Structural Faith: Built to Last or Built to Fail (Bonus Episode from Reviving Recovery: Unbound)

Structural faith, Holy Spirit transformation, Christian recovery, and inner healing are at the heart of this bonus episode of Faithfully Invested with Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne, drawn from Allen’s book Reviving Recovery: Unbound. If you’re exhausted from trying harder—stuck in cycles of control, fear, addiction, anxiety, or spiritual defeat—this episode is a wake-up call: God isn’t interested in behavior modification. He’s after real transformation from the inside out.

We talk about why head knowledge alone doesn’t change what you believe at the core, how our belief structures are often built from life experiences and trauma, and why freedom requires a truth-providing encounter with Jesus through the Holy Spirit. This is about surrender, rebuilding the foundation of your life, and learning to live from victory—not for victory.

In this episode:

• Structural faith: what you’re building your life on
• The trap of self-sufficiency and the “throne” of control
• The Holy Spirit: helper, guide, and Spirit of truth
• Conviction vs condemnation and why it matters
• Action steps + 7 daily declarations for daily surrender
• Invitation to join Reviving Recovery: Unbound (12-week cycles)

📌 Next Step: Identify what you’re trying to control and release it to the Holy Spirit—then practice “listen, wait, obey.”

Reviving Recovery: Unbound is now online! We worship, we learn, we break out into gender specific groups and we journal with each other and with the Holy Spirit. If your heart is stirring listening to this, pay attention Healing begins here. Click the link below to join us at Reviving Recovery:Unbound.

www.revivingrecovery.com

See you in the room!

Come check out the Association of Christian Business Women!  We'd love for you to join this growing community of Kingdom-minded women.  Visit our website at www.acbw.org

Association of Christian Business Women
Empowering women in business through faith, community, and leadership.

Transcript

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (00:01.218)
Welcome back friends. I'm Stacy Jo and I'm here with Allen and we are here for another bonus episode from his book, Reviving Recovery Unbound. So today we're talking about something that might sound a little construction related at first, you know, because he is in construction. It's structural faith, but I promise you that we are not building any houses here today. We're definitely not building a house, but we are talking about something that's incredibly important. We're talking about.

the foundation, what we're building is a foundation of your life. And if you know anything about construction, unless you have a firm foundation, you're not building nothing of any worth. So and here's what I love to talk about through Unbound. And it really just gets to the heart. It's not about behavior modification, it's about real transformation. It's not self help.

It's not, it's not, you know, thinking it through life strategies. It's none of that. It's more than knowledge. And we're really going to nail that down. And this episode, it's about lasting, authentic, inside out transformation.

Yeah, you know, before we dive in, I want to share something. When Allen first went through his transformation process many years ago, I watched him change in ways that honestly shocked me. And it wasn't about you trying harder or being more disciplined. mean, something fundamentally shifted inside of you. Yeah, I'll just be right up front. Trying harder doesn't work. It's just emphatically frustrating.

and anxiety, depression, what have you. That's what trying harder brings us. And we're not looking for that. Like I said, we're not looking for behavior modification. We're interested in spiritual transformation because God...

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (02:09.57)
the Father, our Creator, He's not interested in modification. He's not interested in modifying. He's interested in transforming us from the inside out. And Unbound, Unbound, it's all about what we believe.

We believe that Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit's presence and power restore our lives. We believe that we fight from victory, not for victory. We fight from victory. And that's a totally different paradigm. Yeah. And I love that distinction because so many of us are exhausted. I don't know. Are you exhausted from fighting for victory? I spent years being exhausted fighting for victory, you know, trying to achieve it through my own

strength, but you're saying that victory is already won. Well, I'm saying that God's Word says that the victory is already won. I'm doing, you I didn't, I say in the very beginning of Unbound that the Holy Spirit wrote this with my heart and my hands.

And there's nothing in Unbound that's not from a biblical perspective, in context, biblical perspective. And so that's exactly what I'm saying. We're saying that Jesus already won, because that's what the Word said. What He said is, it is finished. The battle is finished. And now we're just learning to live from that place of victory.

learning to live from that place of victory, from his victory, standing in his victory. And that starts with understanding something that might seem counterintuitive at first, we have to recognize our own powerlessness before we can access his power. Yeah, and that's completely opposite from what the world tells us. And the world says, be strong, be self sufficient.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (04:13.55)
Pull yourself up by the bootstraps. And we were talking before this, what does that really mean? I don't really know. But nonetheless, is self-sufficiency. The world says we have to be strong. We have to get through this. You can do it. You can do it. Yeah. What Unbound says is before we can...

