NRB Chronicles - Daivid Johnston "Why Were You Born"

So, have fun on the convention floor of the National Religious Broadcasters Convention. I get to see so many wonderful, amazing folks that God has given them a passion and is using it to build the kingdom, and I have in front of me David Johnson.

And so he's got this book that's very engaging. It says, Why You Were Born. Everybody needs to know the answer to that one.

There's a subtitle that says, The Blueprint for Discovering Your Life's Potential. But I bet you've asked that question. I know I have. So, David, why was I born? You have to read the book to find out. Oh, I got it. Yeah, I got you there.

So, simply... The truth of the matter is, chapter one, it's called You Before You Were Born. Nobody knew you. Your parents didn't know you.

They didn't call you up from someplace. You were a man and a woman got together. There was going to be a baby. God put the person inside the baby. Wow. That's why Jesus said, When you pray, you pray our Father, which art in heaven.

Right? That's why He said, It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. It's why in Acts we're called the offspring God. So finding out why you were born begins with discovering that you are in an amazing born of God, fathered by God person. He wants you here now.

He placed you in a particular baby's body, chose your gender, parentage. And so it starts there. Now, most people don't know this. So they spend most of their lives building a caricature of themselves that they think other people will like. Competitive. Compare ourselves from a young age, going to school, whether it's a football game or whatever it is, the grades in school, everybody's comparing themselves.

That's a dangerous thing to do. Scripture says, for example, We dare not make ourselves of the number who comparing themselves among themselves and measuring themselves by themselves are not wise is not a smart thing to do, because it keeps you off your own personal identity and track. So what does a person do when they don't know why they were born? They try to create themselves in some form or another. They live with a tremendous, unnecessary sense of inferiority complex.

They're always trying to compensate. They turn to what we call narcissism, which is the opposite to love. And by the way, it's a big Bible subject.

The ancient word for narcissism is iniquity. One of the four reasons Jesus went to the cross. He was wounded for our transgressions. We got that one.

But he was bruised for our iniquity. Oh, yeah, well, what's that? Transcretions? No.

It's a different thing, right? So Lucifer, for example, was a good angel. And of him, the Lord said, he was perfect in all his ways until iniquity was found in him.

53rd chapter of Isaiah again. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. That's the issue. But the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

What is it? The turning to our own way. So we decide what will be. We think we're smarter than God. And that's what Lucifer said.

I will exalt my throne above the throne of God, my stars above the stars of God. Iniquity. And that's tragic. And we're facing not merely a culture-wide crisis, but a worldwide crisis right now at the core of what all is this condition called iniquity. On the other hand, when a person discovers that God is their Father, and what happened to them when they were in the womb, one of the things that happened, chapter one, is that he endowed them with giftings, King James called spiritual gifts. We call it embedded natural abilities. And God has placed in people, every one of us, an embedded natural ability. And if you don't know what that is, and you get off track early in life because of competition, because of comparison and all that stuff, the danger is one could walk across a stage of time being at the exit sign and never knew what they were supposed to be or do or go on. So David, just let me jump in for a second because I don't want to go ahead of the listeners who I'm sure, like me, are trying to catch up because of what you're throwing at us.

Extremely profound, but I'm still struggling, honestly. Let's go back to the word iniquity. You want to go back to that? I do. I do. I love it. I love the way you pointed that out. It's beautiful. And I couldn't agree with you more on all the issues that you're talking about, but I just find it's a fascinating thing that you're right.

We have turned to our own way. So when you take the word iniquity, my definition of iniquity would have been, prior to sitting here with you, something that sounds unequal, right? Iniquity. But what you're describing sounds more biblical to me than the word in something that's not equal. So can you reconcile that for me? I knew you could.

Hopefully. We are designed to be under God, over Satan, equal with one another. Okay. So whenever a person tries to be above God, they're committing narcissism. Iniquity. Imagine the created thinking he's smarter than the creator.

