Transcription
So, I'mma tell you, it is. Okay. Okay. Thank you, guys. There's a delay. There's like a 10-second delay. Oh, okay. Man, what man? What's up, Red? Love you, boy. Is this in frame? Miss you, Red. Do we need to come forward something and get a better live? It looks so far. If you subscribe to that channel. Hey, we're live right now. All right. We're going to that page live. Me and Mike. Close that door. Lock that door. Well, right now, we live, y'all. DMI AB YouTube.
Okay. Okay. So, so how's it going? So, this is the first episode of Seasonal Grace. We're going to be doing this every Tuesday and Thursday starting today for at 4 o'clock central time. Uh, what it is, it's a topical uh podcast live stream. Uh, feel free to drop in the comments a a proposed uh topic. What we're going to do though is so whenever one of us picks a topic, we're only letting we're only letting one other person know.
We're only letting one other person know what that topic is. So, so today, me and Antoine are the only ones that know what it is. My name is Lee Morris. I'm the founder and executive director of Nehemiah Abene, the CEO of Abalene Restoration Ministries. I have a book called Becoming Nehemiah. And uh, I mean, other than that, I've been saved about seven years. My qualifications lack for everything God has called me to, but we're just in position trying to learn to serve a Lord that loves us beyond measure. Uh, and get to know him better every day. On the other side of the spectrum, my name is Dell uh, Dell Moorehead. Um, I'm a 20-year veteran uh, crack addict that's been redeemed. Amen. Two years clean. Wow. You know what I'm saying? I'm on that side of the spectrum where I'm just enjoying life, learning that the Lord is good every day and gratefulness is my second nature.
Um, I'm also losing a lot of weight. Uh, this is good information. I'm, I think y'all need because listen, my stomach used to be out here and it has gone back. It's receded. Praise God. So I want to say I thank God for that. This is testimony. It's a testimony. Share it. I just want to tell all the people out there, listen, this is, this is a good day to love God. It's a good day to be alive. So, thank you.
Man, I'm Brother Brian. Uh, y'all know me, who don't know me, the Kingdom of Music. Uh, it's been a good season, man. Uh, this is like, uh, my, my new home family that God sent me this season to restore and heal. So, it's awesome to be with Season of Grace in the first episode. And thank you. Thank you.
Yeah. I did not want to be in front of the camera. I know. Me neither. Hey, uh, Antoine Hill, uh, assistant director, uh, Nemiah, um, Kingdom Music, uh, family as well. And uh, I'm just a man of God, grateful just for the opportunity just to uh, share, you know, I to expound a little bit the like the, the podcast idea. It didn't come from like, we need to do a podcast. It came from our organic conversations that we have in here every single day. And the, the awesome thing about it is, I think some of the stuff that we were talking about aren't normal uh, church conversations, but they're real conversations that people have every day, but they just are afraid that they don't have a safe space faith to talk about it. So, get raw. I think we're going to talk about any and everything as time goes on. And uh, look, I mean, we're not here to ruffle feathers, but some feathers might get ruffled and it's okay because we just want to tell the truth and it's gonna edify the whole time.
And and let me just say one thing, kind of like I'm going to mouth before anybody else has a time. At one point, we will talk about adultery and how a how a marriage recovers from stuff, just because I know somebody's going to say something. So, we will eventually get there because we think that's an important topic to cover, but it's not the one we're going to start with.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, what we came up with is only two of us will know the topic every time so that there's a little more spontaneity to it. So today, our topic is the baseline of belief and the central gospel that we can all agree on.
Okay. So that way, and what I mean by that is, I want to kind of have a conversation about not so much the deepest things and not the shallowest things. Foundation. Foundation. What is it right in the middle that all of us, no matter where you come from, what your background is, what religion, how you feel about somebody, what is it as a believer that we can all agree on? For me, what I found to to come into agreement with everyone, because I believe we're call I believe we're called to raise up men for all denominations, for every city, for every nation. And so, for me, it's the Nian Creed. And so I'm going to, I'm going to start by reading that and then it'll give us a jump-off point of of what it is to walk in unity and not.
So, my phone was talking to me. I thought it was you. I was about to yell at you. Thanks. That's crazy. Turn phone. That was me. Uh, but I, I say that because it seems like it's so easy for believer. I've only been saved for seven years, by the way. And so, one of the things I always run into is, man, the divisiveness and disagreement of believers. For sure. It's like we don't walk into something trying to find the common ground. It's like we in instantly put ears on to hear what's different that we can disagree with. And so I'm going to read this and and so uh, I literally uh, there's so many churches, simply God, all of them agree that can agree in this. Simply God, Catholic Church, so many uh, so many denominations. And so it says this, this is the Nian Greek. For those of you that don't know, in the time of Constantine, uh, whenever Christianom was first taken off and the Roman church was accepting it, there was the Orthodox, the Catholics, the apostolic, and and Constantine said, "Hey, is there any way we can all meet the heads of these churches and come up with something that we can agree on so that when people say, 'What do you believe?' We can lay it out simply and easily." And I'm sure there's someone with way better history than that, but it was, this is what it says. It says, "We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, of all that is seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father.
Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven by the power of the Holy Spirit. He became incarnate from the Virgin Mary and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontious Pilate. He suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. And his kingdom will have no end. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, with the Father and the Son. He is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the prophets. Now, this one is, this is the stretch, so you got to listen carefully. It says, "We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church." The word Catholic means undivided Christian.