Before we can come to believe in God's dynamic power, we must first come to believe that we're presently void of that power. We're void of any power to make the necessary changes towards sane manageability. In other words, we're not in control and we must yield.

to the one who is in control. Yeah. So if you're listening to this today and you're at the end of your rope or if you've tried everything and nothing has worked.

you're finally ready to admit that you can't do this on your own, that's actually the perfect, the perfect place to be. Prime position. Prime position. Right on. Prime time, baby. And why is that? Why is it prime position when you are at a place that says, I'm at the end of my rope, I'm done, I can't handle this on my own? Yeah, that's where I was. And it's a great question, because that's where faith begins. Faith in someone other than myself.

it's an opportunity to shift my eyes from me, who epically failed in trying to fix me, to the one who created me. And we say in Unbound that no one repairs the creation like the Creator. So yeah, when I reach the end of myself, that's when faith begins. That's when I said, God, I don't got this.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (06:02.71)
I need you to get those. It's not when we got it all figured out, but when we're ready to trust the someone, the one, actually the three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit greater than ourselves. We gotta trust someone greater than ourselves to make the changes that we can't make. Unbound reminds us that faith doesn't mean that we got the whole God thing figured out.

You don't have the whole God thing figured out. you think you got it figured out, then you're probably struggling with pride and you need to give that to the Lord. so it does again, it doesn't mean that we have the whole God thing figured out. I certainly hope you don't have a whole God thing. I mean, wouldn't.

we would consider ourselves a god then, right? I we had the whole god thing figured out. That's beside the point. That's beside the point. our initial move is to come to believe. Believe.

What do you believe? Everything hinges on what we believe. Everything rises up from what we believe. It's what we believe. It's not that we come to understand, but that we come to believe. Well yeah, because faith believes, especially when we don't understand. Yeah.

I love that. So today, whether you're brand new to faith or you've been walking with God for decades, it doesn't matter. But we're going to talk about how to build your life on a foundation that actually holds. And I'm ready. Let's jump. Let's just jump into this. We're going to get into it. Let's get into it. Are you ready to get into it? We're jumping in.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (07:49.176)
So let's identify the core challenge that Unbound addresses. And it's a big one. Most people are trying to transform their life through knowledge and behavior modification alone. And that's not working. Be honest. It's not working. Well, break that down for us. What do you mean by knowledge?

and behavior modification. I'm not bad mouth and knowledge, man. We were knowledge is good. You know, higher education is good. But what what our ministry

presents is a substantial biblical truth and knowledge of that biblical truth. But that knowledge alone, it's not going to lead us to our goal of spiritually transformed lives. Reading, learning, and knowing and applying God's Word is essential. That's all good stuff. Memorizing Scripture, posting inspirational passages, using Bible verses in conversation, this is all great stuff.

but it's not transformational. In and of, by themselves, it's not transformational. Head knowledge is valuable. And most every aspect of our lives, head knowledge is valuable. it's only gonna lead us to behavior modification. At the very best, it's gonna lead to knowledge, it'll only lead us to modifying.

Just adding more information is just gonna lead to modification. But that's not transformational. No, it's not. I mean, learning, you know, learning scripture, memorizing scriptures, and posting inspirational passages. Right. I mean, obviously they're not transformational. No, and here's why. Our belief structures are built on the foundation of our life experiences.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (09:44.162)
We've drawn what we believe from our experiences. Just in putting more information into our brains has little to no effect in shifting what we've come to believe.

experientially. So give us an example. I think people need to really understand the distinction. Yeah, I could go down a large rabbit hole here. know you could, but we don't have hours. We just need a brief overview of the distinction. How about that? So let's just go with this. you've experienced some abuse in your life.

And from that abuse from that trauma, you're carrying burdensome lie based beliefs from that. It's not necessarily what I've learned experientially and what we teach in Unbound. And it's not necessarily the experience, nor the wound, nor the trauma itself. It's the lie that we've carried away from that, which most often comes back to a derivative of not good enough.

or it's my fault, or something which comes back to not good enough. And that's what this experience has caused us to believe in our core and everything grows from that. And in that situation, you can go to conventional counseling and a counselor will tell you that the abuse is not your fault. And while that's true, it's not transformational.

It's good information, but it's not transformation. It's just adding information and it doesn't affect the experiential belief that you formed through the abuse, through the trauma. So you can say, you can say it's not my fault until you're blue in the face, but deep down you may still feel like it was. Yeah. Until you, until you believe until, until there is an opportunity to

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (11:50.198)
to trade off that I say we gotta have a counter, lie altering, truth providing experience. We gotta have an experience and in Unbound we have experience with the Holy Spirit, with Christ Jesus our Lord. And that might sound extravagant.

but we've lived it. Yeah, we serve an extravagant God and we have we serve an extravagant God, but we need to we need to to counter the experience, the detrimental experience we've been through. We got to have that lie altering truth providing experience. Until we do our beliefs are going to remain the same. And it's crucial.