I mean, it's unthinkable, but that's what's going on. That's the way I came to Christ, I'll tell you. If you're listening, you're going, Robbie was in the Church of Scientology, and I'm talking about iniquity. And so as you describe me, there's something like, yeah, that's iniquity.

Okay, I'm tracking with you. And so I pick up the tape set by Norman Vincent Peale, and he says, you know, if you want to get a positive mental attitude, what you got to do is get up an hour early and read the Bible. And you'll get a positive mental attitude. So I start reading the Bible. Well, the more I read the Bible, the better I'm getting at God, because why? I'm in iniquity. I think I'm smarter than you.

I really do. And I'd be shocked if you didn't at one point in time think you were smarter than God, too. But I definitely thought, and the more I read the Bible, the matter I got, like, man, you smote all these people. You stoned Aiken's kids.

They didn't have nothing to do with it. What are you doing? Well, when he took out Job's kids, I was really upset. And I'm like, this is just wrong. I just can't believe I'm reading this book that has nothing to do with a positive mental attitude. The more I read it, the matter I get at God.

And then you get to the end, right? When all of a sudden, God doesn't answer any of Job's questions. He just starts throwing them at Job. And he was throwing them at Robbie. He was like, so, Robbie, make it hail. I would love to watch. Bring in the tide. That would be beautiful.

You know, and all these things. I was like, man, I can't do that. Can't do that.

Can't. Oh, my goodness. I'm not God. He's God.

And, oh, man, he's got a really high standard. I don't come anywhere close. I got a real problem. I was in iniquity. I didn't even know it.

Oh, my goodness. Why you were born. It's taken me 65 years to find out how bad I was in iniquity.

But, man, I don't know about you, but if you've been lifted this, and I hate that we're running out of, because, man, I could have this discussion for the next 20 hours. But you can see that the book is like by David Johnson. It's called Why You Were Born, a blueprint for discovering your life's potential.

And if you didn't get your appetite wetted, and certainly, so, David, clearly you have some deep understanding biblically. Where did you get this? The Bible.

Is there any other answer? Of all places. Yeah. Just for a moment about the iniquity thing.

There are 366 verses in the Bible about that subject. I'm not surprised. So I wrote a book. This was originally published under the subject, the title How to Conquer Iniquity. But everybody looks at the title and hasn't got a clue what it's about. So our publisher said we need to change the title.

So we changed the title to How You See Yourself. But this book begins with iniquity tracing it through the Bible, explaining it biblically, okay, pointing out how to recover from past iniquity, how to conquer present iniquity, how to prevent future iniquity, okay. Because let's never forget that Jesus... What do we do about iniquity in our mother?

There's a chapter about that in there. Because you know what? What's funny about this? It's true. It's not your mother but your father. Listen to what scripture says about that. The iniquities of the father shall be visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation. Sins are not visited upon.

Iniquities are. That's why we should probably spend the 20 hours on this book. Not just while you were born, but here we have how you see yourself, the source of your struggle in concrete. I didn't know there was more. And there's more.

David L. Johnson. Wow. So, wow, I can see. We've got 20 hours at least coming. We're going to be doing a whole lot more.

I'd love to do that. I appreciate how gracious you are. Oh, this has been... Man, I won't forget this interview for a long time because you hit me with something. I love words. I love words. And because, you know, Jesus is the Word. Yeah. And the Bible's just full of him. Right. And everybody seems to miss this, Richard, but the New Testament says Jesus came to deliver us from all our iniquities.

Yes, he did. I'm not missing the idea. You know, like, wow, I've just, like, you've opened up a whole new strategy. As iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

This narcissism versus love is the issue. Man, you have hit the nail on so many heads that I have wondered about for years. I got to tell you that you are a blessing and we will see much more of this. So thank you guys. NothingButTheTruth.org. Nothing But The Truth. That's perfect. Nothing But The Truth. Fits with you guys really good, doesn't it? Yeah, The Truth Network. The books are available on Amazon, Kindle, Audible, if they would like. But thank you for these moments together. Well, thank you, sir.