Participants: David Asscherick & Shanda Ban (Host), Chad & Fadia Kreuzer
Series Code: E
Program Code: E000013
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00:20 In the book of Revelation Jesus in speaking to the
00:23 seven churches says repeatedly to him that overcomes, 00:27 to him that overcomes, to him that overcomes and in 00:29 and in each of those instances He gives a promise 00:32 associated with that overcoming. 00:33 That's exactly what we are going to be talking about 00:36 on our program today, my name is David Asscherick and 00:38 I am here with my co-host Shandra Ban. 00:40 Welcome to Engage and we are going 00:42 to be talking about Overcoming. 00:43 So Shandra if you would introduce us to our guests today 00:47 that would be a great thing. 00:48 Sure David thank you, we are so excited to have Chad 00:50 and Fadia Kreuzer back with us. 00:52 They were here with us once before sharing their testimony 00:54 about how the Lord has worked in their lives and has 00:58 help them to create a ministry of creativity, making 01:01 documentaries, so would you guys just both recap 01:04 a bit of your story from last time? 01:05 Yeah sure, I was raised once again in a Christian home. 01:09 I believed in God but kind of fell away and 01:13 didn't really follow God. 01:14 Through a series of events I was struggling with 01:18 alcohol, smoking, drugs and these kinds of things. 01:21 Through a series of events my friend Andy who was an 01:24 atheist ended up giving his life to the Lord and it was 01:28 a rebuke to me because he didn't believe and I did 01:30 believe but wasn't living for it. 01:32 So his own personal experience on just the fact that 01:36 he said listen I can't be doing any of these things anymore, 01:37 I can't be living this way. 01:39 You know you are that way when an atheist is witnessing 01:41 to you about God? - exactly. 01:43 So you get convicted and then what happens? 01:45 Then sometime after that the Lord finally gave me 01:49 victory over the drinking, over the drugs and 01:53 the smoking was the hardest one. 01:55 I chewed, I smoked, basically I chewed till my gums hurt 02:00 and it was always easy for me to quit because 02:03 - when you said chew your talking about chewing tobacco 02:06 - yeah the stick in and dip in - so that's like common. 02:10 Exactly so I went from that and I can always quit because 02:14 I can always switch back to smoking and so I went back and 02:17 forth till my lungs hurt and that I would go back to the 02:19 chewing and just back and forth and back and forth. 02:21 Finally the Lord slowly gave me victory over those things 02:24 and I went to a Bible prophecy seminar in Grand Rapids 02:27 Michigan with David Asscherick, yours truly. 02:30 That was great, that was awesome, I remember that 02:33 experience, it went very well. 02:34 It was a large meeting and there is tons of people there 02:36 from young to old, there were all kinds of different people. 02:38 - you would have been young when you came? 02:39 - yeah I was 19 years old. 02:41 And Fadia what about you? 02:43 Well I was born in Baghdad Iraq to a Christian family. 02:47 We moved to the states when I was four going on five. 02:51 Brought up in Chicago and brought up in a Christian home, 02:55 went to a Christian school and everything but didn't 02:59 have the Christian experience, it wasn't my own until 03:02 my older brother past away in a car accident. 03:07 He was killed by a drunk driver and then a series of 03:10 events happened and I gave my heart to the Lord and 03:15 then wanted to be totally His, committed to Jesus and 03:19 He opened the doors and I went through them and here 03:23 we are today doing a ministry. 03:24 So you say there was a series of events that happened 03:27 but the pivotal event was the death of your brother? 03:31 It caused me to think about life, I started to think to 03:35 myself if I were to die tomorrow what would life be like 03:39 for others that I have influenced and I couldn't think 03:42 of one person that had been influenced positively towards 03:46 Christ because of my life. 03:48 I remember you saying that in the last program and 03:50 that's convicting, that is so convicting. 03:52 So your not only thinking about life but it brought you 03:54 face to face with death as well. 03:55 - yeah! - so you guys mentioned a few things here in 03:57 your stories, Chad you mentioned the alcohol, 03:59 the smoking and Fadia you mentioned just not having 04:03 knowledge and not knowing so you saw these needs and 04:06 that has led you into a ministry can you tell us 04:09 a little more about that? 04:10 Yeah, when we were over the years ministering to people 04:14 you realize that as you're giving the Gospel, 04:16 as you are giving the truth from the Bible to people 04:20 they have issues in their lives that are unresolved and 04:23 tearing up their life today. 