So, I'm not saying the Roman Catholic. I'm saying the one church. Yeah, that was something you shared a little while ago and I got to go look up the definition of Catholic and it blew my mind when I got to. Yeah. It mean, it just means all-inclusive. All inclusive. One Christian church. So, I say that because there's going to be some people that have Oh, exactly. I So, I just want to clarify. He had a rosary. It says, "We acknowledge one baptism for forgiveness of sin. We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come." Amen.
Amen. Amen. Agree with that. So, so, so that the hope is to identify that those things, right? The gospel. I think there's a I what I've run into and I like I said, I've been a believer short time is, man, there there's so much argument about so many different things. Yeah. But in all of those arguments and everything that happens on this podcast and everything that goes forward out of this ministry, if it doesn't point back to the resurrected Christ so that we have access to the father, yeah, we have to get to the son. There's many ways to Jesus. This is what I found. Many ways to Jesus, one way to the father.
Yeah. Yeah. And so I don't want to find ourselves in disagreements on the many ways to Jesus as long as we can agree that there's one way to the father and then and then let him do the heavy lifting. Y. What I found is if we can agree on this and we found our way to Jesus and then through Jesus to the father, then we now serve a God that'll speak to you.
Yeah. And so I can search out those things that I may not understand and I may not agree with in the word if I desire to put the work in. What I've come into a lot of times is most people don't want to mind for the nuggets. Yeah. They want to listen for this, listen for this. And I'm not saying that ear ticking or that. I'm saying instead of going on their own to a God that speaks and let him minister to them in a real and individual way, they listen to this to this to this and then they feel like they get misled by a man instead of going to God in the first place.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I uh, I think that the way that that I had never heard of that ever until you was like, "Yeah, you I was like, 'No, I never heard of it.'" And he read it to me and I was like, "Man, that's good." And I I just think that um, I've been to a lot of churches. I've been to a lot of places. I've been to a lot of cities. And um, every, I don't want to say everybody. I don't want to blanket everybody, but a lot of people just think like they got it right, but they got it wrong. We got it right, but they got it wrong. We got it right. They got it wrong. We got it right. And it just causes these divisions. And what we, what I, what I, what I started to do was, I would go to all these different churches and all these different places and I would just like, yo, can we, can we agree on this this basis? Because if we can't believe on, if we can believe that that Christ uh, uh, lived a sinless life, born of a virgin, died, resurrected again, like, we can't agree on that, then we don't even have a basis. Like, I don't even know what I bring to the table here, right? So, I just started learning like, if I can, if we can come into agreement here, then we can build everything else right there. And and and I believe that listen, it's impossible for me or us, any of us, to disciple everybody all the way through. But if I can maybe intro, that's what we do here a lot of times. Sometimes we're intros and now we get a, we get a a while to disciple. But in it, some guys are coming in off the street and they're like, they're like, "You believe?" And they're like, "Yeah, whatever, whatever it is. Yeah, I'm cool with that. I'm just trying to say, I'm just trying to I'm just trying to live. I die. I'm just trying to live." And then so it's two completely different uh, uh, uh, two completely different um, sides of this where some people are just trying to prove all the things that they know and so get so deep theology-wise that I'm so grateful for a place where it's like, we know guys are going to come in, some are going to be believers, some are going to be unbelievers, some are going to be skeptical, and some people are going to be like, man, well, I will believe whatever you believe as long as I can eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That's right. And then we just let God do the rest from there and we just pour into them. And so I just think that it's good that we could just start on a basis of saying, hey, do we believe this? Yeah. Let's build from there. Then the deep things of God and theology is going to come as time goes on. And I think God works in all of that. Honestly.
I remember one of the brothers, he's not here no more. He came, he went to the conference that we had. He said he heard he heard one of the speakers say something that wasn't in the doctrine that he was raising. He's like, "Oh, no. See, they got it wrong." And then he seen the power of God move. He said, "No, I think I got it wrong." But it wasn't wrong. I think his heartbeat. I think I think you can have, you can have and still have wrong heart. You can have uh, right doctrine and still have wrong heart. Right? And said you should know them by their fruit. I think when he seen the love, he said that. It was a moment where where he said where he hug hugged one of the brothers as a son and it reminded him the love of the father and he couldn't deny God's power right then and there.
Yeah. You know, and to me, I was like, it just took everything out that your family because, you know, like you said, the intro of his family, they had the beginning part of it. Yeah. And then he came and he seen another part, which was another type of love that you were like, and you know something, this is this is from just, I can't say that I'm learned. And I say that or I, my, I have, your beard color tells a different story. You may be a learned. There is some gray there. But what it does say, it says that I've been around here long enough to know that his grace is sufficient. But I will say this, you don't have to judge somebody just so you can feel better about yourself. Come on. I'm just going to say the basis. You don't have to judge anybody else so you can feel right. So you can feel at ease about what you know.
