December 18, 2023 • 47 mins
Embark on an enlightening journey with us, joined by the charismatic Pastor Darren Stott of Eden Church in Newcastle, as we unravel layers of faith, forgiveness, and the quest for inner peace. Pastor Darren paints a vivid picture of his personal odyssey to pastoring, highlighting an emotional encounter that sparked a transformative moment of forgiveness. This candid conversation unravels the power of redemption, and the pivotal role forgiveness plays in life.
We venture into a riveting exploration of world religions, dismantling common misconceptions, and discovering the unique paths many faiths follow in their attempts to find favor with the divine. Experience an open dialogue about how upbringing shapes our perspectives of a supreme being and how Christianity, with deep roots in Judaism, stands out from the crowd. Unlike many, Christianity is not a faith of performance for acceptance, but rather a celebration of unconditional love and acceptance.
As we traverse deeper into Christianity, we open a treasure trove of its distinct aspects and the ways in which it stands apart from other religions. Together, we delve beneath surface, discussing the common strongholds of fear and shame, and how faith can serve as a beacon of hope. We provide a unique invitation to experience the peace and love of Jesus, underscoring the importance of forging a personal relationship with God. Through this heartfelt exploration, you'll find a fresh perspective on faith, forgiveness, and the journey to inner peace. Tune in for an engaging, inspiring, and deeply moving conversation.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lenora Turner (00:00):
Does God talk to everyone?
This pastor says so.
Welcome to this episode.
We talk about a number ofdifferent things.
I hope you listen to the wholething.
I recorded this because I careabout you.
I'm Lenora.
Welcome to the podcast.
Hey, I want to say welcome tothe audience.
Back to my podcast.
For those of you who have beenlisteners, I haven't had one for
a while, but this was a primeopportunity to reach out to you
because it's Christmas time andthat Not so much the season of
December, but the reason forChristmas means a whole lot to
me.
So I've invited Darren Stott tobe a guest, and Darren happens
(00:21):
to be the pastor of the church Igo to, which is Eden in
Newcastle.
Newcastle is a city I don'tknow why I said it that way
Newcastle versus Newcastle but,darren, welcome to the podcast.
Darren Stott (00:32):
Thank you so much, and I think I'm actually gonna
start calling it Newcastle likethat.
It is better the newest ofcastles, the Washington area
here.
It's an honor to be on this onthis podcast.
It's so great to connect withyou in this way.
Lenora Turner (00:47):
And I have enjoyed.
I've been going for about ayear to the church and I do
think you're funny, so you haveto make sure and be funny on the
podcast so people willunderstand.
Yes, ma'am, yeah, yeah, but IKnow your story a little bit
about how on earth you end upbeing a pastor.
In some ways it makes sense, inother ways it doesn't.
So can you mind Sharing alittle bit about who you are and
(01:07):
how you are doing what you'redoing?
Darren Stott (01:10):
Yes, my grandpa was a pastor, my dad was a
pastor.
I said I would never be apastor and now my wife and I've
been Pastoring and not justpastoring but pastoring the same
church for 14 years, going on15 years.
And if anybody knows anythingabout pastoring, 15 years of
(01:33):
pastoring the same church, Imean in church years, that's
like.
That's like 80 hundred years,you know.
Lenora Turner (01:40):
Like dog, years right?
Darren Stott (01:42):
It's kind of a big deal In that you know, I most,
most pastors I think the averagestate of church is around seven
and Not only that, but mygrandpa actually pastored this
specific church in the in the70s and 80s and my dad pastored
my mom and dad or here in the80s and 90s, and then my parents
(02:03):
actually ended up going throughdivorce in the late 90s and my
mom and I left the church, aswell as my dad, and the church
actually went down to just aboutnothing.
In fact, they almost, theyalmost lost the church.
It was during that time that Isaid that I would never go back,
never denied God, never deniedthe existence of God, but
(02:24):
certainly became quite antichurch.
So I was never anti Christ,thank you Jesus but but I was
definitely anti anti church.
That's just because of my ownhurt and my own brokenness in
trying to process how my ownparents if they are kind of the
Picture or prototype of whatholiness looks like, and all the
(02:45):
time I was being let down by myown parents and yeah.
Then how could I ever trust?
If I can't trust my own parents, how could I trust anybody?
And so that was a huge journeyof Healing and forgiveness.
I'll tell you the way ithappened actually real quick.
Lenora Turner (02:59):
Yeah.
Darren Stott (03:00):
I wasn't necessarily open to forgiveness.
I was quite enjoying just kindof just being done with that
whole part of my life.
And there was this.
There was this lady.
I've known her my entire lifeand she actually became a
Christian underneath theministry of my grandpa.
She was like this wild hippieback in the 60s and the friend
invited her to the church andshe ended up having this crazy
(03:20):
encounter and and became aChristian.
Her family became Christian,her husband left her.
So I don't know, for people thatare familiar with kind of like
the whole kind of Christianscene, divorce isn't necessarily
like a celebrated thing, letalone Becoming a minister after
becoming divorced and within ourtradition or within our
denomination, that was a hugeno-no.
(03:40):
In fact, she couldn't even beordained as a minister within
our Denomination.
Yet God spoke to her and calledher.
So, like our church is down tonothing, I've left it, we're
about to lose it and God speaksto her and says I've called you
to be the pastor there.
And then God speaks to herabout me being the pastor.
I'm not even living like aChristian.
(04:01):
And so she, she comes back andthey ordain her.
This denomination says webelieve in the call of God on
your life and she was the onlydivorced Ordained minister with
the assemblies of God in thestate of Washington.
Maybe since that time there'sbeen others.
But she asked for a meeting withme at just that a respect, I'd
(04:24):
met with her and she gottogether with me and she said
hey, I want to apologize to youfor all this stuff that happened
to your family, to you.
And I said, well, gail, youhaven't done anything wrong.
Like it makes no sense.
You can't apologize forsomething if you, if you,
haven't done anything wrong.
She said, well, someone needsto, and I was like what?
And she goes will you forgiveme?
(04:45):
And it was the weirdest thingand for people listening to
probably actually makes no sense.
But I said, you know, just hada respect for her.
I said, okay, fine, I forgiveyou.
Right, you happy now?
And that was a big deal becauseI hadn't forgiven anybody and I
didn't realize the spiritualpower of Words, of just saying
something even if you don't meanit.
(05:07):
And and what.
What happens.
When I said I forgive you, itactually opened up my heart To
where I would be open toreturning back to the church and
everything else that God had mefrom that point.
So I just thought I'd sharethat with you real quick,
because it is the holidays andthis is supposed to be the most
wonderful time of the year.
But for a lot of people, andespecially at a time of my life,
the holidays Was certainly notthe most wonderful time of the
(05:28):
year.
There's actually quite adifficult time of the year, and
so I think tis the season tomaybe focus a little bit on the
power, the supernatural natureof forgiveness.
Lenora Turner (05:38):
Well, Darren, thank you, and you've said it so
much because I did grow up inchurch I know a lot of people
didn't and I went to quite a fewdifferent churches.
Honestly, I think I startedwith the assembly of God, which
did have some power in it.
In other words, there seemed tobe some real life and Joy and,
for sure, clearly saying yes, Iwant Jesus as I accept him as
(05:59):
Lord, that believed that he wasraised from the dead.
But I also went to communitychurches where I learned
literally how to hold my headand fall asleep, so my head
wouldn't bob.
You know, I could fall asleepat the in the balcony when I was
through, like in high school.
Yeah, I got good at it.
I went to Lutheran school inwhen I was in California, as a
like a pre-teen or right aroundthat young age.
(06:20):
What was I like?
Fourth, fifth and sixth grade?
And we went to Lutheran church.
Because we went to Lutheranschool, because the public
schools where we lived were sobad.
We weren't Lutheran, but wewent to a Lutheran private
school because we went to thatschool.
My parents went to the churchand for me, some churches were
boring, some were really fun andbut I always knew God was, was
(06:43):
there.
It's just whether or not theyactually invited him or would
actually do much to talk abouthim or his, the Bible.
But you also said somethingearlier, because you said a lot.
Depending on your background,people are going.
I can really understand what hesaid, or what God talking to
somebody, what a woman minister,what divorce matters or doesn't
(07:04):
matter, whether they thinkthat's a big deal or not.
So heck where to start.
I mean, I know I heard God talkto me off and on and it's not
like you hear voices on theoutside Other than I.
My ears work and I hear peopletalk.
But what do you mean when yousay God talked to Gail and said
I want you to pastor?
Darren Stott (07:21):
Yeah, absolutely Well.
I think that God actuallyspeaks to everybody, regardless
of their religious background orbeliefs.
The problem isn't that Godisn't speaking.
The problem is that yourbeliefs determine your ability
to be able to process throughall the noise of the culture of
the world, to actually be ableto discern his still small
(07:45):
whisper amongst the white noisethat we live in.
However, once you begin tolearn of who Jesus is and you
begin to see this veryinteresting dynamic between
Jesus and whom he would call theFather, all of a sudden stuff
begins to explode within yourspirit and you begin to discern
(08:10):
not the data just in the presentand into the future, not just
from this point forward, but youbegin to reevaluate your entire
life and you begin to realizethat God's been speaking to you
your entire life and you beginto even remember points in your
own childhood where God wasspeaking.
A lot of times, when we hear theword speak, we think that we
(08:33):
hear with our ears, right, butthe truth is that we hear with
our mind.
Our mind processes through allthe data.
In fact, the primary way thatwe communicate is actually with
our eyes.
Body language is actuallylouder than even words.
So the reason I say that isbecause we hear with all of our
(08:54):
senses.
Our mind takes in all of thisinformation and then it tries to
articulate to us what we reallyneed to know.
It's important.
That's how we hear God's voice.
