Spirit Stream #45 - Overcoming Rejection

In this encouraging Spirit Stream, Nick Griemsmann shares his personal testimony of coming to Christ at age 23 after years of substance abuse, deep rejection, and spiritual searching — and how the simple gospel brought complete deliverance from demons, mental torment, and cult bondage by grace through faith.

Discover life-changing truths about:
• The battle in the mind and emotions — how the enemy uses rejection, fear, and lies to attack
• Grace vs. works illustrated through Cain and Abel: Abel offered a lamb by faith (grace), while Cain offered the work of his hands (self-righteousness, which God rejected)
• Rejecting false identity tied to sin, addiction, or past trauma — you are a new creation in Christ
• The simplicity of salvation: Confess Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:9)
• Renewing the mind, surrendering to God, and finding true identity, healing, and freedom in the finished work of the cross

Nick also talks about his books (Defeating Mental Illness, Becoming God’s Friend, and the children’s book Arm Pets), ministry updates, and how God turns even the darkest seasons into powerful testimonies.

If you’re battling rejection, demonic torment, cult mindsets, addiction, or need fresh hope through the gospel — this stream is packed with encouragement for you.

🙏 Watch until the end for anointed prayer and blessing!

Timestamps:
0:00 - Welcome & Holy Ghost Atmosphere
10:00 - Personal Testimony: Substance Abuse, Rejection & Searching for Truth
25:00 - Supernatural Encounters & Joining the Cult
40:00 - Schizophrenia & Voices
55:00 - Cain & Abel: Grace vs. Self-Righteousness
1:10:00 - The Simple Gospel & Identity in Christ
1:25:00 - Closing Prayer for Deliverance, Healing & Freedom

