How God Called Me - Rev. Justin Leyva Season 2 TRB #42

A nightclub. A tray of free cocaine. Faces twisting into something dark. Then an audible voice: get in your truck, go home, and go to church in the morning. That moment didn’t just interrupt a spiral; it rerouted a life. Evangelist Justin Leva joins us to chart a raw, unscripted journey from a childhood of abuse, addiction, and witchcraft-laced culture to a steady walk defined by prayer, fasting, and the prophetic.

We dig into what listeners always ask but rarely hear explained with clarity: How does the word of knowledge actually work? When is a condition “just medical,” and when is it spiritual—and how do you minister to both with wisdom? Justin shares how he stopped asking for healing and began declaring it, cursing disease at the root and commanding infirmity to leave, following the pattern of Jesus and the apostles. He breaks down a recent case of multiple sclerosis where every Spirit‑revealed detail matched the medical report, offering a practical, biblically grounded approach to healing and deliverance.

Identity and authority sit at the center of this conversation. We talk about moving from operating in gifts to standing in the office of a prophet, why submission to pastoral authority matters, and how hunger—not hype—forms a durable ministry. We also face what too many avoid: Spirit‑filled people living under oppression and shame. Justin distinguishes attachment from possession and points to forgiveness, community, and discipleship as vital parts of freedom. His own recent battle with crushing depression became a furnace that forged deeper faith and ushered in some of the strongest miracles he’s seen.

Follow Bro. Justin Leyva on his podcast, The Elisha Generation.  If you would like to invite him to minister at your church, email Kathy@theredeemedbackslider.org and I will connect you.

For more information on the Unshackled Conference, please visit the events page at either theredeemedbackslider.org or pentecostallighthouse.org

Please prayerfully consider partnering with us. May God 

Transcript

Conference Invite & Sponsor

SPEAKER_01 0:00

If you haven't heard the Redeem Backslider Podcast and the Pentecostal Lighthouse of Viselia is getting ready to host Unshackled, a conference that is specifically geared for prodigals and the families of prodigals. It's taking place March 6th, 7th, and 8th at the Pentecostal Lighthouse Church. We are attaching the flyer to this podcast, and you're welcome to follow us on social media for more information. You can also email us or visit the website, theredeembackslider.org or pentecostal lighthouse.net. We hope that you will make plans to come. We are expecting a wonderful presence of God. This episode has been sponsored by my friend and dentist, Dr. Craig Sadio at SmileVicelia. If you're looking for a dentist, you won't find a better one in Teleri County. He specializes in all your dentistry needs, plus cosmetic dentistry and ortho. His phone number is 559-734-7035. If you call him, please tell him that Kathy from the Redeemed Backslider Podcast sent you. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Welcome to the Redeemed Backslider. With your host, Kathy Chastain, Christian-based psychotherapist and redeemed backslider. This podcast is dedicated to those who have wandered but are ready to return to the life-changing power of grace and the freedom found in Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Hi, welcome to the Redeemed Backslider. I'm your host, Kathy Chastain. I'm a Christian-based psychotherapist and a redeemed backslider. Today, with me from Texas is evangelist Justin Leva. He has been on the evangelistic field for, I believe, 20 years, or at least preaching, I think 20 years. And today we're going to unpack a little bit of his ministry. He operates in the prophetic ministry. He has given me a couple of words in some services he's been in here in California. And so I'm really honored that he would take the time and talk to us about all of these questions. I think so many people have when it comes to prophetic ministry. So with that, welcome to the podcast, Brother Leva.

Childhood, Abuse, And Early Rebellion

SPEAKER_03 2:25

Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

So I I always like to start out in people's childhood because as therapist, I see a lot of kiddos, and I I feel like you can kind of see what starts out in childhood and and how it can develop positively and negatively, and sometimes even negative childhoods, you can see the hand of God being weaved there. So I I would love to hear a little bit about your childhood. The most I know is that you dropped out of high school in the tenth grade. Um and so I'd like, if you don't mind, sharing a little bit about your history.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

Sure. So um I was born and raised in a small town in Louisiana, um, New Iberia, Louisiana, is where I was born and raised. Um I am my parents, my my mom was she's French Cajun from South Louisiana. My father was a Mexican, he's uh he's Mexican from uh Sinaloa, Mexico. And uh he met my mom, of course, in the late 70s, married my mom, and they had me. Uh I was born in the early 80s, and uh I was born and raised in South Louisiana. Um my childhood, I guess, um I didn't have the I didn't have the perfect childhood, so to speak, of course, but then again, who does? But uh my home was my home life was not a very loving home life. Um was the son, of course, of two addicts. Uh both of my parents were alcoholics. Uh my father was was, of course, was a was an alcoholic, also had a gambling addiction, and also had an adultery addiction. And um just just really wretched, a wretched home. Um, raised up, like I said, came up as a teenager, uh, very, very rebellious as a teenager, got into a lot of trouble, um, dropped out of high school in the 10th grade. And so that was kind of my home life in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Yeah, so uh how old were you when you started getting into trouble, would you say?

SPEAKER_03 4:29

Oh, I started in trouble early age, probably nine, 10 years old. Um, got, you know, by the time I was 11 and 12, it really started to take off. Um, I know I laugh about it to this day, and and some people know, but I, you know, I had a permanent desk in detention. Like it didn't matter where I went to school at. Um, I had a permanent desk in detention. And looking back now, um, that was due in part, I I I fully understand why. Um I I was an abused child, um, you know, physically and sexually. And um that I think a lot of my reactions, um a lot of the stuff that I did getting in trouble was lashing out, you know. I know now I was lashing out because of that.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Yeah, right, right. So um did you so you're in prophetic ministry now? Was your this is kind of off subject. It sounds like by some of your podcasts, by the way, he has his own podcast called The Elisha Generation, um, where he unpacks a lot more about the five-fold ministry. Um, but sounds like in some of the conversations you've had that your wife brought you to church before you guys were married. Was she born and raised in church or she was not?

Relationships, Drugs, And A Supernatural Wake‑Up

SPEAKER_03 5:43

She was not. So my wife actually got in church before I did because of some issues that her and I were having. We weren't married at the time, and she got, you know, she she moved out of the house. We we were living together, we were not married, neither one of us were in church, didn't know God, didn't know anything about God. I was actually raised Catholic. Um, and my grandparents were actually very, very devout Catholics on my mom's side. Um, they actually, and I'm thankful for them because they actually centered me um and gave me stability as a as a later in my life as a teenager. Um, and I'm thankful for them, and I, you know, I love them dearly, but they gave me that stability and tried to do the best what they could. Um but I was raised, I was raised Catholic in the Catholic faith with them. Um my wife was not, she was actually raised um Jehovah's Witness as a child, but the older that she got, her mom kind of left that faith. And neither one of us were in church, but she moved out. Uh, we were in our early 20s, she had moved out and moved in with her sister that had the Holy Ghost. Her sister was going to Brother James Randall's church in Abbeyville, Louisiana. She got in, she moved in with her, got the Holy Ghost, got in church, and then I, you know, when we were separated, weren't living together, I took a completely different path. Um, actually started the following down the path of my parents, um, just raucous, rowdy living, drinking, fighting, just doing a lot of stupid things. Um, got hooked on, got hooked on powder cocaine, got hooked on ecstasy, um, working, you know, working a full-time job in oil and gas, making good money, but my life behind the scenes was kind of falling apart. She got in church before I did, and uh it's it's a long story, but I actually got in church because of her. Yes, she and my sister-in-law. First, it was my sister-in-law that won her to the Lord, and then my wife won me to the Lord, even though she wasn't planning on winning me to the Lord. Right. It's quite the story.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

So you guys were together for a long how long before either of you guys got in church? Were you like young sweethearts?

SPEAKER_03 7:40

We were. Both of us got together at the age of 16. We have been together. This year will be 27 years that her and I have been together.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

That that's incredible, especially being in the world before you came into church and then coming into church together. That's amazing. That's God, right?

SPEAKER_03 7:57

It is, it was totally a God thing. It was all the plan of God.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Yeah, that's wonderful. So, with your parents, your dad being from Mexico, your mom being Cajun, did you grow up around much witchcraft being in Louisiana? Did you do you did you have any of that? Not that it would be an influence, but were you aware of it? There's a I know the Hispanic culture, there's a lot of witchcraft in the Hispanic culture, especially from Mexico area.

SPEAKER_03 8:28

Yeah, so I actually I actually experienced it from both sides. Uh my dad would go to he would go get what they call in Spanish Olympial, right? A cleaning. Um, he he believed in that. He would go to witch doctors in Mexico to go get his quote unquote cleansing and things like that. He he kind of dabbled in witchcraft a little bit, especially when it came to money and things like that. They they do some really strange things, uh trying to, you know, attain money and ill-gotten gains and things like that. He would also go to these these cleansings because my dad was a criminal and um would you know would think it would offer he would go pay these people to pray over him, to give him a blessing, I guess, so to speak, he would call it, so that he wouldn't get caught by the cops. Um he was a he was, I guess the word for it nowadays is human trafficking, but um he he did it on a level where he was just crossing over people over the border and was using fake IDs and things like that. I mean, I mean, as a child, I remember uh being 10 years old and the and the U.S. Marshals kicking in our front door at 3 a.m. in the morning, um hauling him off. And then, you know, I got cornered by the marshals, and I got him on one side telling me, hey, just tell him my name's David, and they're asking me, you know, is it is this your father? And you know, caught caught between two worlds because it's like my dad doesn't want me to snitch on him, and then I've got the U.S. Marshals questioning me and my brother. And, you know, that was my house. It was chaos. It was it was chaos from the time I was born to the time my mom and dad got divorced, and even after when my mom and dad got divorced, it was still chaos. So, yes, knowing you know, knowing about witchcraft from his life, yes. And then even on the Louisiana side of things, yes. Um, my my grandfather was a what they call a treater, um, it's a traiteur in French, but that that was what you would call white magic in Louisiana, where they felt like because they invoked God's name in their witchcraft prayers, that it was okay. And they would do things, they would use objects, they would use different things in witchcraft to pronounce prayers or pronounce curses upon people. And it it's it's very, very entrenched and embedded into that South Louisiana Cajun culture. Yeah, and also it also mixes Catholicism with it.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Right, Santeria, right? Or is there a different element besides Santeria?

