Have you ever sensed a moment of divine clarity that reshaped your entire approach to life? My husband, Apostle Tony Wade, shares his riveting tale of such an encounter and the ensuing hunger for God's presence that transformed his prayer life. In our candid conversation, we peel back the layers of what it means to transition from the rituals of religion to the richness of a relationship with our Creator. As we open our hearts, we invite listeners to reflect on their own spiritual journeys and consider the potency of prayer as a conduit for genuine dialogue with God.
We also venture beyond the prayer room, discussing the significance of inviting God's presence in every corner of our existence. From the stillness of prayer to the chaos of daily errands, we explore how to maintain a conscious connection with the Father. I recount a particularly vivid vision of protective angels, reminding us of the promises in Psalm 91, and together we unpack how such experiences affirm the truth of Scripture. Join us as we weave personal anecdotes with spiritual insights, offering guidance on how to discern God's voice and embrace the protection and guidance He provides.
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Have you ever sensed a moment of divine clarity that reshaped your entire approach to life? My husband, Apostle Tony Wade, shares his riveting tale of such an encounter and the ensuing hunger for God's presence that transformed his prayer life. In our candid conversation, we peel back the layers of what it means to transition from the rituals of religion to the richness of a relationship with our Creator. As we open our hearts, we invite listeners to reflect on their own spiritual journeys and consider the potency of prayer as a conduit for genuine dialogue with God.
We also venture beyond the prayer room, discussing the significance of inviting God's presence in every corner of our existence. From the stillness of prayer to the chaos of daily errands, we explore how to maintain a conscious connection with the Father. I recount a particularly vivid vision of protective angels, reminding us of the promises in Psalm 91, and together we unpack how such experiences affirm the truth of Scripture. Join us as we weave personal anecdotes with spiritual insights, offering guidance on how to discern God's voice and embrace the protection and guidance He provides.
Follow me on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/feleciacarterwade/ Follow me on TikTok https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTdVgfGeG/ Subscribe to me on Youtube https://youtube.com/channel/UCR5PBYZaPcUPSNEr8I2RNZQ
Grab the direct link to this episode and share it with a friend ❤️
Hello everybody, welcome to the Effective Prayer Strategies Podcast, where we are giving you tools for an effective prayer life. I'm really excited about today's podcast because we have a special guest. I guess that I have been knowing for over 30 something years and he's a mighty man of God. He's an apostle who is a powerful man of God here in the city of Memphis, tennessee, and I'm excited to have him here just to talk about prayer strategies, just to hear his story about how he became a believer and how prayer has played an important part of his life as becoming an apostle that he is today. So let's welcome to my podcast none other than Apostle Tony Wade, my husband of 31 years. Welcome to the podcast.
Apostle Wade:I am so honored to be here and thank you for such an amazing introduction. I feel so honored to be here amongst you as such an amazing woman of God and being on your podcast. I mean, you're doing an amazing job teaching on prayer and I love to hear you pray and I'm just honored to be here today.
Prophetess Felecia:Well, thank you so very much. You know my husband, apostle Tony Wade. He's a pastor at Divine Life Church in Memphis, tennessee, and you know we can talk about this. You know, even from the beginning of us becoming born again over 30 years ago, prayer has been an important part of our personal lives. Can you talk a little bit about how you develop the prayer life when you became born again? Because, I'll say this, as a result of his life being transformed by God, I came into the body of Christ. So let's talk about that. Tell me about your experience, you know, getting born again and how you develop the prayer life.
Apostle Wade:Well, I mean when I met the Lord. I'm not going to give my whole testimony, but I get to the part. When I met Jesus on February 23rd 1992 at 8 o'clock PM at my grandmother's living room table, when I asked Jesus to come in my heart, I heard a voice say pray with her, which was my cousin, Nell, who led me to the Lord, and I could remember when I prayed that prayer. Now, mind you, I have a grandmother on my dad's side who took me to church sometime. I got baptized at eight years old, but this was different because for the first time I had an encounter with the Lord himself. I didn't see him, but I felt his presence. I could remember the presence of the Lord coming over me. It felt like electricity, it felt like an overwhelming consuming love and I could feel him moving, something around, it lifted, and I could remember looking in the mirror and there was a glow on my face and I'm like that's not me. And so I turned to my cousin. I'm like this is not going to go anywhere, anywhere. I said he'll never leave you nor forsake you.
