Before time had a name, there was a garden, a
place where heaven and earth walked as one. This
is the Echoes of Eden, where we rediscover ancient
roots and awaken to our eternal purpose. We'll
just start out. I'll let you introduce yourself
first. anyone who's listening, a little bit about
yourself. So, history of drugs and you said the
Bible is the answer for that. Absolutely. Elaborate
on that. People hear that I think sometimes and
was it a specific scripture that helped you or
what was it that got you out of that addiction?
Yes and no specific scripture. When I met him,
when he entered in my life, inside of me, those
things, the desire for those things went away.
I still messed up on some other things. I struggled
with lust. I struggled with pornography. But
I never struggled with the drugs. And I've been
doing drugs since I was 11 years old. I got put
in prison when I was 30. born again when I was
30. That particular thing, he took that desire
away from me. I don't know. He replaced it with
something that was much greater. And that was
him. Right. Holy Spirit will take you way higher
than any drug. Oh, 100%. Yes, sir. You know and
there's certain there's certain scriptures along
the way that hit and it enhanced all that sure
My favorite Jeremiah 29 11. I know my thoughts
and plans for you there for good not disaster
I'll give you a future in the hope I realized
one thing where drugs had taken me which was
prison yeah, and without anything lost everything
I had Not that I had that much but the idea Going
back to something that was so little in content,
and you paid so much money for, and it only lasted
for a little bit, and it always causes you problems.
This wasn't attractive to me anymore. Right.
And this is something you said since 11 to 30,
that's almost 20 years of drug addiction. And
I feel like, and you can correct me if I'm wrong,
but I think we're on the same page with this.
regardless of the addiction, when you encounter
Him, and really it goes back to the scripture,
taste and see, when you taste of Him, the stuff
of this world begins to fade. Can you talk about
your encounter first with Him? What did that
look like for you? And was this a, obviously
I know there's some people that walk through
a program that helps them get rid of drugs. Was
yours an instant thing? Or was yours, did you
just go through a program? Was it a, I can't
think of the word I want to use. Was it a process
you had to walk through or was it one of those
things that God did in you and it was like, it's
no longer? I did not go through a program. And
I'll say this very plainly, I'm not a great big
fan of programs. I can understand that. Because
when I was in prison, I went to some of those
programs because I was required to. But once
I realized it, I didn't see anything in those
programs necessarily that changed me on the inside.
One thing is I'm not going to confess who I used
to be constantly because I'm not that anymore.
I see where you're going with that, yeah. 2nd
Corinthians 5 17 says what any man who if you're
in Christ your new creation creation not not
a remanufactured you not a remodeled you but
a brand -new you old things pass away behold
all things become new I grabbed hopes of some
of that very quickly when it when it was concerned
in certain things It's funny you bring up that
scripture that was actually the scripture I was
going to use for our conversation. That was the
main scripture of this conversation. In the light
of the Amplified Version, it says, Absolutely.
So that's basically what you experienced. Absolutely.
So I think the problem is that most people have,
and it goes across all denominations, is biblical
illiteracy. I would 100 % agree. If you want
to put something together, you've got to read
the instructions. So if Christ, Colossians 3
1 I believe it is it might be 1 3 or 4 it's he
made everything and there wasn't anything made
that he had made yeah if he if you look around
and see everything he made in in when he I Know
people have a misconception though. We're all
in his image. We're not all in his image If we
were in His image, we wouldn't need to be born
again. We have to be born again into His image
because we were raised up in the image of Adam.
Genesis 3, 5 says that Seth was born and he was
after Adam's image. So we've continuously had
that image since then. That's why Jesus had to
come in due time to pay to get the image back.
All of my life and all of everybody else's prior
to receiving Christ as a genuine Savior, not
just a few words and an altar. You lived in that
image and everything that was taught to you,
that you were around, that you saw, it all put
you into a place where you're at. I was around
addiction in my home. You know, drinking alcohol
wasn't a big foreign thing to me. Right. Even
though I went to church with my grandma, I don't
recall anything at that time that intrigued me
enough to be born again or even think about it.
