advance because of your own ability. We grew up on the Stand on your own 2ft. In my upbringing in school, you can be anything you want to be. Stand on your own 2ft. Just be yourself. Okay? All great lines have some merit, but I want to tell you something. The mistake I made is, yes, let’s just be honest about it. It’s going to be in all who you know. Now, the first mistake everybody made, and I did too, but I corrected it, is they don’t realize it’s all in who you know. So you better know God.

**0:09:06** – (Steve Gray): You better know God. You better know God. Through Jesus, he leads. Come on. You’re going to believe Him or not? He says, I want to lead you to the Father. I’m the only way because I know Him. And he came to Earth as a man so he could be who we are and represent us and then go to the heavenly places and represent us, okay? So the first thing is all who you know. So I got to know God, and I believed that God was going to help me, and he did. I believed he was going to be good to me, and he was okay.

**0:09:35** – (Steve Gray): But at that point, I dropped off because I thought, again, talent, ability, integrity, honesty, all those things, hard work is going to get you there. And I didn’t realize that. Sorry. So sad. Too bad. But it’s still all who you know outside of that because you get outside of God himself and you get back into whether it’s Christianity or where it doesn’t matter if it’s church, too bad. But you get into competition.

**0:10:05** – (Steve Gray): And the worst part about it all you get into, people want to make money. They want to make money. So they’re looking to people who people who have money and people who have resources, they want to increase themselves, and so they look okay, so who do you know? You say, Well, I don’t know anybody. Well, you’re going to need to get to know somebody, and those people are going to increase you if they feel it will increase them, what’s in it for them?

**0:10:35** – (Steve Gray): I wish I didn’t have to tell you. It’s in religion, it’s in politics, it’s in business. Okay? So you need to know that I didn’t know that I made a mistake. And then after we had this great outpouring, we told this story, if you’ve been following, in 1996, I’m a country preacher in a town of 532 people, and the power of God comes. I really encountered God. Let’s just say it. It is what it is. You either believe it or you don’t believe it.

**0:11:05** – (Steve Gray): I’m crazy. I’m not crazy or whatever. I had an encounter with God. I was touched by the very end of God. It was like electricity being electrocuted by god’s lightnings, okay? And I changed, and my personality changed, and I became a different person, okay? But at that point, because of that, then the news media came, and people’s, crowds start coming to listen to me speak, okay, till we learn, like I told you, a quarter of a million people came to that little town of 532 people. Do you think that’s going to make news? Yeah. Time magazine, newsweek magazine, san Francisco Chronicle, wall Street Journal.

**0:11:45** – (Steve Gray): Other TV shows. All Christian TV shows. Network. Everybody. So I’m a guest. I’m now getting a lot of attention. Well, when I got all that lot of attention and people saw me and they heard the story and my book was published, then other famous people wanted to get to know me, too. Now all of a sudden, I know people, and I’m not going to name drop now, but I met famous some famous people, and I met some famous people who were wanting to know me. And when they got to know me, guess what I found out?

**0:12:19** – (Steve Gray): So now you want to meet somebody else, and you want to go over here and you want to do that. Guess what? You drop their name. I know this person. This person knows me. You do. All of a sudden, it was a whole new world to me. And that’s after 30 years, like, of all this love, what happened? Where have I been? I don’t like it. I don’t think it’s right, but I can’t change it. And so then you may be wanting to be a great songwriter, okay, you better be a good one.

**0:12:52** – (Steve Gray): Go practice. Learn, meet people, learn songwriting. Let’s just use that as an example or a book writer. I’m writing two books right now, and you want to be a good book writer. And as a matter of fact, I’ll just share with you an example of that. We have a publisher we’re dealing with. I don’t know if it’s going to work out, but I had another publisher that’s years ago, and they’ve kind of forgotten about me.

**0:13:14** – (Steve Gray): And so there’s a couple of other publishers that I’ve been looking at. So what I did was I go look at my arsenal of names, and there’s a person I know we know that is an author with that publisher. Well, guess what I’m going to do if I decide to go that way? I’m going to contact my friend, my person I know, and I’m going to tell them, I would like to get in with your publisher. Would you contact your publisher and tell them that they ought to read my manuscript? And you know what? It works.

