TS Wright Ep52

David W Ebel: Welcome to the God Says Yes podcast. You are welcome here. Welcome to another episode of God Says Yes. My name is David Ebel and I'm your host. After fifty plus years of ministry, I have spent my my life helping, encouraging, and restoring, rebuilding, renewing, helping people who struggle. That's the focus of my heart, and that's why I'm here today. I know that a lot of people struggle from time to time, and when they do it gets kind of tough. Sometimes we get wounded, whether we've been lied to or cheated or betrayed. belittled people borrow borrowed money and never returned it. ⁓ go to church and somebody's there that doesn't know Jesus yet and they just spew ugly on everybody and it hurts. It's easy to when you're hurt to pull away because you don't want to get hurt again. But the wall you put up to to protect yourself is also the wall that keeps out the love of God from flowing freely. God is never going to betray you or hurt you. No matter how many people have let you down Or cheated you or whatever. No, even if you've been abused, people did that. God did not. And the God that created you, He custom made you from the beginning, from day one, you were created from the inside out. Before you were a twinkle in someone's eye, God created you. And he put in you faith and hope and a blessing. And he he's been calling through his Holy Spirit your entire life for you to come to a place where you would fall in love with him and drop that wall and trust him. So we're here today to encourage you. We're not here to tell you what to do, but we want you to forget about the buildings and forget about all the other things. How you got here is how you got here. What we do today and what we do tomorrow can be changed by the moment you trust in God. So that's why we're here, and we're grateful you're here with us. And I I've got a a good brother ⁓ that I want to introduce you to. We always bring someone on each each episode. Today it's T. S. Wright, who's ⁓ He he's a podcaster, he's an author, he's ⁓ a very creative individual with a lot of a lot of joy, and you're going to enjoy him. So I I I know I am. So welcome T. S. Hey, it is great to be here and thank you for having me on the show and I'm looking forward to a fun and fruitful discussion. All right. So now the fun part. Tell us about yourself. Hey, that's always the fun part, and we gotta hey, we gotta give you the five minute version, not the fifty-five minute version. version. So you know, ⁓ obviously growing up, I ⁓ I was born in nineteen seventy-two and so you can kind of dial back what the what life was like back then and ⁓ had a good had good parents. They they did not practice a Christian lifestyle, I will say that. But my home was stable and it was the typical middle class family suburban type of home that I grew up in. The ⁓ As I I di I was born with a heart ⁓ a heart defect and so I had ⁓ basically WPWS, Wolf Parkinson's White Syndrome. They didn't know that at the time. Matter of fact, this wouldn't be discovered until twenty sixteen that I even had this. However, up until I was about seven, I was in and out of the hospital all the time with heart issues. Now finally I d I kinda it felt like I outgrew those just kind of mysteriously outgrew them and no longer became a problem. And I started living the normal life of a a young boy and ⁓ went through Catholic ⁓ school, elementary and junior high, and then went to public school in high school, played basketball, big into basketball, and then I was starting to get introduced into Fellowship of Christian athletes while I was in ⁓ high school. And as I did, that started kind of planting seeds. would probably the way I would say it. And going to Catholic school kind of stirred up my curiosity of God. But it wasn't until I went to college, my freshman year, I got involved with a campus outreach ministry. And on April 9th, 1992, I received Jesus in my dorm room. And we were praying at the end of a Bible study, me and the ⁓ campus minister, and it was just me and him, we were praying together and and then we didn't I didn't pray some sinner's prayer I just said, Lord, I don't want to do this anymore. It is yours. It is yours. It I just surrendered my will is what happened. Excellent. Excellent. Now we we we have some simple questions and you're you've almost answered one of them for me. Sure. Yeah. Who it for that was who were you before Jesus? You kind of covered that. Now the next one was what happens when you met him? And you're you're about to tell us that. So Yes. Amen. So you bet. So basically during my freshman year There was an interesting thing. I was engaged to a young lady at that time and did not end up marrying her. But in October, I remember flying to see her ⁓ up in Minnesota. And I flew up and I was flying through a storm that night. And they called an electrical discharge. I said lightning struck the wing of that plane. But there was a guy on that plane sitting right next to me. And if you ask me, I now I I actually think it was an angel. So It could have been, you don't know. But this guy was