You hit something that I... I know me and Amanda
has talked about this recently, and I may have
mentioned it to somebody else. I'm trying to
think. But you said something about Biblical
illiteracy. And I think it's important. You know,
one of the scriptures that comes to mind when
you say that is, my people perish for lack of
knowledge. When you don't understand something,
you misuse it. It's kind of like, and you've
heard me... You probably have heard me say this
in here, ministering to teenagers. If you just
read the Bible to read the Bible and don't sit
down with Holy Spirit, you can misuse that thing
all day long to hit people with stone. You have
to sit down with the Word to read the Word. I
don't think people understand that. But I know
I've told Amanda recently, I said, I feel like
most of the culture that I've grown up in, Based
off what I heard you say a while ago. You may
agree. You can disagree if you'd like We regurgitate
information Yes, I know I have and before when
we first started ministering a lot of the stuff
that I look back now that I taught was stuff
that was taught to me without me actually diving
down into this and It's not until probably the
past five or six years or so I would say in my
own personal journey where I started digging
in for myself. It's like the whole idea of I
taught teenagers in this very building, we're
sitting in our church, in this very building
I taught teenagers before when we was involved
in youth ministry that when Jesus hung on the
cross, God turned his back on his son. Well,
if he did that, then Jesus is a liar, because
he said, you all will leave me, but my father
never will. And my basis on that was when he
says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
And I didn't understand that time back in those
days, when someone would have quoted the beginning
of a psalm, those people would have knew the
ending to it. Which if you read that psalm, he's
closer now than he's ever been. He was never
abandoned on the cross. So here I am, as a youth
pastor, teaching teenagers that he does abandonment
and can't look at sin, and if he can't look at
sin, we're all screwed. And this all ties to
that biblical illiteracy. We just regurgitate
stuff. We don't understand it because we don't...
How do I say this? You might put some better
language. I don't know. But it seems like the
culture I grew up in was it was all about the
man of God and the pulpit. Whatever he says,
that's wrong. You don't question it. You don't
go read it for yourself. And now we have a generation
of bottle -fed people. Bottle -fed men who don't
know who they are because they've really not
had what you experience an encounter with him.
So, in the last month, I had something said to
me. People who said said it to me absolutely
believed it to be true And they said well God
won't put on you more than you can bear So I
asked him I said when was the last time you read
that? He said well, it's been a while. I don't
know how long it's not there It's absolutely
not there I've looked at I've studied it out.
I want to make sure that I wasn't Exactly even
a lot self and I believe I'm like you I had to
go back and change what I believed after I got
a little deeper. So I said, this is why people
say that, because it's based off, I think, 1
Corinthians 10 .13. It says, there's no temptation
taking you, which is common to man. But with
every temptation, God gives you a way out, right?
That's not him putting less than you can bear
on you or not putting more than you can bear.
It's the actual idea of, hey, you're being tempted.
here's your door you don't have that you don't
have to give into it exactly so in if and i just
talked to somebody recently last week actually
and i said if you lift weights and you don't
ever increase your weight your muscles will never
grow yeah romans chapter five and second peter
chapter one tells you the process of what him
putting on you more than you can bear Put more
on you right? Yes, and their end result is a
copy of yes It builds your patience then patience
comes into something else and then something
else comes into love brother in love and the
end result of pressure Results in a copy of which
is his kind of love which is the only thing that
produces real results These are these deep conversations.
Where do you go with these? Because to me even
when we're sitting here talking a lot of what
I think about goes back to what you talked about
about the programs and When you said I forgot
because I've heard some of this stuff before
But I forgot it to you said a lot of these programs
even for addicts and stuff you have to repeat
consciously I am this Well, that's a dangerous
statement if you're not careful. Right. Proverbs
says, so a man thinketh. As a man thinketh, so
is he. You're declaring all this stuff. And then,
but here's the problem. You're not only declaring
it. When you're declaring it, you're hearing
it again. So there's a two -thing process going
here. You're repeating it, hearing it again,
continuing to believe it, that I have this problem.