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hey everybody. This is Nick Grimsman. This is Holy Ghost Television. This is uh Spirit Stream number 45. Redid the graphics a little bit. You can see my uh my armpets uh stuffed animals in the background with uh if you look closely the kids are wearing them. You got the little armpets logo right there, because I have a children's book and I have armpets. And these are they come with a children's book, an arm pet, and they go on the child's arm, like right here, uh, over here. See, and they have a little pocket in the back and everything. These are used to bless children, so you can get those at our website. So when you when you uh purchase one, the money goes back in the ministry to further the kingdom of God, bless a child child, we give them away for free, all sorts of stuff. So armed pets, children's book written by me, and free shipping. So that's at our website, and that's been a vision of mine for many years. You know, you get a vision, and and you think I was talking with some of my friend today, and I was I was talking about uh, you know, about having vision for things, and you think it's supposed to go a certain way, but God takes it around a different way, and it's always better when the Lord does it, okay? Amy G on YouTube, thanks for joining. She says, hi, thank you. Um so yeah, so I'm gonna get right into it, guys, so we can uh we can be uh filled with joy, okay. Tonight I'm gonna share some testimonies and uh try to help you understand more of walking with the Lord. Hi, Annette, good to see you. Thank you for your support of the ministry. Uh YouTube, good evening and blessings. Praise God. All right, so Lord, we thank you for Holy Ghost Television, Spirit Stream 45. And Lord, I thank you that you're just moving us along. And uh this has been a great vision of mine for many years. I don't know what it's gonna look like 10 years from now, but this is where we're at now. And I thank you, Lord. You always tell us not to despise the days of small beginnings. Thank you for Holy Ghost television, the people that support the ministry, the Father's friends, Lord, and I thank you for those that pray for the ministry. I pray for me. And I ask tonight, Lord, that you would use me powerfully to help someone out there to encourage them in the name of Jesus Christ. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Holy Spirit, that you are here. Thank you, Lord, that your angels go forth and minister to people. Thank you that your word is going to go forth and change minds and hearts. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for dismantling strongholds in Jesus' name, amen. So, guys, remember that spiritual, real spiritual warfare is in your mind and in your emotions. Okay, the devil wants you to think it's way up here, or people, right? Or your flesh, all that stuff. But in reality, spiritual warfare is in your mind and in your emotions. Okay, I didn't know this for many years, so I struggled with these big feelings and these big emotions. I used to have uh deep discouragement, and I would look at my circumstances, you know, I wasn't where I wanted to be yet, I wasn't uh you know, prospering like I thought I was supposed to. I was still struggling with things, and I get deeply discouraged because uh because I start going into believing things in my emotions, and you know, I talk about this a lot, but I want you to really get this that your mind is connected to how you feel emotionally, and how you feel emotionally is part of your flesh, okay? It can be part of your flesh. Think of your soul as part of your flesh in a way, okay? It's like a filter system between your spirit and your soul or your body. So the way you feel emotionally can pull you into sinful behaviors. So if you keep thinking about negative things and then you start getting angry at yourself, pretty soon you end up at the bar getting drunk. You're like, how did I get here? It started in your mind, and then it went into your emotions, and then you just agreed with it, and it took you right to the bar where you start over drinking, and pretty soon you're in jail because you got a DUI or whatever, right? So that's why the mind and the emotions, your soul is where the enemy is attacking you. And he uses people, even people close to you in your own household, to get you negative. Okay, to get you thinking you you're not loved, that you know, they reject you, they say that you're a religious person, or they maybe hate you or act like they hate you. Remember, the enemy puts thoughts in people's minds and in their emotions, guys. If you're watching on here, can you uh share the broadcasts? You can follow, subscribe, um, and you know, do that. Cool. All right. So how did I come to Christ? You know, I felt like the Lord wanted me to talk about my testimony. So how did I come to Christ? How did how did how did it work? Um the first thing I the one the the first thing I remember about the Lord was when I was 10 years old, I was like 10 or 11 or whatever, my mom, she took us to some unity church, and it was like um kind of like a new age type place. And the person that was speaking looked like a priest kind of, you know, he had the the thing on, but he's wearing like a cloak and everything, and he was talking about the Bible, right? Because they still talk about the Bible and stuff, and he was talking, he was reading some scriptures from the Bible, and then he started talking about Jesus. And when I was there, he did this prayer to God in the name of Jesus, and I remember sincerely praying it, and I was probably 11 years old, and I said, in you know, in Jesus' name or whatever, and I heard like there was someone who's sitting right next to me, and there was a space between us, between me and my sister, and I heard that I'm always with you. I heard that when I was like 11 years old, and I knew it was God, I just knew it was Jesus sitting next to me on the on the the chair thing, whatever it's called, you know, the pew. And uh I always remembered that, but I didn't live a perfect life, I didn't get saved until I was 23 years old, 22. And so, um, but I always remember that that was always a seed. And there's a number of other seeds, but that one was really uh I I look back and I think, wow, that's amazing how God already knew where I was gonna end up when I'm 45 years old, even when I was a little boy, how he protected me through things and stuff like that. And so throughout my adolescence, I had a deep rejection. I dealt with deep rejection and always wanting to fit in and wanting to be the star uh sports player and all that stuff, wanted everybody to like me. And then I had issues with rejecting other people, so I would reject people, they would reject me, and so this affected my relationships, you know, with girlfriends and things like that. And then I found uh all the uh substances, so I started using substances when I was about real heavy, like almost 16, probably 15, 16. And I started doing a lot of stuff and meeting a lot of weird people, and I was hanging out with older people who are taking me to like frat parties at Arizona State University. I was going to uh different parties with all sorts of people, and I was like this young man, 16. I was hanging out with like 20, 20 and up, 25, 30 year old people sometimes. And this is in the late 90s, and so I was always uh just wanting to kind of seek out a seek out something. I wanted to have a new adventure, okay? Somebody had a new you know, pill to take. I'd take it. Somebody wanted to go do this, I'd want to go to a trip of Mexico, I'd go down there, I'd do anything to try to have fun, which I thought was fun. And in my mind, I thought, you know, um uh later on I got to be what 19 years old. And I thought, you know, I want to be a bartender, I want to work, you know, as a bartender. So I started doing that. And then when I was about 21, uh I remember going to this fancy nightclub in Scotland, Arizona, and they were building it. It was real fancy back then. They were building it was gonna be this great, grandiose place where all the celebrities were gonna go and everything. And I remember going there and knocking on the door. I was telling somebody the other day, I was knocking on the door, I was persistent. I kept knocking on the door at one of those trailer parks, you know, they're not trailer parks, but the trailers outside New Construction where they had all the management. They're doing the hiring for the waiters and the management and the bartend and bar staff and everything. And I remember knocking on the door like every week, telling this guy I wanted to be a bartender of this fancy nightclub, and he's kind of laughing at me. He's like, You you work at a resort, you don't know anything about all you know, club drinks and all that stuff. And I said, I don't care, I'm gonna do it. So I was persistent, and in my heart, all I wanted was to be this nightclub bartender because I thought if I was a nightclub bartender, then I would arrived. I was the cool person because I would go to the nightclubs with my friends and I'd see these guys around the bar and they had the pretty girls and money and and they're having fun. And I thought, wow, that's what I want to be. And if I got this job at this place, then my life would be perfect. Like I would I would be the coolest guy, and you know, and it would fulfill that desire to be loved or liked, or and it really was rejection, you know. I was trying to uh overcome this rejection, so I had to make something of myself. And in my mind at the time, I thought Nike La bartending. So I remember going there and um anyway, I'll I'll skip through that. But when I was bartending, I started seeing demons jump on people, and I didn't know what it was. And uh I saw demons before, but that was when I was on substances, but I'd never seen it when I was at just regular, just working. I would see these demons jump on people, and they were kind of jumping, like real briefly. I saw it, at least I think it was demons. I don't know. You can uh, you know, I don't