SPEAKER_03 10:47

Well, the witchcraft and the Cajun culture, it's it's it's the same premise, but it's different. It's French culture.

Conversion, Call To Preach, Early Mentors

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Okay, okay. So as a little as a young boy, you know, because you're very prophetic now, did you have any encounters like when you look back at your childhood? Did you have supernatural encounters when you were young that you can remember? Like nightmares, sleep paralysis, visitations, anything like that?

SPEAKER_03 11:18

I don't recall ever having visitations or or having nightmares or things like that. But you know what I can say, and and and this is gonna sound so crazy, but I remembered what there was there was twice. I was I was flipping through the channels one night on one of the stations. I don't know, back in the day, I don't know what those stations were, but I remember watching a guy one night that was working in the gifts of the spirit, and he would walk through the crowd and he would call people by their name. And he when he was going through the crowd, he was calling people by their name. I poked fun at it one day. I went to school one day, and I was I remember I was sitting behind a girl at school one day, and I and I was talking just like that preacher would talk, and I'd say, Is there a the girl's name was like Willamina or something? I don't remember, and I and her last name was Brown, and I remember messing with her and saying, Is there a Willamina Brown in this crowd? If your name is Willamina, please raise your hand, you're gonna get a healing. And of course, the whole class would bust out laughing and start laughing. Little did I know the thing that I was mocking was the thing that I was gonna become later in life.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

So, what do you think about that now? Like, have you given that any thought?

Entering Prophetic Ministry And Activation

SPEAKER_03 12:34

Yeah, I did. I mean, it's like, yeah, I gave it a lot of thought because I'm like, I'm that person that I saw. Yeah, and it was just uh it was I laugh about it now because it was like I just think to myself, was God preparing me back then? Like, why was I so drawn to watch this guy do it? Now God now I realize God was preparing me. Well, the second time that that had happened to me, I I was, I was, I was really, and I'm embarrassed to say this, but I was really high. I was on a cocaine bench, and I was my friend of mine had a barber shop, and I was sitting in the he had a he had this place in the back of the barbershop uh where he had a recliner and a TV and stuff set up. And I remember laying in his sitting in that recliner, completely reclined back, doing it again, flipping through the channels. And I ended up on one of those Christian channels where there was a there was a Hispanic guy preaching in Spanish, and I understood what he was saying in Spanish, and he kept calling people out in the crowd and addressing their different sicknesses and things like that. But he was doing it over the pulpit in a more general way, saying things like God was gonna heal cancers, God was gonna heal. And I remember laying in that recliner and I and I kind of sat up in that recliner and I just was drawn to the guy, and I just kept and I was as high as could be. But I remember just watching it and I was like, whoa. And then I guess lastly, the most supernatural experience that I had prior to me coming to God, um, I had gone, I had gotten arrested, I'd gotten a bunch of trouble. This was after me visiting the Pentecostal church. Um, I had gotten in a bunch of trouble. I was drinking and driving. You know, I got assault charges, you know, from trying to fight the police officers at the jail. Um I left, I left Louisiana because they had taken my driver's license for a year because I had blown double the limit. I lost my job. Um, my wife didn't want anything to do with me. You know, it was just my life, such Kathy, my life had completely fallen apart. I left there, came to Texas, um, I had gone to a wedding reception on a Saturday night because a friend of mine had asked me to go. I didn't have anything else to do. And when I walked in that night, I remembered the drugs were in abundance, the alcohol was free. They had this reception at a nightclub, and it was packed out. I mean, there's probably two, three hundred people there. Drugs were in abundance, everything was free. And I remember sitting there, and this lady had the one of the servers, the waitresses, uh, the barmaids, whatever you call them, had come by with a with a platter of powdered cocaine that looked like Scarface. I mean, it was this, it was this tall. And they're just they're just liberally giving it out. And I remember they passed it right in front of me, and I got a couple friends that are that are taking what they want off the tray. And she looked at me, she goes, You want anything? I said, No. And she kept right on walking. Well, my two friends looked at me and they said, Hey, you alright? I said, Yeah, I'm good. Barmaid comes with a tray full of drinks, alcohol, they're you know, giving it out. She gets to me, you want anything? No. And he they both just looked at me. They said, Leighman, you all right? I said, I'm good. I got up from that table and I started to walk out. But before I walked out, I looked to my left and there was a girl standing there, and all of a she had a normal face, and then all of a sudden the face contorted and it like turned into this demonic-looking face. And I said, What is that? I turned and looked at the other side of the room, and there was a guy, his face did the same thing. It contorted and turned demonic, and then it went back normal. It scared me so bad. I threw my pack of cigarettes in the trash can. I walked outside, and when I was standing outside, the audible voice of God said, Get back in your truck, go home, and go to church in the morning. And I was like, Huh?

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 16:20

Like I'm like, who's out here talking to me? I'm looking under my vehicle looking for somebody. I look like a crazy person. There was nobody out there. The second time, audibly, I said, get back in your car, go home, go to church in the morning. I woke up my wife at three o'clock in the morning on Sunday morning. I said, What is wrong with me? And she said, What do you mean what's wrong with you? I said, I'm I said, I went to a wedding reception and I said, and she and and I said, it was in a nightclub, and she goes, Well, that's no surprise. And I'm like, girl, don't start. But I said, you know, I don't want, I said, there's drugs here. I said, there's there's there's coke here, there's there's the liquor's free. I don't want anything. I said, but even with all that, I said, why do I want to go back to church with you in the morning? I said, I got somebody out here with an auto. I said, somebody's somebody's standing out here talking to me, and there's nobody out here. And she said, that's God talking to you. And I said, Well, why is God talking to me? And she said, There is an elderly lady in our church, and I knew the lady. She called her by name. There's a lady in our church that is that was interceding. She started at six o'clock yesterday evening at 6, 6, 6.30. She called me. Sister Billy called me looking for you. And I said, What did you want? And she said, She's been praying for you. She interceded for you from 6 30 all the way to midnight yesterday because she told me she has a message from God that if you don't get back here and get back in church, you're gonna die lost. And I said, What does that mean? And she said, You are going to die lost, you're gonna go to hell for eternity, and that's not somewhere you want to be. I got back in my car. I went home. I went home, I got the Holy Ghost later that week. My life completely changed.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Wow. Well, God definitely had a call for you.

SPEAKER_03 18:04

He did.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Yeah, that's incredible. I think, yeah, wow. That's hard to follow up, Brother Leva. Okay, so you get in church, you get the Holy Ghost, you still don't know a lot about God, it seems like, because sometimes in when you minister, your wife kind of answered a lot of questions for you. What was that process like for you from initially getting the Holy Ghost? She said it within a month you thought you wanted to preach, but you really didn't know what it was all about.

SPEAKER_03 18:38

No, I didn't. I I just something drew me to to Brother Randall. I I every time he got in the pulpit, I remember this so vividly. When I got the Holy Ghost, I just my life was the magnitude of what God had done for me was so powerful. And and I was drawn. First of all, I didn't have a father figure growing up. I mean, I love my dad. My dad was he he did he did the best he could with what he had. I don't I don't blame anything on him. He struggled with addiction, addiction destroyed his life. He struggled with a lot of things. You know, I've got his DNA. I I I I love I love him. I miss him. He's gone. He died in 2008. He died at the age of 50. He he literally drank himself to death.

unknown 19:19

Wow.

Exercising Gifts: Healing, Faith, Word Of Knowledge

SPEAKER_03 19:20

You know, I miss my father, but I did, he wasn't there for me. So when I got into the church and and James Randall became my pastor, he became my father figure. But more so than that, I just knew something just told me. You know, two weeks into this, after I had the Holy Ghost, sister, I didn't know, I didn't know who God was. I didn't know the oneness of God, I didn't know the doctrine. I just knew I was gonna preach. And I just knew it. I knew it from the onset. I just knew I was going to preach. I walked into my pastor's office literally a month after I had the Holy Ghost. And like it was in this was in September of 2004. I walked into his office and I told him, I said, you know, this funny as let me kind of back up. As funny as it is, you know, I I told my wife, my wife was the first person I told. And we were in a drive-thru, like at Wendy's or somewhere, and I said, hey, I said, you know that stuff that Brother Randall gets up and does? And she goes, what? I said, you know, I said, he opens his Bible and starts screaming at us. And uh she goes, you mean preach? I said, yeah. She goes, what about it? I said, I'm gonna do that here before long. She goes, Are you trying to be funny? And I said, No, why? And she goes, You're not gonna preach. I said, I'm telling you, I am going to preach. And she said, No, you're not. She goes, you're if you're being funny, she goes, don't, because you're not gonna preach. The reason why it resonated with her was because six months me prior to getting into church, my pastor's wife, who's used of God and using the gifts of the spirit, pulled her aside one day and prayed for her and told her, You are going to marry a preacher. You're gonna marry and you're gonna be in ministry. And she was like, There's no way I'm gonna be in ministry. Not me. She's got to be talking to somebody else.