We hear God's voice with oureyes, our ears, all of our
senses, and even believe it ornot, even with our own emotions.
That's a bit overwhelming.
(09:16):
I love superhero movies and it'slike in these superhero movies
there's this moment where theybecome aware of their power, and
it's always incrediblyoverwhelming at first because
all of a sudden it's now.
Superman can hear every thoughtthat's happening in the entire
city and it's too much for himto handle.
Well, the same thing is truewhen you begin to be kind of
(09:38):
awakened to the fact that youaren't an orphan, you're not an
outsider, that you were createdby God or the Earth for such a
time as this, and when you beginto hear you know, for a lot of
people actually they're not justlistening to this podcast
Something will begin to actuallyexplode within your spirit.
There'll be a sense ofenlightenment, if you will, and
(10:00):
all of a sudden the spirit ofGod will begin to testify to
your spirit of the things thatwe're talking about that are
true, and all of a sudden itwill click and it will fill, as
though you've had amnesia andall of a sudden you're beginning
to remember.
King Solomon would say likethis is my own paraphrase
(10:21):
version of it.
The record of eternity has beenembedded into your heart and so
that's pretty big.
So all of a sudden you listento a podcast like this.
And you're driving down theroad and you see a billboard and
it says something and yourealize, oh, that's not just a
billboard, god's actuallyspeaking to me through that
(10:43):
billboard.
You're listening to thispodcast and realize, oh, wow,
this isn't just a pastor on apodcast.
Wow, god's actually speaking tome through this man.
All of a sudden you have aconversation with your child and
you realize, oh, my goodness.
And then it's a littleoverwhelming at first, but
you're like God is workingreally hard to get my attention.
He must love me.
And that is true.
(11:05):
God loves you, he is speakingto you and he wants for you to
know his voice.
Lenora Turner (11:12):
That's powerful, I know, for some people.
You get so caught up in thebusyness or business of the
world and intense lives full ofthings and full of some scary
things right now, and to getcaught up in, okay, where is God
?
What, if there even is a God?
Or how many people are used tothinking about him I think a few
more are now because of somescary things that have gone on
(11:33):
and saying I hope there's a God.
Is he actually good?
Speaking of hearing God's voice,I was a little kid and I was
one of those times I got introuble, for something ran into
my room just feeling very muchlike a little victim, just very
mistreated, and I ran in thereand said, "nobody loves me and I
hurt and I just hurt insideNobody and I knew it was God.
(11:56):
I mean, I was fortunate to growup in a house that did believe
in Jesus, that did yeah, he'sGod, and he came because he
loved us and he gave his life sothat I could come back to my
relationship with God the Father, which was the plan in the
first place.
Anyway, I didn't have all thatfigured out in my head as a kid,
but I go in there and I hear"nobody Okay, you do, but nobody
(12:20):
else does because I reallywanted to feel sorry for myself.
But there's times where it'slike he's so nothing moves him,
nothing scares him, it's a calmvoice.
There's times where he's kindof warned me a little bit more
clearly.
One when I was you're talkingin my early 20s, thinking about
dating.
I was frustrated.
I wasn't dating at the time andI knew this guy that was
(12:43):
probably someone to stay awayfrom.
That was at the church I wasgoing to and I made a joke like
fine, maybe I'll just go outwith him.
And it was very clear inside,like a father saying don't you
even joke about that.
And I was like, "yes, sir, andthere's times sometimes you wish
you could hear and you're nothearing so clear, but other
times so simple things that hewould just direct me, or he's so
(13:07):
real, you don't have tomanufacture some perfect prayer,
you can just talk to him.
Darren Stott (13:12):
Wow, yeah, that's so good.
I think that we live in a worldfilled with world religions and
I think that what a lot ofpeople do is they say, well,
especially them that are moreagnostic in their spirituality,
so they would acknowledge thatthere are spiritual things.
They would acknowledge therethere is some sort of heaven,
(13:34):
there is some sort of afterlife,and so all the good religions
are essentially the same in thatthey have a deity and and it's
based on some sort of love.
And then the bad religions arebased off of some sort of deity,
but it's based off ofselfishness and war and evil or
something like that.
(13:55):
And then within the culturethere's a massive kind of cancel
culture to say, well, that iswhat Christianity is.
Christianity is a maledominated white bread kind of
the reason for all war on theearth, and so there's been a
very strong kind of move.
You know, kind of cancelanything that's related to kind
(14:16):
of Judeo-Christian kind of kindof roots.
But I think that to do any ofthat is to grossly misunderstand
just the nature of religion.
I think that we can simplifyreligion to state that most
religions have the same sort ofsequence and the sequence is
okay.
(14:36):
So you have a deity or thedeities, and if you have favor
with them, good things in yourlife will happen.
But if you don't have favorwith them, bad things in your
life will happen or you'll makeyourself vulnerable to the evil
side of the force.
And so then people live theirlives either in order to win the
approval of the positivedeities or they live their lives
(15:00):
in fear of the evil deities,that they'll be vulnerable to
demons or something like that.
So you can go to various partsof the world right, and I've
been.
I've traveled quite a bit tovarious nations.
I've stayed at some amazingkind of five-star hotels in Asia
where there are these veryscary kind of gods, if you will,
(15:22):
that are 20 feet tall and thatare on the steps of the hotel.
These are specific gods withnames and there's offerings out
in front of them and in thatcase it's both, and it's a
wonderful god If the god isappeased with you.
It's a terrible, evil god ifthe god is.
So many people, even in theChristian faith, live their
(15:44):
lives in fear, in fear of thisgod, in the same way that many
people live their lives in fearof their own biological father
that if they could make theirfather happy, if they could win
the approval and love of theirown father, then this father
could be quite kind andbenevolent.
But if, for some reason, youmade this father angry, there
could be really terriblerepercussions.
(16:05):
I also think that the that areupbringing and the fathers that
we had in the natural kind ofshape, the way that we view the
possibility of there being thissupreme, this supreme being.
So, for those who have hadreally kind, wonderful fathers,
they tend to have almost a morepositive outlook on religion and
for those who had very absent,terrible fathers, it's a lot
(16:27):
easier to deny any sort ofsupernatural supreme being, you
know, at the end of the day, letme just say that I believe that
Christianity can contrastgreatly from a lot of the world
religions and not to not to sayit's in an offensive way in that
Christianity really is not asequence developed whereby you
(16:47):
perform in order to get theacceptance of God, and our roots
are are founded in Judaism, andso you've got 2000 years of
Judaism before even thefoundation of Christianity,
which Christianity is quite ayoung religion.
It's only just over 2000 yearsold.
But if you go back to our rootswithin Judaism, it is a
(17:11):
sequence of laws andexpectations and very limited
access to to God.
Only the priest could haveaccess to God.
What makes Christianity so, whatI would say radical and quite
different from the typicalreligious structure, is that the
Bible basically states that thelaws and the expectations
(17:33):
underneath the, the Jewish kindof context, were actually
impossible for any human toactually really fall.
There's a close to 600 laws orsomething, something in there
and that that was good, becauseit showed humanity the need for
a savior.
It showed humanity the need fora true and perfect high priest,
(17:55):
and so the entire, what wewould refer to, you know, the
law, the prophets, the Torah,what we call the Old Testament,
which can be kind of offensiveto some, is essentially the
great setup.
It is this place of hey human.
Good luck at this perfectionsequence by which you can be in
(18:16):
good standing with this supremebeing.
Good luck, in fact, it'simpossible.
Your perfection attempts areimpossible.
But don't worry, because theperfect one will come and he
will be made flesh and he willcome to atone for the sins of
not just good people but all ofhumanity.
And that's why we celebrateChristmas.
(18:37):
We don't say withinChristianity that Christmas is
the literal time that that Godbecame flesh.
It was born to a virgin laid ina manger.
It is the time that the RomanCatholic Church said that we're
going to take what has been apagan holiday and we're going to
flip it.
And now we're going to use whatwas traditionally a pagan
(18:58):
holiday as a moment, as Rome, toacknowledge the birth of God
becoming flesh.
That offends some people.
They say, well, christianity isrude and paganism and I would
say no, christianity is that onetime of the year that you can
go to Safeway and hear gloria,away in a manger.
(19:24):
It's the one time of year you gointo the malls and hear the
proclamation that we have 2000years of a promise.
He's coming, he's coming, he'scoming, he's coming.
2000 years with Israeliteswaited for Messiah and then, on
that starry night, theproclamation of the way it is
over Messiah has come, it'sYeshua.
He has come as the king of theJews, yes, but he has come as
(19:47):
bigger than that.
He'll be the king of thenations.
He's come to be a reconciler sothat this will not be a
religious thing.
You do not have to perform towin the approval of this supreme
deity that Yeshua would come ofage 30 years old.
His ministry would begin 33,.
(20:09):
His ministry would only bethree years at 33.
He would go to the cross.
One would say that that wasinjustice and that his life was
taken.
But Jesus said no one can takemy life, I'm going to give my
life.
And on the cross he says it isfinished.
You know, Buddha?
Before he died he said strivewithout ceasing.
You know, perform, doeverything that you can in order
(20:32):
to make the most of yourself.
But Jesus, just before he died,basically says I have done it.
I have done it all, you whocouldn't live up to the
expectations of the law.
I have lived up to theexpectations and yet I'm taking
on the consequence of sin andinjustice.
I'm taking on debt, I'm takingon your shame, so that those who
(20:53):
feel disqualified because oftheir own moral imperfections or
et cetera, et cetera, they canbe qualified because now there
is a sufficient Savior.
And it's pretty radical.
I'm sorry that took a lot oftime to frame out, but what I
basically did there in the lasthour was tried to paint with a
(21:16):
brush the entire Bible and thestoryline of the entire Bible.
