Girls Gone Bible - A Slave To Sin | Girls Gone Bible
Episode Date: March 14, 2025Hiiii GGB! In this episode, we’re talking about what it means to be a slave to sin, how it traps us, the consequences it brings, and the freedom we can only find in Jesus. We dive into scripture ...and the power of baptism as a step of faith, symbolizing our old selves dying and our new lives beginning in Christ. No matter how far you’ve fallen, Jesus is always ready to forgive and lead you into something greater. episode starts at around 13 mins. we love you SO much. Jesus loves you more. -Ang & Ari JOIN US ON GGB+ 🥹❤️ https://ggb.supportingcast.fm WE ARE ON THE OFFICIAL GIRLS GONE BIBLE LIVE TOUR! www.girlsgonebible.com/tour for the first batch of cities we have locked in :) WE LOVE YOU AND CANNOT WAIT TO SEE YOU!
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Tell me tell us three things about yourself that okay. I'll start. I just got a haircut
My hair is really short. I don't know how I feel about my hair
GGB. It looks amazing. I'm not being pick me. Pick me? You know like a pick me girl like
Do you know that? No.
When girls are like, oh, my hair.
It was like, so, so people will tell them that it's amazing.
That's not why I'm doing it,
but GGB, I would like a little bit of encouragement.
Do you guys like this length?
I like had to cut my hair a little bit
because just my ends were just so,
I went a little brighter and then my ends were so dead.
So just give me a little word of encouragement.
Or if you see me with 18 inch long hair next week,
don't worry about it.
You've never, it is never, you look amazing.
Thank you so much. I'm obsessed.
The vanity is screeching.
Treasure crown.
Trust me, my crown is cast today.
How are you?
Three things about me.
Three things about you.
That you wouldn't know. I have a blankie that I sometimes talk to that is the most comforting thing
in my life. I can't sleep without it. I sleep with that blankie every night. I've had it
since I was born. The rain makes me happy. I have to listen to rain sounds to go to sleep at night. And, whaddaya osh.
Every time I go into a place, I always look if there's a spider on the wall because I'm so scared.
And I find it really comforting on planes because I know there's going to be no bugs on the plane.
Wow, that's a good point.
Has anyone ever seen a bug on a plane?
I don't know.
But I'm like, I don't have to look around.
Everywhere I go I look.
Is there spiders?
What about last night?
We're like, we're in your living room and then you're in the middle of talking and
you go, I go, do you just see Jesus?
Like what was that?
And you go, I thought I saw a spider.
I was like, you have to stop.
The spiders.
It's okay. I really have to do exposure therapy.
How about, do you remember when we first became friends and you called me screaming about
a spider and then I go, Arr, we have to pray for this.
You were so mad at me.
Oh yeah.
I used to make her come over in the middle of the night and kill spiders.
We should play that video.
We still haven't prayed about your spider phobia.
I don't know why.
A xenophobia, I think.
Where'd you go? I Xenophobia, I think.
Where'd you go?
I was just thinking how I am.
I was thinking about how I got into a fender bender
on the highway because there was a spider.
Who gets spiders in their car?
Talk about, talk about like,
is there some kind of witchcraft on my life?
Hang on, can we please-
I break that in the name of Jesus.
What about the two times that we've both held older men up?
What?
We've both held older men up, me and the train.
What made you think of that?
I don't know, because I thought about you man.
There was this like man, older man.
There was this beautiful older Asian man.
He didn't speak English.
He was like traveling internationally.
I don't remember where we were.
But he was on the trip plate.
We were on the train and what happened?
And he should have been sitting but he started waffling cause the train stopped.
And she like grabbed him.
She grabbed the back of his neck.
He was like, oh.
This man was falling over and I literally go and I catch him and then I grab him.
You grabbed him by his neck with one hand.
I was like, good for you.
That was insane.
You're a good and faithful servant you are.
Why did I grab that man like that?
It was like an impulse grab, you know?
You went thinking.
I grabbed a grown man by his shirt.
And then what about one time Ari and I are...
Ari's a tool in the enneagram, she's a servant.
So we got to stop for every single person who looks like they need help.
It's a major inconvenience.
Maybe God is breaking something off my life.
We're driving on the highway.
Ari yells, makes me pull over.
We pull over.
There's this, bless him, bless him.
There's this homeless man, but like,
he doesn't, like we girls, we have to be careful.
He like fell off his chair or like his,
I don't know what, he had like a car. He fell off the car. He like fell off his chair or like his I don't know what he had like a car
He fell off the car. He's on the ground. He goes she runs. She's picking him up off the ground. He has a knife in his hand
He asked for a ride. I look at Angela go she went to heaven. I said get in the car right now
I'm literally watching her this man is a knife. I'm screaming from the car
I go, it's okay
I Locked my guard doors. I said, you know what you're on your own
I'm lifting him up and put him back on she's in the middle of the road lifting up this grown man with a knife in
His hand I'm picking up the man in the train with by his collar
Oh, I don't know.
Anyways, I survived it, so.
We both survived it.
Praise P.T.L.
Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord.
P.T.L.
Oh, man.
Hey guys, I'm Ange.
And I'm Ari.
And this is Girls Gone Bible.
We are a faith-based podcast where we talk about Jesus,
we talk about the Bible,
we talk a lot about mental health,
we talk about relationships once in a while, but we are very Christ-centric because Jesus
is the one true living God and we love Him. PtL, praise the Lord.
Great intro. Love it. You can do it every time.
You think my hair's okay? No, we're moving on. We're moving on.
I am obsessed with it. Is my eye... No, they're not on. We're moving on. I am obsessed with it.
Do it, is my eye?
No, they're not bloodshot anymore.
Are you sure?
I have an eye infection, they're so itchy right now.
Yeah, you have pink eye.
You farted on your pillow?
I have to pee so bad, I'm so sorry.
Who farted on your pillow?
Probably you, Anne.
Probably you.
It was me. I couldn't do it. It was one of you you. It was me.
I couldn't do it.
It was one of you guys.
It was one of them.
It was one of them.
Nah, you guys wouldn't do that.
What's up, GGB?
I love you guys so much.
Man.
Ari, like, we can't let her come in
with the hydro Stanley, whatever.
She has like eight different types of these Stanley cups.
She really does talk to them.
She bless her, like she literally looks at water
and has to use the restroom 500 times.
So coming in with one of these really does not serve us well
in filming.
Yeah.
Who thought two foxes like you and I
would talk about farts so much?
Frikin' foxes.
We have a bunch of foxes.
That's what guys from Boston say.
What, that you're a fox?
God, you're a fox.
I wanna go to Boston.
Where you going?
Hang on, we're talking.
So I just wanted to tell you something.
Show up.
On the record.
I heard you like them, y'all.
You guys should have seen us.
I promise you, you can trust us.
We will lead you well in this episode.
But today's episode is about sin,
about how to overcome sin.
We're gonna be going, it's gonna be a lot of reading
through Romans five, six, seven, and eight.
And then we're studying last night, we're in the glory,
we're in the zone, we're like doing all this stuff,
and then all of a sudden we start
doing the Kendrick Lamar dance.
And I can't believe I have it down.
I started doing it as I was brushing my teeth.
It's not that hard.
I know, but for someone who's like a little bit like-
You're a good dancer though, you might be dyslexic,
but you can dance.
I'm not dyslexic.
Oh, okay, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I didn't, that's not what I meant.
It's called, I had just started a podcast
and I've never done anything like this.
When we first started the podcast, I could not even read.
I was like, thug thug.
I see, I read.
And he was literally attacking my brain as I would be reading.ug thug. I so can't read. And he was literally attacking my brain
as I would be reading.
You're so stupid, you can't read.
What about me?
He attacks me like this.
He goes, ha ha, you're about to have a panic attack.
You're about to have a heart attack.
He's been doing it.
That's all I hear.
I know.
Yeah.
I had a really bad panic attack the other day
while I was driving.