04:25 Practical things, you know whether it be drugs or alcohol 04:30 or a lack of forgiveness. 04:32 With me I hadn't realized that I hadn't forgive the 04:36 person that had killed my brother. 04:37 I thought I did, and just said all forgive and forget 04:41 that it's what good Christians do, but I hadn't dealt 04:44 with it and not until something major happened and then it 04:49 came to life, well I haven't forgiven this man. 04:52 I love what you are saying there that we sometimes just 04:56 pretend like everything is fine spiritually, 04:57 then everything is fine when in the reality is that 05:00 people may have an intellectual, or sort of a cerebral 05:02 acceptance of spiritual things but then people still 05:05 have lives they have issues. 05:06 They have physical things, they have emotional things, people 05:10 people I guess is really the way to say it and that is one of 05:13 things we are going to talk about today, is how do 05:15 we make that transition to help people make more mature 05:19 and biblically grounded decisions in their lives and 05:23 overcoming, that is our program, some of these practical 05:26 things, these real-life issues and we are going to get 05:30 in the dirt today so to speak and talk about some of that. 05:33 One of the things I appreciate about Chad and Fadia's 05:37 ministry is that when you see a need you just do it. 05:40 You needed these documentary programs as we talked about 05:44 last time and you just created it. 05:45 You are out ministering to people and say hey we need 05:49 to create a resource, we need to be studying and giving 05:52 a resource to people in these practical areas of life 05:54 so we want to talk about that today. 05:56 This Overcoming Seminar, so maybe you could tell us 05:59 a little bit about how that came to be, sort of the 06:02 birth of the Overcoming Seminar you do? 06:05 Yeah you know for years we put on Bible prophecies 06:09 seminars and we would go around and we meet all kinds 06:12 of different people from different backgrounds. 06:14 People would come and you would find at the end of the 06:16 seminar people were struggling with maybe with addiction, 06:19 they're struggling with like Fadia mentioned forgiveness, 06:23 what ever it is they have something that they want to be 06:26 closer to God but there is something holding them back. 06:29 As we saw that we would use to work with stop smoking 06:32 programs, but you realize that's one and only one of 06:35 many, many issues that people have. 06:37 And actually we were over in Iceland, we worked in 06:41 Iceland for a year actually and while we were over there 06:44 we were studying with a spiritualist and a really nice 06:47 guy and we had a great time. 06:48 We were actually studying the Bible together and he was 06:51 very open and finally he had an addiction and his wife 06:53 was a Buddhist from Thailand. 06:55 So you had this Icelander with a Buddhist wife. 06:58 We have an Icelandic spiritualist and okay. 07:01 It was a very interesting situation because she knew 07:03 nothing about the Bible but finally he had heard 07:06 we had done stop smoking programs and he said, he said 07:10 I have an addiction to chocolate and maybe you can help 07:14 me to get over that. 07:15 And we chuckled thinking he was being, - but he wasn't 07:18 kidding, - he wasn't kidding it was chocolate and his 07:21 wife said no, no, no he has a serious problem with this. 07:24 - with chocolate? With chocolate so we. 07:25 - was he a great big guy? - no he was in good shape, 07:28 he was healthy guy generally but the fact that this thing 07:31 he was really struggling with, so we thought he was kidding. 07:34 He was getting real bad migraines 07:36 - he was getting migraines from it and so they finally 07:39 asked can you work with, use some of the principles for 07:42 this? That kind of got us an idea off on okay, I would have 07:45 thought initially it was a big deal, but it was for him. 07:48 One of the things about addic- tions sometimes what doesn't 07:51 look like an addiction may be to the rest of us 07:54 actually is a serious trouble for an individual. 07:56 So then slowly over time we brought into the seminar 08:00 because the principles for overcoming habits or finding 08:02 victory in your spiritual life are pretty much general 08:05 principles and if you use those principles you can 08:07 pretty much overcome in any area of life. 08:09 So now we've used this term overcoming several times here, 08:12 can either of you speak to what is overcoming? 