I am an addict. But no, you're not. It's like
with the people that Jesus encounters, okay,
think about the woman caught in adultery. He
doesn't come and beat her up with the sin that
she's been trapped in. We are the only ones that
we identify everyone based off their problems
and their issues, failing to see the Christ within,
failing to see the person who Christ redeemed
inside. Now that makes a little bit more sense
here in the beginning of your story about if
you have a bunch of men doing this process, then
they're essentially just trapped in this continual
swing of things, never understanding there's
a better way. Christ has done something. And
it amazes me, you take the, I was listening to
a message last night about the woman that he
meets at the well. and about, you know, she basically
becoming an apostle in that region. Right. Over
one encounter, Barry. Right. One encounter, one
authentic encounter with him and this woman who's
been trapped in this cycle. So it hits me funny
when you said that because she had an encounter
with him but he didn't tell her anything, she
didn't already know. Exactly right. which is
insane, really, if you think about it. She knew
everything he said. She just knew that he didn't
know it. Yeah. But everything, she already knew
everything about it. So in the midst of that
idea, when I started reading the Bible, I found
myself in several different ways. Deuteronomy
28, if you read it, it's a chapter of blessings
and curses. And at that time, when I first got
born again and I started reading the Bible, I
happened to cross that. I just started reading
and read all the time for hours because I was
locked up. I mean, I could have done something
else. I didn't do it. But I found myself in those
curses in the latter part of Deuteronomy 28,
even to the point of my children will be raised
by other people. I didn't have much of a grasp
on the first 13 verses. The biggest part of that
chapter is curses. Verse 13, after he says, if
you hear my word and do it, or hearken into it,
all these blessings will come fall upon you.
They'll chase you down. They'll catch you. Right?
And that's been my experience the whole time
I've been born again. I'm not saying I've had
all yes answers. I'm not saying that the world
is treating me fire. I'm not saying any of that.
Right. The idea of God rescuing me and doing
things in my life that only He could do has been
prominent. I was sharing something with a guy
the other day, and I think maybe that's one thing
that we miss. We like to witness to people about,
you know, you shouldn't do this or shouldn't
do that or shouldn't do this when we could tell
them, say, look, when I received Him, He's done
this in my life. We're the testimony. Right.
Said we're over we're overcomers by our testimony
in the blood of lamb Yes, and but later on it
says love and not their life the next verse is
love and not their life under there Yeah, so
the old person has to die If you're not consistent
in your living you're never going to be a good
witness because there's always reason for somebody
that you're witnessing Because if they don't
see the change in you hundred percent And a constant,
consistent change. And they'll know you by your
fruit. They'll know you by your fruit. Man...
I just... You think about the one encounter.
You've experienced an encounter. I've experienced
an encounter. How do I say this? You think about
the woman at the well, you think about the guy
who he found on the other shore who's naked in
a graveyard. Cutting himself. Cutting himself.
And just one authentic encounter. And I feel
like we've built, you've been in ministry, been
in churches, you've done all this. There's a
place you can get where it all looks good. But
there's no presence. And if we don't build a
place, and I think this is going to be twofold,
if we don't build a place as a corporate group
of people that people can come in and encounter
Him, not the man of God, not the worship team,
not the... You know what I'm saying. If we don't
build that kind of place, but even further than
that, if we don't become that place, the representation
of Christ in the world that we're in, how do
we expect people to have those encounters? When
you encounter men, you come from a harder background,
being with the drugs and all that kind of stuff.
A lot of men, in prison especially, How do you
help those men have an authentic encounter that
makes them want to change? And I'm not saying
you're going to have an answer to that, but you
know where I'm going with this. I have somewhat
of an answer. So here's part of it. I know it's
part of it. It says, the same power that Ray
Scorsese lived in us. Yes. The idea There being
a power that exists that took a dead Body yes
beat before you couldn't recognize him as a human
being And caused it all to come back together
And be raised and glorified in the midst of that
he just descended in the head Everybody says
he took back He did not steal the key. He did
not steal the key. The enemy had no choice. Hand
him over. But to hand him to him. You can't steal
something that belongs to you anyhow. Right.