Can I, can I say something on that though? Because I think deception means they don't even know. Oh, wow. If you're dece, if you're judging, if you're, if you're doing that, listen, I get in scripture it says that within the church, we're able to judge. I get all that. However, if that's my motive, I think I've missed the point and I think I've fallen into deception. I believe that that relationship over everything is what I've found and come to know in scripture is that it's relationship. And so, the point of finding unity and finding the baseline is people are going to look, they're going to judge you. They're going to judge me because I judged your beard, right? And they're going to judge you because you said something about your belly. Yeah. And they're going to judge me because I said something about adultery. And we're not talking about right now. That's going to happen. But the reality is, there's got to be some people that are thinking, man, is there ever going to be unity? Is there ever going to be a time in our generation when the church isn't dying? Yeah. When it starts to come back alive. Listen, let's be honest. The church in this country, which is supposed to be the most free country ever, whatever, is decreasing. Yeah. For sure. And we have the most religious freedom ever. Yeah. If we don't find common ground, if we don't find unity, if we don't find it quick, then it's going to keep going. That listen, it says this. I want to say it's in Luke, uh, Luke the 21st chapter. I, I don't remember what verse or maybe the sixth verse. 26 chapter, 21st verse. I'm not good at it. Yeah. Whenever he's talking about the end times, at the very end, it says, "And when the times of the Gentiles is fulfilled." Don't you know that's talking about us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I, I, listen to me. I'm like, I, I now have the King of Kings. I have all power and all authority by Jesus, by the image of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit to be decreased so that others may see him in me. And in that, maybe they'll receive what I received from the men that I saw Jesus in. But John Brass and Ran Carlson, I remember they had something different. I was reading the same word they were reading and all this stuff. I was so frustrated. I went, I remember going, "You have something I'm not getting what you have." Yeah. I'm not getting what you have. And I wanted that. What I saw in them was Jesus. But what they had was they had they had pursued. They had fought. They had fought through that. They had beat on the door, knocked on the door, and got in that. And they had grace and mercy enough to help me because I was crazy to help guide me and direct me into a position where I could, I could bang on the door long enough for him to open it to me. My hope is that in all of that, the, the not judging everything, even even that, man, how slippery is deception? How slippery is deception? It. Why would you know it if you were deceived? Yeah. I, I, I mean, I know I luckily I have some accountability in my life if I'm open and honest with him. Yeah. And I have. And I have. But I, but I pursue him. And I'm telling you, I couldn't have made it the last seven years, especially he had me open this 10 months after I got saved. I could not have survived if I didn't serve a God that spoke.
Yeah. No, that's real. What? Go ahead. Well, even speaking on foundation, right? So, and you talking about deception, like isn't it deceiving sometimes when when we just tell somebody like, they say, "Believe in your heart," and then you say, and and and the belief in their heart is not even the brokenness over sin like we're talking about. The belief in their heart is not, it's not an existing faith that honors God. It's not a surrender, right? It's not a trust. I trust I can be saved through Jesus. I trust you. Then it's not the surrender or I put your will over my will. Then it's not the love like he said, you love him because he loved us first. And so if they, for the deception part of me is like, when someone just thinks, if I say this and I believe, yeah, good. You believe. Even the demon believes. So, or you believe there's one God. So, it's just not, you got to go beyond it. It has to be that. Do you put your trust in? You know? So, where does that come from though? That's a good question. That's a good question. What? Where does that come from? That desire to put your trust in him. Well, well, I, I, I'll just say this. I don't know that. I just know that when somebody first told me that, uh, I was standing on my porch smoking a blunt. And I'm, listen, you know, I'mma tell you right now, I know a lot of people who share the gospel, a lot of different things, but the most um, the realest people that ever rode up on me was the Mormons. I'mma keep it 100. Yeah. I was. They're about that business. Yeah. No, for real. I was s I was on my porch smoking, just watching traffic and they rode up on bikes. White shirts, black ties. Yep. And a helmet. Yeah. All about that safety first. Listen. Speaking of, listen, when you're shar, when you're sharing this, if you have a Dallas Cowboys hat on, it's hard. It's all good. Don't even worry about it. It's all we next year. So then they took their helmet off and it came roll up on me, bro. Hey. And I'm like, what's up? And they're like, "You believe you're gonna go to heaven today if you die?" This is what they said. And I was like, uh, I don't know. Like, what? you know? And they, they were the first ones that only ever told me to say a prayer. The intro. The Mormons. I said the prayer with them and they was like, "That's it. You saved." And they left. And I, here's what I'll tell you. My experience was something about me, something about me in that moment felt like it wasn't right. Cuz I knew that I was getting ready to go back in there and do everything that I pl took. I was about to live so far away from him. But I was good. My whole thing. But they told me that I was good. And I was like, "What is that?" I knew eventually, I didn't know then. Eventually I knew what it was. Was I could say these things and have no relationship with him and it just won't line up because I need I didn't know that until later on because two different things. But no, no. What I'm saying is I didn't know where to begin. I didn't know where to begin. Like, that was the beginning. No, no, no. What I'm saying is I knew there was a begin. But what they did was plant a seed. I went back inside and I said and I thought about it and I was like, well, what does that mean? I know it can't just be that prayer. Like, it's got to be something. I say whatever you want to say about whatever religion. They came and planted the