And it's a storyline of a kindfather who loves the entire
world so much that he would givethe greatest gift that humanity
has ever known, that's the giftof his only begotten son.
So that whosoever, so thatanybody, anybody, regardless of
(21:39):
their past, can have a freshstart.
And that's pretty radical.
Lenora Turner (21:45):
I appreciate what you just said, because I
couldn't have said it like youdid and even though I grew up in
a quote Christian home andsomewhat of a religious home, I
think it's hard not to to getinto performance Like I used to
picture God.
If I thought of God the father,because I heard about him, he
was kind of like an old man andreally not even having a face.
And then, as I started to learnmore about God, I was like late
(22:08):
teens when I turned my lifearound because he loved me, when
I knew I was doing anything butperforming.
For that I, in fact I wasasking him for help with no
strings attached.
I was a dumb, sweet but dumb 18year old or however old I was,
and my gosh and I was remembergetting on my knees and just
(22:32):
saying God, help me, I'm scared,I'm scared.
And I really sensed actually twothings.
One was it's like if you hadthose little things on your
shoulder a little demon and anangel or something One side was
saying Leonard, how can you askfor help?
You knew what you were doing,you're guilty.
How dare you ask for help?
You knew other people don'tknow, but you know because
(22:55):
you're supposedly a Christianand I was that pressure to just
feel like, nevermind God, andjust be condemned.
And then the other sense as apull, a drawing towards not even
the words.
It was just, let me love you,just let me love you.
And it was a little bit backand forth and then I ended up
going.
I know I feel I have no rightto ask for this, but I so
(23:18):
desperately want to be lovedthat I just yielded.
That's the only way I canreally say it.
I just yielded to.
I need you to love me, I needyour help.
And it was just.
I don't even know what happened.
That was something inside and Ilet it happen and I was
different.
The stuff I thought was reallycool in the world where I just
(23:40):
love my little party life I hadat the time was the next day.
I wanted nothing to do with it.
I wanted to go home.
It's like you know, you'relooking for love, people are
looking to be loved, and you'regoing oh my gosh, this, this is
what I've been looking for.
And I knew I was coming home.
I was coming home to Jesus.
(24:01):
You know what times I thoughtabout doing that, when I would
be in high school, of course.
I was very young and I rememberthinking at times convicted, to
say you know, when they sayrepent, meaning just turn back
to this God who loves you, and Ifelt like I can't, I want to,
but I know I won't stick with it.
And anyway, at this time I justlet him love me and I just went
(24:26):
towards him.
It was really his strength.
Something broke loose and I andI was like I could see again.
They talk about that.
I was blind.
Now I see, but it's that insideeyes, in my understanding.
I'm like this is what I've beenlooking for all my life.
Now, thank God, I'm so thankfulI was introduced to Jesus, but I
didn't.
I didn't, I didn't know a lot.
(24:49):
I knew stories, I knew someBible stories, but I had no idea
how to walk this life out andit's really about getting to
know him better.
And we talk about hearing thevoice of God because I love the
Bible.
I read it and when we so manytimes, when people say things to
me, if they do about the Bibleand isn't it this or isn't it
that I went, you don't actuallyread it, do you?
(25:10):
I don't say that, but Irealized they don't.
Most people that havecomplaints don't even, don't
even read it.
But what changed my life is himloving me with no strings
attached.
The love was what drew me.
He didn't have to require of meand and sometimes people think,
oh, you're, you're, you're kindof religious, lenora or not.
And they're not trying to beinsulting.
They're saying oh, you'rereligious, I'm just not, I go.
(25:31):
Or you love God and and I seethat you do you don't get it.
It has zero to do with myvirtue.
Zero is everything to do withsomeone who loved so much that I
went.
There's nothing else like this.
There's just nothing.
I want this.
I want to come home and I'mgoing to stay home, meaning I'm
(25:52):
going to walk with you.
It's like a marriage in.
I know because later on Istudied covenant, blood covenant
.
When I was in Bible school Idid my my second year.
We had to do a 30 page termpaper and I did it on the blood
covenant.
Western society knows verylittle about that.
We, thankfully we can at leastcompare it to marriage.
But sadly, what about?
50% of marriages end in divorce.
(26:14):
I went through a divorce what12 years ago I never thought I'd
go through.
That was devastating,incredibly painful and I thought
how can this be my life?
I believe in covenant.
This can't be me.
I couldn't wrap my mind aroundit and yet there I was, you know
.
And so it is like marriage.
In fact, he said this to metalk about hearing God's voice
(26:34):
in a time where I needed to hearit.
I was in the car when my ex heactually since passed away, but
when he'd said to me and itwasn't like him, if you knew him
he would never talked aboutdivorce but he told me he wanted
a divorce and I felt like I wastearing apart inside and going
numb at the same time.
And if you'd have been in thecar, it's a.
(26:58):
You can only explain thisafterwards Because it happens at
the time, but it takes longerto explain it than to understand
it happen.
And it's like here I have myhusband of 20 years, maybe 21 at
the time saying I want adivorce and I'm going numb, I'm
tearing inside and I it's like Iknow that I've got the spirit
(27:18):
of God in the car with me, handson my face, looking me eye to
eye, and said I'm your husbandtoo, and I don't want a divorce.
Wow, and I was like God iswalking me through this.
He will walk me through this.
Wow, I'm telling you he's real,he's so good and even the most
(27:40):
difficult things I've walkedthrough.
There's times I have it's spunmy head for a while, but he is
God and he can.
Times he can totally turnsomething around.
Other times you walk throughthings and it's like, like the
Old Testament, the three Hebrewchildren, the way they were
thrown into a fire but they cameout not smelling like smoke.
(28:02):
You can come through a toughthing and you come through it
and people wouldn't know you'vebeen through that thing.
I went through seasons of crisisand some anxiety and I'd never
faced that before and I was likeGod, I will not live a life
full of anxiety.
Show me how to get out of this.
I can't.
I must be free.
I don't care how common it'stalked about, I'm not going to
(28:22):
live like this.
And I tell you, sometimes itwas about grieving, sometimes it
was about tears, it was talkingto somebody, it could be
counseling.
I don't care what it is, but Iwas going to get free and Eden
was a part of that.
Absolutely a year ago, when Ifirst came, I kind of felt like
I was walking through World WarIII in my life and I was getting
(28:43):
prayer from anybody who'd prayfor me and I thankfully had some
amazing colleagues too thatwere supportive and stuff.
But God is real.
That's why I wanted to even doan episode like this, especially
at Christmas, when maybe peopleare more open to hearing about
it and life's a bit of achallenge now and I think it's
easy in the US, maybe in variouscultures, to think we're so
(29:04):
smart, we don't need a God, wefigured it out.
And yet it's like, yeah, Ifigured out, squad.
When it comes to it, when youstart seeing the world be shaken
, you start realizing maybe Idon't have near as much control
as I think, but for me, I don'tcare about religion and the sake
of rules.
For the sake of rules or doingsomething, because I'm looking
good to you, I have a life withJesus, because I wouldn't ever
(29:27):
want a day without him.
It's like I'm in love withsomeone who is in love with me,
but it's because of his virtue,not mine.
I'm smart enough to want this,I felt it and I and I.
You can't find it anywhere else, not like this.
Darren Stott (29:42):
Wow, yeah, that is so good.
That is so good, and I thinkthat what you were talking about
and just in your own journey,in your own story which is
incredibly powerful, because Ithink probably every person
listening there's gonna beaspects of your story that
they're going to be able torelate with.
I think what we all have incommon is that we all want to be
(30:03):
okay with ourselves, we allwant to be able to kind of look
ourselves in the mirror and thequestion is, you know, am I a
good person or am I a bad person?
I want to be a good person, Iwant to do good things, and yet
most of us look in the mirrorand say I don't think I'm a good
person.
Right, we all want peace.
We all want that sense of calmwithin our soul and knowing that
(30:25):
things might not be okay, butwe want to.
We want to be okay inside of us, like our outer space might be
nuts, it might be just chaos,but we all want to have.
You know that Hebrew word forcosmos means order, and we all
want to have cosmos within thechaos.
We all want to have that peace.
The last thing is we all wantjoy.
(30:46):
We all want to be happy.
That's why holiday depression,you know Christmas blues.
This is the time of the yearwhen depression meds start
flying off the shelves right,and the reason why is because
the whole hallmark kind ofculture of Christmas says you
know, this is when the worldfalls in love, this is when you
(31:11):
meet that one and you'reunderneath the mistletoe, like
this is the time of the yearwhen everybody is so happy and
then you're sitting there saying, well, why am I not happy?
And then everybody's else'shappiness just compounds our own
(31:31):
kind of self obsession.
You know, in November weweren't that bad, we didn't feel
that depressed In December.
We feel like we're just, youknow, chronically depressed.
Why am I so depressed isbecause everybody else's
happiness, if you will, is beingshoved in our face, you know,
(31:51):
and that's because nobody takesa selfie when they're, when
their mascara is running downtheir face and they're you know,
we celebrate only the bestparts of our life.
So we all want the same thing.
We all want peace, we all wantto be good, we all want to be
happy, we all want joy and soand so there's no.
The problem is is that we arealso all facing the same
villains.
The two massive villains arefear.
(32:15):
This is what we all have incommon, every single one of us
will battle a giant of fear inour lives, and that doesn't get
easier the older you get.
The other one is shame, andit's this idea of the constant
reminder of the stupid thingsyou've said and done, or the
things that you should have done, that you didn't do.
So you have fear and you haveshame.
(32:36):
Now here's the thing thatpeople don't realize Fear and
shame are not natural.
They are supernatural In thatthey existed before you and they
are interwoven into a spiritualblueprint in your life, and
that means that you are far moreconnected to your mother and
your father than you have everwanted to admit.