Apostle Wade:So what happened after that? I got addicted to that presence that I felt. It was almost like someone that had got addicted to any type of drug. They are chasing that original high. So I kept pursuing God, and so I would spend time in the bed wanting God to touch me, because I experienced a tangible God. I didn't experience a religious God. I felt relationship. See, most people get introduced to religion. They get introduced to a God that's out there for somewhere. No, I felt this God who was personal to me, who actually heard me pray a simple prayer. So the way I was introduced to him caused me to go on a journey to pursue that same God. Come on.
Apostle Wade:So that's how my prayer journey started.
Prophetess Felecia:So let's talk about that, because a lot of people are born into religion. You know what I mean.
Apostle Wade:Yes.
Prophetess Felecia:They come by way of religion and they may have a truly experienced existence where they accepted Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, but then it stops right there. So the encounter that you had on the day that you got saved, in fact, next week will be 32 years, next Friday Next Friday will be your-.
Apostle Wade:The 23rd Birthday, 32 years in the Lord.
Prophetess Felecia:So on that day, 31 years ago, almost 32 years ago, you said that you had an encounter with God. Yes, you said that perked your interests to feel what you felt.
Apostle Wade:Yes.
Prophetess Felecia:The day you got saved, so that you started pursuing Him.
Apostle Wade:Yeah.
Prophetess Felecia:So talk about, not you know, people who have just experienced a prayer I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior and how is it that they can take that to the next level to actually encounter a living God and talk to them about God wanting to touch Him, touch His people, for them to have an encounter with His presence, and then? So a lot of people don't understand to know what it is to have an encounter with God and that God's presence wants to encounter them.
Apostle Wade:Yeah. So for those people in that position that you didn't have an experience with God the way I did, but yet you're saved, but you had an experience and encounter. You now need to pursue that. I need this God that I now serve, that I have received, to become personal and real to me, and so every experience is going to be different, but the relationship can be the same. Yes, because just as he's my Father, he's your Father too, and so, with that being said, you need to seek and pursue Him, not only in prayer, which is communicating with God, and God communicating with you, but also in pursuit of His Word. Yes, because God don't just speak only through His Rima Word, where he speaks a specific thing to your spirit or to your mind, what he's wanting to say, but he also speaks through His Word, where he's illuminating or bringing to light what he's saying to you through His Word. So I begin to do that, and that is what they can do is begin to seek God, pursue Him with their whole heart, and as they seek Him, the Bible say you will find Him that's right With your whole heart. So what happens?
Apostle Wade:A lot of times, people, they use prayer like it's an obligation or a duty. Come on, talk about that. Okay, talk about that. I want to talk about that from this perspective. You're my wife, so if I only fellowship with you out of obligation and duty, how would that make you feel?
Prophetess Felecia:That would just make me feel like you're not pursuing me because you want to.
Apostle Wade:It's a duty it's I got to do this, you my wife's. I gotta spend time with you, you, my wife.
Prophetess Felecia:So today I gotta spend time with you, and I'll be like well, don't do me no favors.
Apostle Wade:Well, don't do me no favors, don't spend no time with me, right, because it's not because I want to. So that's gonna make you say, well, if you don't want to be with me, don't be with me. Exactly, well, that's the same thing how some people come to God. Instead of them wanting to be with God and wanting to know Him and get to know Him more, it's out of. If I don't pray, god is gonna be mad. Well, you already started out on the wrong foot, right? Our pursuit of Him is out of our love affair with Him. Come on.
Apostle Wade:But the only way you have a love affair with Him, you gotta begin to spend time with Him and get to know Him.
Apostle Wade:You didn't develop a friendship with anyone in a day. You all may have had a great time together, but the more you all begin to exchange, the relationship went deeper, and so that is what they're gonna have to do. They're gonna have to one, begin to get to know God, begin to let Him reveal and make Himself known to them that they don't have a religious God, but a real God. And so they gotta want to be with Him and not like what they say, I'm supposed to pray an hour a day where you now trying to base your relationship on somebody else's relationship. So I can't base my relationship with you based on somebody else's relationship with their wife. That's right. No, I'm dealing with you Absolutely and you're dealing with me, and so, through us, me wanting to be around you because I want to you now reciprocate that back to me Absolutely. And that's the same way with someone in prayer that they getting to know God from where they are.
Prophetess Felecia:From where they are. From where they are. So let's talk. I want to talk to my audience, those who, have you know, are listening to this podcast and they're a fresh new believer.
Prophetess Felecia:And they're inquisitive about what you mean when you say spend time with God or pursue God. I know for me when I first got born again that was kind of foreign, but I watched you in your personal time and how you would go in the closet or go in the room and close up and have your worship music on or your worship unto the Lord from your own mouth. So talk about and help the young believer who's trans or that believer who's transitioning from religion to actually pursuing a personal prayer life with God.