know. I was 21, I didn't know anything. And I thought they were like demons jumping on these people like across the club. And at the same time, God is working on my heart. Like I I felt like um, I felt like God was calling me, but I didn't know what to do. I went to all these churches. Like, here I was at nightclub bartender, and I was going to uh the Baptist church trying to figure out what Christianity was. I was going on uh AOL Messenger and and going into chat rooms and talking to people who are Muslim, people who were uh in Judaism, uh LDS. I was, you know, they'd knock on my door, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the LDS, I'd talk to them for an hour. I was trying to find truth. And you have to remember, there's billions of people in this world, and everybody wants truth. Okay, everybody in their heart wants truth. Remember Pilate with Jesus? You know, he said, uh, what is truth, right? Remember? You kind of like, what is truth? Because especially nowadays, with all this stuff going on with AI and with Google, you know, with the big corporations, people are starting to wonder what is truth? What was our history? You know, like people are saying, why didn't they tell us this in school? And all like, you know, all this different stuff. What is truth? What really is absolute truth? And it wasn't until I opened the Bible up. I used to read the Bible uh in the bathroom when I had uh roommates when I was a bartender because I was afraid they're gonna find out. And so I hid it in the bathroom, like way behind underneath the sink. And I would grab it and I would read it in the bathroom. Isn't that weird? It's very amazing how and God was pulling me, but I didn't understand the Bible. I didn't understand the Bible at all. I would read Jesus' words and just feel condemned. I'd feel like, wow, I have to forsake all and follow him. I have to um, you know, I have to uh uh um I have to hate my mother and father and my family and follow after him and all this stuff. And so I'm like, wow, how do you do this in your flesh? How do you do this? How do you uh, you know, how do you leave behind everything? How do you begin and not look back, right? Then you're not fit for the kingdom of God. All these uh words that Jesus was saying were going right into my soul, right into my heart, like boom, and I just started feeling really convicted. And so I would try everything to forget about the conviction. I went deeper into substances, you know, all these things. I just kept going, and I and you know, I remember one time I quit drinking for a month. I thought I was like this, oh, I could do it, I can quit drinking. I couldn't go longer in a month. I went one month, couldn't go longer, just pulled me back in because I was in bondage to sin. I was in bondage to this thing. This would pull me, right? Flesh would pull me. And I remember I kept reading the Bible and and it got to a point where I just felt so like bad about myself. Like uh, like I knew I was a sinner. So Jesus' words did what they were supposed to do. Think about that. Jesus was telling the Israelites, he was telling those who were listening to him, that there was no hope outside of believing in Christ, believing on him. There was no hope for them. And so God, you know, God's word worked inside of me even before I was born again. It was leading me to finally get to the place where I give in. And your friends and family are in this same situation, okay? You have to remember, I was not telling anybody about this, except uh I told uh a nun one time I went to talk to a nun about joining the Roman Catholic Church. But what she said was, you know, uh, to be baptized, you have to go to catechism for six months and learn things about the church, then you can be baptized into Catholicism. And and I was thinking, man, I'm like heavily convicted. I'm like doing all these substances, I'm crying in her office. I'm saying, well, what if I die before I get saved, before I get baptized? She's like, oh, well, we we we kind of take the position that God knows your heart. And I'm like, well, but I wasn't baptized. And so Jesus said right here, you have to believe and be baptized. So like, what's going on, right? And so uh I didn't become Roman Catholic. I just was on this search. And if you read my book, if you've read my book, you'll you'll read a uh there's there's a chapter in there called The Monk Walk. So this is becoming God's friend. That's my autobiography. The monk walk is a chapter I wrote about I actually left bartending and I shaved my head bald, and I was gonna go become a Catholic monk. I was gonna go walk to this place, uh this monastery in Kentucky and become a monk. I mean it was a really wild story, guys. It's a really wild testimony. Uh, but here I was, a young man. I didn't know the Bible at all. I didn't, I didn't know anything other than that I was a sinner, and I felt like no one knew the truth. I felt like every organization, like denomination, religion, they all had their own kind of critique of the Bible or uh their own belief of how someone's saved or how they remain saved. How does this work, right? Do you get baptized in water? Do you get baptized as a baby, or can you be baptized as a baby? Do you sprinkle water? Do you get baptized in running water? Do you get baptized in pool? Uh do you have the pastor lay hands on you? Do you uh pray to beads? Do you pray in a carpet? Do you not eat pork? So I was going through all this stuff, guys. Do I like candles? Is Buddha the answer? And you have to remember that there is millions of people, billions, all going through this similar experience. And you might be one of them. You either might be watching this, or maybe in the past you went through a similar thing where you're really searching for truth and you felt like God was tugging on your heart, and you're like, How does this work? And then maybe somebody invited you to church and you got saved. I don't know. But for me, my my whole experience was frustration because I would go to sleep at night and I would lay there and I'd pray, and then I would imagine uh dying. I'd imagine dying. And this crippling fear of darkness forever freaked me out. And every single night I'd feel the same thing. This crippling fear of darkness, like, oh my gosh. And it was the fear of death. Okay? The fear of death, the fear of not existing anymore, literally dying. And it was just this fear just come upon me all you know when I would go to sleep. I'd think, oh gosh, death. Oh, that's so scary. And I had this massive fear. And then anyway, I went through the stuff. I have eventually called that prayer line from that cult, the Tony Alamo cult. You can look it up on YouTube or whatever. Uh, there's TV shows about it and stuff. He died in federal prison in 2017. But I had one of their tracks, like he did this newsletter thing with all his conspiracy theories and anti-religious stuff. And I read it and it was it was like right up my alley. I was into fear, conspiracies, all that stuff. And I read it and I was like, oh, all these conspiracies must be true. And then they had a prayer line on there. Eventually, uh, I just called it because I wanted to join their cult. I didn't call it to get saved, I called it to join their cult because I thought that's where I was supposed to be. But by the grace of God, the lady on the phone, she, you know, like when you're in a cult, I mean, some of you know this, like, or a mini-cult, right? Maybe you've been in a mini cult, like that controlling pastor at that church down the street or something you're at. There's good people in cults, there's real Christians in cults. There's real Christians in a lot of places that you you would think, oh, Christian, well, that's a cult, or that's kind of weird. There's real, there's people in there that are just deceived here, but their heart is for the Lord and they're saved. Okay. And so this lady was one of them. And she she said, Hey, how do you, you know, uh, have you been saved? I was like, I don't know what saved is. What is that? What do I do? She's like, just pray this prayer, and this is you know, you need to confess your sins and confess Jesus, Lord. I'm like, okay, so I did the prayer with her, and man, I got touched by the Holy Spirit for the first time in my life, like really powerfully, and I felt totally forgiven. My conscience, my brain felt better, my heart felt clean, I felt like life was so much better. I was bawling, I was crying. I had a real experience, okay, with God. I got saved. And then I ended up joining this cult because a lot of times when somebody gets saved, they feel that they owe their that's the that's the true church I belong to because that's where I got saved at. So you might be somebody like that. You might have got saved in some weird church, you know, it's just weird leadership and stuff. You got saved there, and you're like, I think I should leave, but I got saved here, so I'm gonna stay. I need to stay because I got saved here. If I leave, you know, I don't know, you know, maybe I lost my salvation or something crazy, right? And so I thought, well, since I got, you know, I prayed on the phone to Jesus with this lady, like this is the place where I need to go. So I go into this cult, like a real cult, guys, like where you're in a commune living with other, I was living with other men in like an apartment kind of commune thing for single men. And they totally took everything away from us. We had no we could have barely any communication with our family. We were told our family was of the devil. It was in Arkansas. I moved all the way to Arkansas. Families of the devil. Uh, there's uh turn, you know, they they turn off, you can't be on the computer, you can't read anything other than church approved literature. So they totally control what you see, what you hear. And then you have to listen to the teachings of the false prophet or the false teacher. And This person, Tony Alamos, said he was one of the two witnesses, which looking back is crazy. It's like so stupid. I believe that. But you have to understand my