(32:58):
That is why, when we think onwho our mom or who our dad was
or is, and we said I swear, Iswear to God, I will never be
that man and then, the older Iget, the more I realize I am
becoming my father and I hatemyself for it.
Like all of a sudden, werealize why is it the very thing
(33:18):
I said I would never become.
I am becoming, and why do Ifeel so ashamed for it and about
it?
To the degree that people arewilling to be honest, every
single person that's listeningto this.
If you're honest, you'll sayyes, that's absolutely true, and
the reason why is because thesethings aren't unique to any
individual.
(33:38):
This is a part of the defaultfallenness.
So then, what does that lead to?
It leads to control.
It leads to a place where I sayI am terrified that what
happened in the past is going tohappen again.
So I will insert my control, Iwill control who I hang out with
, I will control what I wear, Iwill control every variable that
I possibly can, and and so,because of fear, because of
(34:02):
shame, because I hate this partabout me, I will cover it up.
I will cover it up with myperformance, with my career.
I will cover it up with myfamily life.
I will cover it up.
I will create a brand aroundwho I am, so that I will cover
up my nakedness.
And and this is the story ofAdam and Eve in the garden, yeah
(34:23):
, so say you're back to theGarden of Eden, covering up your
nakedness, what you lost andyeah, and so, and I think that
when we all realize that we allwant the same thing, we all, we
all, we all want to be all right, we all want peace, we all want
joy, we realize we're all.
We're all battling the samedemons, the same giants, and
it's not personal to us, eventhough it feels so radically
(34:45):
intimate, so radically personal.
This is stuff that our parentshad to fight against, that our
grandparents fought against.
And then when you hear the goodnews that you don't have to
conquer these things, that that2000 years ago on the cross,
jesus conquered shame, he tookon the shame for you so that you
can be shame free, so you don'thave to have a religion shame
(35:07):
you into its belief structure.
When you hear that you don'thave to perform, that, that
within the true Christiannarrative experience encounter.
We don't obey so that we can beloved.
We are awakened to therevelation that we are so
radically and infinitely loved.
Therefore, we obey.
That's pretty, that's prettyradical.
(35:29):
So this is not an invitationinto some sort of self help.
You know, fix yourself
Lenora Turner (35:36):
Uh huh.
Darren Stott (35:38):
No, this is an invitation into a mystical
adventure where, when you comein, when you're awakened into
your union with Christ Jesus,you begin to supernaturally
transform and change from theinside out, believe it or not,
without even, without eventrying.
And one analogy that that'sused in the scriptures is it's
(35:59):
like fruit and fruit tree isfunny in that nobody watches
fruit grow.
One day the branches were emptyand then the next day the
branches are full of fruit.
And this is the invitation forpeople to step into.
Today.
You won't really know when itstarted, you won't really be
able to say and this is whenthey grew.
(36:20):
All you'll know is you begin tosay yes, your spirit begin to
say yes, you begin to literally,physically say yes, I believe,
I believe, I believe.
And all of a sudden, one dayyou look at your life and you're
a radically different person.
Lenora Turner (36:34):
Yeah, so powerful and so relevant for the time.
Right now you're talking aboutthe mystical or supernatural,
some of the terms you use.
People are hungry for somethingthat is bigger.
Look at the Marvel the movies,the superhero movies.
We want something more powerfulthan ourselves.
So, as we try to intellectuallytalk ourselves out of how we
were so smart and yet we'rehungry for something way more
(36:54):
powerful than us, but we don'twant to perform for it.
There's a part of us that saysI want to be loved just because
you love me, and yet we knowwe've done things that are wrong
.
And so you go how do youreconcile this?
And he's the one that says I'mthe one who's reconciling it and
I am bigger than you and I amTalk about supernatural, but
(37:16):
that's not a weird thing, that'sa very normal thing.
Like you said, parts of theworld it's so normal and they
can get into all kinds of bagsof inversions of what is not
going to help.
You quote supernaturally.
But for those who are, thinkyou're too smart for that and
get honest with yourself.
You're hungry for God to bereal.
(37:37):
So I remember hearing a storyrecently and I loved it because
it was so simple.
I won't tell the whole story,but it was about a guy years ago
who pretty scary guy, who usedto come to church and cause a
lot of problems and people wereafraid when he showed up because
he'd come and disrupt.
But this woman happened to bepreaching and he came in and
they were all like, oh, what'sgoing to happen?
But she was talking about justcall on the name of Jesus.
(37:59):
The scripture says if you callon the name of Jesus, you'll be
saved.
Then he ended up running upthere and they thought, oh,
what's he going to do, becausehe's done that before and
literally tore things up.
But he comes up there and fallson his knees and just goes
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
He did it four times and therewas no disruption, no, anything.
(38:20):
And they went oh my gosh, he'sactually calling out to God.
Now we need to pray for him andhave him say this certain stuff
and he goes no, I don't.
You said I just have to call inthe name of Jesus.
I called him four times, I'msaved.
So I want people to know it'scall on him.
It's not even doing the prayer,right?
Darren Stott (38:39):
Right Wow.
Lenora Turner (38:40):
But, darren, I do want to lead this with the
prayer for anyone who's sayingGod, I need some peace.
I'm hoping there's a God that'sreal, or maybe they're coming
back home to him like I did.
Would you lead us in somethinglike that?
Darren Stott (38:54):
Yeah, absolutely.
I'd love to just blesseverybody today and I believe
that, as a response, you'reactually going to experience
peace today as a result of justmaking it this long into this
particular conversation.
So if you're still listening, Ibelieve it's not even so much
by your choice as much as you'rebeing wooed by your Creator.
(39:15):
I just want to add you know, alot of people think that good
people go to heaven, but that'snot true.
Forgiving people go to heavenand we are all in need of
forgiveness.
The Bible says that all havesinned and fallen short of the
glory of God.
So we have all screwed up,we've all done a lot of stuff
(39:35):
Right.
The Bible says that the wagesof sin is death, but the gift of
God is life, and so that'sGod's gift for you is life, and
his life is righteousness, itspeace and its joy.
So let me just bless you herereal quick.
So, father, I just pray foreach and every person that's
(39:56):
listening today that yourperfect peace would come right
now and that you, that you wouldwalk into the room, or, if
people are driving their cars, Ipray that they would sense your
presence, your spirit, comeright into the car with them and
(40:23):
I rebuke all anxiety in any waythat there has been a demonic
reminder of past torment andtrauma.
There's somebody and you'relistening, and you experienced
something so traumatic, but ithappened decades ago.
(40:46):
But it feels so real and itfeels so recent that every day
you relive it as though it'shappening that actual day.
And if that's you, I rebuke thetormentor right now in Jesus'
(41:08):
name, and I speak to that spiritof torment because we can
actually do that using ourauthority.
And so I use my authority inJesus to speak to that spirit of
torment and I command you, Ibind you, to be silent right now
(41:29):
and to let go of my friendthat's listening right now.
And now I ask, father, for yourpeace and your love to rush
into every atmosphere, in everycar, in every house.
Lord, and as people are jogging, exercising whatever they're
(41:53):
doing right now, that yourpresence would come, that it
would verify it'd be the bluecheck mark on what we are
stating as fact today that youwould verify it.
All right.
(42:14):
So for people that arelistening, most likely you can
feel a contrast now between whatyou were feeling and what
you're experiencing right now.
Some of you are actuallyfeeling heat.
Some of you are feeling heat onthe back of your neck and your
heart.
Some of you, even your handsare starting to burn.
Some of you just feel the loveof God right now.
(42:40):
Now, let me just speak into this.
These aren't feelings okay,they are, but this isn't just an
emotion.
The peace that you'reexperiencing is a person, that's
Jesus, and we're about to wrapup this podcast, but you don't
have to step out of thisencounter that you're having.
You can step into arelationship with the Prince of
(43:04):
Peace, and so, if you want thispeace to remain, some of you
even feel like a joy that'scompletely foreign to what
you're used to.
But you feel like this.
Don't think of it like ahappiness, like a giddiness.
It's what it feels like.
It feels like a hope that'sstarting to swell up, like a
(43:26):
fountain in your heart right now.
Listen, that's Jesus.
Okay, that's him knocking onthe door of your heart.
That's him actually speaking.
You're actually hearing hisvoice in a very unique way, and
if I'm speaking to you, I wantto invite you into not into a
religion, I want to invite youinto this family.
So are you willing to step intothis house.
(43:50):
If so, the doorway is Jesus.
Are you willing to step intothis doorway, to come in through
his name?
If so, I just want you to sayit out loud.
You might be by yourself, youmight be with somebody, but I
want you to just respond bysaying yes.
I want you to just say it outloud right now, yes.
And if you said yes, I'm goingto lead you into prayer, and I
(44:16):
actually want you to pray thiswith your mouth out loud.
Okay, you might seem crazy, youare crazy, we're all crazy,
okay, but here we go.
So say it out loud.
Say I believe with my heart, Iconfess with my mouth that Jesus
(44:40):
is God, that he's my deliverer.
Forgive me of all my sins,break the power of sin darkness.
(45:06):
Say this out loud.
Say Jesus, break the power offear, break the power of shame
in my life.
I am done controlling thingsand now I surrender to your love
(45:28):
.
And now, as a priest, I declareover you because you need to
hear this your sins have beenforgiven, all of them, and now,
by his grace, you can go andmake new, powerful, wise choices
(45:49):
, and I want to welcome you intothe family of God In Jesus'
name, amen.
Lenora Turner (46:01):
Amen.
I'm so loved that you heardthis and that you've those that
have done this and prayed thiswelcome.
Also.
And because you want to get toknow Him better.
That's why you want to get aBible if you don't have one
already, why you want to readstart maybe the book of John,
the New Testament, because youwant to get to know God better.
You've got everything, but nowyou want to know what did I get?
(46:23):
Who do I have as God?