unknown 21:07

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 21:08

Yeah. So here I come along six months later, and I'm like, I'm telling her that I'm gonna preach. And she's like, Oh gosh, like, no, not me. And so it's all it's so it's a funny story. Well, I get in, I go to Brother Randall's office, and you know, I tell him I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be a preacher. He goes, Yeah, I know. And I said, You knew? He goes, Yeah, he said, I knew that he said, I knew the day you walked in. He said, it was it, he said you were marked. It was, it was, it was literally, it was on you. And so a couple months go by, and I I have accepted my call to preach. I I I dive into the word, I start fasting, I start praying, I start spending hours of prayer. I'm barely, I'm barely weeks old in God, and I'm I'm starting to get closer to God, I'm starting to know God, I'm starting to feel after God. And there's a service that we're getting ready to go to in December of 2004. There is a there's a there's a prophetess that comes to our church, very, very used in the gifts of spirit. My wife is preparing me before we go to church. She's like, hey, we're gonna go to church tonight. You're probably gonna get called out, and this lady's gonna tell you some things. And I'm like, what kind of things? And she goes, She's gonna tell you some things that God's gonna do in your future. And she's probably she's gonna minister to you about your life. And I'm like, Well, who told her? And she goes, Nobody did. God's gonna tell her everything. And I said, Are you sure about that? And she goes, Yeah, she said, I'm telling you, it's gonna happen. Sure enough, we go to church. I am the second person that she calls out. She says, Young man, would you come here? And I walked up, went to the altar, and she said, Lift your hand. She said, There's a man in your family that's got a heart condition. It was my grandfather. She started talking about my grandfather, and she started talking about some other things in my past. And she then says, She says, Young man, she said, she says, the anointing and the calling of God is on you. God is going to take a coal off of the altar, and it's going to be a coal of fire, and he's going to put it in your mouth, and you're going to preach the word of God with fire. I stopped her in the middle of that and I said, Would you hold on one second? Because my wife was sitting on the front row. I said, Hold on a second. Time out. Just hold on one second. And she's just kind of looking. I spun around and I looked at my wife and I said, I told you. I told you. And she's like, she's like, just get stop it. Would you let that lady pray for you? Of course, it's all funny now, but I spun around and that lady continued praying for me. And that was that was kind of my my calling, my foray into ministry, so to speak. I just knew the minute, the second I got the Holy Ghost, I knew that I was called of God.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

Yeah. Yeah, that was one of my questions, is like, you know, did you how did you how did you get into the prophetic, like when you first, when you first came to God? It sounds like God just organically put it in you to seek him in that deep, deep way. Because I don't think everyone does that.

From Gifts To Office: Mentoring And Angels

SPEAKER_03 24:06

So what happened with me, how I got into the prophetic, that I accepted my call to preach. I knew I was gonna preach. My pastor that died, he went on to be with the Lord in 2007. My pastor was a prophet in a pastor's jacket, very, very used of God. And what really piqued my interest was on a Sunday night when he began to operate in the spirit and began to call people out and started talking about things and things that he saw and what was coming. And a lot of stuff that he said had come to pass. Like there was a lot of things that came to pass. And so that kind of piqued my interest. And then when the lady prophetess came to our church, that then started to pique my interest. But what truly was the aha moment, the game changer for me, was in May of 2005 when Gordon Winslow came to our church. And when Gordon Winslow came to our church, you know, there's a lot of ministries that I like. There's a lot of preachers that I like to preach. But I'm trying, this is now, I'm not even a year in. I'm I'm forging my own path through ministry, trying to figure out. At this point, I'm strictly, all I know is I am a preacher. I am called of God. I'm called to ministry, but I don't know per se what that particular ministry is going to be. I'm seeking God about it. The the the prophetic has really piqued my interest. The miracle, the miraculous has piqued my interest, healing has piqued my interest. But the game changer for me was on a Thursday night in May of 2005 when Gordon Winslow came to our church. Gordon Winslow comes to our church, he starts preaching. He's his communication, his ability to communicate the gift of faith was so magnetic, and it was just it pulled me in. I was literally the guy, the man kept me on my edge of my seat the entire time he preached. But what was so interesting about it was that the more he kept preaching faith, the more you just started to believe everything that he was saying, and it just captivated me. But then, like what it really, what really blew my mind is when he got down off of the platform and started to operate in the word of knowledge, and then that's like it it blew me away. And I when he as he was ministering in the word of knowledge, I looked at my wife and I said, That's it. And she said, What's it? I said, That's it. I said, That's what I'm going to do. That's what I'm gonna be for God. I said, This is what I want from God. And she goes, Okay. So when church was over with, I walked up to Brother Winslow and I said, Hey, I said, listen, I I I'm I'm new to this. Like, this is all new to me. But I said, This here, what you did here tonight, I said, I want it, give it to me. And he just kind of cracks this smile, like Brother Winslow does. And I said, I want it, give it to me. And he goes, What do you want? I said, Your ministry. Let me, I said, can I have it? And he goes, Yeah, of course you can. And he laid hands on me and prayed for me and then spoke a word over me to activate those gifts in me. And he told me after he pulled his hand off of me, he said to me, I was gonna call you out, because he said, God's got a supernatural ministry for you, and things are gonna, he said, things are gonna begin to happen with you. And sure enough, that was the night of of God calling me into this the sign gift ministry and operating in the nine gifts of the spirit.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Wow, brother Winslow was incredible. So gentle, wonderful man of God. So I I would think that some of your past gave you that tenacity and that tenacious to go after it, you know? Um, because I think there's a lot of church people that would seek it, would want it, would hunger for it, but they don't have that boldness to just go say, hey, God, give it to me. I want it. What do you what do you think distinguishes that the difference?

SPEAKER_03 28:02

I think the difference is that for somebody to truly desire that ministry, there's got to be a hunger there. There's there's got to be, and I'm saying hunger beyond just normal. Look, there's people that live for God, that they love God, they they they're great people, they're sitting on pews across America, they go to church, they worship God, they love God, they've established a relationship with God. But then you then you have others that are in the most the strongest pursuit of the depths of God, and they're looking for things that just go beyond human reasoning, it goes beyond human logic, and they connect with God in a way that it's it's a transforming thing that transformed their mindset, it transforms their spirit, because they chose to say, I'm gonna be different from everybody else. I want to pursue God in a different way, and it creates a hunger in them where that appetite for God is never satisfied. And you finally you find yourself in a constant pursuit of God, of the deep things of God, because deep calleth on deep, the Bible says, and and you pursue God, and and instantly what comes to mind right now is that you had two apostles that you know that was that wanted to be in the bosom of Jesus so much, it it generated some jealousy amongst the other, amongst the other, almost called them preachers, the other apostles. But it, you know, it generated a jealousy amongst the other ones because all these guys wanted to do was be close to him because of what he said, what he done, how he operated. And truth be told, when when I saw Brother Winslow operating like that, I wanted to drop everything and say, you know what, uh, you know, it was almost as if I would have gone on the road with him if he would have asked. Of course, I would have done it, but I just what it was, what I was attracted to was the God in him. What I was attracted to was the way that God was using him. And I when I saw that, I my my mindset was I gave the devil 110% when I lived in the world. My personality, because and I I've got severe ADHD, and my personality is if I want something, I'm gonna go after it. Nothing's gonna stop me. No person's gonna stop me. I'm gonna go after it. And when I made my mind up that I was going after prophetic ministry and walking in that realm and in that dimension with God, I was not gonna let anything stop me. I was gonna fast as much as I needed to fast. I was gonna pray as much as I needed to pray, I was gonna get in the word as much as I needed to get into the word. I was gonna get sin out of my life as much as I needed to. I was gonna make sacrifices, I was gonna cut things off. Whatever it was that I had to do to get into that dimension with God, I was going there.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

Because you loved him.

SPEAKER_03 30:59

Because I loved God, yeah, and and truth be told, there is a lot of people that are not willing to make that sacrifice. Does it make them bad people? No. Are they still gonna be saved? Absolutely, right? But there is there is there is a sect of us, there's there's a there's a remnant of us, there's whatever you want to call it, there's a group of us that are willing to go after God in that measure.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

Yeah. Um how long after Brother Winslow laid hands on you did the gifts start manifesting for you? What did you go through after that? So before you started walking in it.

Identity, Calling, And Submission To Authority

SPEAKER_03 31:39

It was immediately. The gift started manifesting immediately. Um, particularly, I I do remember an encounter that I had when the there was a gentleman in our church. I remembered I walked in, I walked into a service one morning at my home church, and I was sitting there and I looked across the church and I kind of gazed across the church like that, turning my head, and all of a sudden the voice of God told me, and I didn't know it was the voice of God at the time, but I knew it was a voice different from mine. And you know, you you you have the conscience that your conscience speaks to you, and you know what your voice sounds like, your human voice, from the inside, because it's your conscience speaking, but you can also you can distinguish that from the voice of God, you know what is God, and so when I looked across the sanctuary, the Lord said to me, and he called the guy's name and he said, Brother so-and-so, is having a back issue, and his back hurts, and I thought, I'm like, huh? Like, where'd this come from? And it happened again. He's got a back issue. Go pray for him. I was so nervous. I got up, I was shaking. I was so nervous. I got up and started walking towards this brother, and I was so scared. He was kneeling down praying. I I tapped him on the shoulder. I said, Hey, um, is your back hurting? And and he answered me in the most cajun way that he can answer me. Oh man, yeah, my back's hurting. And I said, he goes, What why? What's the matter? I said, um, I think God told me to pray for you. Oh, man, pray for me then. I said, Well, all right, I'm gonna pray for you right now. I prayed for him. I was so scared. I prayed for him and then I walked off and I thought, man, what in the world was that? But then as time went on, you know, the operation of spiritual gifts and and faith, I'm gonna use a reference that it would somebody would think it's a carnal reference, but whatever. Faith and the operation of spiritual gifts, it's like a muscle. The more I go to the gym and the more that I work out and the more protein that I eat, the more, and if I eat the right stuff, my muscles are gonna grow.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

Right.

SPEAKER_03 33:51

The operation of spiritual gifts is the same exact way. The more that you exercise that gift and the more that you use that gift, the greater it's gonna grow. So, in saying that, after I prayed for him, this is probably the summertime of 2005, we're going in the later into the fall of 2005. I wanted to exercise my gifts. So anytime somebody said, I need healing, if they verbally said it and I heard it, I was running to go pray for them because I went. If people were in the altar, in the altar service at my home church, if they needed, I would ask them, I go around asking people, do you need healing? Do you need healing? Do you need healing? Yes, yes, yes. I would lay on as lay hands on as many people as I could because I was exercising that gift. When I got out in public, people told me they needed healing. I prayed that I laid hands on people in restaurants, I laid hands on people in public, laid hands on people in the grocery store. Then it started to develop locally and like you said, organically in my home church. And it started to develop out in the community. And I started laying hands on people in the community. Then the, you know, the results of that were tangible, they were palpable. People started coming forward and saying, hey, when he laid hands on me, I got healed. And that's not to say anything about me. It was just me exercising the God in me so that I could develop those gifts. So then as I began to practice these, you know, people at my home church are going to see this and laugh at this, but it's like I thank them all the time when I go home because it's like, hey, I got to preach to all of you when I couldn't preach my, and I probably still can't, but I said, I got to preach to all of you, you know, when I couldn't preach my way out of a wet paper bag. And, you know, I told my it's a joke at my whole church because I tell them, I should have been giving you an offering for listening to me because how because of how bad I was. When people started to find out that people were getting healed, like by me praying for them, some of these preachers that were that were close to Brother Randall and Sister Randall started finding out. They were like, Hey, do you think you'll come preach for me? And so here I go. I'm I'm a year old in God and I'm getting out to go preach for people.

unknown 35:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 35:48

I'd get in the pulpit for like five minutes and just and then would like didn't run out of things to say, and then would say, Okay, if anybody wants to be healed, come to the front. And people started getting healed. And so from a year onward, my ministry just grew and grew and grew and grew and grew. I mean, all glory of God, of course. It's all him.