And there's a scripture in Isaiah that always
gets me, and I can't remember exactly where it's
at, but it boils down to everybody looking at
the enemy, the devil, and saying, is this the
one who had all the agents all pull up? Is that
it? That's it? Yeah. That's all you are? Yeah.
That's what it said. Is that correct? But we
go around glorifying and saying, well, you know,
the devil did this to me, and the devil did this
to me. How about this? How about just make right
decisions based on the truth? And you might find
that the devil has no hold on you. How about
allowing the Holy Spirit to lead your life? How
about it? Have a relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Relations, five, in the New Living Version. It
says if Holy Spirit controls your life, 522 and
523, He will produce these kinds of fruits. He
will. He will produce these kinds of fruits.
And Philippians 2, 12 says, God both wills and
does His good pleasure through you. The only
thing stopping it is us. We put the stop on it.
We put limitations on it. Right, absolutely.
Because of what? Because of fear. But we're afraid
what people will think. That's the reason we
don't worship to the elaborate point we should
worship Him that He's worthy of. That's the reason
we don't witness to people the way we should.
All of it is based on fear because ever since
we were a child, we were taught that you want
people to like you. Yes. But in essence, we don't
need people to like us. We just need people to
hear the truth. and automatically they'll be
attracted to us if they are truth bearers themselves.
Looks like I told our teenagers a couple of Wednesdays
ago, I think it was, where, you know, Jesus tells
you, there's a point where he tells the people
to love others as I've loved you. If we would
ever get to that point to understand how he sees
us, then that really frees me to see everybody
else. through His eyes. And I don't need nothing
from you. I don't care if you hate me, reject
me, love me, I don't care because I know the
value I have in His eyes and that's all that
matters. And so what does that do to the life
of us when I'm, it allows us to go to people
and begin to share our testimony. Why? Because
if you reject me, who cares? You're not rejecting
me anyway. You're not rejecting me anyhow. Exactly
right. And I'm going to pray the Holy Spirit
still sends somebody else to witness to you.
To confirm what I've already told you. Exactly
right. I've had another thing. Not only do people
believe that lie about you won't put on you more
than you can bear, but they also believe that
you can't be like Jesus. That's deep. That's
going to go deep. I've heard it so many times
in the last little bit. Yes. That's Jesus. Here's
a catch that I've realized really specifically.
It's very plain in the word. There's two plans
that were from or before the foundation of the
word. Before he formed all this, there's two
plans. Jesus is going to be slain. Actually,
he said Jesus was slain. The Lamb was slain before
the foundation. Before the foundation. And the
other one is, before the foundation, we were
predestined to be conformed to the image. I think
Ephesians 1 -4 even says, he chose us before
the foundations of the world. Yeah, right. I
think Romans chapter 8 says something similar.
I think so. Yeah, first chapter of Ephesians
says it. And then it's something I've elaborated
on the last little bit. Ephesians 1 -18 says,
it's Paul's prayer. It's a good prayer for us
to pray, too. I think we kind of miss it. We
ask for the eyes of the understanding to be open
for people. But he said that you might know the
riches of the inheritance of the saints and the
hope of your calling. Yes. That's the one thing
we should be praying for people to understand
the hope of their calling. And everybody says,
well, I'm not called to be a preacher. Oh, I'm
not a worship leader. I'm not a whatever. But
we're all called. I think it's second Corinthians,
maybe in five to also since we all have the Ministry
of Reconciliation. Yes, sir. reconciliation.
What is that? Well, he reconciled us to the Father
so we can have the image back. We have to be
able to reconcile people to help them understand
that the image they're living in is not the image
we're called to be. Yeah. You're called to be
like Jesus. We're called to be like Jesus. And
so my answer to some of that is, I've got a new
song that's called, Will You Pray For Rain? But
in it, it says, you remember Elijah. James chapter
5 says that he was a man of like passions, just
like we are. But he prayed, and there wasn't
any rain for years. So he's just like, I said,
well, if you can't be like Jesus, then be like
Elijah. And then they go, well, wait a minute.