And find yourself a good churchthat's teaching out of it and
believe in the miracle power ofGod.
Because, again, it's to get toknow Him better, get to know
what you have and who you're apart of, and all that.
But thank you, Darren,Absolutely Thank you.
This was fun, this was great.
You do a great job.
Darren Stott (46:44):
Excited about your podcast and about doing this
with you today.
Lenora Turner (47:00):
.
So this is a great way to say,yeah, I live with this God every
day and I wouldn't live withoutHim.
Darren Stott (47:07):
Wow.
Come on, come on.
Lenora Turner (47:08):
So thanks, Darren , and of course I'll see you
soon and for those of you, again, when the next podcast comes
out, subscribe, you'll know.
Does God talk to everyone?
This pastor says so.
Welcome to this episode.
We talk about a number ofdifferent things.
I hope you listen to the wholething.
I recorded this because I careabout you.
I'm Lenora.
Welcome to the podcast.
Hey, I want to say welcome tothe audience.
Back to my podcast.
For those of you who have beenlisteners, I haven't had one for
a while, but this was a primeopportunity to reach out to you
because it's Christmas time andthat Not so much the season of
December, but the reason forChristmas means a whole lot to
me.
So I've invited Darren Stott tobe a guest, and Darren happens
(00:21):
to be the pastor of the church Igo to, which is Eden in
Newcastle.
Newcastle is a city I don'tknow why I said it that way
Newcastle versus Newcastle but,darren, welcome to the podcast.
Darren Stott (00:32):
Thank you so much, and I think I'm actually gonna
start calling it Newcastle likethat.
It is better the newest ofcastles, the Washington area
here.
It's an honor to be on this onthis podcast.
It's so great to connect withyou in this way.
Lenora Turner (00:47):
And I have enjoyed.
I've been going for about ayear to the church and I do
think you're funny, so you haveto make sure and be funny on the
podcast so people willunderstand.
Yes, ma'am, yeah, yeah, but IKnow your story a little bit
about how on earth you end upbeing a pastor.
In some ways it makes sense, inother ways it doesn't.
So can you mind Sharing alittle bit about who you are and
(01:07):
how you are doing what you'redoing?
Darren Stott (01:10):
Yes, my grandpa was a pastor, my dad was a
pastor.
I said I would never be apastor and now my wife and I've
been Pastoring and not justpastoring but pastoring the same
church for 14 years, going on15 years.
And if anybody knows anythingabout pastoring, 15 years of
(01:33):
pastoring the same church, Imean in church years, that's
like.
That's like 80 hundred years,you know.
Lenora Turner (01:40):
Like dog, years right?
Darren Stott (01:42):
It's kind of a big deal In that you know, I most,
most pastors I think the averagestate of church is around seven
and Not only that, but mygrandpa actually pastored this
specific church in the in the70s and 80s and my dad pastored
my mom and dad or here in the80s and 90s, and then my parents
(02:03):
actually ended up going throughdivorce in the late 90s and my
mom and I left the church, aswell as my dad, and the church
actually went down to just aboutnothing.
In fact, they almost, theyalmost lost the church.
It was during that time that Isaid that I would never go back,
never denied God, never deniedthe existence of God, but
(02:24):
certainly became quite antichurch.
So I was never anti Christ,thank you Jesus but but I was
definitely anti anti church.
That's just because of my ownhurt and my own brokenness in
trying to process how my ownparents if they are kind of the
Picture or prototype of whatholiness looks like, and all the
(02:45):
time I was being let down by myown parents and yeah.
Then how could I ever trust?
If I can't trust my own parents, how could I trust anybody?
And so that was a huge journeyof Healing and forgiveness.
I'll tell you the way ithappened actually real quick.
Lenora Turner (02:59):
Yeah.
Darren Stott (03:00):
I wasn't necessarily open to forgiveness.
I was quite enjoying just kindof just being done with that
whole part of my life.
And there was this.
There was this lady.
I've known her my entire lifeand she actually became a
Christian underneath theministry of my grandpa.
She was like this wild hippieback in the 60s and the friend
invited her to the church andshe ended up having this crazy
(03:20):
encounter and and became aChristian.
Her family became Christian,her husband left her.
So I don't know, for people thatare familiar with kind of like
the whole kind of Christianscene, divorce isn't necessarily
like a celebrated thing, letalone Becoming a minister after
becoming divorced and within ourtradition or within our
denomination, that was a hugeno-no.
(03:40):
In fact, she couldn't even beordained as a minister within
our Denomination.
Yet God spoke to her and calledher.
So, like our church is down tonothing, I've left it, we're
about to lose it and God speaksto her and says I've called you
to be the pastor there.
And then God speaks to herabout me being the pastor.
I'm not even living like aChristian.
(04:01):
And so she, she comes back andthey ordain her.
This denomination says webelieve in the call of God on
your life and she was the onlydivorced Ordained minister with
the assemblies of God in thestate of Washington.
Maybe since that time there'sbeen others.
But she asked for a meeting withme at just that a respect, I'd
(04:24):
met with her and she gottogether with me and she said
hey, I want to apologize to youfor all this stuff that happened
to your family, to you.
And I said, well, gail, youhaven't done anything wrong.
Like it makes no sense.
You can't apologize forsomething if you, if you,
haven't done anything wrong.
She said, well, someone needsto, and I was like what?
And she goes will you forgiveme?
(04:45):
And it was the weirdest thingand for people listening to
probably actually makes no sense.
But I said, you know, just hada respect for her.
I said, okay, fine, I forgiveyou.
Right, you happy now?
And that was a big deal becauseI hadn't forgiven anybody and I
didn't realize the spiritualpower of Words, of just saying
something even if you don't meanit.
(05:07):
And and what.
What happens.
When I said I forgive you, itactually opened up my heart To
where I would be open toreturning back to the church and
everything else that God had mefrom that point.
So I just thought I'd sharethat with you real quick,
because it is the holidays andthis is supposed to be the most
wonderful time of the year.
But for a lot of people, andespecially at a time of my life,
the holidays Was certainly notthe most wonderful time of the
(05:28):
year.
There's actually quite adifficult time of the year, and
so I think tis the season tomaybe focus a little bit on the
power, the supernatural natureof forgiveness.
Lenora Turner (05:38):
Well, Darren, thank you, and you've said it so
much because I did grow up inchurch I know a lot of people
didn't and I went to quite a fewdifferent churches.
Honestly, I think I startedwith the assembly of God, which
did have some power in it.
In other words, there seemed tobe some real life and Joy and,
for sure, clearly saying yes, Iwant Jesus as I accept him as
(05:59):
Lord, that believed that he wasraised from the dead.
But I also went to communitychurches where I learned
literally how to hold my headand fall asleep, so my head
wouldn't bob.
You know, I could fall asleepat the in the balcony when I was
through, like in high school.
Yeah, I got good at it.
I went to Lutheran school inwhen I was in California, as a
like a pre-teen or right aroundthat young age.
(06:20):
What was I like?
Fourth, fifth and sixth grade?
And we went to Lutheran church.
Because we went to Lutheranschool, because the public
schools where we lived were sobad.
We weren't Lutheran, but wewent to a Lutheran private
school because we went to thatschool.
My parents went to the churchand for me, some churches were
boring, some were really fun andbut I always knew God was, was
(06:43):
there.
It's just whether or not theyactually invited him or would
actually do much to talk abouthim or his, the Bible.
But you also said somethingearlier, because you said a lot.
Depending on your background,people are going.
I can really understand what hesaid, or what God talking to
somebody, what a woman minister,what divorce matters or doesn't
(07:04):
matter, whether they thinkthat's a big deal or not.
So heck where to start.
I mean, I know I heard God talkto me off and on and it's not
like you hear voices on theoutside Other than I.
My ears work and I hear peopletalk.
But what do you mean when yousay God talked to Gail and said
I want you to pastor?
Darren Stott (07:21):
Yeah, absolutely Well.
I think that God actuallyspeaks to everybody, regardless
of their religious background orbeliefs.
The problem isn't that Godisn't speaking.
The problem is that yourbeliefs determine your ability
to be able to process throughall the noise of the culture of
the world, to actually be ableto discern his still small
(07:45):
whisper amongst the white noisethat we live in.
However, once you begin tolearn of who Jesus is and you
begin to see this veryinteresting dynamic between
Jesus and whom he would call theFather, all of a sudden stuff
begins to explode within yourspirit and you begin to discern
(08:10):
not the data just in the presentand into the future, not just
from this point forward, but youbegin to reevaluate your entire
life and you begin to realizethat God's been speaking to you
your entire life and you beginto even remember points in your
own childhood where God wasspeaking.
A lot of times, when we hear theword speak, we think that we
(08:33):
hear with our ears, right, butthe truth is that we hear with
our mind.
Our mind processes through allthe data.
In fact, the primary way thatwe communicate is actually with
our eyes.
Body language is actuallylouder than even words.
So the reason I say that isbecause we hear with all of our
(08:54):
senses.
Our mind takes in all of thisinformation and then it tries to
articulate to us what we reallyneed to know.
It's important.
That's how we hear God's voice.
We hear God's voice with oureyes, our ears, all of our
senses, and even believe it ornot, even with our own emotions.
That's a bit overwhelming.
(09:16):
I love superhero movies and it'slike in these superhero movies
there's this moment where theybecome aware of their power, and
it's always incrediblyoverwhelming at first because
all of a sudden it's now.
Superman can hear every thoughtthat's happening in the entire
city and it's too much for himto handle.
Well, the same thing is truewhen you begin to be kind of
(09:38):
awakened to the fact that youaren't an orphan, you're not an
outsider, that you were createdby God or the Earth for such a
time as this, and when you beginto hear you know, for a lot of
people actually they're not justlistening to this podcast
Something will begin to actuallyexplode within your spirit.