It's this is crucial that we we what we authentic because what we authentically believe it's either going to advance or it's going to hinder our progression toward healing.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (12:54.038)
Yeah. We can't just think our way to freedom. No. We can't just think our way out of it. We need an encounter. We need an alternative experience with the truth, the capital T truth, the J.C. truth, Jesus Christ. Right. And that's where the Holy Spirit comes in, right? Because the chapter

spends a significant amount of time talking about who the Holy Spirit is and what He does. Yeah, and I think it's important to acknowledge that some people might have questions about the Holy Spirit. When I was putting it together, our pastor, Pastor Todd, he read through it and he's like,

You name the catalyst of healing as the Holy Spirit and yes, that's true, he goes, but people don't...

really know about the Holy Spirit. goes, I think you should elaborate on that. And I was like, great idea. That's why you're the big man. Yeah, and I'll just, you to add to that, like I grew up as a Methodist. And although we said Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we never really talked about the Holy Spirit. Like really ever. Right. I really had no clue.

what role the Holy Spirit played in my faith. don't know if any widely taught in the Big C American Church. No. It's not. And I heard someone say, I forget who said it, and don't take offense to this, but they don't mention it because they might be afraid it'll show up. But the fact is, what the truth says, what the Word says, is that He doesn't have to show up. We don't have to conjure the Holy Spirit. the Word says is that the...

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (14:45.004)
the Father will send you the Spirit of truth who will bring you all the truth. He's with us. He resides in us. So, but anyway, it's important for us to acknowledge the questions about the Holy Spirit. Who is He and why should we trust Him? And these are legitimate questions because people don't know. And as a, I'm gifted as a teacher.

I want to teach people who the Holy Spirit is. And we share in Unbound.

because I've experienced it personally. And the chapter says that he's the one, this chapter, we're talking about the chapter entitled Structural Faith, and it says, and this is, we take this from,

unbound, we take a…nobody explains the Holy Spirit like Jesus does in John 14 and John 16. So, but in unbound we say that He's the one who lets me know to go right when I think I should go left. In the Old Testament, He's the still small voice. Jesus explains His role

perfectly, you know, because Jesus was perfect in the Gospel of John. Jesus says, I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper and that he may be with you forever, the Spirit of truth. Yeah. So the Holy Spirit is our helper. And according to the chapter, or according to Unbound as a whole,

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (16:25.036)
The Holy Spirit does several things. First, He convicts us of sin. He doesn't condemn us.

but he convicts us and there's a difference there. There's a huge difference because condemnation crushes you. It will crush you and conviction guides you towards truth. So think about the difference there. Do you want to be crushed or do you want to be guided? I want to be guided. It's a differentiation between the voices because there's our voice in our head, there's the voice of the Holy Spirit when we

we decide to listen to that and there's the voice of the enemy. And the difference between, and ours sometimes sounds depending on, know, depending. You know, we could side with the spirit or side with the enemy. But the difference is condemnation and conviction. Negativity, manipulation, or positivity and, you know, hey,

Chill out, dude. Follow me. Right. And obviously the condemnation would come from the enemy and the conviction, the positivity, the spontaneous creativity, that's going to be from the Holy Spirit. So, you know, second, he carries Christ's righteousness into us. He does. And then third, he teaches us and reminds us of Jesus's teaching.

And then lastly, you know, he guides us into all truth, the capital T truth. And the chapter says that because there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit has disarmed Satan's condemnation against believers. And that is powerful. It is powerful. And here's the beautiful thing about the Trinity that Unbound emphasizes. The Father has a plan for each of us. Our Creator, Father God.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (18:31.161)
has a plan for each of us. Jesus offers righteousness into that plan and the Holy Spirit within us, within us, He communicates, He discloses the plan to us, the Father's plan to us when we decide to listen, align, and abide. Listen, align, and abide.

And those are three active choices that we have to make. Right. And I usually usually have to fight and I'm actually fighting myself from saying it now, but not too hard. That's an a line in a bite. Anyway, I knew I knew exactly what you were thinking. Anyway. But that brings us, you know.

into a challenge that most people face. Yeah, they're not willing to give up control. We're, we're, we are, we're stubborn bunch, aren't we? Sometimes. Those humans, are, we are God's prized possessions, prized creations and possessions. Yeah. But,

We have a hard time releasing control and unbound puts it bluntly. We're trying to be God in our own lives. Little G God. And we're terrible at it.

Not not good God. Not we are not good gods of our own lives. Right. So let's we're not mad about let's talk about the struggle to control our own lives for a minute. think there I think this is where a lot of our listeners are going to see themselves. And I know there's times where I see myself in that place. I struggle to

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (20:29.804)
with the control of my own life. And I think, you know, obviously we're human, we're flesh.

But you quote a preacher in the chapter who said something pretty memorable. Yeah, I heard this years ago. And our youngest daughter turned us on to Matt Chandler. Is that who turned us Veronica? turned us on to Matt Chandler years ago. And then I then I was really I really had this Matt Chandler phase. And I was like, dude, this guy beat brain cancer. He's awesome. And listen to him preach the word. And then I kind of got away from him.

And then as I as I discovered Kyle Thompson and his undaunted life of man's podcast and Joby Martin, hey, guess who's hanging out with those two? Right. Matt Chandler. But years ago, I heard Pastor Matt Chandler of the Village Church of Flower Mountain, Texas. He said.

that even though people saw him as a successful husband, father, and church leader, he proved to be quite a crappy God. And those are his words, not mine. But it's so true, we as humans, we're not meant to sit on the thrones of our own lives. What we're meant to do is in humility yield our life's throne, which is a metaphor for control.