talking to me about Jesus the whole time. And what he was doing was planting seeds. And I remember he gave me a picture card of Jesus, which I still have today. I've never let that thing go. And I still remember that. Anyway, that's in October of nineteen ninety one. Later that year I received Jesus in my dorm room, guy by the name of Eric Walker, who was running our on on campus ministry at the time. He was in the dorm room with me and we did a Bible study and prayed together and I ⁓ I just felt this relief and this weight lifting and my body just shook for a day and a half. And I remember calling Eric about an hour ago, I Man, I don't know what's going on, but I explained it to him and we met at a restaurant and he he we talked it through and I realized this insatiable hunger for the word of God just came over me. And from that point forward it never changed. I've I've had that in me ever since. And you know, the Lord has just slowly but surely worked on me. It took me about two years to really learn to live the Christ centered lifestyle. There were some things in college I did and even in high school and even back in junior high that I'm not proud of, but God led me out of those. And by the time I hit about twenty two years old, starting my senior in college, I stopped living that way. And I I quit living the double life because I had received Christ, but I was still kinda in both a foot in both camps. But but when I hit about twenty-two, I stopped doing that. Well, the Bible says that a man can't serve two masters because he'll love one and hate the other. Amen. And but and you have to come to a place where you choose to w have one master. And that's what happened. You you came to a place ⁓ Where you gave all of you to Jesus. Amen. And when that happens, that surrender that happens is when God can finally have free reign over your heart to heal you, to deliver you, to bless you, to anoint you, to change you beautifully, to make something happen in you you couldn't even imagine it was possible. And you know to do that. And the Holy Spirit convicted me too, and that was good because that conviction and and this is what I tell people, that's a good thing. You know why? Because God is leading you to change. He disciplines those he loves. When he's disciplining you, thank him because he's there and he's with you and he's preparing you for eternity. Exactly. So so now you're now you're you you've given your heart to Jesus and you're living for him. Now how does that change your life? So the biggest thing is, is now, I mean, God just through a period of time, I really started learning his voice in 03. And I had ⁓ I had done some work. early in in my college years, I had learned under a minister from Campus Reset for Christ, 'cause I switched schools that year after I received Jesus and got involved with Campus Reset. And even though I was kind of living that one foot in, one foot out, I was learning. And that was the big thing. And then what happened was is in ⁓ three, ⁓ four, the Lord gave me a series of visions and I started learning what his voice was like. And that was another big turnaround for me. I bet. It was, you know, and I'd kind of had heard it and a little bit, but to really understand it. And as time went on, I learned how to do things like test the spirits, because you need to do that, because not every voice we get is from God. And we need to know that. We've got to understand how to do that. And plus, on top of that, he was growing me and preparing me because in twenty sixteen he called me to start writing. And then an incident happened in twenty sixteen where my heart was racing at two hundred beats a minute for nine hours. For nine hours. And I was kind of used to arrhythmia, which is why I didn't pay attention. I finally I couldn't get stopped, went to the hospital. They rushed me in, gave me some medication, that didn't work, so they put me under and shocked my heart, shocked me to get my heart to stop and then get it back running again at a normal pace. And They warned me when they went in. It's kind of an interesting story. They warned me when I walked in that they were going to do the heart calf and check me out. He said, you know, you probably have heart damage. He said, most people stroke out at four to five hours with your heart racing like that. He said, You made it for nine. You didn't stroke out, which is very rare. And he said, Guess what? He said, You probably have heart damage. I'm just preparing you. So anyway. I'd been praying when I was on that table before the chagna, the Lord told me I was actually going to be fine. And he said, But I'm going to change your life. And I'm going to really change it. And so, and and I kind of sensed that he'd been preparing me for this is what it was. And that's really what he's been doing, getting all these pieces together. Then the next day they did the heart calf, came back, the doctor came in, he said, I can't believe I'm saying this. He said, Man, your heart's like a 20-year-old. And I think God healed my heart is what happened. I think he healed me. ⁓ yeah. I I have no