08:15 - good question. - yeah overcoming is basically 08:19 finding spiritual victory, progress in your own life. 08:22 Finding out that you realize you have something, what 08:25 ever it may be whether it be an addiction to drugs, 08:28 alcohol, tobacco or whatever it may be for some kind of 08:30 a personal habit, it may not be a drug or a substance. 08:33 It could be pornography that is one of the things 08:35 we talk about it our seminar. 08:37 We have all these different things and then also that 08:41 area for forgiveness in finding victory over the habit 08:44 or over the negative repetitive thoughts. 08:46 If it's lack of forgiveness, you repeat the story over 08:49 and over in your head, or you play it out and 08:52 it is getting to the point where God gives you a freedom 08:55 from those things, helps you to be able to back off and 08:58 not have love for those things in the past or just 09:01 a constant negative repetitive action. 09:02 So when we use the term overcoming in a biblical sense, 09:05 in the sense of overcoming seminar we are talking about 09:08 better lifestyle choices and getting to the place where 09:11 those things can be behind us. And you are seeing this? 09:15 Absolutely, absolutely we, it's basically a five or six 09:18 days seminar, generally we do five days. 09:21 In that seminar we go over health principles, 09:25 lifestyle habits, because one of the things if you just 09:29 avoid a bad habit what ends up happening is you fill it with 09:32 something so it's how to implement good habits in the 09:35 place of something that is bad, you get the biblical 09:38 example of! - I say it's on the tip of my tongue 09:40 but go ahead please. 09:41 There is a guy who is demon possessed of the demon is 09:45 cast forth out of him so now the house is swept clean 09:49 and how many others come in? - 7- 7 other demons come. 09:53 Because he is clean he's open and they can fill him 09:57 up and he is worse off in the end than he was. 09:59 Sometimes that happens in our spiritual lives, we come 10:02 to Christ, we accept Him, our lives are changed for the 10:06 better but we are not filling our lives with the things 10:09 of God so what ends up happening is our life ends up being 10:11 worse than before and we think man, I might as well 10:13 give up this whole spiritual life thing, there's no point. 10:16 Something that I really appreciate that you guys have 10:18 mentioned several times, I've actually personally been 10:20 through your Overcoming Seminar and it was a blessing to me 10:23 and I have been able to share a lot of the principles 10:25 but one thing that you are saying here is that if 10:27 I see the title of overcoming I think oh, 10:29 I don't need to overcome drugs. 10:30 I don't smoke, but I really resonate with the fact that 10:34 you say there are other things, I mean pride, being 10:37 judgmental even mental habits and sugar that's a huge 10:41 thing that people need to overcome. - food is a major 10:45 issue that a lot of people eat too little or eat too 10:48 much or they just eat unhealthy food, all these issues 10:51 they may seem small to other people but someone who is 10:54 stuck in this realizes it can be a bondage. 10:57 I love what you were saying earlier and that is this 11:00 idea that true overcoming is not just the absence of 11:03 the bad but if the presence of the good. 11:04 I love that language and I appreciate that so you have 11:09 given us some practical hints here. 11:11 We kind of have a definition of overcoming, it just 11:14 sounds like its moral growth, growing to be the person 11:17 that God has created us to be in overcoming those 11:20 baggage that we had in the past so maybe we can just 11:23 talk a little bit about some of the specific things 11:25 that you cover in your Overcoming Seminar. 11:28 Okay let's just say I just showed up here today what 11:31 is the first thing you say? 11:32 The first point that we lay down and go over each and 11:36 every day is a quote that says never forget that 11:39 thoughts workout actions, repeated actions form habits, 11:43 and habits form character. 11:45 So basically it works like this, never forget that your 11:47 thoughts, if you think something enough will become an 11:51 action, and once you act upon something enough times it 11:54 becomes a habit, and your habits altogether, all the habits that 11:57 you have in conglomeration or who you are, it's your character 12:01 What happens is generally we want to change our character 12:04 or we want to change our habits. 