We're meant to yield our throne to the powerful truth and life of Christ Jesus alone. Yeah. And the chapter asks a really convicting question. And that question is, how does your throne look? So talk about the different thrones that people might be sitting on right now. Yeah, I think this is so good.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (22:19.148)
The chapter gives several examples. Maybe maybe we're sitting on the throne of co dependency, trying to control an uncontrollable situation. Co dependency is trying often seen as trying to control someone else's behavior. So they were sitting on the throne of co dependency and when you should be exercising healthy accountability instead.

Maybe you're deep on the dark throne of fear and addiction because you know they go hand in hand Believing the lie that everything is going to be alright if you just numb a little more meanwhile you can tend to continuously spiral downward Yeah, or maybe you're high atop a corporate working throne

And you believe that everything will be all right when you just hit that next level. That next level, man. It's all I need. All right. Just if I can get that promotion, if I can get that raise, if I can get that client, whatever it is. I remember a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Northeastern Ohio.

galaxy and of all its own. Yeah, I was I was fresh out of high school, didn't go didn't go to college and one, one to this job. And I was that that job for a couple of years. And I, and I and man, I really needed a raise man. And I told the I was friends with the at the time the administrative coordinator there, a dude named Chuck, I was like, Chuck.

This is so funny to me now. If I can, if I can just make nine bucks an hour, things are going to be great. Wow. Nine bucks an hour. I, if I can hit nine bucks an hour, smooth sailing, baby. Wow. Anyway, I it was a long time ago. Yeah. You might've just dated yourself in far off galaxy. know, anyway, in any case, you know,

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (24:25.888)
When we're sitting on our own throne, there will never be lasting satisfaction. Yeah, there's no lasting satisfaction as we pursue our own throws. Only the need for more. And I realized that once I hit nine bucks, man, I actually got nine and a quarter. I was pleased as punch for about two months. And I was like, man, I I could, I'd be great if I could just make 10 bucks an hour. But when we're sitting on our own throne, just, we just more.

More, more, we need more control, more achievement, more numbing, more whatever. It's absolutely insatiable. It never ends. The never ending pursuit of more. When we think we're in control and just let it go because you never were in control. Well, and it goes to to.

insanity. I mean, the chapter defines insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result like a like a rat on the wheel, right? Or it also I think you describe it as extreme foolishness or irrationality. in contrast, sanity is simply the ability to respond and react reasonably and rationally. Yeah, that's that's correct. The difference between insanity and sanity is whether we're done playing God.

Are we done playing God in our present disarray? Unbound asked the question, where does your willingness reside? Are you willing to keep doing the same thing or are you willing to try something different? Yeah, and I love how the chapter frames that choice. It says, are we willing to faithfully embrace such a profound paradigm shift?

when we can answer yes to that, then we can prepare for our new beginnings, and trust that our best days reside ahead of us, right? is yet to come. And some people might not in not some people might not understand what a paradigm is. And apparently, just a paradigm shift is, is how we see things a paradigm is our worldview, how we see things. So in and if we're stuck on on

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (26:44.214)
If we're stuck in control, if we're stuck on sitting on our own thrones, then we need to paradigm shift from ourselves to the one who created us. But the reality is that saying yes means new beginnings.

I like what our buddy Landon says, when you say yes, you never have to guess. When you say no, then you'll never know. If you say no, that's the opportunities that God places in front of us. When you say yes, you never have to guess. And when you say no, if you say no, you'll never know. That's right. That's good. I just got that from Landon Allen. And that dude's he's pretty cool. like Landon.

But saying so saying yes, we can welcome in new beginnings, but saying no, and just it just we just keep going in our present disarray that insanity cycle that produces seemingly endless life challenges. Like the the Groundhog Day thing. In other words, yes begins a new journey. Right gets us on a on a new

journey, a new path, right? A more narrow path. And no, just keeps leading us into the same old cyclical insanity.

And obviously we're not saying there's not going to be challenges. If you say yes. I mean, the chapter says there's absolutely, you know, just as the Bible says in this world, you will face trouble. Yeah. I was just going to say that Jesus never said rain to rain. Hey, come follow me. Rainbows and puppy dogs over here, man. He never said that. No. we're absolutely going to face challenges, but there are profound teachable moments to learn and grow through those challenges.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (28:44.352)
And that end of itself is a completely different paradigm. Completely different. And this is backed up by scripture. As I was going through Unbound and as I was going through scripture, I was like, this has to remain in context. This has to be 100 % backed by scripture because scripture is the truth, the God-breathed word.

that He wants us to live by. Like what Coach Tom Mullen said years ago, this is the playbook. This is our playbook. This is how we live our lives. So it's backed by, Annette, what you were just saying, it's all backed by Scripture. Unbound is backed by Scripture showing us that God is consistently, from the Old Testament to the New Testament, a reference to sitting on His throne.

the Old Testament prophets, to the New Testament authors, they all affirm that God is enthroned in the heavenly realms and Jesus is seated at His right hand, at the Father's right hand. So where does that put the Holy Spirit then? Well, right, so if two persons of the Trinity are confirmed as enthroned in heaven.