seed that made me go, yeah, that prayer sounds cool and it sounds cool that I'm saying I'm going to heaven, but I feel like it's something missing. And it was the seed that was planted that made me go, yeah, I got to go a little bit deeper. I was uh, about 18. So I'm g tell you this. I read today, today, Acts the 2nd chapter, when the spirit of the Lord came. I want to tell you that to me was the first uh, uh, when you lead somebody to Jesus. Yeah. When Peter stood up, they said, "What do we do now?" But what he did was he went through the description of who y'all crucified. He explained what this man came for. Yeah. He gave you the understanding and then their hearts were pricked. Yeah. See, so I'm watching the, I'm looking at the original uh, blueprint of what a man is supposed to do when he, uh, when he, uh, gets brought to salvation. It says repent. So that whenever he leads someone to salvation. Yeah. You, you have to know who you going, who, who's the one that brought salvation. Yeah. And if he's the one, listen, they went through, he went through description. Yeah. That he's the king. He's the king's son and that he came to to set us free and that we would, they, he was sent to Pontius P and was crucified by you all. Yeah. I mean, he was descriptive and then they said, "Man, what must we do?" You know what changed, changed the game for me? Um, was uh, I can sit down and teach like scripture and I teach every day here and just different things and I, and listen, I open it up for the guys on Thursdays when I to ask me random questions and they go. But we was always, yeah, we was into some crazy stuff today. I'm like, "All right, hey, listen. Some guys are brand new. They've been off of drugs for four minutes and they're like, 'What are we doing right now?'" And I'm like, "Well, yeah." I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up, hold up." But, uh, the game changer for me was, I, I, I'm not the greatest evangelist, right? Like just rolling up on somebody. Now, I can add too and help and have a conversation. But, um, the, my one of my greatest um, uh, evangelist moments was going to the airport. I'm running late. I'm going through, I go through TSA and I'm walking through and I see a guy sitting there. He doesn't just be honest. He doesn't look like somebody who wants to hear about Jesus right now. If I'm being real, he had his all of his nails was painted black. He had, I mean, just all the way gothic. And I'm like, I don't even know if me and him will relate. And I felt like the Holy Spirit told me to tell him that God loves him. And I'm getting ready to, and I'm like, you know, when you try to rationalize in your mind like, man, I'm just imagining that, right? Yeah. And then I'm getting ready to get onto the escalator. He's like, "No, tell him God loves him." And I'm like, man. And so I go, "Hey, bro." Uh, and y'all know what it's like to be the religious weirdo, right? Where people go, "Oh, yeah. All right." And so I'm like, "Hey." So I ain't just dive right in. I was like, "Hey, bro. Uh, hey, um, just want to tell you something." And then I was like, "Hey, man. I just want to tell you God loves you." And he looks at me like, "What?" And I was like, "Oh, shoot." He's going, he about to cuss me out. And I was like, "I don't know what it means to you, but I just want to tell you God loves you." And he goes, "Man, I needed to hear that so bad." That was it. I got on my escalator, got on the escalator, went and went and got on my flight. Now, I don't know where he is there. I don't have this miraculous thing that I ran into him again. But I know that the reason why it was one of the most powerful moments to me was it reminded me of the Mormons. All they did was roll up on me, told me, "Hey, say this prayer and you and you be saved." And then they got on the thing and I was, and I went in the house and all I could was about what just happened. Water's the other one. So that was, you know.
I want to comment on, I want to say two things. One is it says in scripture, no man is drawn but by the spirit. And so whether it's the spirit of God in me in that speaking that is drawing him, it doesn't matter what we do in that moment. Like that moment whenever you said, "Yeah, I'll pray the prayer for me." That's the spirit of God drawing you in that moment. The other thing I want to say is whenever it talks about Jesus, it says he's the Lord and Savior. And for me, I got to flip the two because I want to say at first, he was my savior, but it took me a time to make him my Lord. I agree. And then and so because at first, I just needed the rescue. That's my truth. I didn't come, I didn't have a moment like that. I was at the end. I knew there was a God. I was probably agnostic at best. And I wanted to die, but I was too chicken to kill myself. And so I made a deal with whatever my limited understanding was of God, which now I know that was God working in me. Yeah. And I said, "Look, I'm going to do everything. I'm going to do everything these people tell me to do and when it doesn't work for me, you're gonna let me die." And that was the deal I made. And then January 19, 2019, I'm sitting there and I know I'm going to die. Some of y'all know the story. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Yeah. And I was sitting there on the couch and I had what I would call and what Oswald Chambers in my first high calls is a white death. It's like a, a wedding funeral. And in that moment, he said, uh, I said, "I don't, I said my sons know I'm clean. I'm not going to die in a shootout. I ain't going to die in an alley. I'm, I'm ready. Take." And and he said, uh, I said, "Because I never want to walk away from you now that I know you." And he said, "Okay, but you're going to have to take a few steps from me." And then he blew his breath in my face. I saw like everything I'd ever done like else like like flat screen TVs going by. And then I got up weeping, crying, encounter moment with. And in that moment, there was repentance. Now, I couldn't define what repentance truly was, but I knew that those are the things that I did wrong. And in all honesty, some of those things I knew were wrong before that moment, but if you grew up a certain type of way, there's things that you don't see as wrong. There's things that because of loyalty you'll do, which makes you a better stand-up dude. And so some of those things in that moment were exposed to me that I'd done my whole life that were absolutely wrong. And I just wanted him. I remember I went to a guy, his name was Sean Miller. He was a, he, he was a pastor that liked liked crack, but he knew the word. And so I went to him and I said, "What do I do? This is what happened." need to do not get