Kind of took me back about five years.
Was really- Not on the highway?
On the highway, pulled over. It was driving, kind of took me back about five years. Not on the highway? On the highway, pulled over.
It was very, very scary.
And I will say-
Were you by yourself?
I was by myself.
Called you, called my mom, called John, called Carolina.
None of us answered.
Nobody answers.
It was really, it was probably good.
I needed to work through it.
But yes, spiritual attack, yes, it's all spiritual.
And how we treat our bodies is the most important thing.
If you are having anxiety and panic attacks or depression,
you really do need to look at
the way that you're treating your body,
because this is, I'm like so vulnerable right now
from a lack of sleep, touring,
I'm like running myself into the ground,
like this, it makes sense why that's happening.
So I just encourage whoever's listening,
if you're dealing with mental health stuff,
and then you can look at your life and be like,
I'm not eating right, I'm not exercising,
I'm not sleeping, you know what I mean?
It really is.
And isolation.
And isolation.
Is a killer of depression.
You get around some community and depression is, that's the best thing you can do when
you're in anxiety.
Depression is being unity.
Yeah.
The devil don't like that.
Don't like that.
The best thing I can do when I'm in a bad spot is get to your house.
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All right, you guys, we have an incredible episode
on sin today. Can I read that little description that I wrote down? What is sin? Right? In the
Bible, sin is defined as any action, thought, or behavior that goes against God's will and moral law.
The concept of sin is rooted in the idea of disobedience. Sin is often described as separation from God, and it brings spiritual death and consequences.
I love that it's defined as any action, thought, or behavior.
I feel like when people hear sin, they automatically go to, oh, sin, sex outside of marriage, oh, sin,
smoking and drinking and doing all that stuff, which
yes, there are so many external behavioral sin, things that you do, partaken, but it's
also your heart and your thoughts. People forget that pride, greed, anger, bitterness,
jealousy, all these things, that's sin. And it's so much easier, as both of us would know. It's so much easier. I feel
like this is how God takes, this is at least how He took us. It's like He has to get rid
of all the external behavioral sin first, where like we start laying down activities,
we start, we stop like, we stop swearing, we stop having sex outside of marriage, we
stop any sort of sexual sin, we stop doing
all of the things. God begins to work on modesty stuff, God begins to work on lust, all of
those things. And then you realize after, you think those are the big things and they're
the hard things and they are big and it is hard to lay down sin, but then you realize when God gets all of that out of your life, He actually gets to work on the deep-rooted sin
that's in your heart. And I've heard a pastor say, like, all of this stuff that you do behaviorally
is a symptom to what's actually going on inside. Like, these are all symptoms of the sin that's
in our hearts. So I think that's, so important to remember, you know? I'm literally thinking about what's so cool
about Girls Gone Bible is that you can see it.
Like we, the modesty, we started with the modesty
and we like, it was like this pruning
throughout like the beginning you watch.
So funny with modesty that like, I just used to,
even when God was working on modesty in
my heart, I was, that's why it's a heart posture, even with sin, like I used to be like just
constantly walking the line and being like, oh, but is it that bad? But maybe it's, and
then finally you get to a point of maturity where you're like, you don't even consider
walking the line anymore. You know, like you don't even walk the line.
Yeah. And people think it's so, I was, it's so funny.
I was at the hair salon yesterday
and I was talking about modesty and kind of, you know,
reiterating some verses from the Bible.
And she was like, oh, come on, that is so stupid.
And I remember feeling that way of like, it is,
this is so stupid.
Like, why do I have to cover my body?
But then I remember, I felt like I had to show my body for love.
That was my identity.
And like, you think it's so stupid.
You think he's like taking away all these things from you
and really he's just showing you who you really are.
He's trying to reveal to you that you are not,
you don't have to do these things.
You don't have to show your body.
You don't have to, for love and all this stuff.
And so it's like, the minute we started to lay that down,
we started to see who we really were,
that we weren't our bodies.
It's true empowerment.
Yeah, yeah, that's what it is.
Okay, this is completely off topic,
but I just wanted to tell, I wanna tell you the story
and I think it's so interesting for them.
Cause like, obviously you guys know Ari and I came from an act, the acting world and we've been
acting in LA for a very long time. So one of my good friends, she has to have a conversation with
her agencies and tell them that she's not okay with LGBTQ roles and sex scenes or nudity,
which by the way, those three things,
you cannot find a script, you cannot find an audition
that is not one of those things.
Either it's a girl who's completely naked or she's gay.
There is no, like there is no actual substance
in film or TV at all.
Like it's actually the most demonic weirdo thing
that I've ever like seen in my life.
And so I'm talking to my friend
and she makes such a good point because she's like,
we had the whole Me Too movement, right?
Like Hollywood did this whole Me Too movement,
like we're giving women their power back and all this stuff
because back in the day you used to have casting couch,
you used to have like, you sleep your way to the top.
Like if you sleep with the producers
or you sleep with the directors,
and that's like way back in the day,
but like if you sleep with someone,
that's how you can get a role and do all that stuff.
And the Me Too movement like completely abolished that.
Right? Maybe.
I'm sure it's still happening behind the scenes.
But my friend made such a good point.
She was like, the Me Too movement came to empower women,
made it so that women would no longer have to
either sleep their way to the top
or be sexualized to land a role
or be objectified to land a role.
But now, like look what Satan does.
He like did this fake Me Too movement to empower women.
But now every role that you could even go out for
is completely objectifying and sexualizing
women.
So the only way that you could land a role in acting is if you either take your clothes
off or you're in a same sex relationship that has no significance towards like the plot
or the arc of the story whatsoever.
Like it's just, it's so disempowering.
It's so like the, he literally,
Satan literally tries to give women no option except to like,
you can just see this.
And men.
And men too.
Yeah.
And men too, but not even close to what he does with women.
Yeah.
I just.
Isn't that crazy?
Yeah.
I just, that's so true.
And I just, and the thing is,
is like when you don't compromise your value,
God has a way of rewarding you and giving you tenfold. And I am so proud, even like from the
beginning of Girls Gone Bible that we didn't compromise. There are so many things that we
could have done. So many opportunities, so many things, offers, and we never compromise our integrity.
That's the one thing that I've just really been learning in my journey in U2,
because I used to compromise so much. If it's one thing in my life,
I look back at my career, the roles I did, just these low blow,
that is out there for the rest of my life.
And, you know, I don't really beat myself up anymore, but I still have to see that stuff
on the internet for the rest of my life.
And I'm just like, when you hold back and you say, I don't play around with that darkness,
God sees that and He rewards you for that.
So I know it's so hard to be in, not even Hollywood, in a society that tells you to
do you, make this money, do whatever you have to do
to get to the top.
When you sit back and you're like,
no, I don't do what the world says, I live for God.
He sees that and he's like, oh, you just wait.
Even if it seems like you're in a really tough,
difficult season where you have to struggle
for a little bit, because me and you really did
for a little bit, but then, you know. It's so true. It's so true. Just to be without compromise. It's like
compromise, like to be without compromise. That's it. That's just the best way to live your life.
And we're going to talk a lot about that today. Okay. So we're going to read a little bit out of
Romans 5.
We're gonna be reading just so it's more,
it's helpful for you guys.
We're gonna read all out of NLT today.
And-
NLT is the best, huh?
It's my favorite.
It's not the most accurate, but it's my favorite.
Probably like ESV or NIV is the most word accurate.
I just love NLT so much
because it's the best for comprehension and understanding. And I feel like for us, especially
like that's what's most important that we get deep understanding. So we're going to
read a little bit first out of Romans five, you can start at verse 12 and it's Adam and
Christ contrasted. When Adam sinned, and as you guys know, Adam and Eve were the first two people on the planet
that God made.
The whole story, the whole gospel, the whole story of Jesus is that God created man in
his image, and we were made to be in perfect relationship with God.
But the first two people, whoever lived, fell.
They chose their own will as opposed to choosing God's will.