There'll be a sense ofenlightenment, if you will, and
(10:00):
all of a sudden the spirit ofGod will begin to testify to
your spirit of the things thatwe're talking about that are
true, and all of a sudden itwill click and it will fill, as
though you've had amnesia andall of a sudden you're beginning
to remember.
King Solomon would say likethis is my own paraphrase
(10:21):
version of it.
The record of eternity has beenembedded into your heart and so
that's pretty big.
So all of a sudden you listento a podcast like this.
And you're driving down theroad and you see a billboard and
it says something and yourealize, oh, that's not just a
billboard, god's actuallyspeaking to me through that
(10:43):
billboard.
You're listening to thispodcast and realize, oh, wow,
this isn't just a pastor on apodcast.
Wow, god's actually speaking tome through this man.
All of a sudden you have aconversation with your child and
you realize, oh, my goodness.
And then it's a littleoverwhelming at first, but
you're like God is workingreally hard to get my attention.
He must love me.
And that is true.
(11:05):
God loves you, he is speakingto you and he wants for you to
know his voice.
Lenora Turner (11:12):
That's powerful, I know, for some people.
You get so caught up in thebusyness or business of the
world and intense lives full ofthings and full of some scary
things right now, and to getcaught up in, okay, where is God
?
What, if there even is a God?
Or how many people are used tothinking about him I think a few
more are now because of somescary things that have gone on
(11:33):
and saying I hope there's a God.
Is he actually good?
Speaking of hearing God's voice,I was a little kid and I was
one of those times I got introuble, for something ran into
my room just feeling very muchlike a little victim, just very
mistreated, and I ran in thereand said, "nobody loves me and I
hurt and I just hurt insideNobody and I knew it was God.
(11:56):
I mean, I was fortunate to growup in a house that did believe
in Jesus, that did yeah, he'sGod, and he came because he
loved us and he gave his life sothat I could come back to my
relationship with God the Father, which was the plan in the
first place.
Anyway, I didn't have all thatfigured out in my head as a kid,
but I go in there and I hear"nobody Okay, you do, but nobody
(12:20):
else does because I reallywanted to feel sorry for myself.
But there's times where it'slike he's so nothing moves him,
nothing scares him, it's a calmvoice.
There's times where he's kindof warned me a little bit more
clearly.
One when I was you're talkingin my early 20s, thinking about
dating.
I was frustrated.
I wasn't dating at the time andI knew this guy that was
(12:43):
probably someone to stay awayfrom.
That was at the church I wasgoing to and I made a joke like
fine, maybe I'll just go outwith him.
And it was very clear inside,like a father saying don't you
even joke about that.
And I was like, "yes, sir, andthere's times sometimes you wish
you could hear and you're nothearing so clear, but other
times so simple things that hewould just direct me, or he's so
(13:07):
real, you don't have tomanufacture some perfect prayer,
you can just talk to him.
Darren Stott (13:12):
Wow, yeah, that's so good.
I think that we live in a worldfilled with world religions and
I think that what a lot ofpeople do is they say, well,
especially them that are moreagnostic in their spirituality,
so they would acknowledge thatthere are spiritual things.
They would acknowledge therethere is some sort of heaven,
(13:34):
there is some sort of afterlife,and so all the good religions
are essentially the same in thatthey have a deity and and it's
based on some sort of love.
And then the bad religions arebased off of some sort of deity,
but it's based off ofselfishness and war and evil or
something like that.
(13:55):
And then within the culturethere's a massive kind of cancel
culture to say, well, that iswhat Christianity is.
Christianity is a maledominated white bread kind of
the reason for all war on theearth, and so there's been a
very strong kind of move.
You know, kind of cancelanything that's related to kind
(14:16):
of Judeo-Christian kind of kindof roots.
But I think that to do any ofthat is to grossly misunderstand
just the nature of religion.
I think that we can simplifyreligion to state that most
religions have the same sort ofsequence and the sequence is
okay.
(14:36):
So you have a deity or thedeities, and if you have favor
with them, good things in yourlife will happen.
But if you don't have favorwith them, bad things in your
life will happen or you'll makeyourself vulnerable to the evil
side of the force.
And so then people live theirlives either in order to win the
approval of the positivedeities or they live their lives
(15:00):
in fear of the evil deities,that they'll be vulnerable to
demons or something like that.
So you can go to various partsof the world right, and I've
been.
I've traveled quite a bit tovarious nations.
I've stayed at some amazingkind of five-star hotels in Asia
where there are these veryscary kind of gods, if you will,
(15:22):
that are 20 feet tall and thatare on the steps of the hotel.
These are specific gods withnames and there's offerings out
in front of them and in thatcase it's both, and it's a
wonderful god If the god isappeased with you.
It's a terrible, evil god ifthe god is.
So many people, even in theChristian faith, live their
(15:44):
lives in fear, in fear of thisgod, in the same way that many
people live their lives in fearof their own biological father
that if they could make theirfather happy, if they could win
the approval and love of theirown father, then this father
could be quite kind andbenevolent.
But if, for some reason, youmade this father angry, there
could be really terriblerepercussions.
(16:05):
I also think that the that areupbringing and the fathers that
we had in the natural kind ofshape, the way that we view the
possibility of there being thissupreme, this supreme being.
So, for those who have hadreally kind, wonderful fathers,
they tend to have almost a morepositive outlook on religion and
for those who had very absent,terrible fathers, it's a lot
(16:27):
easier to deny any sort ofsupernatural supreme being, you
know, at the end of the day, letme just say that I believe that
Christianity can contrastgreatly from a lot of the world
religions and not to not to sayit's in an offensive way in that
Christianity really is not asequence developed whereby you
(16:47):
perform in order to get theacceptance of God, and our roots
are are founded in Judaism, andso you've got 2000 years of
Judaism before even thefoundation of Christianity,
which Christianity is quite ayoung religion.
It's only just over 2000 yearsold.
But if you go back to our rootswithin Judaism, it is a
(17:11):
sequence of laws andexpectations and very limited
access to to God.
Only the priest could haveaccess to God.
What makes Christianity so, whatI would say radical and quite
different from the typicalreligious structure, is that the
Bible basically states that thelaws and the expectations
(17:33):
underneath the, the Jewish kindof context, were actually
impossible for any human toactually really fall.
There's a close to 600 laws orsomething, something in there
and that that was good, becauseit showed humanity the need for
a savior.
It showed humanity the need fora true and perfect high priest,
(17:55):
and so the entire, what wewould refer to, you know, the
law, the prophets, the Torah,what we call the Old Testament,
which can be kind of offensiveto some, is essentially the
great setup.
It is this place of hey human.
Good luck at this perfectionsequence by which you can be in
(18:16):
good standing with this supremebeing.
Good luck, in fact, it'simpossible.
Your perfection attempts areimpossible.
But don't worry, because theperfect one will come and he
will be made flesh and he willcome to atone for the sins of
not just good people but all ofhumanity.
And that's why we celebrateChristmas.
(18:37):
We don't say withinChristianity that Christmas is
the literal time that that Godbecame flesh.
It was born to a virgin laid ina manger.
It is the time that the RomanCatholic Church said that we're
going to take what has been apagan holiday and we're going to
flip it.
And now we're going to use whatwas traditionally a pagan
(18:58):
holiday as a moment, as Rome, toacknowledge the birth of God
becoming flesh.
That offends some people.
They say, well, christianity isrude and paganism and I would
say no, christianity is that onetime of the year that you can
go to Safeway and hear gloria,away in a manger.
(19:24):
It's the one time of year you gointo the malls and hear the
proclamation that we have 2000years of a promise.
He's coming, he's coming, he'scoming, he's coming.
2000 years with Israeliteswaited for Messiah and then, on
that starry night, theproclamation of the way it is
over Messiah has come, it'sYeshua.
He has come as the king of theJews, yes, but he has come as
(19:47):
bigger than that.
He'll be the king of thenations.
He's come to be a reconciler sothat this will not be a
religious thing.
You do not have to perform towin the approval of this supreme
deity that Yeshua would come ofage 30 years old.
His ministry would begin 33,.
(20:09):
His ministry would only bethree years at 33.
He would go to the cross.
One would say that that wasinjustice and that his life was
taken.
But Jesus said no one can takemy life, I'm going to give my
life.
And on the cross he says it isfinished.
You know, Buddha?
Before he died he said strivewithout ceasing.
You know, perform, doeverything that you can in order
(20:32):
to make the most of yourself.
But Jesus, just before he died,basically says I have done it.
I have done it all, you whocouldn't live up to the
expectations of the law.
I have lived up to theexpectations and yet I'm taking
on the consequence of sin andinjustice.
I'm taking on debt, I'm takingon your shame, so that those who
(20:53):
feel disqualified because oftheir own moral imperfections or
et cetera, et cetera, they canbe qualified because now there
is a sufficient Savior.
And it's pretty radical.
I'm sorry that took a lot oftime to frame out, but what I
basically did there in the lasthour was tried to paint with a
(21:16):
brush the entire Bible and thestoryline of the entire Bible.
And it's a storyline of a kindfather who loves the entire
world so much that he would givethe greatest gift that humanity
has ever known, that's the giftof his only begotten son.
So that whosoever, so thatanybody, anybody, regardless of
(21:39):
their past, can have a freshstart.
And that's pretty radical.
Lenora Turner (21:45):
I appreciate what you just said, because I
couldn't have said it like youdid and even though I grew up in
a quote Christian home andsomewhat of a religious home, I
think it's hard not to to getinto performance Like I used to
picture God.
If I thought of God the father,because I heard about him, he
was kind of like an old man andreally not even having a face.
And then, as I started to learnmore about God, I was like late
(22:08):
teens when I turned my lifearound because he loved me, when
I knew I was doing anything butperforming.