baptized. And I ran in the bathroom and I filled up the bathroom with water and baptized. And so, so I think that that all of that ties together with the mo, that mo, what that, that middle point. The middle point I think with the Nazi creed and everything else is, have we come to a moment where we're desiring, even if it's through death, I'm willing to, I'm willing to seek you out. I'm willing to get to know you. And that moment was transformative. I still cussed. I still had problems with uh, promiscuity after that. I still had problem problems smoking with that. After that, I still, I went back and moved in with a girl, got her pregnant again. We weren't married. I, and it took some time through sanctification, through pro, and I'm seeking him every day. I'm reading Oswald. I'm reading Jesus Calling. I'm listening to every pastor. I'm going to AA. I'm going to Bible studies. I'm doing all of those things because I'm chasing after him with everything I got. But it was his process that took a few years to work, not all those details, but you know, a lot of those details out of me and still working on some. You know, it was something I, so I was, I was my, my mom and dad background, they were in the church. They were uh, active. They were uh, my mom was the prayer warrior. She was over the prayer team at the at the church. My dad was over the music ministry and he was a pastor as well. Um, and so I learned a lot and we were in the word of God. But there was a lot of things that I sold off in my in sin. In this time of my life right now, it is a blessing. I'm determined. I'm like, I feel like Paul. I'm determining to know nothing. It's a new life, a new leap. And I'm learning through every day walk with Jesus. And what it looks like, the beginning, the basis. And I make sure that I take, and this is what I can encourage others to do, all that you know, lay it aside. Lay it at his feet. That's good. So that you can enjoy the moment that you're with him right now. Because God has, he wants, we, we take so much time in and almost look mirroring. We look like the scribes and Pharisees. I know so much. And this is a, a, this is a time and dispensation where information is at your fingertips. So it's easy to learn a lot. Yeah. But this is a beautiful time to separate from I what I know to who, who do I know? And I know Jesus and he knows me. You know, you know that you know. What was a revelation I had recently and this might sound crazy. Uh, and let me, let me say this the right way. I felt like um, the most saved. Yeah. Sounds so weird. I've ever been is the last year and a half of my life. And that's like, sounds crazy because I've been walking with the Lord for 16 years. But I had the revelation this year that um, I know that sounds crazy. I had the revelation this year, but it is what it is. Of most of the time I wanted, I mean, so much in my walk, I wanted to be, I wanted to be good. Yeah. Uh, look good. Like look good. Like I'm, like I'm, I'm doing the right things. Um, all these different things. And in that, uh, which is nothing wrong with wanting to seek better for yourself. I didn't realize um, how much of it was just like, God was like, "Hey, if me and you could just get in a deeper relationship, I'll do the rest." And I've taught that and I've talked about it, but it felt like the last year was like, God was like, "Yo, I'm gonna, I'm gonna set you aside and we're gonna, and we're gonna work on this relationship thing on a different level." And and what it did for me was um, I talked to my wife last few days ago and we had read a devotional and um, me and my wife and my kids read a devotional and in the devotional um, it said, uh, write down some things, some fruit that you want to see in your life and then ask the people closest to you, what's some fruit they see in your life and some fruit that they want to see um, I mean, that you need to work on. And so we all share fruit that we seen and what we want, you know, boom. And then I looked at my wife and I was like, "You know, because me and my wife been through a lot." I looked at my wife and I was like, "All right, go ahead, tell me." You know, "Go ahead and tell me. If ain't nobody, anybody gonna tell you, your wife, go ahead and tell me what it is." And so she goes, "Yeah, you know, um," she's like, "I feel like this last year you've uh, learned you love different than you've ever loved before. Um, you love the kids differently than you ever have. You love me different than you ever have. I see you love other people. I see you doing this and boom, boom." And she's bigging me up and I'm like, "All right, that's cool. Thank you. Appreciate that. Now give me that real about what I need to work on." And she sat there for a minute and this was like one of the most powerful things that ever happened to me. And she goes, "You know, I feel like everything that I get ready to name, I'm watching you actively work and grow in every single area of everything. Every time I think of something, all I can think about is how much I see you working and growing in area and God growing you in those areas." And I was like, "You don't have nothing." She was like, "I don't have nothing. I'm watching you work on it. I got, I was driving after that and all I could do was say, 'God, thank you for relationship.' Because this is the first time that I feel like in my whole walk, and people can judge that all they want, but in my whole walk that there's not an area where I'm not allowing God completely in to work on me and not put my hand on it to try to make it look as good as I could. And so, uh, that was like the biggest revelation for me. And in that, it has helped me teach better, to help better because now I just realized if I can just uh, explain to you um, what relationship looks like, give you the stuff. Yeah, we're going to share about prayer and fasting and all this. We'll talk about all that stuff, but if I can tell you the most, the best thing that you could ever have is a real, honest, deep, intimate relationship with God, all the stuff that you're being taught will start to make sense because you'll see it in your relationship with him and it'll just come to life organically and nobody will have to make you not sin or or beat you down for what you're and God will do it. And it's so crazy to be walking with the Lord all this time and the last year being the closest that I've ever been to that is uh, powerful in itself. Weird, but powerful in itself because I would have never even had this revelation about myself if uh, I didn't go through some of the things I went through with my wife and my family and everything in the last year. It would, I never probably never got to that revelation.