Prayer, Hunger, Fasting, And Formation

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Brother Leva, that sounds like to me, like you just believed the word of God. You just believed that God was gonna heal. Because at that time, was God giving you um words for people, or you were just taking the Bible at face value and praying for the sick that they would be healed.

SPEAKER_03 36:29

You know, I took the Bible at face value. It said it, I believed it. But here's what started happening when the gift of healing started to operate, then came the miracles. When the miracles started to operate, then came the gift of faith on a greater dimension. Then, about a year later, I was in a service and the prophetic started to operate. Then it started to, after Brother Randall died, so in 2005, from 2005 to 2007, I was being used miracles, healing, and faith. In 2007, my pastor died. And I remembered somebody coming to me and telling me, you're gonna begin to operate in prophecy, you're gonna begin to operate in a lot of in the other giftings. I was kind of starting to operate in the word of knowledge around this time. Brother, Brother Randall dies. I then in 2007 I asked Brother Winslow to mentor me. I told him he knew he knew Brother Randall, he's very acquainted with him, love Brother Randall. I said, Listen, Sister Randall is pastoring me, and I have asked her permission because I was submitted to her authority. You have to be submitted to authority. I was submitted to her authority. And so I asked her, could I, could, could Brother Winslow mentor me in this area of giftings and and spiritual gifts? She said, absolutely. I called him, I said, hey, I said, would you um, you know, would you mentor me? And he said, yes, of course. And so he began to mentor me, started talking to me about the gifts. I started having experiences. I had an experience with an angel uh, you know, in here in Texas. There was just things that started happening. And when I had that experience with that angel, I then called Brother Winslow and I said, What is going on with me? He said, Your experience is one that I had is very identical to what I had. God sent an angel, God's ministering to you through that angel. He said, You're now going to be able to operate in the word of knowledge and in the word of wisdom and in the prophetic, just like I do. That angel was sent as a conditioning. That God sent that angel to heal, he brought healing and he brought ministering to you. And I've never, I've never publicly talked about this because people think I'm crazy, but he said God said that God sent that angel to you as a it's for a conditioning to operate in the gifts of the spirit for long periods of time, just like I do. From this day forward, the word of knowledge is gonna operate in you, the word of faith is gonna operate in you just like I do. He said, God has put placed my spirit upon you, you're gonna do things like I do. And from that day forward, it started happening. Word of knowledge started happening, prophecy started happening. I was in a service in Louisiana at the camp meeting, and I was walking through the crowd, and it was on the 4th of July in 2007. There was a man that was coming through the crowd that's used in the prophetic too, and he laid his hand on me. We didn't know each other. He grabbed me, he laid his hand on me, he said, Young man, he said, you have sat under a prophet. And I said, That's right. And he said, You're sitting under another prophet. And I said, That's right. He said, From this day forward, I lose you to operate in the prophetic for the rest of your life. He said, This gift will be upon you. He pretty much solidified everything that Brother Winslow had said, and it just happened within like a month of each other. And then from then on, from 77 onward, that's when those giftings really began to show up, and that's when those things really began to manifest.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

So I have so many questions about all that when you were talking. So I'm gonna ask them, then I'm gonna come back. But I'd like to know what was happening in your personal growth and development and healing. Alongside of all the spiritual stuff. But going back to what you just said, I hear that as that man confirmed that now you are called to the office of the prophet and no longer just operating in the nine gifts of the spirit. Is that how you interpreted that?

SPEAKER_03 40:22

Yes, ma'am, that was. Except I I didn't. You know the you know kind of the stigma, right? When when the titles that we bestow upon people. And even now it's it's finally kind of starting to take root of people being accepting of the titles that that ministry, the fivefold ministry titles, right? And so even back then, I knew that I was called to prophetic ministry, but I wasn't gonna run around and say, hey, I'm Prophet Leva, and you know, I wasn't gonna do anything like that. But I knew that I knew that that's what I was being called into. Yes, ma'am.

Unpacking Trauma, Forgiveness, And Depression

SPEAKER_01 40:54

Well, the reason I bring that up is because, you know, um you can see the gift on people, but you know, people uh at least I think so to some degree, but people are very reluctant, you know, when you when you say something, they're like, oh, well, whatever God wants, you know, whatever God wants. There, there's this, I don't know if they're trying to just be humble about it, but as a clinician, identity is at the core for me of everything. And I think as a Christian, identity is at the core. And if we do not understand who we are in God, if we don't understand what He's made us to do, who He's created us to be, what our purpose is here, I think it's kind of critical for us to grow in that and to kind of walk in our purpose. Um, so I feel like identity is a really big factor. And then to be able to study out what it means to be called with a certain calling, like how if someone really is an apostle or a prophet or a teacher, like helps you to stay in your lane for one, but it also helps you to walk in confidence and boldness with the Lord in your ministry. So I know it's a really fine line, but I feel like from an individual's perspective, knowing what that meant is huge, necessary, even.

SPEAKER_03 42:26

Yes, ma'am. People, people will be if if you you said it, that what you said was so perfect. People identify with things, and and if a person can find their identity in God and truly know what their purpose and what they're called to do, if they would just they would venture into that, their life would be a whole lot easier. We have so many gifted people sitting on pews, and I'm not just talking about the gifts of the spirit. We we have music folks, we've got name it any kind of service in the church, service gifts, office gifts for the church. Right. There's so many people that can be used of God, but just like what you said, because they never find their identity in it, they never pursue it, and it's like they have the talent for it, but it's like it's that it's like it has to be cultivated in them.

SPEAKER_01 43:15

Yeah, because I think there's a lot of people who pursue would pursue the prophetic. I know I know friends, you know, I grew up under that, the prophetic ministry. And so there's um I think there's I I'm trying to see the difference with you. Like you didn't even ask for permission, you just went for it. And um I wonder what distinguishes those who just really go for it versus those who kind of wait on God to move them in a direction. Because I think there's some teaching, you know, for me, I could use that just to know like how much can we just push? How much can we ask? How much can we? I know that the Bible says, ask, you know, ask of me the things of my hand and ask whatever you want, and I will give it. But I I feel like as Christians, sometimes there's a timidity because we want to wait on God or we want to be led by God. And what I'm hearing from you is you were just like, no, this is what I want. What it what's it gonna take to get it? And I think that's such a awesome um trait and very needed. So I don't know if you can, I don't know how I'm asking this, if you can speak on what do people really need to do for those that really hunger for more of that, who really not to be used to be used, but to be used to just be in his presence and to be able to know that they're actually helping others and doing the will of God.

SPEAKER_03 44:52

I think personally, a person should establish themselves in a life of prayer, first and foremost. I think they they they need to establish themselves in a life of in a life of prayer because it's gonna build a foundation with them and God. Once they have that establishment of that foundation of relationship with God, then they can also to kind of backtrack while we're talking about relationship and stuff. I think a lot of it with me, I I think I I am the anomaly because of my personality. I think a lot of my stuff was personality driven because of rejections. That's that's that has a lot to do with it. Yeah, I suffered a lot of rejection as a child. And so I think for me, the revelation that's really coming to me right now from God, it's amazing. What's a lot of it for me was because of the rejection that I suffered as a child, because God was so accepting of me, I pursued him even further. And I think that's I think that has a lot to do with the with the reason why I am the way I am. My personality really and truly shaped and crafted who I am today.

Hearing God, Discerning Voices, Obedience

SPEAKER_01 45:57

I was much like you in terms of tenacity because no one was gonna do it for me. I went and figured out a way how to get the things I wanted in life for all the same reasons, rejection and stuff. But when I came to the Lord, um he changed, I feel like he changed that part of me. And I had to learn to walk very softly with him and not just demand and not pursue. And I've really had to find balance in that and just wait. I feel like I've waited on him a lot to bring things to me because my personality was so much like that. And for me, it was important to know that I'm not making things happen because I knew how to do that. I wanted it, you know, I wanted it to be God. I want whatever God has for me. But with other people like my dad and others that I know, you know, they pursued it, but it was just different. So I was just curious about that.

unknown 46:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

So I definitely think, yeah, foundation of prayer. And what about fasting, Brother Laba? Did were you called to that right away? Did God does He place that on you at certain times? Do you do it consistently on a schedule?

SPEAKER_03 47:14

So back in the back in the early days when I first got when I first got converted, I I'd done a lot of fasting. And the reason why I did that, because I had the knowledge and the understanding from my pastor's wife that fasting kills your flesh. It it gets you out of the way, it kills your flesh, it kills your old nature. We our church in South Louisiana, we, they, they were heavy into fasting, still are, still is. Um, but I had so many doors that I opened when I was in the world. I had a lot of things that had happened to me when I was in the world that created a lot of avenues for the adversary to work in. And so I knew that there was too much me. I knew that there was too much self. And so I went into a mode for several years of consistent fasting, several days, several weeks a month. Um, a lot, a lot, a lot of fasting in the beginning. And and, you know, of course, it was to get it was to get closer to God. It was to be to to be more spiritual and to kill my flesh. I had to kill my flesh.