12:05 I'm a smoker and I don't like this so what do we do? 12:08 We try to quit the habit, or we have a bad character flaw. 12:11 Like I'm angry all the time, or I struggle with pornography 12:15 or something I lost. - could be laziness? 12:18 - yes it could be laziness so what you do is try 12:20 to change the habit or change the characteristic 12:23 the habit consists of. 12:24 The point is it's been want to change it you don't just 12:27 change the habit, you don't just change that action, it has 12:29 to go back to the thoughts. 12:30 If the thoughts are not changed the life is not going to 12:33 be changed, so never forget that thoughts workout 12:34 actions, repeated actions form habits and habits form 12:37 character so that is what happens basically. 12:39 It's like the snowball rolling down the hill and it starts 12:42 small up here you say I want to stop this great big ball 12:45 down here, well how do you do that? 12:46 You have to intercept up there okay so then I guess the 12:50 question is how does someone start forming correct thought 12:55 patterns? Because that sounds like that's the key to the 12:59 beginning this process of moral growth overcoming. 13:01 How does someone begin to rewire themselves for better thoughts? 13:04 Well we start looking into the brain and explain what 13:08 the brain does and how it works. 13:10 We talk a lot about the frontal lobe and the effects of 13:14 things that we do on the frontal lobe. 13:16 We talk about the importance of keeping the frontal lobe 13:19 healthy and strong and working. 13:22 In Revelation it talks about that God wants to put 13:27 His seal, His name in our forehead in Revelation and 13:33 He wants to put His seal in our foreheads. 13:34 what is behind your forehead is your frontal lobe right? 13:37 What's the name in the Bible? - character 13:41 character right so He wants to put the Father's name in 13:44 our forehead's and you can see the character thing in 13:47 the Bible like whenever somebody's character 13:50 changes their name changes. 13:51 Abram became Abraham, Sarai became Sarah, Jacob - Israel, 13:58 Saul became Paul and one that is really neat is Jacob. 14:03 I speak Aramaic and in our language the heel means Jacob 14:09 and so it is like you're grabbing the heel, 14:12 you're tripping somebody up, your a deceiver. 14:14 That was Jacob's character right but then what was his name 14:18 changed to? Israel right. What does Israel mean? 14:21 One who's wrestled with God, one who is an overcomer. 14:25 Right, exactly isn't that powerful an overcomer. 14:28 God says I want to change your character therefore 14:32 your name so we realize name and character are 14:36 synonymous in the Bible. 14:37 The significance here is that God puts His seal on our 14:41 forehead it doesn't literally mean your walking around with 14:45 some people think I've got the bar code on my head, but it's 14:49 that God has put His law, His character, who He is into us. 14:53 Specifically who, Jesus. The way Jesus walked and talked 14:56 on this earth, the way He felt, the way He dealt with 15:00 people, the way He dealt with the Pharisees and everybody. 15:03 He wants to put that same character into our minds. 15:06 Into our forehead's so that when we walk and talk and 15:09 interact with people we have that character in us and 15:13 we would make the same decisions He would. 15:14 I want to tease out something you said 15:16 a little bit more Fadia you talked about 15:18 keeping the frontal lobe, which is the fore part 15:20 of the brain healthy and strong. 15:22 Well if I'm going to keep my arms healthy and strong I do 15:25 push-ups, if I keep my legs healthy and strong I will run. 15:29 I'll do cycling. How do I, you see weren't going with 15:33 this, how do I keep my brain healthy and strong? 15:35 Do I try to wiggle my ears? 15:37 There are actually several things that need to take place. 15:41 We talk about we give the science behind how they 15:44 discovered that the frontal lobe is the seed of 15:47 spirituality and morality in the will that's what scientific 15:49 discoveries have shown. 15:51 The answer to this basically is there are several answers 15:53 on how to strengthen the frontal lobe. 15:55 One of them is good nutrition, having the right foods. 15:58 - you are what you eat? - exactly you are what you eat. 16:00 You want to make sure because there are certain foods 16:02 that are actually strengthening for the brain and 16:05 therefore if you strengthen the brain you're 16:07 strengthening your frontal lobe and you will make better 16:10 decisions and will have a better spiritual life. 16:12 So nutrition is one, there are many other things that 16:15 are simple like getting enough exercise. 