He prayed, and there didn't rain. Then he prayed
again, and it did. And I said, well, Paul said,
whatever you've seen me do and say, You do it.
Yeah. Well, we can be like Paul then. Yeah. But
what they were doing, he says, as I follow Jesus,
you follow me. Yeah. That's their example. It's
kind of silly when you think about it. And I
understand Jesus was fulfilling prophecy. He
was God in the flesh, but he's also 100 percent
human and showing us what it looked like. Hey,
you've got scriptures who. where it says Jesus
withdrew Himself often to pray, to spend time
with the Father. He makes statements like, I
don't do anything unless I see my Father do it.
You have Him, before He does anything great,
as far as what we would consider, you have Him
being baptized by John, with the words of His
Father saying, this is my beloved Son, and whom
I will please, before He does anything, and the
Holy Spirit descending upon Him and remaining.
Is that not the same picture of what we're supposed
to do? Withdraw often and spend time with the
Father. And understand that the Holy Spirit remains.
Listen to that voice. Instead of, it kind of
goes back to what I said earlier, instead of
running to get a word from the man of God, and
I'm not putting no discredit on that whatsoever.
I hope people hear my heart. He wants to speak
to you. Absolutely. And not just on the big decisions,
he's there for the little stuff too. If you can
just listen, if we can just learn how to listen
to that voice. He said, my sheep know my voice.
And a stranger they won't listen to. The problem
is, we've listened to strangers way too long.
We've listened to strangers way too long, so
we recognize those voices a whole lot quicker
than we can the voice of him. It's another lie.
If it if it be that way. You hear that people
pray if it be that way. Well if you're praying
for healing it's absolutely God's will. Yes.
Well how do you know that. Well Jesus went about
healing all that was sick and oppressed by the
devil. He said just what you just said. He only
did what he saw and heard the father saying.
Yeah. So it's absolutely his way. He said if
you've seen me you've seen the father. So everything
he does is God's perfect will, even to the point
of dying, being crucified and dying on the cross.
That was his perfect will. And Jesus, in Matthew
chapter 6, had the disciples pray for that very
moment. What we call the Lord's Prayer, which
technically is just a practice prayer. He said,
when you pray, pray like this. He didn't specifically
say, I pray like this. You want to hear him pray,
just go to John 17. That's his prayer. Where
he says, I pray that they be one with you, like
me and you are one. And in it, in the Garden
of Gethsemane, he says, sit right here and pray.
He'd already told them what to pray. Thy kingdom
come, thy will be done. What did Jesus say? Not
my will, but yours be done. Right. What was his
will? That he die on the cross, that we might
live. He left his image on the ground, and we
got to pick it up. It's way simpler than we've
made it. We've made it complicated. Absolutely.
We've created doctrines. scriptures that should
have never existed and Holy Spirit didn't have
anything to do with it. But it's even to kind
of tie back into the identity portion, even going
back to how you said a lot of the programs are
built around this idea of repeating confessions
that are really lies about yourself. I'll push
back a little bit on something you mentioned
earlier, and I get flack for this, and it's okay.
But even if you want to go with the born again
thing, technically, if people would look at that
phrase of born again, we've had it in a... church
culture, and you alluded to it a while ago, we
just have people repeat a bunch of prayers. And
okay, you're good to go. There's no discipleship.
There's nothing helping people to understand
what that actually means and explaining to them
kind of what we've been talking about is this
idea that you're in His image. You've been created
in this after Him. That was the plan all along.
But if you look at the born -again, people say,
have you born again? What does that mean? You
look at the word, it means born from above. Like
I tell our teenagers, you did not come from your
mom and dad. You came from heaven. You might
have come through them. But what does that mean
to me as a man is that takes away all the excuses
you can possibly find about, well, daddy did
this, grandpa did this. These are my family struggles.