SPEAKER_01 48:16

Yeah, that was the way God probably healed you because you jumped into ministry so fast, you didn't have a lot of time to unpack your history. So do you feel like God just divinely healed those things in you through this process? Or did you go back and unpack it emotionally, mentally to gain understanding in those areas?

SPEAKER_03 48:37

So that's that's you said it. So when I got in church, I had a lot of things that had happened to me, you know, physical abuse, sexual abuse, different things like that. When I got in church, I chose to compartmentalize all that stuff, shove it in a box, stick it in the corner, I'm not gonna deal with it, I don't want to think about it, I don't want to talk about it. Because I was under the premise, I was under the mindset that the Holy Ghost was gonna fix everything. And don't get me wrong, I I'm not diminishing the Holy Ghost power at all. Because it has all power and it's God's powerful.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

Right.

How The Gifts Operate In Services

SPEAKER_03 49:15

But when there are issues that you compartmentalize and things that you don't deal with, eventually, some point sooner or later in life, they're gonna stick it, that it's gonna stick its head back up. And so, yes, the fasting in the beginning, the the prayer, the hours and hours of prayer, the fasting in the beginning, the walking in a relationship place with God, it helped me to get over most of it. But there were still things that were attached to me that I never faced, that I didn't want to face, that again, I put them in boxes, I shoved them away. And I do remember, and probably in my early 20s, as I was living for God, I had the Holy Ghost for a few years. I was preaching the gospel, I was seeing a lot of miracles, a lot of things were happening. But because I never dealt with my past, things began to slowly creep up and pop up. And I could remember things that I started having these triggers, and I started having things that would trigger me. And I started having some of these memories that I didn't want to think about start to pop up. My biggest healing came when I chose to forgive people. When I chose to forgive my abusers, is when God started to heal me of all this stuff, and it was a long, it wasn't an overnight process. There are things to this day. I'm gonna turn 44 in a couple weeks, and there are things to this day. I had a heavy, heavy battle last year with depression. I'm I'm just I'm I'm to the point where you know, if people just think, you know, think this, that, or the other of me because I'm I'm sitting here confessing this that I battled depression last year, then you know what? That's just too bad. I'm human, just like anybody else. I thought that I wasn't going to battle this stuff anymore. And last year, I had several very heavy battles with depression and things that I thought that I was over, it wasn't abuse per se, but there were just things that connected yes, there were things that were connected to my childhood that I never dealt with concerning my parents that would pop up with certain triggers last year and just put this heavy depression on me. And the only way out of it was was just to try to get closer to God. And I finally got away, I finally got away from it.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

Do you think it was grief though, finally surfacing? I mean, because I think that grief and depression can look really similar, but when you begin to grieve and let out all the things that have been buried, I mean it's sorrow.

unknown 51:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:44

I I'm it's still grief. I'm still not over my dad dying. I'm still not over my grandfather dying. Um truth be told, I'm not even over my pastor dying. Um I'm not I'm not over, you know, even Brother Winslow dying. I I'm still grieving um over several over several deaths that have been real close to me. Um you know, but I I think the depression sorry um I think the depression was was connected to something else from childhood. I think a lot of the depression was connected to the rejections of my childhood and things that I faced in my childhood. Rejection is such an ugly thing, and I I think that's what a lot of last year was connected to. But I look back, I've talked to several prophetic ministers. Um and I've asked them things. And you're gonna find a lot of ministers that are used of God, majorly used of God, have at one point or another suffered either some sort of sexual abuse, some sort of physical abuse. It it's they've had that happen to them. And so now I know that I am in the company of others that have gone through the same thing that I have.

SPEAKER_01 53:02

Yeah. Yeah, I said earlier, I feel like I feel like it's I I look at Joseph, you know, how early he was rejected and and what God took him through. I feel like it's kind of a mark because it prepares you to walk alone. And you you're very fortunate to have a wife that walks with you, but I don't imagine there's a whole lot of people that you get to walk with because prophetic calling is generally a lonely calling, do you think?

SPEAKER_03 53:34

Yes, ma'am, it is. I I I was talking to I was talking to someone about this a couple weeks ago. I I I don't talk to anybody. Um I'm not into I'm I'm my kids laugh at me because they call me an old person. I'm I'm not into technology. I'm I'm not on social media. I I I try I honestly live as probably as recluse as possible. My family is who I'm closest to. I have a couple of friends that I'm that I'm I get I would say acquaintances, friends that I'm really, really close to, two of them. And then my pastor, um, and you know, my my my former my former pastor's wife, who's now the pastor in Louisiana, we talk occasionally, but I live my life so alone. It's just me and my family. I I'm not into the, you know, I'm not into the who's who or the what's what. I don't text much. I'm not a texter, I don't really feel like texting. You know, people laugh. People laugh because I I never answer my phone because I just and I'm not being rude. I just I just don't want to talk to anybody.

SPEAKER_01 54:31

Yeah, I think it's part of the I think it's part of the calling, Brother Leva.

SPEAKER_03 54:36

Yeah, yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_01 54:38

But there's comfort there, I think, in knowing that that's like you said, that's how God formed you, you know, not that it was I think that I think all of the abuse is the devil trying to kill what God had ordained. And and I look at childhood abuse a lot in that vein because you know, some kids suffer more horrific than others. I mean, abuse is abuse, but I always think, you know, why is the enemy working so hard to kill somebody's future? And there's no better way to do it than through childhood abuse. Um, but you overcame it and God's using it for his glory, but it it is all part of the process, which I know you know that now.

SPEAKER_03 55:23

Looking back now, I do realize it was all part of the process, and it it's you know, if I had to do honestly, if I had to do it over again, I would. I I have no regrets. I have no regrets. I I I'd do it again.

SPEAKER_01 55:39

It doesn't make it easier, but the Bible says that wisdom is found in the house of sorrow. So you don't, you know, I I agreed you don't uh Yeah, because where you f where you find God in those moments is the greatest. Brother Mark Morgan um talked once about um his night season, and he said he had years of depression. Um dark, dark, dark depression. And and I think that that is part of it, and it's so interesting when it does come upon a person. Um but it does, it's not surprising. I'm glad you made it through.

Healing Versus Deliverance And Cursing Disease

SPEAKER_03 56:26

Yeah, this depression was was was different. Last year's depression was different. I've I've battled it, but nothing on the level that I battled last year. Like it it literally affected me mentally to the place like it would just, it was so debilitating and paralyzing that there were days like I just I there was days I wanted to go sit in a dark room and not come out. Yeah. Of course, my wife would never let me do that. She, you know, bless her, she she did her best with it and and held me together. She really was the glue that held me together during those times. And but that that depression was was it was it was massive. But I'm thankful God pulled me out of it. It's it's over, it's done. I have the joy of the Lord, God's my strength. But I look back at all of it now, and yes, it is indeed part of the process. And it's, you know, it's it's some of these callings that these callings that come from God, not every not everything's a glamour road. And not every day is, you know, not every day is a bed of roses. I mean, you're gonna have it reminds me, I go back when my pastor, my first pastor that died, Brother Randall told me, when I when I told him that I asked for Brother Winslow's ministry, he looked at me and said, You do realize there's a price tag that comes with that, right? And I said, Pastor, I've been living for the devil all these years. I've given the devil everything. I said, What else am I gonna do with life? Sit on the pew and do nothing and be boring? I said, That's not me.

SPEAKER_01 57:49

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I want to change gears. I'll come back to that. Um, what are what are some ways you said right away you recognize the voice of God? Have you heard him audibly since that first night of that wedding reception?

SPEAKER_03 58:13

Just that once.

SPEAKER_01 58:15

And so you recognize it immediately when he started talking to you. Um you didn't you didn't ever battle with Lord, is that you, Lord, is that you, should I do this, should I not do this? Were you always obedient to what he asked you to do, even in those early years?

SPEAKER_03 58:33

I was, yes, ma'am, I was, because I knew it was his voice. And secondly, as simplistic as this sounds, the devil's never gonna tell me to go pray for somebody. And so everything that God was telling me, I knew it was him because it was like the enemy surely not gonna tell me that.

SPEAKER_01 58:48

But you didn't think it could have been you.

SPEAKER_03 58:51

I didn't think it was me either because I wasn't that smart enough to drum up something like that.

SPEAKER_01 58:55

Okay, okay. Did you hear the enemy speaking to you? Did you hear those, any of his intrusive voices?

SPEAKER_03 59:04

I did, and and a lot of times it was it was his voice. I knew it was I knew it was always the enemy's voice because it was anything to discredit that God was doing. Anything that God told me to do, the enemy would then come in and say, Well, you know, you're a fake, or hey, you know, that was fake. No, that you're listening to yourself, you're not listening to God. The enemy's voice is always doubt. That's how I know it's always the enemy.

SPEAKER_01 59:25

Right. But did you know that early on in your ministry when you started walking into the prophetic?

SPEAKER_03 59:31

I was able to distinguish that in an early in an early yes, I was.

SPEAKER_01 59:37

So now in your prophetic, you've been doing this for 20 years.

SPEAKER_03 59:42

This year's gonna be 20 years, yes, ma'am.

SPEAKER_01 59:45

And you said you were called with the office. What year did you say was that 2007? That's what I thought. Okay, a long time. Yeah, 20 years. Do you do you see? I've set under you, so I I kinda know a little bit but not not totally do you see more do you hear more do you feel more like when when you are operating in a service calling people out are you seeing are you hearing is it a knowing like how does God how does God show you and reveal to you when you're gonna pray for someone all of the above different I find over the years different services bring out different things taking the instance of let's go back two weeks to Greg Dansby's church I was in Red Oak Texas two weeks ago at the beginning of the year January the 4th the 9 a.m service there was a young man that came and sat that that was sitting in front of me and I believe I was starting to preach or I may have been halfway through the preaching.