Wouldn't it make sense to yield our damaged thrones to the one who can actually make a difference? I mean, it just it makes sense. That's the question. does make sense when you when you're willing to get off of that throne. It makes sense when you're when you've had enough. It makes sense.

And that puts the Holy Spirit right here with us. Yeah. Well, that's that's what the word says. Right. He says that my father will send you the spirit of truth who will bring you all the truth. He's the advocate. He's the counselor. He's your helper. And this is where it gets beautiful. Yeah, this is where

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (30:50.388)
Spirit isn't distant. This isn't...

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (30:58.796)
He's here with us.

Jesus said in John's gospel that the Father will send you the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, who will teach us all things and remind us of everything that Jesus said and taught. And like I said earlier, He's the one that says, hey, hey, I know you want to go right, but I'm telling you, left is the way you want to go.

Well, his way is always right. That's what I'm well, I see what you did there. You got me there. I gotcha. But.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (31:46.682)
He teaches us all things, Spirit of Truth, all the truth, and it reminds us, because I've just been sitting and I've...

Sometimes in study, sometimes not in study, but maybe I'm just sitting in despair. Maybe I'm having a tough day because it happens. You know, remember, it's not rainbows and puppy dogs. Jesus said, you will have trouble, but take heart, have courage. I have overcome the world. And then the Spirit will remind me of a passage. And then I'll go check that out. that's.

Hey, look at that. He knows what he's talking about. It lifts me up. The Holy Spirit's here to walk with us and counsel us in the way that we were created to walk with Him. Yeah, so He's not just sitting on a throne in heaven somewhere. No. I mean, He's here. He's ready to sit on our throne. He's on a side The throne of our heart.

and guide us down a better path than maybe what we've previously chosen.

I don't know. I'm grateful for the path that the Holy Spirit is leading me down right now because I was on a completely different path many years ago. Yeah, as was I. Yeah, and we can get into all of those, we won't. You can actually actually I'm going to I'm going to plug the book because you can actually read part of my testimony in the book called

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (33:25.934)
I had to stop and think. leadership, stepping joyfully into God's calling. And it is 24 different women's stories of their journey. And my testimony is in there. Testimony of 23 amazing other women.

I would love for you to pick it up. You can get it on Amazon. I'll drop the link in the right on. it just became number one bestseller. Five times. times. Five times. Five categories. Five different categories. Number one bestseller. Yeah.

So yeah, check it out. Read my story, because I was definitely on a different path back then. And there's pieces of my story in Unbound and a couple of other books that we'll talk about another time. But leadership, just looking at the women who had an opportunity and actually being in the house as you guys put this together and seeing the struggles and hearing about it. it is a page turner.

And not just to read the stories, but to be inspired by the stories, to be inspired, to have your heart lit up, to see where these ladies came, where the Lord carried these ladies out of and to where they are today. So yeah, lead, hirship, good stuff there. Because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth who guides us into all truth. That's it, and never get tired of saying that. Never get tired of believing that.

You know, I put in that truth is a poet that truth opposes the lies that we've believed through our bondage, the resultant bondage, having come through the, the trauma, and the whatever it may be, whatever your bondage may be. And then unbound goes, unbound gives a gentle encouragement that

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (35:33.87)
And you need to dethrone yourself from your...

You need to dethrone, one of the wisest decisions I ever made was kicking myself off my own throne. And sometimes I get back and then I gotta kick myself off the own throne and I gotta humbly honor the Holy Spirit onto my life's throne. So I encourage you to dethrone yourself, brothers and sisters, and welcome the Holy Spirit. Yield your throne to the Holy Spirit. It's the most responsible decision.

ever made. It's the most and it will be the most life altering decision that you will ever make to to yield to the spirit.

Wow, that's a bold statement. You the most responsible and life-altering decision you'll ever make. That's bold. Right. Well, I wasn't changing any part of my life, and I certainly wasn't responsible during those years of my life. And he has recreated me. He deconstructed me, helped me tear down idols and discover my identity. And that's because that's what he does. Yeah. Why don't you tell us a little bit of your

I mean the chapter includes a powerful testimony, your testimony, about the day that you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior. And I think it's worth noting in this episode. Yeah, this really defines the power of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and how he...

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (37:08.842)
This little bit is how he, the day that I received Christ, I received the Holy, the day that I accepted Christ as my Savior, of my own volition, made the decision myself that, I can't do this. I have made a wreck of my life. I want more than this. And I cried, Jesus, I need you. I need you to help me. And.

and he sent me the Holy Spirit. And what happened that day that I received Christ, I had a whore, I was in alcoholism, I was in drug addiction, I was, and this is about the heinous pornography addiction.