OK, well not if you're drafted in Him. And when
you come into that realization that you were
in Christ all along, it's like the whole Adam
nature. And I think you talked about that a minute
ago. You have the Adam nature and the Jesus nature.
Jesus says, I'm the last Adam. There's no more
after this. This is it. I'm coming to finish
everything. And one of the things that's been
big to me is, It seems the church world I've
grown up in has more faith in what the first
Adam did than what the last Adam undid. And I
heard somebody mention this other day. He said
the notion and the idea that Adam and Eve in
the garden can take a bite of fruit and ruin
the whole thing, but yet Christ can go through
everything that He did and have a lesser impact.
Something's wrong with this picture. but when
you talk like even what we mean you've been talking
about you begin to dismantle the religious system
and the reliance on all this that you have to
go through and it goes back to what we just said
it's simple just believe in him believe that
he's already paid that price that you're not
the addict that you're not the that you're not
the liar, that you're not the abuser, that you
actually are in Christ. That you're made in His
image, that Jesus was your model. Not the pastor
of the year, Jesus was your model. You know as
good as I do, men will fail. If people put their
hope in me, they're going to get disappointed
real quick. But if I can get you to point to
Jesus, He'll never fail you. Then and in Romans
8 26 it says if you don't know how to pray, you
know Holy Spirit pray for you. Yes, and And I
think what we've missed if we've got so caught
up in speaking in tongues or praying in tongues
that we've missed the idea of what it says after
that it says Holy Spirit will pray for you the
perfect will If Holy Spirit is praying the perfect
will of God for you and through you. Jesus is
forever making intercession for us. How in the
world do we make excuses for failure? That's
a hundred percent. And why do we keep failing?
If that kind of power is available, the raising
from the dead power, Holy Spirit praying God's
perfect will, mind of Christ in you, mind of
Christ, it said let this mind be in you, right?
that was in Christ Jesus, not esteeming everyone
as better than himself. Now how in the world
can Jesus esteem anybody better than himself?
He said, who thought it not robbery being equal
with God, but come to earth and took on the form
of a servant, and was obedient unto death. He
was obedient unto death. And then he was given
a name above all names. that every tongue would
confess and every knee back. So how can all that
exist in us and we just exist? You can't. You
can't just exist. There's no way you can contain
that kind of power in these human bodies. He
did. He could have used his godly power on the
cross. He said, I could have called legions of
angels to take me off of this, but in my human
self -control, because that's what it was. I'm
sorry. Could it be, and I think there's a scripture
about this, could it be that love constrained
him in that moment? Absolutely. And he knew,
in Hebrews chapter 12 it says, that seeing the
cross, he looked past it and saw the glory. He
saw the actual attributes of God past that momentary
suffering that humanly speaking he did not want
to endure. Because he said if there's any other
way, that wasn't the God in him speaking. That
was the man saying, I'm getting ready to go through
the rough. I know what I'm saying. I've seen
what they did with the cattle, and they did it
more increasingly. much worse with him. Absolutely.
They said that nobody could really endure that
period. That beating was enough to kill somebody.
He ended up picking up his cross and carrying
it even though he was unrecognizable as a human
being. And then somebody came along and carried
it for him. That guy who came along is us. And
still has the audacity on the cross. Look for
the crowd and say father forgive And you know,
it was all part of the plan. They didn't know
they were part of the plan. No, no And then he
got him hit at his last breath one of the guards
looked up and says truly I guess man that will
mess with you. You start thinking about it. I
mean because it wasn't and this is what I see
couple questions This is what gets at me. They
hated me, they'll hate you also. If you really
look at this, it wasn't the world that was hating
him and pushing him away. It was the religious
system. It was the Sadducees, the Pharisees,
the political and the religious systems of that
day who hated what he was saying and doing. because
he was messing with how they believe the scriptures
said things he comes along and says no you've
heard it said but I say and messing with their
world and another thing they were in a place
of comfort yes they weren't they weren't the
regular run -the -mill Jews they were they didn't
get harassed by the soldiers everything like
that they weren't living in poverty they were
They were living in luxury. They didn't want
that luxury to start. And they knew because Nicodemus,
when he went to Jesus at night, he said, we know.