16:17 Getting enough sunshine, getting fresh air, these 16:19 things all seen quite simple but sometimes, many times 16:23 we will discover people who are in depression that come to the 16:26 seminar, they do not get enough sunshine, they don't get 16:29 enough they are eating just refined foods all the time. 16:32 Foods not the way they were originally designed by the 16:35 Creator right? So getting closer to the way we were 16:38 designed to live is something that will literally 16:41 strengthen of the frontal lobe. 16:43 There's several different things from eating habits, exercise. 16:45 So what next say for myself, if I'm struggling with something 16:48 I eat pretty healthy, get lots of water, I get good sleep, 16:51 what's the next step? 16:53 Well one of the things we do to through the week is 16:57 we meet together every day of the program, consecutive 17:01 days, five consecutive days. 17:02 We make people go through a modified cleanse fast. 17:07 We find that biblical the fast and everything and it 17:11 actually cleanses the body -Can you tell us specifically what? 17:16 And what you do is the first day we just have you eat whole 17:21 fruits and you can have 100% juices and water, that's it. 17:25 So fruit, Juice, and water day number 1, - day number 1 17:29 Sounds like paradise to me. 17:31 So that is what we do and it is so cool because the next 17:33 day people are like oh man I don't know if I want to do 17:36 this. Next day the people come back, how do you feel? 17:39 Oh, I am surprised that I was able to do this. 17:42 So even that decision of them doing that is strengthening 17:45 the frontal lobe, you are making a decision and in a 17:48 group it is easier because everybody else is doing it. 17:50 So you're strengthening the will by doing that. 17:53 - positive reinforcement. - exactly. 17:55 So is the French fries and the cheeseburgers are the second 17:58 day? - no the second day we do veggies and greens. 18:04 You add them to the fruit and fruit juice. 18:07 Each day you are adding you are not just doing one thing. 18:11 So you add to it the veggies and those are good, in Eden 18:15 God gave Adam and Eve fruits, nuts and grains right? 18:19 But right when sin comes in what does He add to their 18:23 diet? -Vegetables! - vegetables right? 18:25 We realize that veggies have a lot of cleansing affects 18:29 on the blood, so God needed it to do that. 18:32 Sin came in and starting having its affects and God gave 18:35 us the cleansing agent so that is why it is good to have 18:37 the veggies, we could go into a lot of it but. 18:39 People are, many of the people that are coming to your 18:42 seminars I mean they are probably not eating well? 18:44 - no! - I heard as a statistic just the other day. 18:47 I was watching this amazing documentary, speaking of 18:51 documentaries, in which if you are under the age of 20. 18:54 If you were born after the year 2000 and you are a 18:58 minority, after the year 2000 you are a minority the 19:01 chances that you will end up with adult onset diabetes, 19:04 type 2 diabetes, one in two. - wow! 19:06 50 percent and for the whole population, in North America, 19:10 one in three. I mean the food that people are eating, 19:13 I'm just going to come right out and say it, some of the 19:16 food that maybe you are eating and certainly much of the 19:19 American and the industrialized nations is not even food. 19:22 We call it food and putting in packages 19:24 but it is not food. 19:27 Someone said to me one time if you have to open a 19:29 package to get to something, that is not as good as 19:31 something you don't have to open the package. 19:34 - that's good, that's good. 19:35 God packaged it for us. - yeah the bananas are 19:37 prepackaged and the oranges are prepackaged. 19:40 One thing I want to touch on very quickly just because in 19:43 our seminar we go a little deeper into the eating thing 19:46 with the cleanse and the fast because people who are 19:49 diabetic, it's good that you said diabetics and severe 19:52 drug addicts we have a different cleanse for them. 19:56 The other issue is that people who are diabetic if they 19:59 are just eating fruit and fruit juice they can have some 20:02 serious sugar issues and same severe alcoholic or drug 20:06 addicts, that is why in our seminar we go through 20:09 specifically what these people should be doing for that 20:12 particular week because he could be a shock to the system 20:15 of a severe alcoholic to all of a sudden. 