heart. I believed everything they were telling me because I didn't know that the devil was out there trying to kill, steal, and destroy. I didn't know people use religion to control people. I didn't, I was really, you know, ignorant. I was a young man, I was looking for identity. Boom, I got saved. Oh, I'm gonna, this is where I'm gonna put my identity in this cult. And then all the people in the cult, some of them are really nice. They're Christian people. But the leadership is evil. Okay. One of the men in the leadership, he uh he uh, you know, his own self because he got on the 10 most wanted list, the FBI. Yeah. Years ago, 2017. You can look it up. Just Google Tony Alamo, and he'll the story of it, and he'll talk about his child brides, all sorts of weird stuff. I didn't know, I never met the guy in person. He was at a different property. But I was working for free, I was doing whatever they wanted me to do, work in their shop, fix cars, uh, do their trucking company, their had some uh thing. Anyway, I was doing that. I was so happy to be there because I found other Christians, and I felt like I left my old life of sin. I really felt like I went to follow Jesus, and there was no, you know, not a lot of temptation there, so it wasn't like I had to like tell people I'm not gonna go drink with you tonight or go to the club. It was like everybody was like in this cult, so we weren't doing any of that. We were just serving God, which we thought we were. So, anyway, I go there and the teachings are all fear. You have to remember, fear is a weapon, guys. Okay, fear is a weapon. We are supposed to have great reverence of God and respect of a holy God, but satanic fear keeps you in bondage and can cause mental illness, can cause your mind to start um, you know, um uh thinking different things, being uh, you know, having phobias, PTSD, all that stuff. Fear can cause all this stuff, and fear can control you. So the devil uses fear to control you. He will use fear. Why do you think the news and everything you read online about world events and everything, everything's fear-based? There's a pandemic, the economy's gonna crash. Be afraid of this disease, be afraid of that, be afraid of the food you're eating, be afraid of that. Everything is fear-based. Why? Because it's a spirit of control. The Bible says that the enemy, he uh he is the the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one of the enemy. So the whole world lies under what? The sway of the enemy. So when you watch things, understand that this is the spirit of the world. The spirit of the world is always trying to lead you away from truth. Okay, and so in this cult, I learned a lot of false doctrines. You know, I learned a lot of false doctrines. We couldn't eat pork, we had to uh go to church like every single night. We we had sleep deprivation. Um, we had uh yeah, sleep deprivation was horrible. We had to, you know, we ate food that was going bad. There's all sorts of things that we had to do there. And the hardest thing was the fear was you're gonna go to hell if you don't listen to the commandments of the prophet. If you don't obey the church leaders, you're gonna burn in hell. You're gonna burn in hell. If you leave this place, you're gonna burn in hell. God's gonna send you straight to hell. And you hear that over and over for months and months. What do you think that does to a baby Christian? What do you think that does to somebody that just wanted to be loved and was already afraid of dying? I was already afraid of it before I got saved. I was more afraid of God after I got saved. How is that possible? I'm a son. Why would I be afraid, like satanically afraid, thinking God's just gonna slam me into the lake of fire because I made a mistake or screwed up or did something dumb. See? And so I didn't know anything about grace because no one taught grace back then, at least in my circles when I got out of the cult. It was really hard to find. It was some people argued over a lot back in late nine, uh early 2000s, mid-2000s. And so I eventually cracked up. I'm not gonna go all the story, but eventually I ended up schizophrenic on the street. Okay. And here I was, 23 years old. I was so afraid. I didn't, I thought I lost my salvation. I was hearing voices telling me to hurt myself. I was hearing voices telling me to take off my clothes and walk around on the street naked. I was hearing voices telling me that I can't talk to my family, uh, you know, uh, that everybody's evil, that everybody's the devil, and everybody's against you. You have to go back to the one true church or you're gonna burn in hell. I mean, it's constant. Not to include the, you know, and then then include the hallucinations, hearing things, the radio telling me I'm going to hell, the TV telling me I'm going to hell. I mean, it was like a different realm. When you're dealing with SMI patients, like serious, because I have a behavioral health background now. When you deal with behavior health patients, like SMI, serious mental illness, schizophrenia, all these things, you have to remember that it's almost like they're in a different realm. It was like I was in a different realm. I mean, I remember sitting in a bus station one time, and this uh it was like this spiritual force came out of my eyes, went into somebody else's eyes, went into this guy's eyes, and then he looked at a baby. It went in the baby's eyes. And then the guy said, You just hurt the baby or something. And then I thought I was hurting a baby or something crazy. And none of that was happening. It was all a hallucination in the bus station. Okay. And so I was in this bus station hallucinating. And so when you see these people, you minister to on the streets, maybe you see them at the bus stops, you know, they sleep in the bus stops here in Phoenix. You see these people who are severely mentally ill. Maybe you work in the mental health uh facility, maybe they come to your church, you know. You have to remember that they are hearing and seeing things that others do not. It is a different realm, and I don't understand it, but it's like the devil somehow, through the chemicals in your mind, through the way you think, however, it works, he can put people in different realities if they listen to him enough. So I was listening to him like he was my friend. I didn't know that the devil sits there and talks to people all the time. I didn't know that good and bad voices were all bad. I didn't know this. And so I meet people now, I minister hundreds of people, and they they listen to voices in their head. And you might not even realize you're listening to them. You got to catch that stuff. So later on, after I started getting deliverance, I I uh you know, I went to a uh church. Finally, I eventually went to a church and uh met people to help me. I was volunteering at uh uh trying to volunteer doing prayer ministry. I was trying to uh you know do a lot of stuff. I met uh I had a friend who was a mentor. He started mentoring an older gentleman. He helped me a lot. Uh I learned good and bad stuff from him. That's okay, you know, but God used him in my life in that time. I appreciate it. But you know, then I had to come out of that. I had to I had to start going because I was different. I was different than him, I was different than other people I was meeting who were trying to help me because they didn't experience what I experienced. You know, uh, like the pastors I meet or the ministers I meet, they try to help me pray for me. They didn't understand what schizophrenia was or how different personalities work. They had no clue. And so I went through this thing, went through this thing. Eventually, I get I, you know, I overcome, I get into ministry, go on Sid Roth. Uh God restores me. I'm in ministry. I get the behavior health background, I got trained there, helping people, ran programs, administrated, ran for city council back in 2022. I've done a bunch of stuff since then, but I had to get grace. I had to understand the mercy and the grace of God. I had to understand the gospel. And so when you are when you are struggling, when you are somebody struggling, your answer, your truth is in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Okay, your answer is in the blood of the Lamb. What is the blood, the shed blood of Jesus Christ? What does that mean to you and what did he do for you there? What did he actually do there? He made you holy. That's you're holy now. The devil, what did he do to me in the cult? He tried to condemn me and make me feel like I'm a sinner, that I sinned unto death, that I sinned willfully. See? Always attacking, always attacking. Okay, so you have to understand what Jesus did for you at the cross. That's why I believe Paul uh always said he's gonna go and preach the gospel to you. I'm gonna come to Rome, I'm gonna preach the gospel. Then he preaches the gospel anyway, right? In the epistle. So he went and he always preached the gospel to the church. And so when you watch Holy Ghost television, you're gonna get the gospel. You're gonna continue to get the gospel. That's what you need. You need to go to church, you need to hear the gospel, you need to turn on the gospel. What is the gospel? The good news of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Amen. That Jesus came, born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, and then died a criminal's death and shed his blood for the forgiveness of all your sins to reconcile you to the Father. And he was dead and buried three and a half days and rose himself from the dead. So Jesus is your answer for everything. You deal with disease, the gospel. See, it has to be easy, guys, because most people in the world, a lot of people in the world, not most, I mean tons, they don't even read. So you're telling me for somebody to be saved and to be healed and delivered, they have to go to school to learn to read first.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Do you see what I'm saying? It has to be easy. They have to read 50 healing books to receive healing? See? Do you understand?