They chose to go their own way, to be their own God, and that basically messed everything
up for the rest of eternity.
Every single one of us live in Adam's bloodline.
Every single one of us come from Adam's bloodline.
So sin entered the world through Adam and literally spread from
generation to generation and will forever be that way until Jesus comes back and redeems
all of humanity. And so verse 12 says, when Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam's
sin brought death. So death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. Yes, people sinned even before the law was given
But it was not counted as sin because there was not yet any law to break
still everyone died from the time of Adam to the time of Moses even those who did not disobey an
Explicit command of God as Adam did so basically meaning that anybody in the world, even if you don't explicitly
disobey God's commands, which every single one of us do and will because we just have
an inherently sinful nature, you are still automatically a sinner because we're in His
bloodline.
Now, Adam is a symbol, a representation of Christ who is yet to come. But there is a
great difference between Adam's sin and God's gracious gift.
So it's always a contrast. It's Adam and then Jesus and because God does it on purpose to show a contrast of a man
who chose his own will and a man, Jesus, who literally only chose the will of the Father to be completely devoted to the Father.
There's a great difference between Adam's sin and God's gracious gift. For the sin of this one-man Adam brought death to many, but even greater is God's wonderful
grace and His gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ. And
the result of God's gracious gift is different from the result of that one-man sin. For Adam's
sin led to condemnation, but God's free gift leads to our being made right with
God, even though we are guilty of many sins.
For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many, but even greater
is God's wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness.
For all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus
Christ." over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.
So God's law was given to us to expose how sinful we are.
The whole point in God giving Moses all these commands was not only to give them a guideline
in how to live their lives, but He was always foreshadowing the time of Jesus to come where
Jesus would come and show us that everything that you ever tried to do to be faithful to
me through the law would never be sufficient because our hearts are naturally sinful.
We can't overcome sin without God's grace.
Without the sacrifice of Jesus, it's only through Jesus' blood and the Holy Spirit's
empowerment that we could even think about overcoming sin.
We will never be able to keep God's law.
That's why Jesus is necessary.
And so I think a lot of people always have this question
of like, how can we be guilty of what Adam and Eve did?
You know what I mean?
Like, why are we, why are you and I accountable
for what he did?
And I think the whole point in God,
I think the whole point in this is that whether it was Adam and Eve or you and I that were the first people, we would have done the same thing. We are faulty, weak
humans. We do not have God-like tendencies. We don't have His divine ability. He made us
human on purpose because then we would need Him.
Then we would be dependent on Him.
Like the whole point is for us to always be in relationship.
And so if anybody wonders,
why are we responsible for what Adam did?
It's because we would have done the same thing.
Yeah. And we're in Romans 6.
Well then, should we keep on sinning
so that God could show us more and more of His wonderful
grace? Of course not. Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you
forgotten that when we were joined with Jesus Christ in baptism, we were joined with Him in
His death? For we died and we were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised
from the dead by the glorious power of the Father,
now we also may have new lives." I love that. Let's stop. Do you want this energy drink?
No. So this whole section deals with sanctification. Chapters six, seven, and eight deal with
sanctification. Romans six is Paul talking about how believers can be free from their struggle with sin. Romans 7 talks about
how it's like a continuous struggle. Even Paul, who's so devoted to Jesus, has this continuous
struggle with sin. And then Romans 8, we all love Romans 8, talks about the victory that we have
over sin. So when he says, well then, because it talks about, because Romans 5 talks about,
it like sets us up with all of God's grace and the grace that's given and His grace abounds much more.
Where sin abounds, grace abounds much more.
But then Paul is writing and saying, okay, so then should we keep on sinning?
And the answer is obviously no.
And if we take advantage of Jesus' mercy and His forgiveness, then we're clearly not taking
sin as seriously as we should.
Sin leads to death. It is so incredibly serious.
His grace is sufficient. Grace is unmerited favor, and His grace is sufficient to cover
all of your sins when you repent, but it does not absolve you of the consequences that come from sin.
I feel like people forget that if you're continuing to live in sin, you're choosing to take on the consequence and the destruction that sin brings on. Yes, of course, Jesus
will forgive you, but you're not then exempt from the consequence that sin brings on your
life.
Yeah. And I think people too feel like,
man, like I don't wanna do this.
I wanna live the way I want,
not realizing that we're just harming ourselves.
And this talks about a lot about baptism in the beginning.
And it's so funny because when we were baptized
and then we had some people that we know get baptized,
I think people mislead what baptism is.
Like, a lot of people feel like,
well, I can just get baptized and then I'm saved and then I can go on living the way I want.
And that's so opposite from it.
When you get baptized, that means it's just a portrayal of what your new life is going to be.
It's showing you that you're going to be immersed in the water.
You come out and you're going down with Jesus and come out in the newness of life.
And it's not that you're just, you can just go get dunked in the water and then you come up a new
person. And so we have to, we have to actually, you know, come up and actually live right, not just,
oh, I'm baptized and I'm saved and I can go ahead
living the way I want.
And many people think that.
It's not just some, I love that you say that so much because they said, we were joined
with Christ Jesus in baptism.
We joined him in his death.
We have died and were buried with Christ by baptism.
You were buried with Jesus.
Your old life is gone.
You come up out of the water,
like you said, into the newness of life, resurrected life, died with Jesus, risen with Jesus. That
means new life. That means everything changes. It means new life and you've been buried and you're
up and you're forgiven. You're forgiven for your sins. That means you don't keep living the way
you were. You were dead with sin, and now you are dead to sin.
Amen.
And when it says, when I read that from my own interpretation,
when I read, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us
more and more of His wonderful grace, I just think about us.
And I think about when you really capture the revelation
of Jesus, and you really have that aha
moment of, oh my gosh, I love you. I respect you. I see you. You really, you see Jesus and you,
I don't know, I just remember having that moment of, oh my gosh, what have I been doing? Why have
I been acting this way? I've been living in this
web of deception and you have that reverence, that hit of reverence, and you just can't
go back there. I look back and I'm like, I look at people that say they love Jesus, and
this is not me condemning you, this is just me because this isn't anything I learned, this is me.
Actually, I've walked through this this past two years.
And when I hear people that have been Christians, but they're still living the way they want,
I think to myself, have you really, do you really understand Jesus?
Do you really understand who He is?
Have you really went deep enough with Him? Because once you capture the revelation of who He really is, His love, what He's done for us on the cross,
how can you keep living the way you're living without feeling so sick inside?
I can't get away with anything anymore.
And so, yeah, when I read that, should we keep on sinning so that God can give us more of His wonderful grace?
Of course not. No, of course not. Yes, Jesus has grace, but we also, it's also like, don't you see who He is?
How can we keep doing the very thing that He is so fervently in this Bible telling us not to do?
He's so serious about it.
This is so serious.
It's serious stuff.
Jesus dying on the cross is very serious.
If He had to die for the sin,
I think we should take it seriously
and not take His grace for granted.
It's very serious.
So good, R.
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We go on, Romans 6, verse 5, it says,
Since we have been united with Him in His death, we will also
be raised to life as He was.
We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power
in our lives.
This is our whole point in reading this today, is so that you understand that sin has no
power over you. Sin is not more
powerful than you with Jesus. Us alone, absolutely it's more powerful. Us, with the authority
that Jesus has given us, there is no sin addiction habit, nothing is more powerful. And it says,
we are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power
of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know that we will also live with Him. It's
not just death to sin. It's then life in Jesus. Life in Jesus. It is so life more abundantly.
That's what He offers. We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead and He will never die again. Death no longer has any power over Him. When He died, He died once to break
the power of sin. But now that He lives, He lives for the glory of God. So you also should
consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus."
Yeah, I love that verse.
Oh, I love it so much.
And when he says we are no longer slaves to sin,
I feel like Paul is writing to emphasize the point
that God does not, we don't get saved
and then God doesn't take us out of the world.
He doesn't take us out of our situations.