Let me share something, man. Uh, two things. The one, the foundation that we're talking about, uh, I grew up Catholic, right? Thank God for grandma, mama, dad. They planted a seed. God is real. Um, did my catechism as as a youngster. I felt like you did with the Mormons. I walked away. I did my confession to the father. Didn't tell him my real sins. Told him, "Yeah, I stayed up late, played Nintendo." Walked. Didn't tell him about what I was really looking at. The things, the magazines I found under the house. You know what I mean? Punching with next door neighbor, all of that going on. And conscience is so funny. Oh, yeah. I walked away with a smirk like, so I could, this is the God thing. You know what I mean? I don't take, I'm good with y'all. I'm good in God's appearance. So I did, I knew God was real, but there was no power there. But I thank God for that moment. And then I get saved 19, boom, boom, had that encounter with God. And um, started learning in ministry from from the church we went to, to the things that I knew from being baptized and, you know, and start finding out about doctrine. We didn't, I didn't really know the foundation what everyone would believe on. I just, I started thinking that my loved ones that that grew up the way I was, that they weren't saved. I started feeling like, well, maybe I learned past them and I'm now I'm trying to show them. And not even looking at fruit. Just thinking that love, like I found the key. This is it. This is the doctrine that saves you. This is the way that saves you. And, you know, my father wouldn't receive from me. He would never go to a church with us. He'll come maybe on Easter, you know, but he'd go to his own services on Sunday and I go with him and sit with him and I'd be there happy just to be with him, you know? And then in my head, I criticize what was going on. Like, so they're so far away from God. Even knowing, coming now to 45 years old and my father's never had a sex scandal, never had a problem with falling. And and and now I feel when I hear Dale talk about relearn, I feel like I'm relearning. Like God telling me like, all those years of knowing how to do call, knowing how to do prayer, know how to sit, worship and teach men, be around tables, great leaders in the body, and then feeling like you don't, you don't know, you know what I mean? Like, like from being staffed and sitting in the classes and some of the stuff at first it was like, you already know this. I don't. But I'm hearing the Holy Spirit saying in a beautiful, gentle voice, relearn. Just relearn. Relearn. And then so then I think about my dad and, you know, and I remember he came with me one time to an event and I'm like, I'm speaking tongues. I feel like so much like you said, so much saved than than they are because I feel like I know the truth that you're with me, right? Like you're, you're a super. I'm going to show you how to speak in tongues. Like I'm even speaking, not doing it to us call, but I wanted, I want him to know like there's a power here. You activate the Holy Spirit. Like you just, uh, draw in, you know? And I said, "Pray for us before we do an event." And his prayer was so, so, uh, simple but so powerful. Cry. Like he could, you know, his English is kind of broken. He was like, "Lord, you bless my son today." And he starts talking to God. And then when he was done, I was like, I said, "Damn." You know, I said, "You know, Dad, looked, I, you know, him. He like." And I was like, "Because you, it's right here." Come on. You're a fruit. Yeah. Your relationship, your heart. Even if you don't know what I know in in the truth and understanding of more growth. You got it.
Well, no. I think sometimes we get so focused on maturity that we forget the simplicity. Come on, man. The simplicity. It's the simplicity. The simplicity. This morning, I got to engage with the God of all creation because the blood has reconciled me to the father. And I get to sit there and I have unanswered questions. I have a ministry that's too big for me. I have a marriage that I'm constantly trying to be better at. I have kids that aren't reconciled uh, to the father. I have kids that are living with their girlfriend. I have, I have children I haven't even got to see yet. And I get to sit there and I get to lay it all out to him. And I'm gonna be honest, he doesn't answer all the questions. And not every, and I'll be real honest and say, every morning I don't feel him show up every morning. But on those mornings, I still know he's with me. Amen. And so that's for me. We lose sight in that trying to rush our maturity, trying to r. And we're listeners. God's called us to teach. That's just the truth. You, he's, he's actually worship leader and of course, these guys teach and y'all know most of their stories, but the reality is, we got to have an understanding. But even he gives that. I can't boast that I have the understanding and I do. I only have what he's given me. Amen. And the only thing he's given me, I would tell anybody this. Nehemiah grew so quick. We had nothing, no money, no nothing. I'd only been saved 10 months. All you, all y'all know the story. And it happened so fast. People are like, "What did you do to grow your nonprofit?" And I'm like, "For three years, I spent a couple hours with Jesus and smoked cigarettes." And then the last three, I quit smoking. That's the key. That's how it got built. You just keep coming. I, I just been showing up every morning with him. That's it. I'm up at 3:30 every single day without fail. 3:30 a.m. And I'm trying, I'm trying. Sometimes it's worship, sometimes the word.
Sometimes it's sermon, sometimes it's sermons, sometimes I fall asleep reading the word. Yeah. And sometimes he'll wreck me on the treadmill. I'm known literally, I crunch. I will weep on the treadmill openly and people stare. Cuz he talks to me there. It's like whenever you're out of breath and a little overweight, you're fully exposed in those moments. Like they can't hide from him there. You know, I'm going tell you this one thing. I find that I see man, I talk with God when I'm looking at my wife sleep. I know it's weird. I go to go up. I have I wake up at odd hours of the night. I get up, I have to use the restroom. Go back and I look at her and she looks so vulnerable and I say, "Man, only you can keep." And before I know it, we're dialoguing. "Only you can keep us because that's what I look like. I know I can't make it without you and I need you."
So then this is what the Lord started showing me. Sometimes my wife will come in because she's because she's white. I'm black. Watch this. She'll come in. I'm blackish. Yeah. I got I got good hair. He's got no hair. I'M JUST PLAYING. I'M JUST PLAYING. BUT LOOK, BUT she'll come in and she's got Timberland boots on and she's got on trying to look urban and she's "What do you think?" I said, "Babe, you know what it is? She's trying to be something to me before me that she doesn't have to be." And I believe that a lot of people take on, and this is an analogy, we take on all this stuff that we know so we can be a certain thing before God. Man, take them clothes off and be naked. Cuz what it really looks like is just "Come here, let me hold you, babe." I'll listen. The Holy Ghost will dress you with the right information in the right season so y'all can walk hand in hand.