doubt about that. He healed my heart. And I started some things in in my personal life, kinda it was kinda interesting. They went downhill, but everything of my with God went uphill. I mean it was kind of interesting and I ended up finishing a book that he had led me to write. I've never published that book to this day, but it's helped me set the stage for everything else that we've done. 2018, 2019, the Lord gave me another series of visions. And then in 2020, I met and married who's my second wife, ⁓ Tina. And now her and I have launched this ministry. And because in 2021, he kind of made me dive deep into some topics and things kind of like what he'd done in the early 2000s when he started speaking to me. And then all of a sudden. In twenty twenty three called me to start podcasting. I met Pastor Bob and it just rolled from there. And now we've got I've got a discipleship series. We've got all the stuff. I mean, God is good. I mean, He's just good. And and it's all Him. It trust me, it ain't me. Because if it was me, I'd still be out there. I used to be a pro ⁓ professionally coached and taught at the high school and college level. And I'd still be pursuing me, is what would happen. That's what would be going on. But the Lord Called me out of coaching in 2020 and then called me out of ⁓ professional teaching this last year. And so now I am here I am running a full time ministry. And you know what? We're ⁓ we're just rocking and rolling for the Lord. He's got me in all kinds of directions as you and I spoke before the podcast, doing all kinds of stuff. But ⁓ it's ⁓ it's amazing what God does. Amen. He's good all the time. Well, you know, it's For f for people who haven't heard God speak and they they they they think we're hallucinating almost. God talks to you? Are you kidding? Well the Bible talks about how God speaks to us sometimes like a rushing mighty wind, sometimes like a tiny breeze though. Almost like a feather at tip touching your ear. He speaks to your heart, he speaks to you through his word when you're reading the Bible. He speaks to you through the preached word. Sometimes the sermon that's being the pastor is preaching, ⁓ he's preaching here. But God has prepared your heart so that it speaks to you. Everybody in the room room gets something, but all of a sudden it's just for you. And you you can write it down and look at it later and can't believe how how how to the point and to the how directly it spoke. Because God God used it. He also will do s do stuff like allow your ⁓ He doesn't send you to have bad things happen to you. He doesn't do bad things to you. But he will meet you. He says he'll never leave us or forsake us. He'll be with us always. So he meets us even in our crisis. Yep. And in that time, ⁓ when we're at our our weakest, he's the strongest. So that's when he'll s he'll he'll reveal himself to us. Visions, things, supernatural things will happen. Yeah, I'm a I'm a true believer. I mean, I've s I've had those things happen to me. But I'm a true believer that if God can get your attention without supernatural means, he's just pleased with it. But if he needs to use supernatural means to get your attention, He'll do whatever it takes to get your attention so that his his good will will gently be lovingly provided to you. You're not a robot. He's not making you do anything. He's doing it out of love, like the perfect parent would do. And I think that's important. So when you're when you're seeking to to know God, don't be don't be shocked by the church terminologies. They're there because we've used them for years and we're practicing saying ⁓ But the key is first you give your heart to Jesus. Simple. Second, you you use the faith that you were given before you were even born, you practice it like a muscle. You do a little bit of faith, a little more faith, a little more faith, till you're strong enough to be able to do more. And each time you do, as you read God's word, it'll build up your spiritual strength. As you learn to pray and pray more, it'll build up your spiritual strength. Even more. Each of the things you do that the Bible tells you to do, together they feed you as a spiritual ⁓ man or woman. And they help you to become God's planned adult person. He can he can use as a trusted vessel, a messenger. See, ⁓ I'm not the all the things I do aren't aren't me. I'm just the mailman. I just deliver the message that God has given me. So, you know, if I read read scripture and preach a sermon, and I preached a few and fifty years. ⁓ you know, it's not when I read it, I read it to them, this is what God says. Then as I illustrate it. I challenge them to go through their Bible and make sure I'm on the money. That what I'm saying is biblically accurate and pure at all times. Because this is about him, not about me. And I don't you know, man already has goofed up many of our lives b with his sins and his failures. You know when you know what right is and you do the wrong thing? That's a sin. That is. Jesus died and shed his blood. It was to wash away those sins, not just hide them, but to wash them away better