He doesn't take us away and take,
like if that was the case,
He'd just bring us to heaven right away.
But the point is this beautiful relationship that we're in with Jesus, where we get saved
and we're still in the world, we're still with temptation, we still have our flesh on
that wants sin, that desires sin.
But the point is that He sends His Holy Spirit to come give us boldness, to empower us to
overcome sin.
That's this dance that we're forever in. And so he's
saying that we are no longer slaves to sin before we were slaves to sin. We were, we had no choice
before Jesus, we had no choice but to give in to our sinful nature. But with Jesus, we are no longer
slaves to sin because we have the Holy Spirit who gives us boldness and empowerment to overcome.
Yeah. And you know, some of you could be sitting here saying, what do you mean I'm a slave?
I'm a slave to sin. Right. And I think about, I always go back to my own self because this
is something that Angel and I have both been walking out this past two years, completely
being pruned and we're used to living a certain way our whole lives and then all of a sudden, boom, we are like
radically changing our lives. And it's been such a process, but I, you know, when I read this, I just,
it takes me back to when I first started reading about sin because I didn't realize how serious it
was. I didn't know. Like, I was so ignorant to it all. And, you know, when I kept reading over and over how a slave to sin,
what is that? What is that?
And some of you that are new to this could just be wondering that too.
And think about it like this for anyone who doesn't think they're a slave to sin.
Think about right now if you're sitting in the middle of impurity right now.
Can you give it up?
I couldn't.
I, why?
Because I had pride.
I was like sitting there being like,
no, I've been living this way my whole life.
What do you mean?
I have to give it up.
And I kept going back and I kept going back.
And in the same with you, you keep going back.
You can't stop.
You say one more time, just one more time.
You're a slave to it. That's a slave. When you can you keep going back, you can't stop, you say one more time, just one more time, you're a slave to it, that's a slave.
When you can't get something up,
when you keep going back to it, it's got mastery over you.
And so I just remember feeling like,
I just remember feeling like,
why do I have to give this up?
Am I being punished for this?
Why is he trying to take these things from me
that are fun?
Right, that feel good.
And now that I'm on the other side of it,
I just, I can see how destructive it was to my life.
I can now see now that I'm in a place
where I can be in a place where I,
it feels like hell, it feels like I'm in turmoil,
but I have a peace that you cannot take away from me.
Why? Because the sin is gone.
Not saying that I'm free from sin.
I still, I struggle with things.
I'm saying things that I'm still walking through,
but laying our lives down has,
it's been the cheat code to our life.
And I understand all this,
but I remember reading this and being like, what is this?
What do you mean?
I'll never forget, little story time.
So as a lot of you guys know, I've done it all.
I've done it all.
Drank alcohol, been addicted to alcohol.
I have smoked cigarettes, been addicted to cigarettes.
I've vaped, been addicted to vaping.
And I'll never forget when I quit vaping
because my mom challenged me.
And I love a good challenge.
My mom basically was like, you couldn't do it.
You're a slave to this, whatever.
And I remember I gave up vaping.
And I literally, it was one of the most painful things
I'd ever done.
And I was able to give it up because I just
was around my family and I had a good community.
That's something that we'll get to.
You want to overcome sin.
Oh, you get with some good accountability.
You get around people who will hold you accountable.
You say you're going to quit something.
It's crucial.
It is everything. I was only able to quit something and then go, it is everything.
I was only able to quit vaping
because I was with my family,
living with them in Florida during quarantine.
And then I moved back to LA
and I started going through something
and I started vaping again.
I, by this point, when I first quit,
I didn't really have a spiritual understanding
of what was going on. I didn't understand the spiritual implications of being addicted
to something. I didn't quite yet know what having an idol was. So that was when
I first started, when I first stopped smoking that I didn't really understand.
When I picked it back up and I was like way deeper in my faith, I started reading the Bible and I understood what was happening
in my body. I go, I am a slave to this thing.
Yeah.
I'm, oh, I was smoking a cigarette. That's what I picked up. I didn't pick up vaping
again. I picked up cigarettes. I go, I am a slave. I would be in my quiet time, in my
room, trying to connect to Jesus, thinking about smoking a cigarette.
This thing had taken precedent over Jesus for me. I wanted to be smoking. My body was a slave to it.
My mind was a slave to it. I realized like, this is true. I was fully a slave. He was my master.
And there was nothing I could do about it until I quit. And the thing with sin is you can't just do a little here
and there, that's not how sin works.
You let a little bit in, it takes a mile.
And it will absolutely, you literally open the door
and He will invade your house.
Like you cannot give sin even an inch into you.
It says that you can't give sin a foothold into your life.
You can't give Satan a foothold.
And so it was just so crazy when I
realized like, oh my gosh, I can't even go a little bit without this thing. That's what sin does. It
controls you fully. So verse 12 then says, do not let sin control the way you live. Do not give into
sinful desires. Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin.
Instead, give yourselves completely to God.
For you were dead, but now you have new life.
In Jesus' name, we pray this over you guys.
You were dead, but now you have new life.
So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.
Sin is no longer your master. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.
Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God's grace, the liberating freedom of God's grace. He is a God
of liberation. This is what He does. This is how I beat alcoholism. I've beat vaping. I've beat cigarette smoking. I've made a lot of progress in disordered eating.
Like, this is what he does.
He wants to set us free.
He wants to set us free from our sinful desires.
It's insane.
And if you don't think that you can do it,
let me just tell you that I became a Christian
two and a half, two and,
it's been two and a half years.
Two and a half years ago.
And I literally, my life, I've changed my life all around in the matter of
five months. Like, five months of not by my own strength, but asking God, help me with this. Help
me. He radically changed my life like this. Don't think that He can't do it for you just because
you've been living a certain way your whole life, because He can.
He can and He will.
No matter how deep the sin that you're in, no matter what, it doesn't matter. You're
not too far gone, you're not too deep in, you're not too dirty or shameful or anything
like that. And we're two girls that sit up on here who come from the world.
Who literally have had to break off every sin, everything. We were so deep in the world and in darkness
and in all the things.
And if we can do it, so can you guys.
Because Jesus can do it in you.
We might not be able to do it on our own.
I know we can't do it on our own.
But with Jesus, anything and everything is possible.
And honestly, Ange, I think about it like, sometimes we do grieve, because we do
wish that we were.
We sometimes look at each other and we always tell you guys, but we look at people that
grew up in Christian families and we're like, man, I wish we could have grown up so pure
like this.
But that wasn't the case.
And God uses everything for His good for those who love Him.
And so, He used it for His good, for those who love Him. And so, He used it for our good, and He put us on this platform,
because a lot of us are so turned against Him,
because you're so deep into your shame.
And I just hope that you can look at us too,
and you can be like, if these two girls did it,
two girls that lived in LA, lived a certain way their whole lives,
we were always good kids, by the way.
But if he can do what he did in us,
and we changed our lives in the short amount of time that we did,
then so can you guys. I'm serious.
And if I could encourage you guys with anything,
it's like, this should be fun.
Like, this is amazing.
This shouldn't be shameful.
And I'm talking to myself.
This shouldn't be shameful.
This shouldn't be like something to make you shrink back and like, you know, cower down because,
oh, it's so much sin. It's serious and we have to take it serious. And also, if I was you,
I would look at it as like, I'm literally so devoted to letting Jesus remove every bit of
impurity in my heart. And that's a lifelong journey,
because every single day there's something new.
And it's like insane.
You think you're good and then you're not.
But it's fun.
Like whenever I realize like,
oh, there's another piece of impurity.
There's another piece of something that is not good.
This is sin deep in my heart,
and we've got to get rid of it.
It's my favorite thing to let Jesus work
and then overcome it.
When I, my favorite, like John literally always laughs
because he's like, I've never met somebody
who loves a challenge the way that you do.
He's literally, because I-
He loves a good challenge.
I love it.
When I see that there's something not godly or not right,
I am like, I am gonna let Jesus do what he does.