You know, do you know why? Do you know why being at Nehemiah helped me this year? When I first came here, for the first few months, I just sat in class and I were awesome because I wasn't I mean, and that too, but but what it did, um, I came in with no expectations. I came in and I just listened and I let God and then I, uh, man, honesty and truthfulness is the biggest thing here. I had one of the brothers that's getting ready to graduate. He was telling me about his wife and he was like, "Man, like, you know, we're trying to figure stuff out. You know, I just wanted to be honest with you and this and you know, and then this per he was talking about everybody's honesty. He was like, "I'm all the way honest." I was like, "Yeah, because you're at Nehemiah, man, where all we do is be so completely truthful and honest that we tell some of the craziest stories that you could ever even imagine in front of a bunch of guys and we just say them." I said, "Bro, you got to be okay with the fact that everybody can't do that all the time. That's a blessing. But we, I was like, the blessed part is you're from this. So that's what happened."
And so, but when I sat in here and I'm listening and all these different things. Yeah. And I'm I'm I'm going through my favorite class, everybody knows, was purified and I'm going through it and it's going through all these different stuff and it made me be so honest with myself and I started going through all of these different things and it talked about, um, you know, it got to generational curses and it said, "Mark off all the things that your mom did, your dad did, your grandparents, great grandparents if you can go that far." So, I'm circling, I'm circling, I'm circling, I'm circling, I'm circling. I get down and I go, man, here, here. And I watch the generational things just pass down, pass on, pass on down, and there's not a space down there for my kids, but I'm like, man, like there's going to be a space for my kids. And what am I going to leave them with? And I had to be open and naked, not for anybody, but for myself. Because I was like, God, I want the fullness of you, and I don't want to keep on trying to prove myself to you because I, I, I'm not doing good at it. And I keep messing up.
But I was going to say, there was a part that got me, um, was the day where I had to be honest about what happened to me as a kid that I had never even told my wife. I had to be honest about some stuff and God brought to remember some stuff that happened to me when I was younger that I didn't even realize it. And so I, this was like the turning point for everything. My wife came and picked me up. I got in the car with her. I sat in the car with her and I'm crying. I already been crying when I. And so I'm just kind of wet my tears and she's like, "You okay?" And I looked at my wife and I was like, "Man, I should I should have never married you." And my wife was like, "What do you mean?" And I was like, and I'm just crying now. And I'm like, I'm like, "Because you, you, you became a a nurse." And she was like, "What are you talking about?" I was like, "Man," I said, "Man, I'm walk I'm walking through all these different places that I never even talked about. The things I never talked about. I've been in church all these years. There all these things I've been all these places and these things that I've never talked about to anybody that nobody ever knows about me and I'm just writing them down in my book and that's all I'm doing. I'm just writing them down and and I can't believe I never talked about this and I didn't even remember that this happened. I didn't even remember that this happened. I didn't even remember and then I met you and then all I ever did was bleed on you and hurt you and and mishandle you the whole time and you become my nurse by default. And the first thing she said is "It's okay." And I said, and all you ever say is "It's okay." And it's not. Thank you, Lord. And so, it's not that I shouldn't have married you, but I married you when I was so wounded. And I carried it through our whole marriage. And this is the first time I've ever talked about it out loud. And I just tell I was, and all I could do is say, "Man, I, I'm so sorry." And I just, and and we rode and we talked and it opened up the door. And it opened the door for me to talk about so many different things that I never felt so free in my life to share everything with her to where it brought us to a place where she will bring up the most random thing right now. I'm not going to be a liar. And it changed my whole relationship with her, with my kids, with the Lord. And I felt like for the first time, and that's why I said this happened this year. Felt like for the first time, God was like, "Man, that's all I want you to do. You didn't have to lie." And so it just changed everything for me and all of that came in. I didn't need to perform. I didn't need to be anything that I wasn't. I just needed to seek a relationship with the Lord and be honest and open with him. And he brought it into my marriage and and it helped everything.
I can tell you this. I'm looking at. I heard everybody's talking and all I can hear is the relationship forging between man and God. So beautiful, bro, just to hear with you and your dad, God showing you that I am a God of all. God of all and that even in a vulnerable, he allowed. Look, your situation with you and your wife reminded me of me and my wife. I married her when I was an addict. And she was the lamb of God. She was crucified for me. I would steal out of her purse, bro. She, and she would love me. I would, and I'm talking about stuff people like, uh-uh, nah, divorce, divorce time. But she was show, she said, "All I could do was see the finished you." And I said, "Man, this is Jesus." And he allowed me to look at this. He allowed her to get closer to him through the things she suffered and allowed me to see the love that he has for me through what she suffered.
You know what I remember the most? What is that? When I stole your truck. No, I do remember you stole my truck. No, I was thinking about before you stole the truck. Uh, whenever we first started in ministry and we had nothing and she was a manager of Dairy Queen, we'd get free double bust. Man, that was the best. We'd go get free D. And he'd be like, "Get you another burger." That's right. I blew up. That was the best time. I was I was like 225 when I met him. Six months later, I was just gravy. I loved it. That was a good time.