SPEAKER_01 33:06

There's wisdom in reading books and all that stuff, but your answer is in the person of Jesus, is in the cross, is in the gospel. And that's all you're gonna get from me because I've been through so much. I learned all about deliverance, as much as most people can learn, about principalities, about different ways that they attack, Jezebel. I learned Levi, I learned all this uh Python, all that stuff. Then I started looking into, and a lot of the stuff is made up. A lot of the stuff people made up. Okay. They they or it's a or they got some revelation and then they created a doctrine out of it. So you gotta watch that. Somebody made a doctrine up. Your doctrine should be Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's the doctrine that He made you holy and complete, and that He healed your body and delivered you from all curses, and delivered you from every disease, and delivered you from poverty, and gave you eternal life, and calls you his son or daughter right now, by grace through faith, and not by works. I was thinking today about uh um uh Abel and Cain and Abel, okay? Think of that. Think of Cain and Abel, the the first sons of Adam. They come to offer give offerings to God. Abel gave a better offering. What was Abel's offering? The best lamb in the field. Amen. Hey Michael, good to see you on YouTube, right? So it's the best lamb in the field, the best of the flock. And he gave it to the Lord, sacrificed it for the Lord. And then this is a type of Christ versus works, grace versus works. So let's go with Abel first. Did Abel uh did Abel create the lamb? Did Abel make that lamb blemish-free and perfect? No, he was he was born in the field, and he had a perfect lamb. Okay, the best lamb was gifted to him, in a sense, right? Abel brought what all the fruit and the vegetables from his field. That he what?

SPEAKER_00 35:38

Worked. He worked and worked. He worked.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