Attachments, Oppression, And Controversy

SPEAKER_03 1:00:49

When I looked at him the word of knowledge began to operate it's always my my primary I guess if you want to say what is my primary gifting it's the word of knowledge it's it's declaring to people something past present or future most of the time it's the word of knowledge that is connected to a medical condition in their body that's always been you know the number one and so when this young man was in front of me the God told me the voice of God said to me through through revelation of course he's speaking to God and says he's got an issue with his spinal column he's got at the base of his skull where his neck and his head connect there's an issue there and from that issue this are what this is what his body does this is what his symptoms are this is what the left leg does this is what the left hand does so I called him out and he's coming to the front he's there I start telling him this is what God's telling me this is what's going on and as I am ministering to him in the gifts of the spirit his left my left arm starts going numb and my fingers start tingling and my fingers start going numb and then all of a sudden my hand starts drawing up and I looked at him and I knew I was picking up on what he was feeling and I looked at him and I said your left arm it goes numb I said your hand starts drawing up and you've heard me at Brother Grogan's I'll always ask people is this right and and you know somebody that could be construed as well he's just being a smart aleck no I'm asking people is this right because first and foremost it's building faith for the crowd around us secondly I want somebody to tell me I'm wrong because I'm human. If I'm wrong tell me I'm wrong look at me you're off you're way off I'll stop but you know most that's I have not had that happen to me but the word of knowledge was operating with this guy and I I'm I'm I'm hearing these things from the voice of God God's telling me these things and then you know all of it is correct. Yes is that right yes that's right and then he says back to me I've got multiple sclerosis and it just it was amazing to everybody because after we laid hands on him you know I said this on a podcast uh last week after I laid hands on him I literally saw the spirit I saw it in a vision I saw the spirit of infirmity in the form of a human like it jumped out of his body and talk walking out of the building I saw that through the discerning of spirits of course but I saw you know God showed me and that that gifting operating in the word of knowledge and then God allowing me to feel what he was going through no sooner than that happened there was a lady that was sitting on the side of him I I got I saw in a I saw above her head like a like kind of a picturesque kind of thing the letter M over this lady's head well when I said God I said God's going to touch I said there's an M that keeps coming to me I keep seeing an M. Well she broke and started screaming because that was somebody in her life that was real close to her that was going through a battle or some sort so to answer your question yes I hear the voice of God at times most of the time it's it's through revelation I hear the voice of God speaking to me internally in my head I hear the voice of God saying this, that or the other this is what this person's going through. This is how this is happening there have been times I have walked in the services where I feel things like my body starts hurting in areas where people are hurting. You were in service with me I think Saturday when I I kept picking up on somebody's left arm hurting the lady was right in front of me the lady in the purple that was right in front of me. Same thing with the lady on the other side with the tumor God kept telling me somebody on this side has got a tumor grapes a grape size tumor the lady stood up it was her that had it on her liver I've I've I've felt things I've heard things I've seen things it's it's it's been all of the above with me. Not everybody's different but as I understand it the way that brother Winslow explained it to me was exactly I I was operating exactly like he operated everything came to him by revelation through the word of knowledge that's how it is with me too.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:51

And so it's going back to the guy with multiple sclerosis so I'm trying to figure out how to ask this question. So it was a spirit of infirmity yeah that is what so I have two two things about that um one I'm just gonna put a pin in this but so many people really struggle to think things are spiritual because there's a medical um scientific diagnosis. I personally believe that most everything is spiritual because Jesus died for it all to fix it. And so we we have science that tells us what it is and how it works but I still think it's spiritual. And so with you praying for healing other people might pray for deliverance so can you speak to that a little bit like the difference between praying for a healing in that area or praying for the miracle in that area or was God giving you additional revelation that this was a spirit of infirmity for you to use for the future to understand like how do you see the difference between delivering somebody from a spirit of infirmity versus maybe praying for someone to be healed for the symptoms that you're picking up on. Does that make sense?

Regional Resistance, Witchcraft, And Authority

SPEAKER_03 1:06:12

Yeah it does so this one was a little different because I did not discern the spirit of infirmity on him. What I was doing was praying for him to be healed. Now the revelation that I got several years ago very simplistic of course but when I started to read where Jesus began to curse things I I began to put that into a practical application into my ministry because God was dealing with me about it. And then I got to the place where the more I read the word the more that I understood that you never saw the apostles asking God to heal anybody they spoke and God did it because they were operating in faith and faith pleases God. But the relationship they had with God because of the place that they walked in with God gave them that ability to begin to speak things and God did whatever they spoke. And so I took that into a practical application and about probably nine 10 years ago I quit asking God to heal people I started declaring things over people that God was about to heal them of and so like what happened with this guy I knew he had this when he when he said that he had the sickness I cursed it and where I get my scriptural basis for that Jesus cursed the fig tree. Right right oh I believe you yeah and so any ailment that I know that is in people's bodies I'm gonna curse it and then when I'm done cursing it I'm gonna command it out. And so that's what I have done for the last 10 years and that's what I did with him. Okay is because if it is indeed spiritually based I've covered all my bases I've spoken I've cursed it I've commanded it to die if it's something in his body like if it's a it's a clinical sickness that is not tied to a spirit man I feel the Holy Ghost talking about this right now. If it's a clinical based sickness that has no spiritual basis I'm covering my base because when I pray I'm commanding it to go I'm commanding it to die. If it's in your body I command this thing to die and I command it to die right now. And then secondly you've heard me pray now when I when I go to lay hands on them if it's a spiritual based thing I will then say I command you out and I command you out now. So I've told you to die and if you if you've died and you're still there and you're a spirit based thing I want you out and I want you out now and it goes and I saw this guy I saw this thing leave this guy's body now to to to answer the original question did I discern that there was a spirit of infirmity no I didn't I just commanded I did my prayer I did my usual thing and then that thing just so happened to be there I watched it get up and leave and go. Now the validation to that and and the proof like they say the proof of that the result of that was after the service he came to me and he said I want to show you something he gave me a video of his diagnosis from the doctor of his multiple sclerosis and here's the kicker every symptom that God described through him to him when I was ministering to him through the Spirit of course all God every symptom that I described was in that diagnosis he showed it to me and he said this medical term was what you were talking about this medical term was what you were talking about and this medical term and it even was in the diagnosis talking about the numbness in his left leg that God was describing.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:32

It was mind blowing like it was so mind everything that God had done and then the thing left now we know it was a spirit of infirmity that had the guy yeah he was clinically diagnosed but it was a spirit of infirmity that had him yeah yeah no I think I I mean from an operational standpoint you only did what God showed you you didn't do any more any less and so because he didn't give you the discernment on that spirit you didn't speak to the spirit you just spoke to what he only what God said.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:01

I did yes ma'am and like I said every prayer that I pray I cover my bases and say I command whatever's in there to get out and it and you know it's going.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:12

And I don't I mean I don't think that everything it sounds so contradictory but I do think things are spiritual but I think that things can come upon a person when they don't understand sometimes what they're making agreements with or sometimes what they're saying over themselves and that kind of thing. So from there there's permission but not that everybody like has a spirit on them.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:35

I agree 100% there are some things that are people just there are we're human our bodies break down we have medical problems if you if you don't take care of your health there's so many things that can happen to you that brings infirmity you know that creates sickness in your body and there are truly some people that have spiritual issues where things are attached to them. Yes and that's a whole nother conversation in itself yes do you see that very much do you address that very much when things are when things are attached to people when you see stuff like that attached to people demonically possessed people yes in the past I've I've cast a lot of devils out of a lot of people um you know it it we're living in some strange times you don't see that near as much as you used to anymore uh demonic possessions and and and you know you you don't see a whole lot of that anymore as as time has gone on but yes um I have been in services where God has allowed me to discern um depressions and and different things like that on people and different spirits that are attached to people and stuff like that. And you realize we're charting into some waters that are very controversial because there is the old there there is the mindset that a person cannot have the Holy Ghost and be possessed. Well guess what these people are not possessed but they do have something attached there are things that can attach yes yes that's a very controversial that's a very controversial subject I know but brother Leva I know you have to see this going into church we have so many people sitting on the pews that are living in bondage.

Human Opposition, Social Media, And Refining

SPEAKER_01 1:12:09

Yes they are and they they have the Holy Ghost they speak in tongues they've been baptized in Jesus' name they've been going to church for years but they are captive and I feel like we don't get to have these conversations very much I I and I I'm curious and you don't have to go here if you don't want but I think about generational curses and there there is you know some people think that the blood covers everything and I do believe that the blood covers everything but people can act out in ways that they're not aware of anyway that's probably a deep conversation and I don't know how to ask the question that I want to ask but I know that all of it is controversial but I also think we're seeing a change in the body of Christ. I'm not sure what you're seeing in the churches that you visit but I feel like there's a hunger for more of this kind of ministry and there's an openness to more of this kind of ministry and perhaps it's because the condition of the world around us and I think the demonic and Satanism is so overt in the culture maybe people in our movement are looking at it differently and starting to hunger for the supernatural more but what what are you seeing out there? Like is it still very controversial to talk about these kinds of things because oppression can hover right it it depends on the I guess the the best way to answer that is it depends on what part of the country you're in.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:53

We we have there there is some still some antiquated and that's I'm gonna be nice there's still some very antiquated mindsets where it's it's you know we've believed certain things for so long that that's the way it's only going to be and that's how it's going to be and don't you say any different because if you believe it any different from them you're you're automatically you're either radical or you're just out there or you're just weird or you're you know we don't believe that you know we don't we just don't believe like them and and they they kind of isolate you right I've experienced that and uh because of the church that I attended um we we we believed in prayer we believed in fasting we believed in deliverance we believed in you know the casting out we we believed in casting out of demons and you know we did believe that you know that that things could be attached to people it's it's it was part of it but the more that I got out to preach the more that I started to realize that not everybody believed like us. Don't make them bad people but what you're saying is so true. We have so many people that are sitting on Pentecostal pews across America that are struggling with things they've they've they perhaps they've opened doors because they sinned doing stuff they had the business doing and when they close that door whatever they opened themselves up to has now attached themselves to that. And again I'm going down another controversial road because somebody's gonna see this and say well they can't be possessed and have the Holy Ghost I'm not saying people are possessed but what I'm saying is is that there are things that attaches themselves to people's personalities to people's spirits that will then have them more inclined to doing things and battling things that they shouldn't be because of doors that they opened if I guess I'm making sense right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:46

Right yeah yeah yeah yes and I and I wish that more people could talk talk about that because it it it is and people have no idea about that yeah I'm glad that you do I'm glad you're talking about it in your ministry.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:03

I am who I am I I made up my mind a long time ago it's funny somebody somebody was at a conference with me and uh it was a there was a preacher and he said you know he said I I've kind of picked up something with you and I said what he said you really don't care what people think about you do you I said no that ship sailed a long time ago and I don't say that rudely or or or just trying to be brash but I just I am who I am in God this is who I am and this is who I'm always going to be and I I very strong opinion about things that I believe.