You know, I want to say this, too. This is actually a work in progress. Delivery is just delivery. Good. Cuz I used to smoke a lot of slim. Slim. You look slim. Thank you. White's a good color. I got to go teach a class. I love y'all.
Hey, so I want to read one thing. I want to read this again as we wrap up, right? This is our first one. It's a little short than the rest, but I think as we go through this, it's always got to be about the common ground. It can't be like, you know, you see those like people say, uh, well, we believe in the full gospel. I'm like, we got what? Jesus, born of a virgin, one God, one father, born of virgin, died on the cross, rose again. You know what I mean? Is that the full gospel? And so, so I just want to make sure that we, there's deep stuff we're going to get to and disagree, right? There's some shallow stuff that we're going to talk about that we may have a different understanding. We serve a God that speaks. Uh, my prayer is that as it goes forward, and I know the men in this room, so I know that this will happen, is that we always anchor to the word. And that we find the common ground because my, I hope we talk about real honest, open stuff. I feel like we started really well because I think there's a lot of people that are searching for the truth in the everyday. I don't, for me, like hearing about Christ on the cross, it didn't have impact for me. That's not how I got saved. That's the truth. I had to have him really save me, like rescue me, like really rescue me in that moment. That didn't have the impact for me because it's too far away. It's too, 2,000 years ago was too far away. It just didn't. But I got to see something in some people. And that that made me, that made me realize I was missing something. And that drove me towards those men because it was the Christ in them, the hope of glory. It drove me to those men to ask those questions. "What do you, what's different?" I remember John told me, "Pray to read the book of John and pray to take part in the sufferings." And so as I read this and and but for my last statement, I'm going to say, if you are searching for that, if you hadn't had, because I believe there's an encounter needed, you need to encounter Christ. And for me, it was I read the book of John as many times as it took, prayed and to take part in his sufferings until I encountered the Christ that was fully God and fully man. And so I'm going to read it real quick and then and then I guess we can all close out. Uh, Nicene Creed says this: "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all that is seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven. By the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary and was made man. For our sake, he was crucified under Pontius Pilot. He suffered death and was buried. On the third day, he rose again in accordance with the scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. And his kingdom will have no end. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son, he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the prophets. We believe in one holy catholic, which I want to remind you means all-inclusive church, not the Roman Catholic, holy catholic, or undivided Christian church, and apostolic church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen." Amen.
Anybody got a something final? Nah, I just want, just, uh, we'll be on here on Tuesdays and Thursdays, four o'clock central, and we'll, we'll go through a wide array of conversations. Some of them will be super deep, super serious. And some of them, I just know us, this group of people is going to be crazy and whatever it's going to be. But, uh, we just really just wanted to just share truth with you. Some maybe some conversations people aren't having. Uh, and so, um, every Tuesday, every Thursday, 4 o'clock central. And, uh, we pray that this grows into something that God just uses and ultimately that people come to Christ. You know what I mean?
What's the number of the prayer line? So, if you for some reason, this has sparked an interest to to listen to pray the prayer. I, I don't think the prayer is the golden ticket, but I do believe it's a seed, like Antoine said, sewn in the heart. And if you want to do that and you don't have anybody to do that with, we want to give you the number to the prayer line real quick. You can call in, you make that, you just say, "Hey, listen. I don't know what they're talking about really, but if I can get even a glimpse at what it appears that they may have, I'm ready to pray this prayer they talk about." And I'm not saying it's the, the, the end all be all. What I'm saying is it's the beginning. Intro. It's the beginning. And so, uh, that number is on here somewhere. I don't know offhand. I wish I would have been, this is kind of on the spot and he didn't tell me he was. I didn't, well, I didn't think about it except we're talking about that. I think it might be important to give him an avenue. Well, I tell you what, if you're here next week, we will have, or listen. So, this is what I'll make a commitment. I'll go through the comments. Amen. How many? And and I guarantee there are some people watching right now that or that will watch this that are called to that are called to that are that are called to, uh, share the gospel. And you make the comment that says, "Hey, I want to know more." And I guarantee because I've read some of the comments in recent videos. I guarantee you somebody's going to say, "Hey, listen. This is where it begins." And I will, as soon as I get that number, drop it in. And if you need to call and hear somebody's voice and talk to them, that number will be in the comments, uh, hopefully by the end of tonight.
And I just want to say, uh, say thank you. Is that it, Brian? Yes. Season with grace, man. I love it. It was personal, deep today. Yes, sir. I got something from, just knowing, hearing that part. I never got to hear the beginning of your testimony. So hearing that was pretty cool. You said something that touched me. The cross was so, I was too far from that. I believe that. So when he says that, I have, they have to see Jesus in us. Have to see us on the cross with Jesus and it draws people, draws you today closer to Christ. Amen. You know how to turn it off? I don't know how. I'm try. Uh, I think I stopped it. Where is Johnny? See if he left. Is his van out there? Call him. Did he really leave? I don't know if the whole thing was on there or not. I don't know if it was still connected. Nothing. Hold on. I'm powered off. Or just pull that. I don't know if that whole thing made it or not. I thought he was going to stay for us. There's no way you thought you. Hey man, I had a long talk with him. Yeah. I mean, I told him I said, "Hey, let's make sure, make sure, let's make sure that that's off." They got me on there recorded sleeping for. Oh, yeah. It was on. I had to get them deleted. Never go.