Hey Gail, good to see you on YouTube, and worked. Okay. So he worked and worked for this fruit or the vegetable offering he gave God. And God says that he didn't respect Cain's offering. It was evil, it was an evil offering. Abel's was good in God's sight. Isn't that interesting? So it's a it's the gospel. So you have a whole the whole religion of people trying with their own works to be blessed and to inherit eternal life. And not, how did they miss the gospel, or how did they miss eternal life? Because they were trying to create their own righteousness, and they weren't understanding the righteousness which is of faith. And so those who are of faith are now what? Sons of God, sons of Abraham, the father of faith. So when your real battle is to believe correctly about the gospel and what God really did for you at the cross, that's your real battle. And it's in your belief system and it's in your emotions. So you can start believing correctly. Jesus paid the price for everything. Why am I condemning myself for something I screwed up with a month ago? I've already talked to the Lord about it. It wasn't even me who did it, it was sin that dwells in me. That doesn't give you an excuse, but that's what we battle here: this flesh versus spirit. So you have grace to learn from your mistakes. Grace gives you the ability to learn from your mistakes. Okay. Like a child, you give grace to your children, right? They don't all of a sudden five years old and they know how to drive a car. You know? And so God's not, you know, dad's not going to give a five-year-old his car keys. The five-year-old has to grow and mature and be seen faithful to be able to drive a car and knowledgeable to be able to drive a car. So you want to be married right now. You want, you know, you want a business, you have this desire to be a missionary or start an organization or whatever it is. And you're mad and frustrated because you can't drive the car yet, but you're only five years old. So you have to learn, learn the ways of the Lord, and learn how to love people that are unloving and how to treat people with respect. And how to how to care about people that might not care about you, and how to literally be a living sacrifice. If you want to be in ministry, it's your life is like, I mean, depending on your calling, right? Your life is not your own anyway. But you might be in a spot being like, wow, this is when's this? You just surrender, surrender to God's will. Lord, I don't like my job, right? Okay, well, I'm surrendering because I know that it's leading me somewhere. And most people are very uh, you know, so anyway, yeah, I'm gonna go back. So coming out of this this cult, this religious cult, and then going through deliverance ministry and doing all that stuff, I learned so much stuff. One thing I learned was that grace, God's grace is really hard to get. If you're brainwashed by law, if you're brainwashed by self-righteousness, if you're taught the wrong gospel, if you're taught that you saved yourself because you repented of your sins, because then you get saved, and then you start struggling with sins again, and then you sin or you do something dumb, then you backslide, and then pretty soon you think you lost your salvation. See, you you can't rest on yourself for salvation, you can't rest on your works for salvation. It's by grace through faith, it's not by works. Okay? Well, then people say, Well, what about works if you don't have good works? So when you understand how much God loves you, then you start reflecting his love. And the way to find God's love is to look at the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross for you, dying for you and raising from the dead. Now he's at the right hand of the Father making intercession for you. He's always there, he never leaves you nor forsakes you. You're no longer a slave, you're a son or daughter, okay? And so you have to start learning this. And it's tough, especially if you lived your whole life in church. You were in a religious church when you're a kid, you never really learned the grace of God, or maybe you had hard parents. Maybe your parents are really hard on you. It might take you a while to realize God loves you. I've noticed that people who are uh who come from like a solid family who's uh you know, who had a good dad and mother that were, you know, grace people that really you know uh gave them grace and love and things, they don't have a they don't have a hard a lot of them don't have a tough time understanding God's grace and love or accepting it. For me, it was really hard for me, really hard. And then at the same time, then you see stuff online, you you hear preachers say, oh, greasy grace, and all these things, and they somehow they think that we're teaching that people just can live in sin and they're just saved because they say Jesus is Lord. You need the Holy Spirit in your body to be considered a son of God or a daughter of God. You need to have that circumcised heart. Amen. Praise God, you know, and so you you have this circumcised heart, you have a new heart. So if you think I have an evil heart, no, you have a new heart. What you're dealing with is your soul, the feeling area, and you haven't learned the mind of Christ, which lives in you. You just need to partner with the Lord and surrender. And then you disconnect from this negative thing that was your old life. For example, Adam and Eve are in the garden. In the garden, they had no fear, they, you know, satanic fear, they had no satanic fear, they didn't have rejection, they didn't have ungodly anything. They were innocent, they didn't have knowledge of sin, they didn't have any of this stuff. Okay, and so then God, uh Jesus comes and reconciles us to that state inside. And it's like Adam and Eve have to deprogram themselves from what they learned in the world or whatever, right? So, in the same way, we go backwards, kind of like we were programmed in the world. We have to go back to the Adam and Eve state in our hearts at innocence. Okay. And so the the key to this is Christ in us, the hope of glory. So the key to grace, like the key to understand it, is Christ in you, the hope of glory. The once saved, always saved, it's Christ in you, the hope of glory that makes you saved forever. The scriptures about like Hebrews 6 and all stuff can go either way. A lot of people say you can lose your salvation forfeit or whatever. But if you have a circumcised heart, how do you uncircumcise your heart or unborn yourself, all that stuff? So you have to be secure in your salvation, knowing you have the Holy Spirit, and that once you have the Holy Spirit in your heart transforming you from glory to glory, he just doesn't leave you because you made a mistake or you're feeling angry or whatever. Do you see what I'm saying? So when you preach the gospel, you have to help people understand that they they receive the Holy Spirit and their heart is transformed. You know? But you get saved and you think, well, I got saved because I stopped sinning. And then you get baptized, and then pretty soon you're sinning again. You're like, what happened to me? Maybe you never had a heart transformed. Transformation. Maybe you just believed here, you got baptized because your boyfriend got baptized, or you got baptized when you were 12 and you didn't understand the gospel. You know, maybe you're out there and you're like, wow, maybe I need to full surrender. Maybe I haven't had a heart transformation. Maybe I'm just a religious person. Maybe I need to go get baptized again. Maybe I need the Holy Ghost. You know? And your heart is what bears witness that we're sons of God. So if your heart is bearing witness with God, then you're saved. If you're, you know, hey, if if you have you're wondering, just get by your bed tonight or wherever, get on your knees and sincerely pray to the Lord. If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe with your whole heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. And when you're sincere with God, I believe he'll show up. But there are tons of people out there, guys, that say they're Christian that do not have the Holy Spirit. There's tons of them in your church. You meet them all the time. They speak Christianese, they're nice people, they do everything like that. But when persecution comes, they're gone. So the great falling away, all that stuff, when persecution comes, you'll find the real Christians. When the persecution comes, you'll find the real Christians. Okay? Does that make sense? And so in churches, in in religious groups or whatever, in the in in church or wherever, you're there's different levels of believers. There's different levels of people. There's sinners in there. There's people who are saved. There's people who are saved and have the Holy Ghost, you know, who are filled with the Holy Ghost with people who are saved who haven't received the baptism of the Holy Spirit yet. Doesn't mean they're not saved, right? But and then there's people that are on the fence. There's the people that go to church because their wife goes to church. There's the people that are living in the world, they're not really, they're not saved yet, but they say they're saved, but they're not really saved. See what I'm saying? And so they're on the fence, they're almost there. There's people that are almost there, God's working on them. And then there's people who are really close to Jesus, you know. There's people who are, you know, pray all the time. There's people who don't pray. There's so different levels of believers and people in the church. So know that when so when I preach at a church, I know that there's probably a good amount of people that might not even be saved, that might not really know the Lord, you know, watching this. There might be somebody who's not really even saved. You know, they're just watching me going, gosh, what's with this guy's video? He's kind of weird. You know, I don't know, but I've live streamed in a long time, so I don't really care what you think. But you know, God, you know, God wants to indwell you, okay? God wants to indwell you. God wants to live inside your body. Gail says, also, some who don't give up sinful ways. So that, so here's the deal with this, guys, is that you can tell a Christian by what? Is it what it how do you tell a Christian their love for God and their love for their neighbor, their love for the brethren? That's how you that's how you tell. If you have a Christian, let's say uh Gail says, as some who don't give up sinful ways, well, if you have somebody that just rebels, the pastor talks to them and says, Hey, you know, we probably shouldn't be doing this. You're a Christian, and they're like, I'm not interested. This is not how I believe, see you later. That person might be a first John person. They came out from us because they were never of us. Okay, and so there's a lot of people that, you know, and some people could be baby Christians as well. So how do you handle that? Rebellion versus struggling. People who have a heart for Jesus and loving their neighbor and their brethren, or are they in rebellion? So Paul said those who are uh who are, you know, who identify as what? Sexually moral and drunkards, they're identifying as that. That's their lifestyle, and they're and they're saying they're Christians. What does he say do? Don't even eat with them. Why? So that they can be ashamed and realize that that's you know, and get saved or repent of their of their identity issue. So they're either struggling and it's their identity, they think that's okay, or they're not even saved, and they just say they're Christian and they come to church once in a while. So there's so many different people, especially in Christian, especially in American Christianity, right? Because it's America. America, right? Very interesting. And so you want to go deep with the Lord. It's all about uh uh surrender. So remember, if you if you need something, you just surrender to the Lord. You surrender in your heart, Lord. And and the way I do it is I just find the emotion attached to it. So you need finances. Find the emotion attached to finances. What is it? Fear of uh losing your apartment, fear of not feeding your children. What is the fear there? Fear of not having retirement, and then you what you submit it to God, you surrender to God, and then you resist the devil. You disagree with the lie behind it, you disagree that you know your children are gonna go starve. You disagree that you're gonna lose your job or God can't find you a new job. So you so you just break those strongholds down. And personally, I don't really have um, I just I am I surrender to the Lord. Like I'm not really interested in, I don't have time to cater to people who aren't really interested in serving God and full surrender, you know? And so that that's my ministry. I I am trying to encourage the body of Christ to full surrender to the Lord and to help you transform and to learn the truth that you're saved by grace through faith. It's not by works, it's not by your behavior, it's by your faith. And then God enters your body and starts transforming you. And when somebody has this conversion, they call it, then things start falling off their life. But if we just come with uh, you know, the new believer and we just hit him with a Bible and tell him all these rules, guess what happens? He starts focusing on rules and not on Christ inside. You want to focus on Christ inside you and that you're forgiven. Most people I minister to don't realize they're forgiven. They don't understand they're forgiven all the time. When you realize you're forgiven all the time, when you are uh when you are really believing that God is a good God, God has saved you and cleansed you, and you are free. You are free from the power of sin, you're free from the law, God doesn't condemn you anymore, then the power of sin starts leaving your life. Then you're not like dealing with all the struggles in your flesh anymore. You start maturing and you start seeing, wow, sin is really dumb. It's so pointless to go do that. And then you start really feeling like an alien, a sojourner here on earth, right? You see, like, whoa, this is weird. Like, I find things people do in the world is weird, a lot of it. All these uh pursuits that people are doing trying to become wealthy, and then they're spending all their time trying to become wealthy. You only got so much time on the earth. You know what I mean? You can become wealthy and be 90, and then what, have a year to and enjoy your $100 million and then die and go like a fire? No, I'm not interested. I'm interested in serving the Lord and being filled with the Holy Spirit and loving people and encouraging you in your faith. And every, you know, and and everybody else, God can deal with those people. I want the people that really want the Holy Ghost that really want to walk with the Lord. That's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for fruit in the ministry. And I want to encourage you wherever you're at, with your struggles or whatever, God loves you, God is with you, and God knows your name. He hasn't forgot about your prayers for healing, he hasn't forgot about your prayers for deliverance, he hasn't forgot about your prayers for your family. It's not like he's deaf. What if he's training you in righteousness? That could that could be a possibility. And how does he train us in character through afflictions? It builds character, godliness. So you're afflicted. Maybe God's trying to get you to learn godliness, how to learn character, to forgive your spouse, to not hold on to that unforgiveness anymore, to surrender it. And you know, the way that I've you know was really helped me overcome stuff is just is just realizing I can't do it. You know, if you're struggling tonight, just surrender the cross. Lord, I can't do this. I can't free myself from this, this desire. I can't free myself from it. I've tried. I tried to do deliverance for certain things for years and never came out until I learned grace. And I learned that it's by grace through faith that I'm saved, it's by grace through faith that I'm delivered, it's by grace through faith I'm healed, it's by grace through faith I'm prosperous. But God allows us to go through things and for things to to uh to hold on to us sometimes because maybe we're not ready. Maybe if we got free at a certain point, we would just run off and not serve God, or we'd get into something dumber. And so maybe that thing holds on a little bit. And so, in your struggle, remember the children of Israel with Moses. Moses was holding up the the uh uh the brazen serpent, which was a type of Christ, right? The coming Messiah. And every time the children of Israel looked at the serpent, they were healed, and the snakes left them, or whatever. And when they started looking away from uh the the brazen serpent, they got killed, or they were diseased, or the snakes were biting them, or whatever. And so, what does that tell us? You need to keep your eyes on the cross. What did Jesus do for you? Jesus made you holy, Jesus forgave you forever, Jesus made you righteous. And so you have a friend that's struggling with sinful behaviors. Remind them that they're righteous. Are you righteous or are you just uh are you just got an identity issue? So when I minister to Christians that are struggling with stuff, I just talk about identity. That you just identity it you just identify with your junk. I used to identify looking at bad stuff on a computer. I thought it was me. I thought I like to look at stuff. Right? I thought I had this addiction, I thought it was me. And then I realized, no, it was a stronghold, it was part of my old nature. It was in my soul, connected to my flesh somehow, and it would deceive me because I take identity in it, my struggle. You see it at AA meetings. People stand up and say, I am an alcoholic. A Christian shouldn't say that. Christians say, I deal with alcoholism, or I deal with a desire to drink, or I deal with an addiction to alcohol. But you don't want to say, I am addicted to alcohol like that, right? What are you declaring there? See? You declare that you have a disease, I have this. No, you need to say, I have the cross, I have the blood, I have Jesus of Nazareth, I have my Father in heaven, I have a great high priest that hears my prayers, I have the Spirit of glory, I have the angels that minister to me, I have the word of truth, I have the promises of God, I have a wonderful Savior, I have the Messiah, I have the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, I have Jesus Christ. I am free, I am healed, I am delivered because of him, not because of my strength and my wisdom. See? Surrender. I feel the presence of God. I'm not delivered and healed because of my wisdom and how hard I can pray. God's doing a work inside me through the Holy Ghost by His grace, by His sovereign grace. He just chose me to have Holy Ghost television and armpats and my books to help people. Right? And just like he chose you for something special, he chose you for your ministry, for your life. Amen. Amen. Gail Hunt asks a question. Let me see if I can do this. Oh no, it doesn't let me do that. Oh, here we go. I gotta go here. What about a Christian who backslides? Okay, so that this is a spirit-filled Christian who backslides. So it's either or. One, they're either in rebellion and God is gonna chasten them eventually. So let's say they rebel and they're backslidden and now they're addicted to some substance. Well, if they just continue to rebel and not seek God for help, then as a loving father, or and the way it's set up is that the enemy what comes in and starts messing with that person. It could be disease, it could be jail, it could be whatever. And so chastening comes into a somebody who's backslides, either chastening comes in, or they were actually never, they were they never had the Holy Spirit to begin with.