20:17 - counterproductive. - that's right they need that 20:20 cleanse and detox but not too heavy on the body so there 20:24 is more to it than that but that is a simple beginnings 20:27 here. - so what else? We understand food we understand 20:31 the cleanse what else? 20:32 One of the things, the most important is that you can try 20:36 to just live a healthy life style by your actions, by the 20:39 things that you eat, exercise, sunlight, fresh air but 20:43 the reality is if you don't have the spiritual dimension 20:47 you really can't truly overcome on every aspect that 20:50 God is calling you to. 20:51 God him that overcomes, God wants us to make us ultimate 20:55 overcomers and we look at different verses, God gives 20:59 different promises throughout Scripture. 21:01 There is one that is found in 1 Corinthians 15:57, 58 21:05 and it says, "but thanks be to God which gives us the 21:08 victory." - so we don't have to do it on our own? 21:11 Exactly because sometimes we feel like that. 21:12 I'll get myself a little bit better and then I'll come 21:15 to the Lord, then I will give my life to Jesus I don't 21:17 want the church roof to cave in on me so I'll make myself 21:20 better and then I'll come to church. Right! 21:21 The reality is that it says there in 1 contains 15:57 21:25 that God is the one who actually gives us the victory. 21:28 We can't just do it, sure sometimes our own willpower 21:31 can help us overcome one area, but every single person 21:34 has something in their life that they cannot overcome on 21:37 their own. Take in the spiritual dimension promises and 21:41 on this subject many times people in Christianity 21:43 especially, they think this is terrible that I always 21:46 hear these testimonies of the guys in church who said I was 21:48 a crake addict and sleeping with whores and doing this and that 21:50 and I just said Jesus take it away and boom 21:52 I never had a struggle again. 21:55 It wasn't even an issue for me. 21:57 But that same person doesn't share with you that there 21:59 are some aspects of their life that they didn't find 22:02 victory the first time they prayed, we all have issues 22:05 that are deeper than just one single prayer. 22:07 So it is implementing all of these things through the 22:10 claiming promises that God gives and implementing the 22:13 health aspects, putting it together as a whole because 22:16 we are a whole being we're not just spiritual, not just 22:19 physical, we are multidimensional. 22:21 Putting all those things together gives us a clearer mind 22:24 to be able to make the right decisions to follow God. 22:27 So what I'm hearing you say Chad and is not to be 22:30 discouraged by the fact that it might not happen just 22:33 like that, that it is a work in progress and along with 22:36 Christ help we can be overcomers. 22:38 Well even going back to when you were telling your story 22:42 just briefly you were saying you were smoking, you were 22:45 chewing, you were smoking, you were chewing and if I 22:48 remember right the language used was God slowly gave me 22:50 the victory over that. It sounded like it was process. 22:53 Actually it was a process, I've tried Nicorette gum, 22:56 I tried cold turkey, I would drive down the road and would 22:59 crush my package of cigarettes and throw it out the 23:02 window, you shouldn't do that obviously 23:03 - you were littering. 23:05 I was trying to quit so I'd do that and then I would go 23:08 by another pack that very evening, or the next morning 23:10 or whatever it was. 23:11 But it wasn't until actually I was going to your seminar 23:15 in Grand Rapids in the year 2000 and you read a verse 23:18 from 1-Corinthians and what it says in 1 Corinthians 3 is 23:23 that our body is the temple of God, our body is to be the 23:26 temple of the Holy Spirit and He wants to live in us. 23:29 But he goes on to say, if you destroy your temple, 23:32 His temple, He's going to destroy you. 23:35 When I heard that - very serious verse - very serious. 23:37 And we think that sounds old testament almost, but no 23:40 that is a New Testament verse where God is saying listen 23:42 you better take this seriously because your body is to be 23:45 My home, My church is to be My home and I want to dwell 23:48 in you, so once I heard that the Lord actually gave 23:51 me victory that night. 23:53 I never chewed, I had chew with me at the time. 23:54 The Lord gave me victory at that point but I struggled for 23:57 a long time until that day. 23:58 So spiritual component, it reminds me of 1 John 5: 4, 5 24:03 you probably use this passage in your seminar but I love 24:07 it, the word overcome comes up three times. 