I went home the same day that I received Christ. was living in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and I turned on, I was in a pornography addiction. So what do you do after you receive Jesus? And when you're in a pornography addiction, you go home and you turn on the pornography. And that's what I did. And what my point is, is that it instantly appeared different to me.

instantly because he sent me the Holy Spirit of truth. I became indwelled by the Holy Spirit of truth and he revealed the porn as the demeaning filth that it is and I haven't viewed it since, that was in 2009. He removed immediately on the day, wasted no time, removed the desire.

view pornography. Yeah, shut it down and clean the computer. And now is it? Yeah, that's powerful. And you didn't try harder or use more willpower. I mean, he just came in and removed the desire. He removed the desire. That's exactly what he did. He removed the desire. And I love this part.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (39:18.838)
And this was me brand new in crisis and I almost audibly I heard him say, now that I have your attention, son, we should keep moving. Come on, follow me.

Did you catch that? He said, I was in a very lonely place at that time.

And if you didn't catch that, let me help you catch that. He said we should keep moving.

When I extended faith, I was assured that I was no longer walking alone. He was waiting for me to believe so that he could do for me what I could not do for myself. Yeah. And since then? Since then, challenge have been seen as teachable moments. You gotta learn. You gotta learn and you grow and we're gonna face challenges.

coming to Christ doesn't mean we won't face challenges. It means we're not alone in those challenges. It means that there's a question to ask in there. Lord, what am I supposed to learn here? What do want to show me here? These are the teachable moments that we live and grow from. And that's what faithfully builds a structured life worth living. Unbound says it this way.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (40:55.974)
I say it this way in Unbound that I'm no one special. I'm just a guy who had had enough. I was done. I was waving the white flag. I was time to surrender. And I decided to believe and trust that God had my best interest in mind when He created me.

That was huge for me. I tried real hard to be that atheist guy. And I was I was agnostic at best. But but man he

He shifted my perspective and extended, and my extended faith toward him when I chose to fix my eyes on him, it changed my life entirely. Yeah, it did. So let's talk solutions. I mean, what does the chapter tell us that we need to do in a practical sense to build that structured faith?

structural faith. Well, first and foremost, we need to recognize that we're not going to change ourselves through our own power. We got to embrace our powerlessness. The chapter says we must honestly come to believe and trust in the power of our creator, Father God, Christ Jesus, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And upon our confession of faith, the Trinity begins to restore our

our life structure toward manageable conditions and beyond unmanageability. So our first move is admitting we need help. And the second is confessing faith in Jesus. And then what comes after that? Right, but before we move, I just feel that we...

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (42:54.496)
Our core declaration is our first move toward freedom is a pliable heart for the Lord, an openness to His divine perspective, and a willingness to embrace new or renewed beliefs so that the Spirit's renewing of our hearts and minds may transform us. It's all about Him.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (43:25.206)
Not so much about us. Releasing control. And that's what we're talking about here. We need to understand that transformation doesn't come from more knowledge. It comes from Holy Spirit-empowered experiences that change what we believe at the core. At the core, our Unbound Ministry offers Spirit-infused prayer sessions.

where trained partners, trained prayer partners, help people engage with the Holy Spirit and guide them to the root of the emotional pain. Now got a few stories here we're not gonna share at this time, you can read about, can, anyway, you can read about them in a couple of books. One's called,

navigating your storm and the other one is called Fit to Fight. You can find those on Amazon. So let me explain it in this way. Prayer partners sit with you when you're ready to embrace those challenging emotions. And together you prayerfully engage the Holy Spirit to guide you to the emotions root belief.

And then once that believed lie, because we are believing a lie, once that's revealed, we have the opportunity to see where Jesus is in that situation and what He has to offer within that emotional scene. And I've had some experiences with that as well, and it's pretty incredible.

what happens when you see Jesus in that scene. It's pretty incredible when when you meet with Jesus. Yeah, it's pretty incredible what happens when we. When we decide to follow the Holy Spirit, yeah, and where he wants to take us. That's right. So right to add on, add on to that, add on to what you were saying there. Upon.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (45:31.726)
His seen, heard or felt presence, Jesus's seen, heard or felt presence, we have an opportunity to exchange, to trade off the debilitating lie that we've been believing for His truth, to receive truth from the truth. Then as we receive the truth, that's where the healing's at.

And we can test the trade and we see how our emotional reaction has shifted from despair to peace, for an example. We're not gonna tell you how your emotions are gonna shift. This is just how we've shifted in our experiences. Everybody has a different experience. Everybody's gonna have a different shift, but it's the same truth we're meeting with, the capital T truth, who's Jesus Christ. And as we experience this,

transformation. It's an experiential transformation. It's per that we personally receive from the truth, the way in the life. Yeah. And that's not just head knowledge.