I'm gonna let this happen.
And it's like, I look at it as like,
this is amazing that He does this for us.
This is amazing that we get to overcome sin
and we don't do it by ourselves.
We do it with His power.
It's amazing.
It's like, this is amazing.
And you know what else?
Like, I love that you say it's fun
because I was just looking at old photos
of myself the other day.
Yeah. And I was like, this is incredible. Look at what you did. Look at who I was,
how I used to be, how I used to dress. I didn't even have life in my eyes. Right.
Look at what you've done in my life. It's crazy. So like for someone who's like,
no, but I've been living this way and now I have too much of a past, look at how I grew up.
That's even more of your testimony.
By the end of this, you're gonna be like,
look at what God did.
He's gonna shine His glory through you.
What a gift He is to us.
And the darker the path,
the more darkness that you've walked through.
I've even noticed with John and I, for example,
John's like, he grew up in a very like Christian
household his whole life, faithful to God.
Had to find his faith on his own,
probably had a couple of years where, you know,
he just went through his own stuff,
but for the most part, like been faithfully walking
with Jesus, that's obviously not my story.
And I can tell that I am like way more sensitive,
not way more, but like I'm very sensitive to darkness.
Like he can watch a film that probably I feel like is not,
I don't wanna watch.
And we've had the conversation before
where I think I'm probably a little bit more sensitive
to darkness because I've seen so much of it.
I've been in so much of it that I
have this sensitivity to like even swearing. Like you know what I mean? That things that people
don't think is a big deal. I and you, we both might think it's a little bit more of a big deal
because we know we have tasted and seen what darkness is. We've tasted and seen sin and we
know how much better Jesus is. So we're like just so much more proactive of being like,
I can't go back there. And that's the, and I don't know, and I just want to say this,
that is the gift. There's always a gift to something that we've been through that's hard.
And while I just remember condemning myself so much from where I come from in you too. And there's such a gift of coming from hardship and coming from darkness.
And while it wasn't fun and while we went through so much,
He really brings beauty from ashes.
And someone that's sitting here listening right now,
that's in the trenches, that's sitting in darkness,
hear what she said, there's beauty in it.
We look at darkness, we can help people because of in darkness. Here what she said, there's beauty in it. Like we look at darkness, we can help people
because of the darkness.
We never want to go back there because of the darkness.
And so do not let any part of your body
become an instrument of evil to serve sin.
So it's not even just your physical body.
It's like everything to do with who you are
and what you have to offer, all of your purpose,
all of your capabilities, everything.
Do not let anything that you do be an instrument to serve evil. I have spent a lot of my life unknowingly serving evil,
knowingly and unknowingly. You know what I mean? And we both have a very acute understanding that
everything we do has implications. That doesn't mean don't go live your life and have a good time and just relax a little
bit.
We need to hear that sometimes.
And at the same time, there's a seriousness and an urgency to knowing that everything
we do, everything we say has implications.
And we're either serving God with everything that we do and say, or we're serving evil. Yeah.
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Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help
you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness,
which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to
righteous living so that you will become holy. When you were slaves to sin, you
were free from the obligation to do right. And what was that result? You are
now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God.
Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
So good. So good.
I love how he says, I'm using the illustration of slavery to help you
understand all of this because Paul makes such a good point that there is no neutrality. You cannot
be neutral in this situation. You are either a slave to God or you're a slave to sin. There's
no in-between. Christians will always struggle with sin. We will always have temptation.
But we don't have to be slaves to it. If you belong to Jesus, you cannot belong to sin.
If you're governed by the Spirit of God, you cannot be governed by your flesh and sinful
nature.
I want to talk to you guys really because this is, for instance, we were watching, what
did we watch the other day?
We were watching some show about...
Love is blind.
Love is blind.
We're watching less than an episode.
We're watching, we're just like doing things and I just hear this girl, she's like,
you know, I grew up in a Christian household and, you know, I just, I don't know,
like I just, I don't agree with some things in the Bible.
And I don't know, it's like, I believe in God, but then I believe in the stars, and I believe in this, and I believe in that.
And then the guy is behind the wall, and he was like, I know. He's like, whatever.
He's like, I go to church too, and you know, I pray to God, but just at the end of the day, what's good is that you do whatever makes you happy.
He said that, right? Just do whatever makes you happy.
And like, this is the society that we're living in.
This is why we're all so depressed.
This is why we have tormenting minds.
This is why we have unforgiveness and bitterness.
And we're just, we're living in this web of what you said earlier.
We're serving another kingdom.
If we're not living holy and walking in the will of God and serving God,
well, we're serving something else.
And so, I just...
I want to get... we want to get this through to you guys.
We talk about sin a lot, but because it has rapidly transformed our minds,
it's saved our lives, it's freed us from depression, it's made us right.
It's made us right. When you do things God's way, it's freedom, it's peace, it's the peace
that surpasses all understanding. Philip Mitchell says, deal aggressively with sin. This is not something to take lightly. We
have to learn to hate sin. And how do you learn to hate sin? You learn to hate what
God hates. And how do you learn that? You come into intimacy with Jesus. I feel like
when I was watching that girl, that my first thought was, wow, she has put God in a box.
She's looking at it in the side of religion.
She sees things that maybe she doesn't like,
and she's put Him in the box instead of seeing Him
as a loving Father that loves her so much
that if she would just go into intimacy with Him,
she would realize, wow, He loves me.
Why do I say this?
Because I was someone, I felt so inadequate
to Christianity, I felt so inadequate to Christianity.
I felt like, no way, like I'm not playing with this.
Like I have to do these rules. People look at it as these are rules that he's trying to hurt us,
he's trying to make us not have fun anymore, that he's taking these things away from us,
like he's a bad dad. And it's honestly the quite, the complete opposite.
And like we can go through a couple things that he tells us not to do.
He tells us not to watch pornography.
We think that's hurting us by taking away pornography.
We're watching people, most of these women are broken and sex trafficked and all these
things.
He asks us to not have sex out of covenant.
Why?
Because why do you think?
I have had a broken heart for so many years. We're all living in identity crisis.
We have broken hearts. We're confused. That's because we're living outside of the covenant of Jesus.
We have unforgiveness. We don't talk to our parents, not realizing.
I mean, me and you were just talking about this the other day,
how soft in our hearts have gotten, the forgiveness, the love.
What other religion has that where you become a better person?
He forces you to be the best version of yourself,
because He tries to strip us of our sin.
It's only because when we are stripped from our sin
that we become better. Pride is at the root of our sin. It's only because when we are stripped from our sin that we become better.
Pride is at the root of every sin. It's why we are sitting in sin is why you're sitting
there saying, I'm not going to get rid of having sex because I don't believe certain
things in the Bible. Go deeper with Him. If you go deeper with Him and you realize the
love of Jesus and you really go into true intimacy with Him. This is not something I'm saying because I learned it.
It's because I've lived it the past two years.
It wasn't until I went into true, true deep intimacy with Him,
is when I was like, what am I doing?
I love you. I respect you.
Why have I been questioning your Word?
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word is God. This is God. This is your Word. And the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word is God.
That's this, this is God, this is His Word.
This isn't made up stuff, guys.
So, you know, I don't know, I just feel like,
and especially for men, there's so much pride.
You've been a Christian for so long, yet you're still going against what He says,
and you're still living the way you want,
and there's no peace, and He's after your hearts.
As I was praying, I saw a vision of men.
I really did that you're just like, you have no accountability partners.
The Bible says you cannot serve two masters.
You have a love of money.
How can you follow God and have the peace of God when you're a slave over these things?
And I see God after so many of you guys, but you have so much pride that you won't surrender
these things to Him.
You won't believe.
You're saying, I don't believe these things.
No, it's not that you don't believe it.
It's because you have too much pride.
You don't want to give it up because you're a slave to it.
Yeah.
So good.
Yeah. So insane. So good. I like...