24:10 "He says for whatever is born of God overcomes the world." 24:13 So there's the born-again experience, "and this is the 24:17 "victory that overcomes the world our faith. Who is he 24:19 "that overcomes the world but he that believes that 24:22 "Jesus is the son of God." So in each of these passages 24:25 in each of these verses here overcoming is linked to 24:29 believing in Jesus Christ's and having faith in Him. 24:32 It's our faith that overcomes the world. 24:34 So you have the physical component and we have the 24:37 emotional component, you want to change, but at some point 24:40 Jesus is the one that gives us the power and I love the 24:43 language you use there about how everybody has something 24:46 that they cannot get the victory over. - that's right! 24:50 And on that specific subject Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:9 24:54 through 11 I think there is some of the scariest verses in 24:57 the Bible and at the same time the most hopeful verses in 25:00 the Bible because what Paul does to make it simple is he 25:03 lists a bunch of sins from adultery, fortification, 25:06 adultery, homosexuality, and he lists a bunch of sins and 25:10 he basically says those who are living in this lifestyle 25:13 cannot enter into the kingdom of God which is scary. 25:16 Probably every one of us could find some area of our 25:19 lives that we have been in those categories, but then 25:22 it's says right after that Paul looks at the Church of 25:25 Corinth back then and says this is the way you used to be. 25:28 He says and such some of you were, he was looking at the 25:31 church and said you used to be homosexuals, you'd used to be an 25:35 alcoholic, you used to be an idolater, or an adulterer. 25:37 But he says God has s giving you victory and no matter 25:41 what we have, we have had the opportunity of talking with 25:44 homosexuals in our ministry. - we have had some on this 25:48 very show and we quoted that verse 1 Corinthians 6:9. 25:52 I mean this was the verse that was the cornerstone of the 25:55 whole thing, such were some of you. 25:57 And just very quickly she actually, one of them went 26:01 back to tell her formally gay friends I no longer 26:05 identify as gay and that was after 20 years in the 26:09 homosexual community and lifestyle, so Paul is writing to 26:11 those kinds of people. It's a miracle. 26:12 It is not that you are, but that's where you're going, 26:14 it's not what you are but it's what you were. 26:16 - exactly. - so continue on there. 26:20 That passage to me and the reason I say it is one of the 26:23 scariest verses is because of the fact that each of us 26:27 can find things there and you are living in this 26:29 lifestyle now and I want to clarify that there is a 26:31 difference between stumbling into sin and living in sin. 26:35 In a living in sin is like somebody every once in while 26:39 stumbles into anger, they get angry and they realize they 26:42 blew up and should have and they repent. 26:44 It's another thing to just live angry all the time. 26:47 On the issue of forgiveness, when we do a whole day in 26:49 the Overcoming Seminar, I just want to throw out the 26:52 website just in case anybody wants to know about it. 26:54 Its anchorpointfilms.com, anchorpointfilms.com 26:57 - so they can learn more about your ministries. 27:00 A perfect verse to go with that stumbling in the repeated 27:04 stumbling we go through is Proverbs 24:16 and it says, 27:08 "a righteous man falls seven times but rises up again." 27:12 A beautiful verse for overcoming and looking to Jesus. 27:15 - I tell you I love that verse Fadia, I use that verse 27:18 all the time in my own personal ministry and in my 27:20 preaching that a righteous man falls seven times 27:23 but rises up again. 27:24 Thank you so much Chad and Fadia for having been with us today 27:28 and thank you our viewers at home for tuning in. 27:32 This is a very inspirational and instructive program 27:35 as well, a lot of practical things so please send us an 27:38 e- mail so that you can get in contact will Shandra or 27:41 myself here or with Chad and Fadia or any of our guests 27:45 and send us an e-mail at Engage@3ABN.org or you can find 27:49 us on Face Book just do a search for Engage. 27:51 Just one final promise to leave our viewers with today 27:54 David is the words of Jesus where it says "in the world 27:56 "you will have tribulations but be of good cheer 27:59 "I have overcome the world." |
Revised 2014-12-17