Apostle Wade:Yeah Well, see, I think first we got to look at this. A lot of people try to put God in a box. So when they say spend time with God or relationship with God, they try to make it look one way. But what has to happen is there are those times that you got to get away from everything. So you in a quiet space with you and God, but really, your relationship with God, you should invite Him into your whole life.
Apostle Wade:So if I'm going to play golf, I invite God to play golf with me, and I've shared testimonies where I'm out playing golf and I'm frustrated with my game and the Holy Spirit says to me if you're gonna keep acting like this, I'll come back when you done. In other words, I'm grieving Him because I am active. Why? Why is he saying that to me? Because I invited Him to be a part of every phase of my life.
Apostle Wade:So I don't just have, I don't compartmentalize God that this is my God life, this is my family life, this is that. No, you're my wife, regardless of what's going on. You could call me anytime of the day. I don't say, well, I only see you when I'm at home and I'm off work or I'm here, no. So we gotta first understand what is that relationship with God has to look like. It can't just look like in one place, come on. It has to be a part of our daily lives, because God may interrupt you while you out at the grocery store and you said something wrong, you did something wrong, and because you all are in relationship and you're aware of Him and you spend time with Him. You sensitive when he just told you go, take that back or don't say this, or don't do this.
Prophetess Felecia:Yeah, that's the point.
Apostle Wade:What I'm saying is the relationship of prayer is not just in the prayer closet, even though it's good to have a prayer closet.
Prophetess Felecia:Absolutely so. We're not to compartmentalize.
Apostle Wade:God.
Prophetess Felecia:But we're to bring Him and His fellowship into every compartment of our lives. However, we're not to neglect our personal, intimate time with Him, he and I, but, on the other side of that, we're not to neglect Him when we're in our busy part. So you don't leave Him in the prayer closet. We don't leave Him in the prayer closet. That is so good. We take Him to the grocery store, we take Him to work.
Apostle Wade:We take Him to work we fellowship on the way to work.
Apostle Wade:We bring Him in our marriage. We bring Him into how we deal with our children. We bring Him into our finances. We bring Him in our friendships. We bring Him into decisions when culture is saying this is okay, that is not okay. When I make a decision, I'm making a decision out of my relationship with God, which is an overflow of my prayer life, of my time with Him, that I'm aware of you, that I am aware that you are with me. I'm aware that my body is your temple and you live in me. So if you live in me, that means you with me everywhere.
Apostle Wade:I go and we're all time, all the time, come on, so you not just not to stop, you didn't just stop being with me. That means, if I'm into things, that I shouldn't be into you, right there with me, and you heard it, you felt it and that's what it grieving, that you feel in your spirit that some of us have lost.
Prophetess Felecia:Come on. So let's talk about that because I think that's important for our believers who don't understand that Holy Spirit is there, god is there on the inside of us and he will correct us. But we've got to develop an ear. We've got to develop and cultivate an ear to hear Holy Spirit and the Spirit of the Lord when he speaks to us. So we do a teaching a lot about how to hear God. How do you know when God is speaking to you? Yes, a lot of times it comes with you just sitting in your prayer time, getting quiet and developing that ear to hear from God. But God speak to us in many different ways as we cultivate that relationship with Him. So talk about how we can hear God and tell our audience the different ways God will speak to us.
Apostle Wade:Well, God speaks to us because he's talking to you or he's talking to me. So each of us hear God different. So when I say I hear God, I'm not talking about. I hear Him with my ears. I hear Him with my spiritual ears. See, I'm not talking about an audible voice. Just like you hear my voice, so for me the primary way that God speaks to me is through a knowing. It's like someone just put this in my spirit and I know this is what I'm supposed to do so.
Prophetess Felecia:It's like an impression, it's an impression, press the button.
Apostle Wade:I didn't hear a hate voice. I know this is what he's saying to me. Sometimes he also showed me pictures, but not with my natural eyes, with my spiritual eyes. So there are images that I see in my spirit. So he's communicating through images. Through those pictures, some people hear a steel, small voice. It's not an audible voice like you hear in mind. It's a small voice that you hear inside Some of them. It's thoughts that come to you and if you're not careful, you'll think those thoughts are yours. But the way you differentiate is number one. I wasn't even thinking about that. So, number one.
Apostle Wade:And then to be able to judge whether it's God or not, because you got to test every spirit to see whether it's God, you got to know whether it's consistent with his character and nature.