He didn't say, I know. He said, we know. So they
knew surely he was something special. the same
spirit that raised Christ from the dead, the
mind of Christ. And I feel like it's still so
much easier to make excuses of why we are how
we are, why I'm struggling with this, why I failed
at this, you name it. I feel like we've made
it so much easier to make excuses than it is
to just submit to Holy Spirit. And sometimes
I would think submitting is the harder route.
The biggest, I think, the biggest weakness, and
there's a reason behind it, the biggest weakness
in the entire body of Christ is the lack of transparency
with the struggle. 100%. Because it says to confess
your fault one to another. But see, in today's
society, it's always been this way. It's hard
to confess your faults to other people because
they run a blab and they judge. I know I shared
something with somebody one time about my struggle
with pornography. And they never treated me the
same. They didn't ask me to come back to the
ministry. They didn't ask me to do nothing. And
I partnered with them a lot. So you can't just
share. And not everything, and don't get me wrong,
not everything is supposed to be shared with
people. There are some things that only you and
God have to reconcile. But there are some things
that regular people, the temptation that's common
to man. If we understood what kingdom we were
a part of, when you come to me as a man and say,
hey, Chris, this is what I'm struggling with,
then I should have the ability to look back at
Barry and say, that may be your struggle, but
that's not who you are. Let's talk about who
you are. and pull you out of that mindset of
just repeating that I'm addicted to pornography.
How many men have dealt with that battle in my
own life? It's like I tell the teenagers, I'm
not really interested in talking about your issues.
I know you have issues. If I as your youth pastor
can proclaim over you the gospel and who you
are in Christ and Christ in you, John 17, and
have you buy into this truth, Divorce yourself
from this life. As a witness in my own life,
the Holy Spirit will deal with whatever issue
you're trying to talk to me about. He's the only
one that can. Most of the time when we say, hey,
I'm struggling with this, most individuals want
to either just talk about it and beat you down,
or they'll lug it to your face but then do the
reverse afterwards and go blab all your stuff
to everybody else or whatever. That's not the
way it's supposed to be. They'll stamp you as
just yeah, and that only increases Once you once
a once people done you that way you're not best
after that so We and then I say that First John
I believe is chapter 4 says he did has that this
hope This hope yeah, not just have this hope
of new image, new life, new power, new everything,
purifies itself. So there comes a time, and I'm
going to backtrack a little bit, he's talking
about the lack of discipleship and things like
that. If the world treated babies like we do,
and I say I call babies, just now regenerate
brand new creatures in Christ. Yes. If the world
treated babies like we do, they'd be in court
from the left. That's man. That's child abuse.
Yeah. If we didn't teach them how to eat and
starve to death, then we'd be in jail for murder.
But we don't teach them how to eat. I had an
experience in the I didn't get born again until
1998. I'd say that. I had experience about 1990.
I went to an altar and I did what everybody does.
I know something happened because I got healed
or something physical. I knew something happened.
Right. But the place I was at, I didn't dig in
and nobody pulled me in. So I drifted away of
course the next right that was in 1990 I went
first in 1998 the next eight years When it says
what's a strong man's cast out and he comes back
found the house empty and seven times greater.
Well, okay So, if we would learn to treat young
laborers just like we would our kids, we wouldn't
let our kids starve. Nope. We wouldn't. We just
wouldn't do it. It's like we expect someone who
just stepped into this today, we treat them as
if they've been here 20 years. Right. And, you
know, you take an addict off the s*** Just take
anybody in this picture, really. And if they
just started this journey today, they need a
lot of discipleship. I mean, don't get me wrong,
I 100 % believe they can have an encounter and
turn everything. But there still needs to be,
I believe that's why there's the fivefold ministry,
the apostles, prophets, teachers. They're there
for a reason. And not for the, and I love how
somebody, I forget who said it, but those people
are not like, I'm over you type. They're one
of the great, they're supposed to be the greatest
servants to the body. That's really, I mean,
I heard someone say this recently say, you know,
when someone says, I think I'm called the pastor,
whatever you said, that's awesome. It's great.