SPEAKER_02 57:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 57:08

Does that make sense? So just because they just because you think they did doesn't mean they did. Make sense? Just because somebody went to church for years and then they backslide doesn't mean they're ever really truly saved. But if if it's like your friend or your loved one and they're backslidden, then you want to you want to just pray for them and help them and understand that God doesn't forsake his children. Remember the uh prodigal son. Where was the father? He was waiting for him at the deck, right, or the the front of the city or wherever he was at. Deck, I don't know, in front of his house, I don't know, right? So the the prodigal son was what? The prodigal son ran off and did what he wanted. The father didn't stop being his father, but he let him do what he wanted. And what happened? The father knew he was gonna waste it all. So the father knew he was gonna come back. He just had to get to the place where he said, you know what, this isn't working. I don't wanna, I don't, I gotta get I gotta get out of this place, the pig pen. So your friend or whatever's in the pig pen, not realizing it. Make sense. And so it could be an identity thing too. Some people who are have like if you get saved and you have this identity of alcoholic, then that that identity, if you identify with it, it can just pull you back at the bar because you've identified with it so strong. And so God will, in his mercy, I've noticed that God is very compassionate and slow to anger, so He's not He's He's not out there whipping people and all that stuff, trying to get you back to church or whatever. He's working with you in your emotions, he's showing you his love. See, it's the goodness of God that leads people to repentance, to mind change, to heart change, to life change. So it's the goodness of God. Okay, so it's the goodness of God. So continue to pray for the people that have backslid. Amen. Yeah, that's a good, yeah, that's good. And so Gail says, uh, let me see if I can find it again. Yeah, it says, Thank you. Thank you. Some spiritual strongholds are more powerful than others, but it boils down to a personal decision and grace. Yeah. And sometimes people just have to snap out of it. You know, sometimes people are, you know, they're they're uh they feel blessed there, you know, they're they're backslidden, they feel blessed. And they're like, nothing wrong happened in my life. But then eventually, if they're saved, God's gonna try, you know, do his best to get them back. And sometimes people end up in hospitals, jail, divorces, all sorts of stuff because they uh they they are in rebellion. But God is merciful, and so he's not out there with like uh he's slow, like he gives you a lot of grace, like he he wants you to come back in. I've had times in my Christian walk where I started straying away. I was like, oh, no big deal, no big deal. But then all of a sudden it's like I want to get back to the Lord. This is pointless. This is pointless. This is pointless. And I'm glad the Lord gave me the grace and I didn't end up doing, you know, ruining my life completely or anything like that. But through it, he worked even for my good. He showed me, hey, you know, this isn't the right way. Then I learned it's not the right way. That's why I said earlier that grace teaches us to make better decisions in the future. So if somebody's backslidden, they might be backslidden for a long time. Identity issue, rebellion, whatever it is. But at the end, if they're truly saved, God will bring them back in. And some people are they they go so far as to maybe the Lord takes them home early. Because he loves them. He doesn't want them to hurt other people anymore. Maybe their actions are hurting people, or maybe they will in the future, so God allows them to be taken home early. I don't know. God, you know, God is a lot bigger than me. I can't explain everything, but I do know God is love, God is good, and God has a plan for us. Amen. So uh thank you guys. I'm gonna give you my little uh where is it at? My little uh my little uh commercial here, video clip. Have fun. I'll be right back. We want to help you grow as close as you can to the Lord Jesus, as well as grow in your identity as a son or daughter of the Most High God. We have books and resources at our website as well. You can go to our online store, you can get my book, Defeating Mental Illness. I have it in uh uh English, Spanish, Hmong language, Ukrainian, and French, okay, currently. And then we also have Becoming God's Friend, which is my autobiography. I have it in English and Spanish for you, as well as an e-book and audiobook, and 30 Days to Believing Right, which is a devotional, which will help, I believe, will help you with your identity in Christ Jesus and believe correctly about who you are. Okay, because God really loves you, He cares about you. Uh so check out our website, thefathersfriends.org. If you feel led to become a monthly partner, you can do that at the website. Or if you just like to give a generous one-time offering, you can do that too. We're a nonprofit and we care about people. We're trying to expand the ministry, help people, help more people, grow closer to the Lord. Thank you so much for your support. We love you. Have a great day. That was fun, huh? And be excited with that. That was exciting. Yeah, so those are my books, and then you can give and donate at thefathersfriends.org. Believing for 10 new monthly supporters every month. So if that's you, if you feel like you want to give five, ten, twenty, a hundred dollars a month or a million dollars a month, whatever, you can go to fathersfriends.org and you can give, become a monthly supporter. So I'm personally believing God to bring us 10 new people every month because we want to expand the ministry. You know, I have a huge vision for the ministry. Um, so thank you so much uh to those that hear from the Lord and want to support the ministry. Thank you so much. Um, our free ministry app, okay, is at the website as well. You can get the app. We have our 1-800 number as well, 1-888-Know Him if you need prayer. I actually uh answer the calls sometime, uh usually when it goes to the desk phone, then it goes my cell phone sometimes. And so sometimes I just pick up the phone. I randomly picked it up in Southeast Asia last year and led somebody to Christ when I was walking down the street. I was walking down the street in Southeast Asia, all these all these motorcycles are going off, and I get this call on my phone. Technology is amazing, guys. Technology really, you know, back in the day you had to have like a whole call center with lines and all that stuff. Now we got IOPs, which is internet based or IP IOPs, internet uh protocol, whatever. It's a phone that's it's all internet stuff. So I mean I can get it on my cell phone, I can put it on people's cell phones, I can have more calls come in, all sorts of stuff. So uh yeah, so the Lord's trained uh trained me in a lot of different stuff. I know moving forward it's gonna be exciting, all stuff God has. Um, but right now this is what I'm doing. I'm doing the live streams on Holy Ghost television. Eventually, maybe I'll do a uh, you know, I don't know, something else. I I like to be different. You know, I like to be different. Hey Hope and Amber, good to see you guys on YouTube. So I like to be different, and uh that that's it. I just like to be different. I I like the Lord being able to use me prophetically, like the armpats, for example, the the stuffed animals for kids, you know. You know, I'd I so earlier I was telling you guys that uh so I have the book and the the the this thing, right? This little toy or the stuffed animal in the book. It's in our website. You just go to our store. I just redid the website store. So years ago, I had this dream for armpets. Uh I had a uh I had it come to me in a prayer meeting, uh the little kids wearing the armpets on their wrists and all that stuff, right? I had this dream I was gonna start this stuffed animal company, I was gonna be a multi-billionaire. It's gonna be everywhere like uh beanie babies. So I had a stronghold of egos, this big ego thing, wanting to be a billionaire. I'm gonna be a billionaire. That was like my thing, right? But God was so merciful. I went out and tried to start this thing, and it was so hard for me. It was so hard. I tried everything, right? I got a couple different types made. I made them in America so they were more expensive, and then I got the trademark, which I just re-upped the trademark anyway. But like, has I did all this stuff myself and it just never got off. It never would go anywhere, and it really frustrated me. I tried to get them in uh tried to get them in stores, tried to do everything. And like I talked to investors, I knew Christian investors with millions of dollars, and I just couldn't have anybody, no one could help me, no one wanted to help me. I'm like, okay, whatever. I have this great vision for this thing. It's like Beanie Day. But like times 100, right? I had this vision that was gonna be this grandiose thing. God took me through. I finally got to the end of myself with arm pets. I finally got to the end of myself and I quit. I said, Lord, I'm done. Not like out of anger. I just said, Lord, maybe it's for another season. Maybe it's an idea. Maybe I, you know, and I look back, I learned so much through the process. But at the time it was kind of like sad because it was something, it was like my baby, right? Uh and I'm like, okay, I'm done, Lord. I'm done. And I'll just give it to you. So, like two years ago, I just didn't do nothing with them. They just sat in my house. I had boxes and boxes of them. And I spent tons of money on it. You know, I felt like a failure. You ever felt like a failure? You started a business or you started a ministry or you had this great idea and it fell through. You know, or you know, maybe you felt like a failure in a relationship or work or whatever. I felt like a failure. And as soon as I just gave it up and I just let it go, stop praying about it. A couple years go by, all of a sudden it just comes back around. I'm in Albania randomly, guys. I'm in Albania last January or February. I'm in Albania. Okay. I've literally in Albania. I'm in this little apartment that I rented over the uh the ocean, Albanian Riviera. I went there after my travels to Southeast Asia and Europe, and I was like, you know what? Albania seems kind of nice. I'm gonna go, and I was looking online. You can rent an apartment there. I mean, I rent an apartment there for like not even $400 a month. So I'm like, I just live in Albania for a while and with the Lord because I like to be alone with the Lord. I was still doing ministry online stuff. Some of you were uh on the permit stuff I did. Anyway, I uh sit in this little apartment in Albania. I'm like, Lord, I really want to write a book. Like, I want to write another book. What can what can I write, Lord? And I felt like the Lord told me, write your armpets book. And the armpats book was really sad for me because when I first started out, I actually had an idea to do like a whole cartoon network and like everything. And uh, so I had this idea for a book, and one day I met this gentleman at Jamba Juice, out of all places. I was walking by and we started talking about the book he was reading, found out that he was an illustrator or he liked to draw or something, and I told him about armpets that I was just just now designing years ago, guys. This is like 10 years ago, and he was like, Oh, that's pretty cool. And then I'm like, Hey, you ever thought about like designing the the illustrations for the book? And so I wrote this whole grandiose book, and maybe the Lord will uh bring it back around someday. But this book I wrote years ago wasn't totally finished, it was like maybe half a book, and it was uh it was it anyway, it was like the origins of all this stuff, like the origin stories, kind of kind of cool, but you know, whatever. It I still have the copies of it. But anyway, so I had this whole book for armpats, and I'm like, I'm like, uh, not whole book, but I I wanted illustrators, so I met with him and he kind of made a couple illustrations and then never heard from again. And I was so I was praying about Lord, this guy doesn't call me back, doesn't return my emails. Like, what happened to this guy? He just disappeared. I've had people do that to me a lot. You know, rejection, people just reject you for some reason. The devil tells them to reject you, or maybe they just don't like you. It's fine. Not everybody's gonna like you. Not everybody likes me, guys. Believe it or not, you might not like me, but I love you. So uh anyway, so arm pet. Uh so like years ago, I I had this big hole like Lord, I was supposed to do this book, I had this big idea, and then randomly 10 years or whatever later, I'm in Albania, and the Lord's like, I felt like Lord's like, write your armpets book. So I wrote the book, and it's so cool. You guys want to hear the poem in the end for the kid? Here's a special poem for you. Oh, it was right here. It says, Never afraid, never alone. Because the book is about when I went to uh I went to the uh hospital when I was a kid and I got an arm pet. Not arm pet, but a stuffed animal that helped me. Never afraid, never alone. God loves me, Jesus is with me. My arm pet is special to me. He reminds me of comfort and joy. Never afraid, never alone. That's a little poem I made. You know, and so I feel like you know, they can minister to children. We're we're doing uh arm pets for the children's hospital, stuff like that. So who knows where the Lord can take it? You know, maybe it's in Walmart someday and I'm a billionaire armpets guy, or maybe not. Maybe I do it for another six months and then I put it on the side again. I don't care. Because you guys, you have to realize you're in like a river. If you just understand you're in a river with the Lord, everything becomes a lot easier. You just literally realize you're in a river, and the river has different windy roads, right? Like the narrow road, for example. It's up and down, it's around the hill, it's through the rocky terrain, it's through the valley, it's through the mountain. So you're but it's like a river. So think of it like you're just flowing with the glory, you're flowing with the Lord, you're flowing with his plan for your life instead of fighting everything. I don't want to go to work today because I don't like that person. Lord, I surrender those feelings to you. I just surrender, Lord. I don't like my job. You know that. I surrender. Teach me, Lord. And you'll find that the Lord will get you through these things when you just surrender. Your health, surrender all the worry. The worst thing that can happen, you go to heaven. That's how you mean what happened. You know, I was like on an airplane thing, and I'm like, worst thing that can happen, I just all of a sudden the airplane just falls out of the sky. Oh, I get to go to heaven.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:00