That is true heart transformation. That's what we're saying. Yeah, that's it. And we're not just saying that we didn't we didn't read it in a book to write it in another book. This is this is we're talking about personal experiences here. This is this is firsthand information firsthand experience. I'm not interested. We're not interested in rehashing someone else's information. We're sharing our experiences that can be your

experiences when you're ready to trust and believe and trust that the Holy Spirit Jesus Christ can do for you what you can't do for yourself and our unbound ministry provides access to those specific prayer sessions because all we need to do is invite the Holy Spirit into our pain and ask him to reveal the lies that we're believing. He will reveal it's about his revelation

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (47:48.544)
He'll reveal the lies that we're believing. And then we have an opportunity to trade that lie. The question really is right there, when He reveals the lie, when He takes us back to that memory, and He reveals the lie,

Where's Jesus? Where is Jesus? And I just, I led a session yesterday. There was a, this guy's like, I don't see him. I was like, well.

Jesus, are you with him? Jesus, would you reveal yourself? And sometimes as facilitators, we gotta navigate around some blockades, some former beliefs. And we prayed through it. We pleaded the blood and we...

removed the blood and the power, the dunamis power, the dynamic power of the Holy Spirit and Jesus, removed the blockade, removed the logic. And then here comes Jesus. Here he is, just standing in the corner. There he was, and he was ready to...

show him all the truth. He was ready to exchange that truth. He was ready to receive the lie. We got to release the lie to Jesus. That's my point here. There may be blockades. There may be challenges in the session. But I have yet for

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (49:34.836)
I have yet for him not to show up in a session that I facilitated. Yeah, whether it be see him or feel him. See, see heard or felt presence. Yes. Right. And as he as he joins us in that emotional that that painful situation, we have an opportunity to release that lie to him. I had one guy say, no, he's going to have to take it from

That's not what the Word says. The Word says we release our pain to Him. So we have a chance to release it to Him. And as we release the lie to Him, now we have…we've released it. We've got clean hands. We've got open hands. We have space to receive His truth. So, Jesus, what is the truth? What is the…

What's your truth on this? What do you have to say here? And as we receive that truth, then he tells the person what the truth is. And then, do you receive it? yeah, yeah, we're receiving that truth. Yes. And this isn't something that we just do once. It's not a one and done.

It's an ongoing journey of listening, aligning and abiding. And it is absolutely transformational. It really is. And, you know, the chapter also talks about yielding our throne to the Holy Spirit. So what does that look like? Practically. Practically. You know, you like practical. what practically what does that look like? It means.

in every area of our lives, relationships, finances, career, health, whatever, that we stop trying to control the outcome and start saying, start asking, start believing and trusting the Holy Spirit and Jesus and our creator, Father God, to do for us what we can't do for ourself. The key question and the challenge is, Holy Spirit, what do want me to do here? What do you want me to learn here? What's your wisdom? What's your

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (51:54.74)
plan and then we get that far when we get that far. Here's the challenge. We got to stop and listen. Right. We got to listen. Are you listening? Because we got to listen and that's challenging for us. It is. I mean, it sounds really simple. And then after we listen, we got to wait.

We might have to wait and we gotta listen, then we gotta wait and then we gotta obey.

You know, it sounds easy. It's challenging. But it's not. I will speak from experience. Pretty challenging. It's not easy. And someone out there is driving going, that ain't easy. Did he say listen, wait and obey? I ain't doing that today. Right.

But it'll change your life. It will. When you're ready to listen to the Holy Spirit. And it's not easy, because it requires us to release control. But here's the promise, in Christ we never walk alone. I love every word that the apostle Paul wrote in all of his epistles.

But right here we're gonna talk about Ephesians 3, 20 and 21, where it says that God can do far more abundantly than all we could ask or imagine. That's the life he's inviting us into. Will you receive it? It's good. You you end almost every chapter with.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (53:52.556)
daily declarations and the.

structural faith chapter has seven declarations at the end. And I would love for you to recite those declarations because they're designed to help us build the structural faith. Right, right. And structural faith is near the center. It's approaching the halfway point of Unbound. And we still through Unbound, we say, even if you don't believe this yet,

Speak this life, these are called life speaking declarations and they're scripturally backed. This isn't the power of positivity. This is speaking God's word over us. That's what speaking life declarations is all about. It's declaring his word over our lives. All right, so number one is today I am moving out in faith.

Number two says, today God's thoughts and ways are way more significant than my own. Number three says, today I welcome a perspective shift from me to God, to Christ, and to the Holy Spirit. I'm shifting my perspective today. Number four says, I say yes to God and begin my progress forward.

away from insanity and toward sanity. And number five out of seven says, today I trust God to do something for me that I can't do for myself. And number six, say with me, today I release my throne to the Holy Spirit for guidance beyond myself. And finally, number seven says, today.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (55:52.57)
I welcome teachable moments to learn and grow in my faith. That's so good. Did you notice that every one of those started with today? And because this is about daily surrender, it's about daily faith, daily yielding of our throne. It's not a one time decision. It is a daily practice. And you will be really good.

or you will feel really good if you put it into practice. Yeah, put it into practice. And this is what Jesus says, if any of you want, if you're going to follow me, you got to deny yourself. Pick up your cross daily and follow me.