For that I, in fact I wasasking him for help with no
strings attached.
I was a dumb, sweet but dumb 18year old or however old I was,
and my gosh and I was remembergetting on my knees and just
(22:32):
saying God, help me, I'm scared,I'm scared.
And I really sensed actually twothings.
One was it's like if you hadthose little things on your
shoulder a little demon and anangel or something One side was
saying Leonard, how can you askfor help?
You knew what you were doing,you're guilty.
How dare you ask for help?
You knew other people don'tknow, but you know because
(22:55):
you're supposedly a Christianand I was that pressure to just
feel like, nevermind God, andjust be condemned.
And then the other sense as apull, a drawing towards not even
the words.
It was just, let me love you,just let me love you.
And it was a little bit backand forth and then I ended up
going.
I know I feel I have no rightto ask for this, but I so
(23:18):
desperately want to be lovedthat I just yielded.
That's the only way I canreally say it.
I just yielded to.
I need you to love me, I needyour help.
And it was just.
I don't even know what happened.
That was something inside and Ilet it happen and I was
different.
The stuff I thought was reallycool in the world where I just
(23:40):
love my little party life I hadat the time was the next day.
I wanted nothing to do with it.
I wanted to go home.
It's like you know, you'relooking for love, people are
looking to be loved, and you'regoing oh my gosh, this, this is
what I've been looking for.
And I knew I was coming home.
I was coming home to Jesus.
(24:01):
You know what times I thoughtabout doing that, when I would
be in high school, of course.
I was very young and I rememberthinking at times convicted, to
say you know, when they sayrepent, meaning just turn back
to this God who loves you, and Ifelt like I can't, I want to,
but I know I won't stick with it.
And anyway, at this time I justlet him love me and I just went
(24:26):
towards him.
It was really his strength.
Something broke loose and I andI was like I could see again.
They talk about that.
I was blind.
Now I see, but it's that insideeyes, in my understanding.
I'm like this is what I've beenlooking for all my life.
Now, thank God, I'm so thankfulI was introduced to Jesus, but I
didn't.
I didn't, I didn't know a lot.
(24:49):
I knew stories, I knew someBible stories, but I had no idea
how to walk this life out andit's really about getting to
know him better.
And we talk about hearing thevoice of God because I love the
Bible.
I read it and when we so manytimes, when people say things to
me, if they do about the Bibleand isn't it this or isn't it
that I went, you don't actuallyread it, do you?
(25:10):
I don't say that, but Irealized they don't.
Most people that havecomplaints don't even, don't
even read it.
But what changed my life is himloving me with no strings
attached.
The love was what drew me.
He didn't have to require of meand and sometimes people think,
oh, you're, you're, you're kindof religious, lenora or not.
And they're not trying to beinsulting.
They're saying oh, you'rereligious, I'm just not, I go.
(25:31):
Or you love God and and I seethat you do you don't get it.
It has zero to do with myvirtue.
Zero is everything to do withsomeone who loved so much that I
went.
There's nothing else like this.
There's just nothing.
I want this.
I want to come home and I'mgoing to stay home, meaning I'm
(25:52):
going to walk with you.
It's like a marriage in.
I know because later on Istudied covenant, blood covenant
.
When I was in Bible school Idid my my second year.
We had to do a 30 page termpaper and I did it on the blood
covenant.
Western society knows verylittle about that.
We, thankfully we can at leastcompare it to marriage.
But sadly, what about?
50% of marriages end in divorce.
(26:14):
I went through a divorce what12 years ago I never thought I'd
go through.
That was devastating,incredibly painful and I thought
how can this be my life?
I believe in covenant.
This can't be me.
I couldn't wrap my mind aroundit and yet there I was, you know
.
And so it is like marriage.
In fact, he said this to metalk about hearing God's voice
(26:34):
in a time where I needed to hearit.
I was in the car when my ex heactually since passed away, but
when he'd said to me and itwasn't like him, if you knew him
he would never talked aboutdivorce but he told me he wanted
a divorce and I felt like I wastearing apart inside and going
numb at the same time.
And if you'd have been in thecar, it's a.
(26:58):
You can only explain thisafterwards Because it happens at
the time, but it takes longerto explain it than to understand
it happen.
And it's like here I have myhusband of 20 years, maybe 21 at
the time saying I want adivorce and I'm going numb, I'm
tearing inside and I it's like Iknow that I've got the spirit
(27:18):
of God in the car with me, handson my face, looking me eye to
eye, and said I'm your husbandtoo, and I don't want a divorce.
Wow, and I was like God iswalking me through this.
He will walk me through this.
Wow, I'm telling you he's real,he's so good and even the most
(27:40):
difficult things I've walkedthrough.
There's times I have it's spunmy head for a while, but he is
God and he can.
Times he can totally turnsomething around.
Other times you walk throughthings and it's like, like the
Old Testament, the three Hebrewchildren, the way they were
thrown into a fire but they cameout not smelling like smoke.
(28:02):
You can come through a toughthing and you come through it
and people wouldn't know you'vebeen through that thing.
I went through seasons of crisisand some anxiety and I'd never
faced that before and I was likeGod, I will not live a life
full of anxiety.
Show me how to get out of this.
I can't.
I must be free.
I don't care how common it'stalked about, I'm not going to
(28:22):
live like this.
And I tell you, sometimes itwas about grieving, sometimes it
was about tears, it was talkingto somebody, it could be
counseling.
I don't care what it is, but Iwas going to get free and Eden
was a part of that.
Absolutely a year ago, when Ifirst came, I kind of felt like
I was walking through World WarIII in my life and I was getting
(28:43):
prayer from anybody who'd prayfor me and I thankfully had some
amazing colleagues too thatwere supportive and stuff.
But God is real.
That's why I wanted to even doan episode like this, especially
at Christmas, when maybe peopleare more open to hearing about
it and life's a bit of achallenge now and I think it's
easy in the US, maybe in variouscultures, to think we're so
(29:04):
smart, we don't need a God, wefigured it out.
And yet it's like, yeah, Ifigured out, squad.
When it comes to it, when youstart seeing the world be shaken
, you start realizing maybe Idon't have near as much control
as I think, but for me, I don'tcare about religion and the sake
of rules.
For the sake of rules or doingsomething, because I'm looking
good to you, I have a life withJesus, because I wouldn't ever
(29:27):
want a day without him.
It's like I'm in love withsomeone who is in love with me,
but it's because of his virtue,not mine.
I'm smart enough to want this,I felt it and I and I.
You can't find it anywhere else, not like this.
Darren Stott (29:42):
Wow, yeah, that is so good.
That is so good, and I thinkthat what you were talking about
and just in your own journey,in your own story which is
incredibly powerful, because Ithink probably every person
listening there's gonna beaspects of your story that
they're going to be able torelate with.
I think what we all have incommon is that we all want to be
(30:03):
okay with ourselves, we allwant to be able to kind of look
ourselves in the mirror and thequestion is, you know, am I a
good person or am I a bad person?
I want to be a good person, Iwant to do good things, and yet
most of us look in the mirrorand say I don't think I'm a good
person.
Right, we all want peace.
We all want that sense of calmwithin our soul and knowing that
(30:25):
things might not be okay, butwe want to.
We want to be okay inside of us, like our outer space might be
nuts, it might be just chaos,but we all want to have.
You know that Hebrew word forcosmos means order, and we all
want to have cosmos within thechaos.
We all want to have that peace.
The last thing is we all wantjoy.
(30:46):
We all want to be happy.
That's why holiday depression,you know Christmas blues.
This is the time of the yearwhen depression meds start
flying off the shelves right,and the reason why is because
the whole hallmark kind ofculture of Christmas says you
know, this is when the worldfalls in love, this is when you
(31:11):
meet that one and you'reunderneath the mistletoe, like
this is the time of the yearwhen everybody is so happy and
then you're sitting there saying, well, why am I not happy?
And then everybody's else'shappiness just compounds our own
(31:31):
kind of self obsession.
You know, in November weweren't that bad, we didn't feel
that depressed In December.
We feel like we're just, youknow, chronically depressed.
Why am I so depressed isbecause everybody else's
happiness, if you will, is beingshoved in our face, you know,
(31:51):
and that's because nobody takesa selfie when they're, when
their mascara is running downtheir face and they're you know,
we celebrate only the bestparts of our life.
So we all want the same thing.
We all want peace, we all wantto be good, we all want to be
happy, we all want joy and soand so there's no.
The problem is is that we arealso all facing the same
villains.
The two massive villains arefear.
(32:15):
This is what we all have incommon, every single one of us
will battle a giant of fear inour lives, and that doesn't get
easier the older you get.
The other one is shame, andit's this idea of the constant
reminder of the stupid thingsyou've said and done, or the
things that you should have done, that you didn't do.
So you have fear and you haveshame.
(32:36):
Now here's the thing thatpeople don't realize Fear and
shame are not natural.
They are supernatural In thatthey existed before you and they
are interwoven into a spiritualblueprint in your life, and
that means that you are far moreconnected to your mother and
your father than you have everwanted to admit.
(32:58):
That is why, when we think onwho our mom or who our dad was
or is, and we said I swear, Iswear to God, I will never be
that man and then, the older Iget, the more I realize I am
becoming my father and I hatemyself for it.
Like all of a sudden, werealize why is it the very thing
(33:18):
I said I would never become.
I am becoming, and why do Ifeel so ashamed for it and about
it?
To the degree that people arewilling to be honest, every
single person that's listeningto this.
If you're honest, you'll sayyes, that's absolutely true, and
the reason why is because thesethings aren't unique to any
individual.
(33:38):
This is a part of the defaultfallenness.
So then, what does that lead to?
It leads to control.
It leads to a place where I sayI am terrified that what
happened in the past is going tohappen again.