And I think if we... We're gonna continue on Romans 7, which will kind of speak to what Ari
just talked about, about how like, it's in you. The sin is in you. It's in our nature. It's in
our hearts from the day that we're born. It is our flesh. It is
our nature. And Paul, I think it's just so encouraging that Paul writes about sin the
way that he does because Paul was one of God's best. He was one of Jesus' best. He literally
wrote 70% of the New Testament. He was an absolute gangster for Christianity, and he struggled with sin.
That's so encouraging to me.
It really is to know that if Paul was the one with the thorn in his flesh, he pleaded
three times with the Lord to take it away, and three times the Lord said, my grace is
sufficient for you for my powers made perfect in your weakness.
So Paul had all of these issues.
He probably had a chronic illness.
He struggled with sin, but he gave everything to Jesus.
He loved Jesus.
He didn't even get married because he wanted to serve God with all of his life.
And so he writes in Romans 7 verse 15, he says, I don't really understand myself,
for I wanna do what is right, but I don't do it.
Instead, I do what I hate.
But if I know that what I am doing is wrong,
this shows that I agree that the law is good,
so I am not the one doing wrong.
It is sin living in me that does it.
And how many of us can relate to that?
I know. It's so special because I think about how if anyone is struggling against sin or trying to
please God by keeping rules or a law or anything and not by the Spirit of God, you will always come
up short. You will never overcome. It is only by His Spirit that you can remotely overcome these
things. This last part when He says,
so I am not the one doing wrong,
it is sin living in me that does it.
I feel like it can sound like such a cop out
to say that the devil made me do it.
And it is, it's like you have autonomy, authority,
you have all of the things that Jesus gives you.
Like you have the ability and you have choice.
And I speak on that all the time,
that you have a choice in what you partake in, the behaviors you want to have, the type
of person you want to be. You have way more choice than you probably even think. And at
the same time, like we are incredibly vulnerable to sin. Like our nature literally, that's
why you have to actively fight against your desire and temptation to sin
You can never underestimate sins power because that is our inclination is to sin
So when Paul writes that he's not saying that it's an out like I'm not the one doing wrong
It's gee it's it's Satan that does it to me like that's not what he's saying
But he is saying like of course you're vulnerable.
Of course that's your desire.
Of course that's your inclination.
So don't have shame.
I feel like a lot of people need to hear that if you're having shame because you have so
much temptation and there is a reality in which like maybe you're not spending enough
time with Jesus.
Maybe you're not in the Word enough.
Maybe you are giving satan access points into your life if you're
struggling so hard. And at the same time, I'm just going to be honest, I spent a lot of
time with Jesus and I have to actively fight against temptation every day of my life. Every
day of my life. It is a constant battle and choice and laying my life down and a devotion and sitting in
the presence of God and letting Him fill me up, putting on that armor every day of my
life.
Every day I'm battling because there is a power in me at work, sin, my flesh, that wants
me to go against God.
It lives in me.
And we cannot be so arrogant to think that we're
so strong in God that we are not vulnerable to sin. You know what I mean?
And you know what else? It almost makes you feel... I always say the Christian walk is
almost harder because when we were living in sin and we didn't know the truth, we didn't
have the conviction. And so now it's like, we can't get away and we didn't know the truth, we didn't have the conviction.
And so now it's like, we can't get away with anything.
It's the greatest thing, but it's also equally,
it can be exhausting.
I will do one little thing.
Like I was on the phone with my mom the other day
and I got a little like, you know, loud with her.
And I get off the phone and go, my whole heart, like I felt like this.
Oh, me too with my mom last night. Call right back.
Say you're sorry. Like, yeah, like, you know, we've had so many moments.
So where we've done this, I don't know.
I don't know why I do the things that I do.
But you know what the beautiful part about it all is, is admitting that.
I when I read this, I read a man who has a heart of humility part about it all is, is admitting that.
When I read this, I read a man who has a heart of humility that is like,
not hiding, but coming to Him, because so many of us hide, including myself.
And I see a man who is so, has such a heart of humility that is like,
I don't understand why I do what I do. I'm being honest.
I picture him on his hands and knees looking up
being like, I don't know why I'm doing this. I need help. And like that is truly, it's so black
and white, the advice that we can give to you is coming to a place of realness and being like,
I need your help. It drives you to your knees in the morning to be like, I don't know why I do the
things that I do. If you are someone who is sitting in sin right now, who is a complete slave to it, ask Jesus to help you.
I remember my journey. Do you remember yours? My journey, I remember when I was in the middle of it.
And it was so cute how God was, it's just the love of God. It's unbelievable how, how it literally makes you just always want to forgive everyone.
When you realize how much He forgives you and He sits with you in the middle of your
sin.
The one thing that I did, it was like, it was so intimate with Him.
I would just be like, I need help.
Help me.
I have, even now I do this. I have, the other day I sat there and said, forgive me for my ignorance,
for not coming to you about my pride, my ego, my jealousy, my gossip.
These are things that I'm still walking through, that I'm still working on.
Yeah, maybe I'm not in the sin of sexual impurity,
but I still am working on things that aren't good in my heart, that are very sinful.
And God has been, like I said in another episode, He's been fathering me and teaching me things
and helping me unlearn things that I have been wired, that I've done since I was a kid.
And so, I've given myself grace, but it's like, help me. I have these things. Get it out. I don't want it in me.
I just spoke bad about this person, and I didn't even realize I was doing it until now, as I'm sitting here in quiet time.
Take it out. Teach me. Help me. Help me hate it. Give me a hate for it. Give me a hate for it.
Sometimes when I'd be talking, I wouldn't even realize that that's
actually not from God. That's actually gossip. That's actually... He doesn't like that. Sometimes
when I'm trying to teach somebody a lesson, I didn't even realize that that's my pride.
That you don't do that. You come and you forgive. You turn the other cheek when someone slaps you.
Like, these are things that I'm learning. And so, ask Him to teach you, ask Him to convict you, ask Him to give you the discernment,
ask Him to give you a hate for it.
And as you go into intimacy with Him, and you really, like, we keep saying this intimacy,
because when you realize, recognize the love of Jesus, recognize how He's your dad,
and He wants to teach you, and He's not out to hurt you and to take things from you.
But I think I've said this in another episode, not everything that feels good is good.
It's actually extremely detrimental. And I know some of you could be sitting there being like,
well, this is such a loss, but trust me, what feels like a loss is not a loss. It is for your good
Man, I'm like thinking about
How he's like I don't really understand myself for I want to do it is right, but I don't do it said I do it I hate
Anybody who's watching who's ever dealt with any sort of addiction?
We all know what it's like to do the things, the very thing that you hate more than anything, but you literally can't stop doing it.
I'll never forget when I was drinking and I would go to the little liquor store, I was
literally 22, 23 years old, and I would like wake up at eight o'clock in the morning because
my anxiety was so bad and I couldn't do anything about it except drink.
So I would wake up at 8 o'clock in the morning and go to the liquor store and get those little bottles of alcohol.
And I'd get into my car and I would go home and then I would literally be drinking at 8 o'clock in the morning
and it continued like that for the rest of my day. And I lived like that for probably six months.
And I can't tell you how many times I looked at them
in the mirror and said, I hate this so much.
I'd look at the alcohol and be like, I hate this so much.
I did not want to do what I was doing and I couldn't stop.
And I couldn't help myself.
And there was no part of me that wanted to be in that position.
But I had no power.
I was a slave to alcohol.
And I was a slave to anxiety that was driving me to alcohol.
I have a family member who literally has said the words,
I'm really struggling.
We like get mad because they're drinking.
And you get mad at people
when they're in addiction and you get mad at people when they're making bad choices. But then if you
really come back and zoom out and look at the situation, you can guarantee that that person is
struggling and they probably don't want to do what they're doing. So just know that we have
compassion for anybody who's sitting here in the middle of addiction,
because we know what it's like to do the very thing that you just don't want to do.
And because it's what makes you feel good. You don't know the comfort that you can find in Jesus yet.