Faith Through Trials And Rise In Miracles

SPEAKER_01 1:16:31

Well a few weeks ago I guess it was in December um there was a Pentecostal preacher I'm not that might be a loose term he did have a church um but battled some things most of his life and I heard that he shot himself in the head now I I don't know for sure but I have a um for a while I worked in the um I attended the completion of active suicides and worked with the families after for a period of time and one that has disturbed me and I've talked about before was of a 45 year old woman who sat on a church pew every week and sat in her car in front of her house and killed herself and I and I know that we have people using meth that come to church. I know that we have um childhood sexual abuse in the church I know that there are pastors numerous who have walked off the platform and abused people in the church. I mean one of the victims I'm gonna interview later this month and so all kinds of stuff the devil has a seat in the church and so I I think that people just think that once they're saved that that's a clean bill of health and that the blood covers it but there are things that we can open doors to and fornication I think is one of a major major doors that gets opened with people. And so anyways it's really important and so I'm I'm glad you're talking about it. I don't have anywhere to go with it. Yeah I've experienced it firsthand um so what does God speak to you like what does God deal with you outside of um the evangelistic field like in your own private time in your own walk like as you've grown into new levels could you explain some of the process that you've walked through as God has taken you through different levels and dimensions I think you talked about dimensions in one of your podcasts and I was just curious if you could elaborate so I think for me my my journey and I and I told you kind of earlier in the podcast that I was I was so addicted to learning more about faith.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:56

I wanted to learn more about faith so that I could then in turn convey that and speak that and and put that into my preaching. I think for my own personal development and my you know kind of my off time not when I'm preaching and things like that you know if I'm reading the word and things like that I really tried to not per se pattern myself after some of the prophets in the Bible but I really paid a lot of attention to the life of Elisha. Elisha's life really and that's why I made my podcast the Elisha Generation but um Elisha's life really resonated with me because of the way that he sold out because of the the the life that he lived like was to the extreme like he really lived an extreme life. He burned everything he had he left his home he I I resonate with a lot of that because I was a teenager runaway I ran away from home when I was younger. But of course I was running away to go do something else I wasn't running away to go do ministry but a lot of his life resonated with me but outside of that you know I I my personal development I I spend as much time with my family as I can I try to do as much as I can with my family. I'm a family guy because I was missing that as a child. We didn't have the family environment. We didn't our our bunch is a tight-knit group. And the other thing that I, you know, I love my children. I love my wife. I try to show my kids, I try to create as much of a happy atmosphere in my home, one that is one of peace, because my life was so chaotic. And that's kind of that's kind of my pro, I guess if you say my development, that's kind of what that is. I I try to create a peaceful home and just try to live in peace outside of the church.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:34

Does your family get to travel with you much when you are out preaching?

SPEAKER_03 1:20:39

They used to. Um when I first took off full-time evangelizing, they they did. And that that life on the road, it's it's so hard to raise a family on the road. And they were troopers, all of them. My three older kids grew up on the road. Um, and then eventually they, you know, as they got older in life, I got two of them in college. Um, and uh, I've got actually three of them in college now. The the the 16-year-old, the one that's about to be 16, that started college today watched doing dual college and high school. Um, but they did travel with me at one time, and so did my wife. But as everybody got older, it was like, hey, dad, like we don't want to do this. And I didn't want to fit.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:12

Yeah, yeah. I could get I could understand that. Um, how much personal attack from witchcraft or the enemy do you go through? Like, what what is that like for you?

Hope For Seekers And Practical Next Steps

SPEAKER_03 1:21:29

So we the the attack from witchcraft was not near as bad living here in Houston than it was living in Louisiana. Louisiana's the strongholds in Louisiana have never been broken. Uh, particularly where I lived at in South Louisiana, in the Abbeyville, New Iberia area. Um the attacks there would be it would be it would be sickness, a lot of sickness, batting, battling a lot of migraine headaches, battling a lot of things like that. The other attacks there would be um, you know, you'd battle depression from time to time. It was, it was, it was demonic, demonic stuff, right? Um, we would have things like kind of walk in and out of the house, slamming doors, you know, those kind of things. But the demonic attacks in South Louisiana, you know, it it Houston pales in comparison to that place. Like Louisiana was just that was really my training ground was learning to flow and function in such a demonic atmosphere. Because you literally, I mean, that that stronghold has never been broken in South Louisiana.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:27

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Do you your depression that you went through last year? Do you see that as an attack or do you see that as something that God brought you to?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:39

I think it was honestly, I think it was an attack that God allowed. I think it was something that was already brewing that was good that I was gonna have to go through, but God allowed it to happen, is how I view it.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:52

Okay. Okay. So now, so you don't feel like you don't have crazy things that happen to you out of the blue at home or anything like that. I mean, I would guess your home is clean, so none of that stuff should be coming in there. But do you don't notice like when you walk into churches, different things that come from the demonic realm?

Family, Travel, Contentment, And Closing

SPEAKER_03 1:23:15

Not near as much as I used to. A lot of, a lot of, I think a lot of that stuff has when I walk into churches, God, God goes before me and and eliminates a lot of this stuff. Okay. I I actually I was ministered to um by a prophet last year. He uh I was talking to him on the phone and he said, I I have a word from the Lord for you. And I said, Sure. He said, The Lord told me this, and he said, I have only known of two people in my lifetime that the Lord has ever said this to me about. He called the first guy's name, and I know him. I actually loved his ministry when he was part of the UPC. He's no longer, you know, he's he's still preaching, but he's not he's not part of the UPC. He's not he's not the Pentecostal movement, so to speak, I guess if you want to call it that. Very, very, very powerful man of God, and you'd know him if I called him by name. I mean, extremely powerful in the miracles and faith. He said, he called this guy's name, and then he said, You were the second person that God told me about this. And I said, Well, what was it? He said that the Lord told me you walk in such a faith, in such a faith place with God, not only because you walk in such a faith place, but he said, because of everything that you have endured in your lifetime, he said, the Lord told me any city that you walk into, the second you step into the city, the enemy bows. He cannot do anything to you, and he won't touch you because of the place that you walk in with God. He said, Brother Leva, you get off planes in different countries, and when you get off the plane, the strongman of that country, of that region, vows because of the place that you walk in with God. He said, I have never told, he said, I've only told one other person that in my lifetime. And he said, I have never in all the years, and this man's been in ministry probably close to 40, 45 years, maybe 50 years, um, 40 years for sure. He said, I have never, ever told anyone else that besides you and one other person. And I don't say that boastfully, but I back that up with Brother Winslow's ministry because I asked him the same thing. Um, back years ago, you know, I was gonna try to be super spiritual and ask him this super spiritual question. Man, how many devils do you fight everywhere you go? He goes, none. I said, huh? He goes, none. He said, I don't fight any. And I was like, really? And he goes, Yeah. He goes, he goes, what am I worried about fighting them for? God took God's gonna God's gonna deal with them.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:45

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:45

I asked him, I said, It's their authority. It's the authority, that's right. And so I asked him, I said, Well, where did you learn that at? And he goes, I learned it from Brother Barnes. And he said, now I'm gonna teach you the same thing. And so, yes, things that we go through build up that authority in us, and we have that authority to walk into places. Now, I'm not gonna be, you know, so braggadocious or however it sounds to say I don't fight anything. Of course I fight things. I'm but honestly, if I'm gonna be fully transparent and fully vulnerable, I have fought more human spirits and more junk out of humans these last three years than I have out of out of out of demonic spirits. But I will say this I have also seen it the last three years where the enemy has you has used people to attack me, and they can't even discern it, they're being used by the enemy. Now that has happened to me a lot these last three years.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:38

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I believe that. I believe that the authority goes before a person, and you walk, you know, I get that. That makes sense. I think sometimes probably somebody that's a novice or kind of new into the supernatural, they get attacked and they don't necessarily discern where it's coming from or why, but for as long as you've been in it, you you clearly see it and you don't have to deal with it, probably.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:09

And you said it best. You've got to discern these things. And like I said, just kind of going back, these last three years, people have become, and I say people, human spirits, people with human spirits, have become a tool in the hand of the adversary instead of being a weapon in the hand of God.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:25

Why do you think that is in the last three years, brother Leva? What's changing? What's happening that it's just coming up in the last three years?

SPEAKER_03 1:27:33

There were some things that I've gone through. Um, some things that I've gone through. And the last three years, I think it the the demonic attack, yeah, it has been that. It has been through people. And it's been through the uses of social media, it's been anything to discredit me as a person, anything to discredit me in ministry. It's it's it's the lies. It's the lies that were told. There are such blatant lies that have been told on me. And you know, somebody's probably gonna watch this and I let them watch it. I don't care. They can tell some more lies. I really don't care at this point. But where do lies come from? The father of lies, the one that spun it up.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:09

But I mean, where what do you think God's doing in this? Like, if this is happening in the last three years, what's God's hand? What is God doing in it? Like, I feel like it's taking you to someplace new, otherwise, it wouldn't be happening. So, what's changing for you in your ministry as a result of these attacks the last three years?