So we've covered a lot of ground today. Yeah, we've talked about the difference between head knowledge and heart transformation. We've talked about the Holy Spirit's role in our lives. We've talked about yielding our throne to Him. And now it's time to make it personal. What are you going to do with this? Well, let's give our listeners some very specific action steps that they can take today.

Yeah, today. First, we want to be honest about where you are. Are you at the end of yourself? Have you been trying to manage your life through your own power and it's not working? Been there. Yeah, been there.

done that. This is actually good news. Like we said earlier, you're in a prime position for something new. That means that you're ready for something new. Acknowledge that, embrace that, say it out loud, I can't do this on my own. I need God's power. Amen. And second, if you've never invited Jesus into your life, today might be your day.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (57:55.244)
You know, the chapter emphasizes that your arrival to faith in Christ is the most important, productive decision of your life.

So don't wait on that. you know, say the prayer, tell him, just speak to him and tell him that you believe, Lord, I believe you're the son of God. And I believe that you died for my sins and that I am ready to follow you. I mean, it is that simple. I'm going to say it again. Lord, I believe that you are the son of God, that you died for my sins and that I am ready to follow you. Right. It's a simple

prayer. But it means so much. It is. the first point is recognizing that we are sinners in need of a Savior. Confessing that sin. Lord, I'm a sinner and I need you, Lord Jesus. I confess my sins to you. Lord, I repent of my... And people get freaked out about this and we've mentioned this on other episodes. Lord, I

repent of my sin, and that's, once we confess the sin, we gotta repent of the sin, and all that is is saying, I'm turning the other way. Repent is a 180 degree turn away from our sin toward Jesus. That's all it is. It's changing our mind.

And he will, when we decide to change our, to confess and change our mind and make that 180 and follow him, he will change our hearts. And as we confess and repent, we receive, Lord, come into my life. Come into my life, be the savior, be my, I confess you as my savior, I receive you as my savior, and you watch what he does.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (59:53.129)
radically transform your life from the inside out.

And then you got to identify your throne. You got to identify the throne. It's always we always need to know what the challenge is. What are you trying to control that you need to release? Is it a relationship? Is it a career, an addiction, a fear? Write it down, be specific and then pray and tell the Holy Spirit, spirit, I'm releasing this to you, Lord Jesus, I'm releasing this to you. I am stepping down from my throne and inviting you, Holy Spirit,

to take your rightful place in this area of my life. Yeah, and then commit to speaking those declarations over your life every single day. Print them out, put them on your bathroom mirror, set a reminder on your phone, whatever it takes, but make it a daily practice because structural faith is built one day at a time. One day at a time. And fifth, find someone you can talk to along your journey.

Don't do this alone. Don't try to do this alone. That's counterproductive. Whether you have a trusted friend, a small group, a counselor, a pastor, you need people to pray with you and to encourage you as you build this new foundation. If you're serious, if you're serious about transformation, jump into Reviving Recovery Unbound online group.

Check out the show notes for more information. We're actually getting ready to launch February 2nd. Well, by the time this guy time this be out, it'll it'll already be up. It'll be up. But we're it's going in a perpetual 12 week cycle. So for more information, visit, check out the links in the show notes or visit us at www reviving recovery.com. Yeah.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (01:01:49.684)
I also want to remind you of what the chapter says that authentic healing is just on the other side of our willingness to trust and believe that His power and authority are greater than all we know or imagine. You don't need to have it all figured out. Right. And Unbound asks. We actually don't want you to have it all figured out ever because if you have it all figured out, there's no point. Right. But you just need to be willing.

Willing. Just need to be willing. It's willingness. Faith stems from willingness to believe. Yeah. That's it. And Unbound asks that, asks you, isn't it time for something new? Friends, are you tired of the same old cycles? If you're ready for real change, then your answer is yes. It's time. Yeah. And today, today could be the day.

that you realize that you are also a crappy God. And you need to release your throne. You must release your throne to the one who can actually guide you into the life that you were created to live.

Remember what happened to Allen? The same day he received Christ was the same day that Christ removed what he couldn't remove himself. Years of trying, but he couldn't remove it himself. And God is waiting for you to believe so he can do what you cannot do for yourself. That's the promise. That's the hope.

And one final thing that we'll leave you with. Unbound says, today the choice is yours, not tomorrow, not next week, today. Are you gonna say yes to God and begin your progress towards sanity? Or will you say no and resume the same present insanity cycle? Yeah, we're praying that you'll say yes. We're praying that this is the beginning of a brand new chapter in your life. And we're praying that you'll experience the we.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (01:03:53.07)
Remember the we that Allen talked about? That you'll know that you're not walking alone anymore. If this episode impacted you, please share it with someone who needs to hear it and leave us a five star review. Connect with us on social media. We'd love to hear your story on how God is building your structural faith.

We're not laughing with you. We're laughing at our dog. But until the next time, stay faithful and stay invested because you are not alone. The helper is with you and he is ready to guide you into all truth. And remember when we invest in his kingdom, God brings the increase. God bless you and your friends and family. Have a great day. Have a great day.