**0:13:45** – (Steve Gray): It works. And I didn’t know that before. I figured you could just write a great book and you send it into the publisher, and guess what the publisher does? Sends it right back. They don’t know you. They already got a handful of people they’re dealing with. They got authors they got talented people. Do they really need another talented you? Only if you’re the most talented guy or gal on the face of the earth at that moment.

**0:14:08** – (Steve Gray): But if you’re not and you’re just getting in, you’re going to need to know some people to verify that you’re a good person, that you’re talented. Songwriter. I thought, I’m a songwriter. I’ve had songs on the radio and all that, published songs, and at the time it worked for me to a certain degree. The songs did open doors, but tiny doors, tiny doors that didn’t last. Little did I know, if I had known and gone and known people, then I could have written some songs and the people I knew would have opened doors for me because their name would have got in with another name, and they would have said, I think this is a good song. You might be able to make some money. It might be a great hit. Let’s give it a try.

**0:14:53** – (Steve Gray): I don’t know this guy, but I know him and he’s a good guy and he’s a good song, and I think he’s worth. I’m telling you, I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. And my life would have been completely different, less frustrating and more advanced had I started that from the beginning. I didn’t want to believe it. And I think partly growing up in the don’t want to believe it. You don’t want to believe in money. You don’t want to believe in capitalism.

**0:15:21** – (Steve Gray): You don’t want to believe in the buddy system. You don’t want to believe it’s all in who you know. You don’t want to believe that. Now, can you go too far with that? Yes. I know people that they are so eager to meet, everybody they are friends with everybody, everybody. They’re so friends with everybody that they’re not friends with anybody. So you don’t want to just it’s not my personality. I’m not the chum of everybody, okay?

**0:15:47** – (Steve Gray): I’m a private person. I’m introverted as far as social things, I’m not a big socialite or anything. I don’t have people at my house all the time. I’m not out other people’s houses and social. No. Now I realize I need to point, what person do I need to meet? Not just for me, though, but I need to convince them and I need to convince myself what I have would be good for you. It’s good for me. This connection we have right now, if you’re watching you’re part of the podcast. If you watch it every week, listen, you can learn things here. You will never hear from anybody else.

**0:16:25** – (Steve Gray): Now, you don’t have to believe that. You can say, oh, he’s egotistical or whatever, but I’m just telling you that’s the truth. You listen, you and I can get to know each other this way through the podcast, and your life will get better. You will know wisdom beyond your age or beyond what other people know. Yes, and you know me through this podcast, but I have integrity. I’m a person of integrity. So I don’t want to do this just to, as you can tell, like trying to figure out, telling everybody in the world. My podcast is so great, calling everybody up, trying to be on theirs. I’d like to be on other podcasts.

**0:17:03** – (Steve Gray): I’d like to get to know more people, but I’m not going to get to know everybody, everybody. Because if you know everybody and you’re always at everybody, then nobody’s special, right? If everybody’s special, if everybody’s important, nobody’s important. So I want to target certain people and say, you’re important. I’d like to get to know you. I feel like I have something to offer you and you have something to offer me. It can be mutually good for us. Same thing with this podcast.

**0:17:29** – (Steve Gray): You can do something for me. You can follow, you can subscribe, right? If we have a product, you can say, well, let me get that. I’m going to get that product and we’re going to have more products for you that are really, really helpful and everybody says that. But test it and see. You cannot know every podcast. You cannot follow everybody. You have to find somebody that has wisdom who can help you, right? This person can help me, and I can help them. I can subscribe, I can tell my friends. You see how that works?

**0:18:00** – (Steve Gray): So yes, I have completely changed, but I’m not going to go overboard with it and be a socialite now and find out everybody I can know. But I am going to cash in on the people that I’ve met in the last 20 years. I’m going to cash in on that at the right time because I have an agenda. I have an agenda to help America. I think America needs help right now. And I want to see a spiritual renaissance, a spiritual revival in America. So I’m doing that. I’m also doing this on this personal level.

**0:18:32** – (Steve Gray): More faith, more life is not an international broadcast. It’s not a national broadcast for a national message. What does America need to do to be saved? What does America need to do to have a renaissance, a spiritual revival to save the family, to get us politically, economically? I know I’m going to do those things. I am writing things about that. That’s another audience. You this is for you to do better and for me to know, hopefully that I’m doing you some good.