So I will insert my control, Iwill control who I hang out with
, I will control what I wear, Iwill control every variable that
I possibly can, and and so,because of fear, because of
(34:02):
shame, because I hate this partabout me, I will cover it up.
I will cover it up with myperformance, with my career.
I will cover it up with myfamily life.
I will cover it up.
I will create a brand aroundwho I am, so that I will cover
up my nakedness.
And and this is the story ofAdam and Eve in the garden, yeah
(34:23):
, so say you're back to theGarden of Eden, covering up your
nakedness, what you lost andyeah, and so, and I think that
when we all realize that we allwant the same thing, we all, we
all, we all want to be all right, we all want peace, we all want
joy, we realize we're all.
We're all battling the samedemons, the same giants, and
it's not personal to us, eventhough it feels so radically
(34:45):
intimate, so radically personal.
This is stuff that our parentshad to fight against, that our
grandparents fought against.
And then when you hear the goodnews that you don't have to
conquer these things, that that2000 years ago on the cross,
jesus conquered shame, he tookon the shame for you so that you
can be shame free, so you don'thave to have a religion shame
(35:07):
you into its belief structure.
When you hear that you don'thave to perform, that, that
within the true Christiannarrative experience encounter.
We don't obey so that we can beloved.
We are awakened to therevelation that we are so
radically and infinitely loved.
Therefore, we obey.
That's pretty, that's prettyradical.
(35:29):
So this is not an invitationinto some sort of self help.
You know, fix yourself
Lenora Turner (35:36):
Uh huh.
Darren Stott (35:38):
No, this is an invitation into a mystical
adventure where, when you comein, when you're awakened into
your union with Christ Jesus,you begin to supernaturally
transform and change from theinside out, believe it or not,
without even, without eventrying.
And one analogy that that'sused in the scriptures is it's
(35:59):
like fruit and fruit tree isfunny in that nobody watches
fruit grow.
One day the branches were emptyand then the next day the
branches are full of fruit.
And this is the invitation forpeople to step into.
Today.
You won't really know when itstarted, you won't really be
able to say and this is whenthey grew.
(36:20):
All you'll know is you begin tosay yes, your spirit begin to
say yes, you begin to literally,physically say yes, I believe,
I believe, I believe.
And all of a sudden, one dayyou look at your life and you're
a radically different person.
Lenora Turner (36:34):
Yeah, so powerful and so relevant for the time.
Right now you're talking aboutthe mystical or supernatural,
some of the terms you use.
People are hungry for somethingthat is bigger.
Look at the Marvel the movies,the superhero movies.
We want something more powerfulthan ourselves.
So, as we try to intellectuallytalk ourselves out of how we
were so smart and yet we'rehungry for something way more
(36:54):
powerful than us, but we don'twant to perform for it.
There's a part of us that saysI want to be loved just because
you love me, and yet we knowwe've done things that are wrong
.
And so you go how do youreconcile this?
And he's the one that says I'mthe one who's reconciling it and
I am bigger than you and I amTalk about supernatural, but
(37:16):
that's not a weird thing, that'sa very normal thing.
Like you said, parts of theworld it's so normal and they
can get into all kinds of bagsof inversions of what is not
going to help.
You quote supernaturally.
But for those who are, thinkyou're too smart for that and
get honest with yourself.
You're hungry for God to bereal.
(37:37):
So I remember hearing a storyrecently and I loved it because
it was so simple.
I won't tell the whole story,but it was about a guy years ago
who pretty scary guy, who usedto come to church and cause a
lot of problems and people wereafraid when he showed up because
he'd come and disrupt.
But this woman happened to bepreaching and he came in and
they were all like, oh, what'sgoing to happen?
But she was talking about justcall on the name of Jesus.
(37:59):
The scripture says if you callon the name of Jesus, you'll be
saved.
Then he ended up running upthere and they thought, oh,
what's he going to do, becausehe's done that before and
literally tore things up.
But he comes up there and fallson his knees and just goes
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
He did it four times and therewas no disruption, no, anything.
(38:20):
And they went oh my gosh, he'sactually calling out to God.
Now we need to pray for him andhave him say this certain stuff
and he goes no, I don't.
You said I just have to call inthe name of Jesus.
I called him four times, I'msaved.
So I want people to know it'scall on him.
It's not even doing the prayer,right?
Darren Stott (38:39):
Right Wow.
Lenora Turner (38:40):
But, darren, I do want to lead this with the
prayer for anyone who's sayingGod, I need some peace.
I'm hoping there's a God that'sreal, or maybe they're coming
back home to him like I did.
Would you lead us in somethinglike that?
Darren Stott (38:54):
Yeah, absolutely.
I'd love to just blesseverybody today and I believe
that, as a response, you'reactually going to experience
peace today as a result of justmaking it this long into this
particular conversation.
So if you're still listening, Ibelieve it's not even so much
by your choice as much as you'rebeing wooed by your Creator.
(39:15):
I just want to add you know, alot of people think that good
people go to heaven, but that'snot true.
Forgiving people go to heavenand we are all in need of
forgiveness.
The Bible says that all havesinned and fallen short of the
glory of God.
So we have all screwed up,we've all done a lot of stuff
(39:35):
Right.
The Bible says that the wagesof sin is death, but the gift of
God is life, and so that'sGod's gift for you is life, and
his life is righteousness, itspeace and its joy.
So let me just bless you herereal quick.
So, father, I just pray foreach and every person that's
(39:56):
listening today that yourperfect peace would come right
now and that you, that you wouldwalk into the room, or, if
people are driving their cars, Ipray that they would sense your
presence, your spirit, comeright into the car with them and
(40:23):
I rebuke all anxiety in any waythat there has been a demonic
reminder of past torment andtrauma.
There's somebody and you'relistening, and you experienced
something so traumatic, but ithappened decades ago.
(40:46):
But it feels so real and itfeels so recent that every day
you relive it as though it'shappening that actual day.
And if that's you, I rebuke thetormentor right now in Jesus'
(41:08):
name, and I speak to that spiritof torment because we can
actually do that using ourauthority.
And so I use my authority inJesus to speak to that spirit of
torment and I command you, Ibind you, to be silent right now
(41:29):
and to let go of my friendthat's listening right now.
And now I ask, father, for yourpeace and your love to rush
into every atmosphere, in everycar, in every house.
Lord, and as people are jogging, exercising whatever they're
(41:53):
doing right now, that yourpresence would come, that it
would verify it'd be the bluecheck mark on what we are
stating as fact today that youwould verify it.
All right.
(42:14):
So for people that arelistening, most likely you can
feel a contrast now between whatyou were feeling and what
you're experiencing right now.
Some of you are actuallyfeeling heat.
Some of you are feeling heat onthe back of your neck and your
heart.
Some of you, even your handsare starting to burn.
Some of you just feel the loveof God right now.
(42:40):
Now, let me just speak into this.
These aren't feelings okay,they are, but this isn't just an
emotion.
The peace that you'reexperiencing is a person, that's
Jesus, and we're about to wrapup this podcast, but you don't
have to step out of thisencounter that you're having.
You can step into arelationship with the Prince of
(43:04):
Peace, and so, if you want thispeace to remain, some of you
even feel like a joy that'scompletely foreign to what
you're used to.
But you feel like this.
Don't think of it like ahappiness, like a giddiness.
It's what it feels like.
It feels like a hope that'sstarting to swell up, like a
(43:26):
fountain in your heart right now.
Listen, that's Jesus.
Okay, that's him knocking onthe door of your heart.
That's him actually speaking.
You're actually hearing hisvoice in a very unique way, and
if I'm speaking to you, I wantto invite you into not into a
religion, I want to invite youinto this family.
So are you willing to step intothis house.
(43:50):
If so, the doorway is Jesus.
Are you willing to step intothis doorway, to come in through
his name?
If so, I just want you to sayit out loud.
You might be by yourself, youmight be with somebody, but I
want you to just respond bysaying yes.
I want you to just say it outloud right now, yes.
And if you said yes, I'm goingto lead you into prayer, and I
(44:16):
actually want you to pray thiswith your mouth out loud.
Okay, you might seem crazy, youare crazy, we're all crazy,
okay, but here we go.
So say it out loud.
Say I believe with my heart, Iconfess with my mouth that Jesus
(44:40):
is God, that he's my deliverer.
Forgive me of all my sins,break the power of sin darkness.
(45:06):
Say this out loud.
Say Jesus, break the power offear, break the power of shame
in my life.
I am done controlling thingsand now I surrender to your love
(45:28):
.
And now, as a priest, I declareover you because you need to
hear this your sins have beenforgiven, all of them, and now,
by his grace, you can go andmake new, powerful, wise choices
(45:49):
, and I want to welcome you intothe family of God In Jesus'
name, amen.
Lenora Turner (46:01):
Amen.
I'm so loved that you heardthis and that you've those that
have done this and prayed thiswelcome.
Also.
And because you want to get toknow Him better.
That's why you want to get aBible if you don't have one
already, why you want to readstart maybe the book of John,
the New Testament, because youwant to get to know God better.
You've got everything, but nowyou want to know what did I get?
(46:23):
Who do I have as God?
And find yourself a good churchthat's teaching out of it and
believe in the miracle power ofGod.
Because, again, it's to get toknow Him better, get to know
what you have and who you're apart of, and all that.
But thank you, Darren,Absolutely Thank you.
This was fun, this was great.
You do a great job.
Darren Stott (46:44):
Excited about your podcast and about doing this
with you today.
Lenora Turner (47:00):
.
So this is a great way to say,yeah, I live with this God every
day and I wouldn't live withoutHim.
Darren Stott (47:07):
Wow.
Come on, come on.
Lenora Turner (47:08):
So thanks, Darren , and of course I'll see you
soon and for those of you, again, when the next podcast comes
out, subscribe, you'll know.
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