You don't know the love that you find in Jesus yet. That's your comfort. That's your love.
That's the only thing that quiets the noise and quiets the voices.
It's the only thing that makes you feel
normal or okay. It's not even like you want to feel good at this point. You just want to feel okay.
I know what that's like. So we're just here to encourage you that there is life in Jesus.
There's freedom in Jesus. Whatever you're gripping onto right now, the addiction, the alcohol,
the smoking, the sex, whatever it might be, you can find that same
comfort and that satisfaction and that fulfillment in Jesus.
30 million thousand times more, a number that is innumerable, you can find it in Jesus.
And it actually satisfies and it actually fulfills and it actually brings comfort because any sin that is making you
feel better results in you feeling worse period. It's a catch-22. It happens every single time.
It's what Satan does. He offers you something good and it ends in bad. Jesus offers you life
and he gives you life. I overcame alcoholism. This is my whole testimony.
I overcame alcoholism when I met Socrates,
and Socrates prayed for me for six months.
And that's another thing.
Sometimes it doesn't happen overnight.
When something is so deeply rooted in you
and in your brain and in your brain chemistry,
like alcoholism and addiction and the anxiety was in me, it
didn't happen overnight. And so I prayed for myself every single day for six months. Socrates
would call me every day and I cried out to Jesus every day of my life and I begged Him
to remove it. I begged Him to make me better. And it's funny when something happens, like an overnight success actually
took 10, seven years of work to get there. Like a moment of supernatural deliverance
is what I experienced when I got free from alcohol. I literally picked up a drink, put
it down, had a moment of absolute defeat where I said, I'm going to die if I keep going. I'm actually
going to die. I feel like I'm dying. I wake up every hour in the night to drink because
my body goes through such severe withdrawals that I'm going to die. And in a moment, I
received supernatural deliverance. I didn't call out to God in that moment, but it was
about six months of praying, six months of seeking God and not even
really not knowing at all what I was doing, not knowing if He would ever respond or ever answer
my prayer. But I had no other choice and I had people praying for me. Six months of prayer led
to one moment of deliverance. And then I, but this is the thing, this is how I stayed sober.
And then I, but this is the thing, this is how I stayed sober. I literally had people praying for me.
And I let Jesus come in and it was only by the Spirit of God that I was able to,
that's kind of tough because I never craved it ever again.
I received supernatural deliverance from alcohol.
Which happens and then there's other cases where?
Yeah, where it doesn't. And then there's other cases where you can get delivered from something,
you partner with God and you decide to lay something down, and then you have to continuously fight.
With alcohol, I never craved it ever again. Anxiety, that is my... Anxiety is not a sin,
but that's my normal, that's my default. Me away from Jesus is anxious. Me away from
Jesus is fearful. Me away from Jesus is prideful and arrogant and self-defensive and self-protectant.
So if I don't stay close to Jesus, that's where I go back to. And so anybody, yes, you could be
supernaturally delivered from sin,
from a habitual sin in your life, but if you don't stay close to Jesus, if I lose my connection to
Jesus, you can probably find me at the bottle within a year. Like, you know what I mean? I
have no idea, but I know, I know I'll never go back. I know I'll never try again. And that's
another thing with sin. If you get free from it once, do yourself a favor and don't go back.
God of liberation, I always think about the Israelites, how they were delivered, they were freed from slavery in Egypt,
and all they wanted to do was go back. When God liberated them from their slavery,
and all they wanted to do was go back because it felt better to be in slavery than it did to go through the wilderness to get to the promised land.
If you endure the withdrawal from your sin, from the discomfort of having your sin removed,
if you just endure the wilderness, you will reach the promised land.
But so many of us go back to slavery because it's all we know, because it feels good.
Be empowered today to not go back
to the thing that God delivered you from. Romans 8, so now there is no condemnation for those who
belong to Christ Jesus and because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has
freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. Power of the life-giving Spirit, that is the Holy Spirit.
He is a part of the Trinity.
We serve a Godhead, Father, Son, and precious Holy Spirit,
the one who is there at the beginning of creation
and the one who is responsible
for the rebirth of Christians.
Holy Spirit is our best friend.
You have no idea, I call on the Holy Spirit and I feel power surge through my body. He is, don't forget about the Holy Spirit is our best friend. You have no idea, I call on the Holy Spirit
and I feel power surge through my body.
He is, don't forget about the Holy Spirit.
We love Holy Spirit so much.
He's the one who was there, they were all there,
Jesus, Father, and Holy Spirit were there when we got saved,
but the Holy Spirit is the one who literally encountered,
who filled us, who said, I am coming inside your body.
I'm not just around you, I'm not just with you. I'm in
you because I'm the one who gives you power, strength, boldness, and the ability to overcome
the temptations of life. I love him so much. And that's what, when you walk in obedience with God,
that is the gift that we have. And if for someone who's sitting here who doesn't understand it, try it. Obedience is like, that is when we partner with God in a way that is going to blow your mind.
It is insane. You think about, we were going to have a whole episode on confidence,
but when I think about confidence, I remember I used to put it in all these other things that
we thought I would make me confident. Now I'm like, no, it's when I'm walking in obedience.
I'm like, I'm anchored, I'm strong, I'm confident because I know who I'm walking it out with.
And that's when you say even, I'm having trouble hearing from God. Well, what's driving? Is it
your flesh or is it the Spirit? Is it the Holy Spirit driving? Because when the Spirit is driving,
that's when you can hear things, that's when you partner with Him, and that's when you see things happening that it's just, you're not even going to believe.
It's unbelievable, you guys. This is something we've been walking through and it's...
I'm sorry.
It's like...
You know I'm saying something real though when the hands go up.
It's just...
It's insane.
It's insane.
It's insane.
It's miraculous.
It's miraculous. It's Jesus.
It's... I am like overwhelmed. It's insane. It's miraculous. It's miraculous. It's Jesus.
It's, it's.
I am like overwhelmed right now.
This is so cute.
It's overwhelming.
It's overwhelming.
And again, like this is not something we're just like
preaching because we're reading it or we learned it
or we grew up in it.
It's because we've walked through it
and we are so passionate about it
because we've learned the cheat code to life.
Do you know what it's like to live in darkness
your whole life and then to reach the light
and be like, are you kidding me?
I went my whole life living like this
and it was here the whole time?
He was here the whole time?
Take it from two girls who have no reason
we could have started a podcast about anything.
We could have done anything.
This was an accident to fall into ministry.
This was an accident.
We literally just knew the love of Jesus
and the light of Jesus Christ
that frees you from darkness.
Yeah, and I'm looking back and I'm like,
I didn't wanna let go of these things
because I thought this was fun.
I look back and I'm'm disgusted. I give myself
so much grace, so I'm like, how did I sit and sin that way? How was I living like that?
Not that you should condemn yourselves, but the things that you think are so good right
now that you're sitting in, you are going to look at them and be like, changes the desires
of your heart. You're going to look at them and be like, wow, now I understand this scripture. You know, he's, I just want to say this, he's
after you. He's after your heart. And he's looking at you and he's, he's, he's like,
if you would only just follow me, if you would only listen to me, if you would stop second
guessing and being deceived by the enemy and second guessing these scriptures and thinking these things of, oh man, I don't know if this
is true.
If you would just put your pride down and open up your hands and surrender it to Him,
you have no idea what's on the other side of what I have for you.
If you would just stop, if you would put your pride down and give it to me.
Yeah.
Oh, it's so good.
And it's also a matter of the Holy Spirit
doing an incredible work in your heart,
removing impurities, spending enough time with Jesus
that like you, it's like a cleansing.
Every hour that I spend with God in the presence of God,
it's a cleansing that's happening over and over.
He's cleansing.
I'm just gonna be completely honest.
Going from someone who had only in peer relationships
and like you guys are on like such an interesting journey
with me right now.