**0:19:06** – (Steve Gray): I want to help you get more faith so you get more life. Okay? So what am I telling you today? Okay, I don’t like what I’m telling you today, but you need to target certain people, and you do need to get to know people. If you do it for the wrong reasons, if you’re shallow. I just want to get to know everybody and I want everybody to love me. I don’t want everybody to love me I want to know the right people because I want to target them to advance the cause that I’m involved in. And advance your cause, your life, right? More faith, more life.

**0:19:39** – (Steve Gray): So I have people that are going to help there I have people that are going to help in politics that I want to know, to help politically in our country, to help spiritually in our country. So I’m picking people that I feel confident that I should get to know and that should get to know me. And I’m going to find them, and I want to try. Okay, so I want to tell you that. So pick people if it’s in the realm of your job.

**0:20:05** – (Steve Gray): I’m trying to think of a job right now. We’ve talked about a particular person that we have met along the way. They know me. I have not met them yet. And I found out that they work for Google, okay. And they have a specialized job with Google. And I’m going to meet those. That person knows me. I haven’t met him yet. So I want to meet that person. I want to find out what they do. Okay, so let’s say you work for Google.

**0:20:31** – (Steve Gray): You can just Google your way through and hope you meet the right people. Show up for work, do your job, leave you’re not overly doing it, underlying doing it. You take your paycheck. Or you can find out, what do you really want to do? What do you have to offer? Do you have anything special about you? Personality wise, leadership wise, direction wise, mentally, creativity, whatever it is, okay, let’s say you got it and you go home. Say, I know I have something. Tell your wife or your friend or your husband or whatever.

**0:21:06** – (Steve Gray): I’ve got creativity. I think I should be a leader. I should be advancing, and I don’t feel like I am. Who should you meet? You can’t meet everybody, and you don’t need to meet everybody. Find out who is a person in the creativity department? Who’s a person in the business? Who’s a person that could use a leader? Who is a people person? You’re a real people person, and you should meet someone that’s in HR or whatever, real estate.

**0:21:36** – (Steve Gray): You’re a real people person. Wait a minute. You’re not a people person. You’re shy. You don’t like calling people on the phone. Get out of real estate. Don’t do that. Don’t go meet more real estate people. That’s not going to help you. You need to go find out, what are you good at? What can you do? And then find people who can advance your strengths. But listen, when they listen to you, they’re also saying, what can this person do for me?

**0:22:05** – (Steve Gray): Because I’m also looking to advance myself. Once you understand that, it’s a fair trade off. It’s honest. You want to advance, you want to do better, they want to do better. Okay, what do you have to offer them that will make their job and their life better, and what do they have to offer you? And then that’s the tone to use. Don’t go just because somebody’s got you. Find out somebody’s a millionaire.

**0:22:32** – (Steve Gray): They have $10 million. You got a good cause, and now you want to get their money, and you think, Well, I should help them because I want to help this. I have a good cause, so I’m going to try to go meet with them, write them a letter, and see if I can get some money to support my cause. It doesn’t work that way. You know why? Because what are you going to do for them? And sometimes you know what you do for them? You make them feel good about themselves.

**0:23:00** – (Steve Gray): You make them feel good. You offer them the chance to meet other people in your profession. You honor them. Maybe that’s what they need. They’re looking for something that seems valuable to them. So convince them that what you have is valuable. Right? You are. You convinced that you got to convince them. Why? Because they’re looking for value in life. So once you understand that and say, okay, what do I have to offer this person, and what do they have to offer me?

**0:23:32** – (Steve Gray): And then you say, I don’t maybe any more than I do. Maybe it doesn’t bother you. You’re in a different group, generation, different age. I don’t like it. I like to have people strictly on merit, strictly on ability, right. But it’s not going to happen that way. Not going to happen. So it’s all in who you know. I wish it wasn’t that way. First person to know is God, right? Because you don’t want to do this alone. Get to know him. Get to know him well. Get to know his word. Read your Bible.

**0:24:05** – (Steve Gray): Pray. Open your heart up to Him, okay? Secondly, though, pick the right people that you get to know that will help you but will help them, and it’s going to help you all the way to get more faith, more life, because you use your faith to get to know these people, and it’s going to create more life if you do it. So God’s relational. He knows we need to know people. Get to know them. Discipline yourself, love one another, and you can have more faith, more life, and be more successful.

**0:24:35** – (Steve Gray): You’ve ever been before? Thanks for listening today. Bye bye.