Apostle Wade:So you can't say I heard God tell me this, told me that some man come to you and say the Lord told me you my wife. Well, he didn't hear from God, because you are already married to me, I'm not dead, so we know that it's not God, because it goes against his word, and not just using extreme example, but so a lot of people. You got to first get to know God, but you can't know him apart from his word. So you get to know his character, you get to know his nature. So if someone go and tell you something about me and you know that's not like me, you're like no, you must get the wrong Tony way, because that's not even consistent with how he operate. So either you misunderstood or this than the other. So that is how you develop with God. So when you hearing voices, or you getting images, or you getting impressions, or you hearing still small voices, or these downloads of these different thoughts coming to you, that's how you discern whether it's God or it's not.
Prophetess Felecia:So, ultimately, you're going to have to really discern how God talks to you, because the way he talks to me is different than the way he'll talk to you.
Apostle Wade:Exactly right. How does he talk to you, to you?
Prophetess Felecia:So the way God talks to me, I hear him, I hear the voice of God. And then some people are just. They have visions, some people have dreams, some people have developed the impression like you saw my left- brain, some right brain, some people feel, feel things.
Apostle Wade:So it depends on. That's why, when, when you begin to spend time with God, he began to communicate with you, pay attention to how he primarily communicated with you. Then we never got into the visions and the dreams. So sometimes God speak to people in dreams See, I'm not really a dreamer, but when God speak to me in a dream it's very accurate, it's a word of knowledge. It's a word of knowledge and it's very detailed, that like he's taking me in visions to meeting where people having meetings about me and showing me on the details about it. So and then see, another thing for me.
Apostle Wade:I don't always go around saying God talking to me all the time, because he don't have to talk to me all the time, because I have his word and so already he's already shown me things that he need me to do or or different things like that, or situations and circumstances happen and he'll begin to talk to me. Like I don't understand how people can mistreat someone and you know you mistreated them and there's no conviction. Okay, see, I can't sleep if I'm out of order with people toward God, in the sight of God, because he's going to deal with me and I'm going to get it right, because what did he say the day you hear my voice harden, not your heart. And so we can't harden our heart when God speaks. That's how we lose the sensitivity of the voice of God. And, once again, when we say the voice of God, that's how he speaks to you, because it may be through that impression, that still small voice, it may be through those pictures and images that you see inside of your spirit, or those spontaneous words that come to you.
Prophetess Felecia:I love it and I want to say this, and then we'll do a recap of all the things that we talked about so that you can walk away from this podcast with truly effective tools to help you build your prayer life. But I want to say this also the Lord speaks through dreams, as you said, but I want to preface this, and you always teach at church that we are never to be led necessarily by dreams, but we are to be led by Holy Spirit. So if you have a dream, and it's probably a word of knowledge that you're always to take that to Holy Spirit and allow Him to unpack it or bring further revelation.
Apostle Wade:And your spiritual needs.
Prophetess Felecia:And bring your spiritual leader as well, before you make a rash decision Off what you saw, off of just a dream. And also the Lord will speak through dreams. I can remember years ago, back in 96, I was concerned my husband was getting ready to go to California. He was getting ready to go minister to one of his family members who was dying of cancer.
Apostle Wade:Who was?
Prophetess Felecia:dying of cancer and I was like eight months pregnant with my youngest daughter and planes at that time in 96.
Apostle Wade:They were crashing.
Prophetess Felecia:left and right they were crashing left and right there were an influx of plane crashes. So I was really concerned about my husband number one on this plane going to California, number two him being gone and the possibility of me having the baby without him being there. So I was a little worried. So I went to sleep one night and the Lord showed me, woke me up out of a deep sleep. He showed me at the post, the head of his bed, a huge angel with a sword drone and as standing at attention to protect him. And then I turned around and the same another angel looked just like the other one, was at my head of my bed and that was God speaking to me, giving me a word of knowledge, that he is giving his angels charge over us and that nothing would happen to my husband for this trip, that he was on a divine assignment.
Prophetess Felecia:And so God showed me that in a vision, so that line up with his word.
Apostle Wade:It surely did.
Prophetess Felecia:That was a confirmation in his word that Psalms 91.
Apostle Wade:I give my inch charge over you to keep you in all your ways.
Prophetess Felecia:Absolutely.
Apostle Wade:Let you dash your foot against the stone.
Prophetess Felecia:Absolutely so. These dreams and visions should line up with the word of God. Listen, the word of God is our foundation for everything.
Apostle Wade:Ever A dream, a voice, a prophecy, whatever it got to be judged back to the word.