This is, I'm, you know, in my first like true
godly relationship, me and John spend, like he lives in another place,
he doesn't live where I live,
so we've spent our dating relationship at hotels,
not ever staying in the same hotel,
never spending the night with each other,
but like out of hotels, on the road,
in really romantic settings, like all this stuff,
like it's been extremely romantic.
And the fact that like, and I love him with all my heart, I want to marry him, I'm incredibly
attracted to him.
And there is no lust whatsoever.
There is no sin that takes place.
There's no sin that even, like of course there's temptation at times, but God
killed it so much, killed the lust so much. It's unbelievable. And we're in agreement that like,
sex is not bad, but it's just not yet. And so we have an understanding, we are in agreement that
this isn't even an option. So our minds don't even go there. There's almost even no temptation
at times. My body that is wired to work a certain way, God killed it inside. He literally
kills sin if you allow him to. I am literally in a dating relationship where it's so romantic
and we're in a hotel and like, we're not, like, it's like we're homies in a sense,
kind of, but like, you know what I mean? mean like we're best friends I say this to say that coming from someone who like I never would have thought
in a million years I'm putting my leg up I never would have thought in a million years that this
could be my life that I could have no lust in me that I could have no desire I tell you this to
encourage you that like it is it it's insane. I don't understand
it fully yet. Except thank God that we have these words to remind us that it's not by
our own might. It is by the Spirit of God who does a work in you. He cleanses you, He
purifies you, but you have to allow Him to. And then you have to understand and feel empowered
to overcome. That's my biggest thing with you guys. Let's
read this really quick. It says, Romans 8, verse 5 says, those who are dominated by the sinful nature
think about sinful things. Notice this is two categories you can be in. Dominated by the sinful
nature, you think about sinful things. But those who
are controlled by the Holy Spirit, think about things that please the Spirit. So, letting
your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your
mind leads to life and peace. For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God's laws and it never will.
That's why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.
But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if
you have the Spirit of God living in you. The Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the
dead lives in you.
That's all we have to say. Be empowered to know that the same Spirit that raised Jesus
from the dead, the same Spirit that holds all of eternity bound in His hands lives within you.
That is how powerful you are in Jesus. Yeah, I love this so much. I can't believe the way my mind has changed.
It's unbelievable.
Do I still, at times, have intrusive thoughts?
Do I still get tempted?
Do I still have these desires sometimes that I'm like,
oh my gosh, yes, I really do.
I'm a human in my flesh, but at times
it's been incredibly difficult. At times,
especially when I'm in a place of vulnerability,
when I'm in a place of, like, it's most of the time
when I'm in a place of vulnerability
that I want to revert back.
So just be aware of these things.
But yeah, I think about, I didn't
realize how dominated I was until I look back at who I was and who I am now.
It's insane.
Those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.
And why we want to sit here and we want to say, don't condemn yourselves, and we don't want you to condemn yourselves,
and I want you to look at us and our past and who we were.
We love you and we came from the world, so we are not condemning you.
But when we are walking in disobedience with God, continuously, knowingly,
it is death, meaning it is a separation from God, meaning you are serving another kingdom,
meaning you are walking of the world, which is of another kingdom.
You are not walking with Jesus.
What a nightmare.
That is an actual nightmare.
I'm in Samuel reading the story of David.
It said that the Spirit of the Lord left Saul because of his disobedience.
I think about being separated from Jesus, and it's equivalent as living in hell.
You're living in hell.
I want you guys to hear our words, and I want you guys to have life and peace.
A peace that surpasses all understanding. Take it from someone who never had it their whole life.
And I'm just like, I value peace so much because I never had it.
And that is what life is. It's a life with Jesus, and with Jesus, there is peace.
I want to say one more thing. Scripture says, you know, I give you spiritual milk hoping that you will mature in the Spirit,
meaning when you first come to Jesus, He shows you the love of Him.
You have to understand the love of God.
That's what I did before He even had to prune us.
And then you have to get mature.
There is a time to understand His love
and to know that, OK, I'm learning.
But then we have to grow up.
And I believe we are in a season that we have to grow up.
And so when you know, the reason why we say this so boldly to you
is because it wasn't until we had godly people in our life
to put us in our place
that seemed like a slap in the face, but was the greatest gift ever.
I love what you said about you can't be the holiest one in your group.
You know when you used to say that I didn't understand it until now?
Now I get it. I'm like, no, you're right.
Because it's not until you get with people that you can call
when you're in the middle of being vulnerable and being like,
I need help, get me out of this.
Totally.
We need each this. Totally.
We need each other.
Totally.
So good.
Thank you for saying that about accountability.
We're going to do a whole episode on actual practical ways to overcome sin because I just
think it's so important.
We just want to give you guys an invitation.
If you're watching today and you just listened to a whole episode on the Bible and about
Jesus and you've never given your life to Jesus, we just want you to know that whatever
situation you're in, whatever sin and the word sin might be so funny to you, it might
be so taboo, and trust me, it was for me too.
I was following Jesus for a while being like, sin, whatever, like not even understanding
the true gospel.
So I understand you if you're in a position where you don't even like, you're like sin,
there's nothing wrong with it. But as we just said, this whole time that sin leads to death.
It's not the way that God intended for us to live. And I know that if you really took a look
at your own life, you could see the implications and the result of the sin in
your life. And if you don't see it yet, but you see that your life is in turmoil, you
have depression and anxiety and your ways are crooked, they're not straight, they are,
you just have chaos in your life. I just really encourage you to give it a try, to lay down
the pride and just take this thing, take this
Jesus, take this scripture that says to obey the way that God asks you to live and not
the way that your flesh and your sinful desires.
Take it at face value and just try it out.
See what it's like to be obedient to God's Word and to not succumb and give into your
flesh and to sin because it has radically changed
our entire lives.
And if you've never given your life to Jesus before, we just want to invite you into a
space where you can know the truth of who God is and the truth of who you are, the truth
of why you were created.
Like we said earlier, that first Adam, God created man in his own image.
He created Adam and Eve and he gave them full human choice to do whatever they wanted, but
he encouraged them to follow him, to be in relationship with him. But they chose their
own way, their own will. Man fell and our relationship to God broke and we all became enemies to God. And for the next hundreds
of years, God would spend all of the time pursuing us, pursuing His people, until one
day He literally just could not take it anymore. He was so lovesick for humanity that He stepped
into human history. He put on flesh and He came onto earth by the name of Jesus. And he lived
33 years and ultimately gave up his life on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.
And that day, by that one man Jesus, grace flooded the earth and the Holy Spirit was
poured out. And now you and I have the ability by grace, through faith, by the grace of God,
nothing that you and I can earn or do ourselves by the grace of God. If we place our faith in Jesus,
our lives are saved and you get that Holy Spirit empowerment that we just talked about
for the past hour and a half. So if you're ready to accept Jesus, you have nothing to lose and legitimately everything to gain.
If you have been living in chaos and turmoil and anxiety and depression and heartbreak
and addiction, give your life to Jesus and He will empower you.
He will empower you to overcome all that is coming against you.
So you can repeat this, Dear Jesus, I give you my life. I believe you died on the
cross for the forgiveness of my sins, and you rose again on the third day, and now you're
seated at the right hand of the Father. I renounce the devil, I renounce the world,
and I renounce my sin. I invite you into my life as my Lord and Savior.
Fill me with your Holy Spirit.
Holy Spirit, empower me to overcome sin.
Empower me to overcome temptation.
Jesus, I give you my life.
In Jesus' name, amen.
That was so good.
I love it when you preach.
We love you guys so much.
If you just gave your life to Jesus,
you just did the best thing you could ever do in your life.
Thank you, Jesus.
We thank Jesus for your life.
We adore you guys.
We adore you.
We love you and you have the power to do it.
You are strong enough.
He is with you.
Oh, we're so excited for your journey.
And we're so excited, happy to just be on this with you. Yeah. What a gift. We love you guys so much.
We love you guys so much. May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May He make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May He turn His face towards you and give you peace.
We love you.