It means you get to out serve everybody. We don't
look at that in the culture we have right now.
It's the other way. We look up to them instead
of whatever. But if we would realize that the
fivefold is there to help that individual and
understand that they just started this journey,
so let me help you. And to me, and I'm sure anybody
else in a different position could say something
different. But to me, that should be helping
people understand who they are and to come out
of those beliefs of Well, I'm this, and I struggle
with this. Okay, that may be a fact, but it's
not the truth. And the truth is actually Christ.
Christ is the answer to the question. So, when
you say that, it made me think of Moses. He said,
I don't speak for him. He said, well, in this
way, I'll use Aaron. I don't think he ever had
to speak for him. That's a good point. I don't
ever, I have to go back and read it, but I don't
recall that. That's where I found me. I wouldn't
have chosen it. I would have been the last person
to take it. But he knew the cause of where I
came from and why I had a big reputation in that
area. That he could use me and say, look, some
of the best confidence I've ever had is when
you said you've been to prison and you're a drug
addict, I didn't know, you didn't worry about
it. He didn't look like that. He didn't sound
like that. I didn't know that. I didn't assume
that about you. Right. That makes sense. And
that's where we should be heading. Yes. Okay.
So, again, I could do this all day long, but
to wrap it up, I'll ask you two questions, and
then I'll get you to pray for the men. The first
one, what advice would you give to a man who
feels lost and is searching for who he is? He's
big enough to do it. He's big enough to do everything
that's in Romans chapter 8 in your life. And
he can take you way farther than you'd ever imagine.
If he can do it for me, I know he can do it for
me. Last question. If you could tell your younger
self See, that led me down that idea of being
that I fell into whatever was around me, just
to be accepted, because I've been rejected a
lot in my life. Right. So, you know, especially
people who have experienced rejection of any
type in their life. Been there, done that? School,
I mean, elementary school, high school, school
life. Most people feel rejected in school. Even
the ones that you think are so popular. They
still feel rejected. They still feel rejected.
They feel rejected because they're going through
things they didn't they don't know how to explain
their experience and therefore he baby But kids
are notorious about pointing out every little
flaw in every little detail of your life Yes,
sir, and if they can embarrass you the more they
can embarrass you the less embarrassments on
them. Yes, sir That's that's Jesus was He could
stop a crowd, he could speak to a crowd, a crowd
would listen to him. He said bizarre things,
and they still listen to him. So, why would we
not want to be like him? When we do everything
in the world to fit in, I've got a song called
Being Different from my YouTube channel. And
that's what it's all about. We all try to be
different. Just like everybody else is. When
I was younger, it was earrings, and still you're
a guy and you're hiring. We do all these things
to stand out, but everybody else is doing them
too. If we would just be more like him, we'd
stand out in a way that would be so profound
that it would influence everybody around us.
even without this stuff we could have these conversations
that we do all the time. Could you pray for those
that's listening and just close us out like that?
Father, I just thank you Lord that you love us.
You love us so much that you gave Jesus to us.
So we could become something or not. I thank
you for that. Lord, I know there's a lot of people
who are in positions right now that they want
to be in. And you're the only person Lord. Let
them hear this and let them hear some truth that
we spoken through this time that Pricks their
ear and their heart and they might just say,
you know, what must I do to have that? That's
just a simple just be just receive Christ Believe
that he is everything he said he was and he can
be that in us Thank you. Thank you As we turn
away from all the old stuff we used to do and
just let our life become new. We'll let it be
glorified in you. That's our main objective.
That's our main goal. It's to satisfy you, who's
the only one worthy to be satisfied. So we thank
you for it, in Jesus' name. Amen.