SPEAKER_03 1:28:30

So I was talking, I was on a podcast on Saturday, I was on the Caruso podcast, Brother Milano's podcast, his son's podcast. Brother Milano was there, and they asked me the exact same question. What do you think this is? I remembered at the beginning of this trial, nearly three years ago, when I was under one of the hardest attacks I'd ever been through in my life. I sat on the front porch praying and I was drinking my coffee. I had always been asking God for more faith. Give me more faith. Let me know the gift of faith. Let me be able to expound it, let me be able to convey it, let me be able to teach it. I just want to know faith for myself, even if I don't tell anybody else about it. And I remembered in the thick of that trial when I was nearly going through a mental breakdown, I told the Lord, I said, God, I don't care what people say about me and I don't care what people do to me. I said, Whatever they do, whatever they say, do not let this ever diminish my faith in you. Don't let these things take my faith away from you because you are all that I have left. After praying that prayer, it's the last three years. I have seen the dead raised. I have seen some of the greatest miracles that I have ever seen in my life. I have seen some of the greatest financial miracles that God has done for people in their lives. I've I'm walking in a dimension of faith. This is the last three years up until right now. God has allowed those demonic attacks to mold me and shape me into who I am this present day. I now realize that there were things in me that had not died yet that needed to die. And it had to come through demonic attacks that were allowed by God to mold me, shape me, and purge me, to make me where I am today. I'm a better person of it. I'm a better person today because of what I have endured the last three years.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:24

That's beautiful. Because I I it it's the place you walk in with God. It's the love you have for the Lord.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:35

You're walking through, you're walking, you've walked. I'm gonna tell you something over this podcast. You've walked through some dark, dark places, and it's making you who you are through this podcast, through your ministry. You are touching way more people than you ever thought that you would ever touch through your testimony and through everything that you have endured. I don't know you, but I just know you from bits and pieces what I've been around you in services, that I'm gonna minister and prophesy over this podcast. I'm telling you, your reach is gonna be so far-reaching and so far wide from coast to coast. Literally, you will impact hundreds, if not thousands, of people through what God is doing through this ministry of your podcast. You are just scratching the surface of what God is about to do with you, Sister Kathy. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:33

I just I just didn't know how to. It took me a long, long time. I never knew how to live in this world. If if there's one thing I could just say is I never knew how to live in this world. I remember being a kid and just being in his presence, and I never wanted to leave, and I, you know, I'd have to leave his presence, and I didn't know. I didn't know how to do it, and the only way I knew how to live in this world was to shut down because I couldn't stay there, you know. I just could never stay in his presence the way I wanted to.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:16

And um I told Brother Milano, I told Brother Milano something similar Saturday. I said, if it'd be up to me, I'd live in the supernatural 24-7. I'd live in that dimension and that realm with God as much as I could. But of course, I've got to be human. I've got bills to pay, I got lives, I got life I got to live. But you're you're you're you've gone through all what you have gone through in your life to bring you to this very moment of producing this podcast so that other people that are hurting and been hurt just like you are can now receive something and hear you're bringing the voice of the message of hope to people that it's okay to go through what they're going through. It's okay to have been be to to be in the place that they're at, to have endured what they have endured. You're giving people a platform to be able to come forward and say, hey, this has happened to me, but you can walk through it just like I did. And how better to reach people with what they're going through when you yourself personally have gone through what these other people have gone through.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:15

Yeah, yeah. Because God, because God changes it, He redeems it, He uses it for His good. Like it's not the end of the story, right? And I can say that because I'm living it finally in my life, you know, and it's not because of me, I know who I've been, like, you know, you know who you've been, but God is just so much greater than all of that. Yes. Um, let's see, what else? Thank you, Brother Leva. Um, do you get invited to churches that mostly operate in the supernatural, or are you invited to other churches that don't operate much that are wanting more of that?

SPEAKER_03 1:34:06

It's about a 60-40 ratio. I would say 60% of the churches that I go to believe in it, operate in it, and love it. And then there's a 40. Uh no, I think it's dropped off. Now, in the beginning, several years ago, I went to more churches that didn't believe versus believing. And when I say didn't believe, I'm talking when I would come in, they would allow me the liberty to do what I needed to do and preach and minister and stuff like that. But to say that they were a fully functioning five-fold ministry, gifts of the spirit operating church, probably not. Now, as I've gotten older and as time has gone on, I now find myself probably at a 75 to 25% ratio. I probably go 75% of the places I minister in believe in the five-fold ministry, want the five-fold ministry, give us more, let us hear more, operate, flow, preach, teach, do whatever you want, just be supernatural. And then there's that 25% that good preachers, good preaching, good singing may not really get into the depth of the place that I'm used to, but they still will bring me in because we have miracles and we have things that tangible things that happen when I come.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:12

Can you do you go until the Lord stops speaking? Or once you start, you could go as long as you want. You just you just put a time frame on it for yourself.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:24

I never put a time frame on it. Um, what I what I try to do is get the word out. I try to preach, preach the word because we're begotten by the word and the word builds faith in the atmosphere.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:33

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:33

You know, and then once once I know, once I have that signal based upon the response of the congregation, once I know when I have that signal, okay, it's time to start ministering in the Holy Ghost, and you've been at service this week, you see it yourself. Once it's time to start ministering in the Holy Ghost, I start. But when God tells me to stop, I'm done. I'm pulling the ripcord, I'm out, I'm grabbing my Bible, and I'm going to sit in the office. I'm done. I'm getting away. Okay. I know when it's time to shut it off.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:59

Okay, so you you follow the Lord in that, not and not just keep going.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:03

Yes, ma'am. Okay. Because you'll get in a dangerous place. You you it's it's dangerous when you start ministering outside of what God wants you to do. Like you can operate in that gift, sure, because you're anointed, but you you end up in a different place, you did end up in a different place, in a in a dangerous place, rather.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:17

Yeah, okay. Um, on a scale of one to ten, how much does the church overall our movement understand the prophetic ministry?

SPEAKER_03 1:36:30

I would say that right now, where we are currently in 2026, we're getting better. But I would say we were probably we are probably on a six. We we've been at a five where five is the number where it's kind of 50-50. It's between, of course, it's between one and ten. We had some that believed, we had a lot that didn't believe, so it kind of balanced itself out. Now in 26, and I talked about this on my last podcast with Greg Dansby, we are now starting, there's a lot of conferences that are starting to happen where supernatural things are happening, people are preaching the gifts of the spirit, et cetera, et cetera. We're having teachings, right? People are asking more. And I'm starting to find it a little really more with the younger generation where they're starting to ask a lot more questions. They're starting, they're being very inquisitive. And we talked about that Saturday. People are starting to be a lot more inquisitive. So I think we are health in a healthy way, we are trending upward towards that 10. I think we're at a six, we're probably gonna get to a seven, eight, and then maybe in the next couple of years we'll get to that 10 where everybody's starting to believe. I mean, I I don't know how you couldn't believe. I said it on one of the podcasts recently. The soup perceiving the Holy Ghost as a supernatural event. If you believe that people perceive the Holy Ghost, how do you not believe the rest of this stuff? I it's it's puzzling to me. It really is.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:45

Yeah, the whole book of market seems as full of all the supernatural, specifically casting out James. Um what's I can say? I was very encouraged to know that the UPCI had a five-fold ministry committee. Um, is that fairly new?

SPEAKER_03 1:38:03

Yeah, that's coming in the last that came about before Brother Winslow died. I think that's been around five, five or six years now, I think. Four or five years is somewhere in that range. And yes, that he was actually a part of that in the infancy of it. He was actually on the committee um and was repres he was representative of the prophet during that. So I he's kind of laid some of the groundwork for the prophetic in that.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:26

Yeah, that that's encouraging, I think, for our our organization as a whole. Brother Leva, what do you still want to see God do in your ministry? Where do you want to where do you want your ministry to go?

SPEAKER_03 1:38:42

Sister, I I am perfectly content doing what I'm doing. I I want to see the miracles. I want to continue to see the miracles. I want to raise my kids to be good people, good citizens. I love my family. I just I want all my family to be successful and ministry-wise, you know, to go back to the question. Um I just I want to continue to see the miracles. I want to continue to preach faith. Whatever God has for me, I'm I'm willing to do. But as it stands right now, I sit in a place of perfect contentment in knowing who I am in God and what I'm supposed to do. And what I'm doing right now is exactly what I'm supposed to be.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:23

Yeah, that's a really good place to be. Yeah. Um, so this podcast got started for backsliders. Um, and so usually I end the podcast with a couple questions. Since you're not a backslider, I can't ask you those questions. But what would you say to the person out there that just happens to watch it that's not going to church or quite wondering about God? What would you say to somebody that's looking for the Lord?

SPEAKER_03 1:40:00

Foremost, God loves you. You're looking for God because uh there's a void in you that's that and you know that there's something missing. And so in your pursuit of God, know this the God that you're after loves you and loves you dearly. And it is it is his will that you live for him, it is in his will that he gives you a beautiful future. And so if you're in this in the infancy stages of searching, keep searching, knock, and it's gonna be opened. Seek it, you're going to find. God wants to be found because he wants to love you. That's that's what this entire thing is about, the love of God. He wants to give you what you've been longing for and what you're looking for.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:44

How can we pray for you? How can we pray for you and your ministry? Um, do you have any requests for anybody that watches this that might be familiar with you?

SPEAKER_03 1:40:58

I just when you pray, call my call me and call my name in prayer and say, God, keep your hand on brother Leva. That's it. I just want God to keep his hand on me. I want to do his will. I want to be what he wants me to be, and I just I want to do what he tells me to do. That's it. That's a simple prayer that I ask you to pray. God, keep your hand on Brother Leva, keep your hand on his family.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:20

And if there's any ministers that would like to invite you to their church, um uh do they reach you through your local church? Do they reach you through you know you're not on social media? Um, we don't have to broadcast it out, but I guess they could reach out to the podcast, I guess. They can reach out to you.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:39

They can reach out to your podcast, you can put them in touch with me, that'll be fine. Um, and if anybody wants to go uh subscribe to the Elisha Generation podcast on YouTube, go go check us out there. We've got some really, really good content.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:51

Yeah. Okay. Brother Leva, I really, really appreciate you. I appreciate your ministry to me the few times I've seen you and tonight. Thank you very much for the word. Um it's it's nice to be seen. So I appreciate that a lot. Um, and and I really appreciate you being here tonight. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:13

Thank you for having me. This was so this was so awesome. Thank you. It was an honor.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:17

We are so glad you joined us. If you have a story of redemption or have worn the label of a backslider, we would love to hear from you. If you'd like to support our ministry, your donation will be tax deductible. Visit our website at theredeemedbackslider.org. We hope you will tune in for our next episode.