Like, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:02

Glory to God. You Jesus defeated death, he abolished death. So you're not gonna die in reality. You're gonna resurrect on resurrection day or be here when Jesus returns. So you actually don't have to fear anything. So the enemy is using your health to make you afraid. See, he's using your finances, what your appears to be lack, he's making you afraid. Okay, see the trick? When you realize you're just flowing, Lord, I'm just flowing through this thing, you can start just trusting God. Lord, I just surrender that to you. That's weird. Okay, Lord, I surrender that to you. Oh yeah, Lord, I don't really like that, but glory to God. There's things in my life that lasted a really long time that I prayed about, cried about, blah, blah, blah. And then the Lord delivers me and heals me of it. And then through this last one, I realized I just relax. Because, you know, all the wisdom of the world, you could still be tormented with something. You could read every deliverance book in the world and still be tormented. Okay, you could read every healing book and still not be healed. But you know who's never gonna leave you and who's gonna be with you forever? The Holy Spirit. And when you need wisdom, you can sincerely ask God and he will give it to you. And it doesn't mean he instantly gives it to you. Okay, you have to realize that there's reasons why things get delayed, and it's not for you or me to decide. You can't force God to give you a miracle. You can't force God to start a revival. You know what I mean? You can't force God. You have to believe he's good, believe the promises, believe he knows you want a revival in your church or your home. And at the right time, revival will come. I prayed for a year and a half. Guys, I started my ministry in 2010. I was I felt like the Lord wanted me to pray in the spirit. So I prayed in the spirit one night a week at this megachurch in here in Phoenix. They gave me a room. I prayed the pastor, there gave me a room. Prayed one night a week for two hours with a small group of people. The next month, we I felt like I was supposed to do two days a week. So I did two days a week the next month. So I go to work and I would go pray in this parking lot before the prayer meeting, then run a prayer meeting in the spirit, tongues meeting for two hours, like Tuesday and Thursday. And then the next month, the third month, I did five days a week. I was like, you know what? I'm single. I'm just gonna, you know, I don't have a family. I can just pray every night. I'm gonna pray. I'm gonna get a revival at this church. I'm gonna get a revival in Phoenix. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. We prayed two hours on Monday, two hours on Tuesday, one hour on Wednesday because they wanted us to go to the church service, two hours on Thursday, and two hours on Friday night in tongues, seeking the Lord. It was powerful. We had powerful, powerful stuff happen there. There's ministries that came out of that prayer meeting. Okay. And then I was very really zealous, though. You have to remember I had an ego and I was trying to make God do stuff for me. So anyway, anyway, uh, that's where I got the the armpets, pray in the spirit. That's where I got the armpets thought. Uh you know, the idea. Then I was like, you know, six months into it. I'm like, I want to do a 24-hour tongues meeting. Like, I want to go like all out. I want to pray in the spirit for 24 hours straight. My friends are like, okay, cool, let's do it. You know, so I picked a nice like Saturday night and we we prayed for 24 hours straight. People are walking in with pillows and like bean bags or uh sleeping bags and like comfortable pajamas, and I was getting mad because I was like, this is a prayer meeting. I was way different back then. I was very intense. This is a prayer meeting. What are they doing? I was like telling my friend, like, what are they doing bringing sleeping bags into a prayer meeting? You're not gonna sleep for 20 hours, you're not gonna sleep. This is 24 hours straight. They're bringing food, coolers. I'm offended. It was hilarious. I was so young. So we prayed in tongues for 24 hours straight. Nobody did, nobody made 24 hours except me and one other person. I prayed in tongues for 24 hours straight, guys, and one other person made it. Isn't that wild? Everybody else just fell asleep or laughed or whatever. So, anyway, so here I was on fire with God, thinking God's gonna give me a wife, he's gonna give me a million dollars, he's gonna expand my ministry, he's gonna, you know, all this stuff. Here I am, this young man, all excited for the revival coming. I'm gonna lead a revival of millions of souls in Phoenix. This church is gonna have fire coming out of the walls, you know. And I was praying and praying, and no one was supporting the ministry. It was like I would put a big old yellow bucket for donations, and like very few people would give. I wrote donations on the side of it, and I used to get mad at God. Lord, no one's donating. What's wrong with these people and get all mad, right? But they weren't felt led to give, so they weren't giving. But like I was blaming God for it, the people, and I was getting mad and frustrated. I used to go home and get mad, there was no revival. It was wild. It was, I mean, I was really dealing with, you know, when you start praying in the spirit a lot, your flesh starts flaring up, your soul starts flaring up. Anyway, I end up at the 24 hours prayer meeting, I realized with a couple other people, eight hours in tongues was good for a long period of tongues. Let's do eight hours. So we started eight hours on Saturdays. So we did eight hours on Saturdays, we called it uh Power Eight meetings. So we were doing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday for a whole year. Okay. About around when I first started, the Lord, I felt like the Lord told me exactly the day I was gonna end the meeting. So he gave me like a goal, like I knew I was gonna end in 2020. I knew the exact date. It was like February 11, 2012, or something. I just knew the exact date. So that's what kept me going with this prayer meeting. But it was it was wild how I thought I was gonna do this prayer meeting and I was gonna come out of the prayer meeting, I was gonna be totally delivered, I was gonna be this uh massive uh anointed evangelist, uh traveling the world, leading Phoenix and everybody else to Jesus. The church was gonna explode with power and signs and wonders. And after I got done with the prayer meeting, I felt like the Lord wanted me to rest. And so I would rest and I would just went to like watching movies on my big screen TV. I felt like I, you know, I had this, I bought this big screen TV, started watching some movies and eating popcorn with the Lord. And it sounds super weird to you guys, but you have to remember I came out of a cult, I came out of the deliverance, thinking everything's a demon, all this stuff. So for me, like it was it brought me back to my childhood because I used to have really good times uh with my dad when I lived with my dad when I was young, eating popcorn and watching movies once in a while. And so the Lord ministered to me that way. I know it's weird for some of you, like, how is that possible? It was the Lord ministered to me for months, just resting with him and everything. And then after that, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, eventually got on Sid Roth, and then my ministry took off. But I I learned more, I felt like I learned more, I felt like I grew more just resting with the Lord than trying to force a revival, than praying as hard as I could every night. I felt like the Lord showed me that it's grace that you know that really frees you from stuff, not your own self-effort. Because when you're doing your self-effort, that's when you rebel and get mad at God. And so praying in tongues for long periods of time is great. I did another permitting, you know, a little bit after that. It was 30 days, 10 hours a day. We prayed 10 hours in tongues, 30 days. We call it the 300 meeting. Okay, I did it for 30 days. That's how I started my ministry. And I'm not recommending it unless you really feel like you're supposed to.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:42

It can get, you know, I was very religious, I was very ego-centered, I had a lot of false doctrines, you know, but God worked through it all, He worked through you. But anyway, I'm just explaining this because I saw how much I worked and how little I felt like God was blessing me. Like little in the sense of things I wanted, not in the spiritual sense, like I had closeness with God. I mean, that's good, right? But like I wanted certain things I never that I didn't get. And I didn't understand. Lord, I did everything, I was obedient, I worked hard for you. See, I was doing the Cain thing, guys. I, I, I, I did it, Lord. Now give me, give me, give me, give me the blessing. He said, Lord, you did everything. You gave me the grace to pray with those people, you gave me the grace, you know, to be transformed by praying in the spirit. You gave me the grace for the strength to do it, the idea, the idea to do it, the ability to do it. I was resting on myself. And so God had to really get that out of me. And then I had to go through other things to get this ego thing, and I still deal with it. Because I'm like Paul. Remember, I'm yet not perfect, right? We're not perfected, guys, here on earth. We forget those things behind and we press on to the prize of high calling Christ Jesus. So you don't want to ever think you see yourself arrived. You arrived, you're totally your character's perfect, you're a sinless person. You always want to be growing in faith, you always want to be growing in grace, you always want to be stretched. Amen. Praise God. Okay. So just remember that. Amen. I hope that helps people. I hope that encourages somebody. So let's pray. Father, in the name of Jesus, thank you for grace, grace, grace, more grace. I pray for those that need grace tonight, that just need to understand it, that need to walk in it, that need more of it, that just want your grace. I pray for just a revelation of your grace that was given through Jesus Christ, the Messiah. And Lord, I do the best I can on these uh these live streams. I'm really trying to encourage people. I'm transparent. I pray, Lord, that that blesses people out there. I pray they're very blessed by these. I pray that more people watch them, that they're shared online, that the that the Holy Spirit would minister to those that listen and watch them. And I ask, Lord, that the people watching this would feel your love and would feel your tenderness, and that they would uh be moved by your goodness to repent, that they would just come to you in repentance. And uh, Lord, I just thank you that you never have ever uh left me and you never will. You'll never leave us, Lord. And I thank you, Lord, for cleaning us up and helping us with our doctrines, helping us how we believe, and I pray for healing for those that need healing in their hearts, their minds, their bodies. Thank you that uh you're a God of miracles. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Help your people receive from you tonight. Thank you in Jesus' name. Thank you, Holy Spirit. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, God, thank you for transforming us by your grace through faith, Lord. Thank you. Thank you for your promises, your word, Lord. That all things work together for those who love God and who are called according to his promises. Hallelujah. And so the scripture I have, like I just see it. It's like, trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not in your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will direct your path. Thank you, Lord. We acknowledge you and we trust you, and we thank you for directing our paths. Amen. All right, we're starting to feel goofy. I love the Lord. All right, guys. Love you.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:46

This is