than you know when you're a kid n in school. They used to have the blackboard and the great treat of the day was who would get to wash the white the the black whiteboard and white back clean again. Whether they had the whiteboard or the blackboard, you you would you somebody got to clean that thing and that was a treat. Well, when you give your heart to Jesus, it's cleansed in such a way as it doesn't get stained again. It doesn't the stuff doesn't stick to it. As long as you belong to him, the blood that Jesus shed stays, keeps your heart clean. You mess up, you go back, you ask for forgiveness. You're truly sorry he he forgives you. You forgive yourself. And you get up where you fell you fell down and you serve him some more. And you learn from that experience as his love sh shines in you, that no matter what you've where w you no matter you can't run too far, you can't get you can't duck, you can't fire God, you're not gonna get rid of his love. His love is there since before you were born. He will love you always, and he can't wait to do beautiful, loving things in your life. And that's why we wanna tell we want you to know about this. So so T S What what would you w what what kind of hope would you encourage people who've been struggling? What would you what do you think they need to hear? I think they need to hear two things. I said number one, the unfortunate part is we live in a dark and fallen world and we need we do need to acknowledge that. But that is not what God had designed us for. As a matter of fact, some of your listeners out there have probably heard people preach things on, you know, the afterlife. And even talking about eternity and talking about things like hell. I'm gonna say this. Remember what I'm gonna tell you. And Billy Graham preached on this one time. And so I'm gonna say it just like he did. Hell was never meant for us. He made that for Satan and the demons. If you are living in a situation where you feel hopeless, that is the enemy attacking you. Because he does not it's not even just you that he hates, he hates God. And he's trying to keep you from God. So God is your light. And let that light shine in you. Let him come into your life. Don't ignore him. You f you will feel him tugging at your heart. You'll feel him knocking on that door. You will feel him in the in those tough moments. All you have to do is let him in, and he will come in with you. He may not he may not walk you around the storm. But he will walk with you through the storm. Remember that. And also remember this all your pain is temporary. All your pain is temporary. Paul tells us many times through the scriptures that what we are preparing for, we can't even imagine. It is way beyond any pain that we have here in this life is temporary. What we get to have for eternity with him is worth it. The weight. And it is in Christ Jesus. And remember this it's never about what we do. Sometimes we where we get in problem trouble is that we try to do it. Where that's where we get in problem. Remember, it's Christ in you. I don't go and try to please the Father. The Father is already pleased with Jesus. And when Jesus is in me, working through me, that's when the Father's pleased, because He's pleased with His Son. Matter of fact, right after his baptism, he announced that to the world. This is my beloved son, in whom I'm well pleased. When he's living in us, God is pleased. That's it. He just wants Christ in us, and he wants us to live in that. And Christ is that light for you. Amen. Now, you know, each each episode we invite our guest to give us a golden nugget. That's a piece of of of knowledge that we c that you can mull over, pray over, meditate over for the next week or so. Something that after the podcast is over, the the the message can continue. What do you what would you think God would have us to learn today? Revelation chapter three verse twenty Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Anyone who hears my voice and opens that door, I will come in and dine with him and he with me. Remember this, Jesus wants a relationship with you. In this very passage, he's talking to the church of Laodicea, which is the seventh and final church. And this church has completely blown it. They've blown it. But yet he still gives a message of hope. All you have to do is open that door to him. No matter what your situation is, just open the door. Jesus wants to come into your life and work with you. He wants to work with you. Amen. I re I remember serving as a chaplain in a in a in a in a in in a jail and they had a holding cell for people who after they've already been they're w they're waiting for the electric chair. And I had a chance to pray with a guy. I got to tell him about Jesus and he had never listened before. Now he knew he was going to die next week. He wanted to know. And he was he knew he wasn't going to get out of his punishment. But he wanted to know about this Jesus that made me so cal calm and everybody else so calm and he's so terrified. So I shared with just what you shared with him. And he prayed that prayer, Jesus, forgive me if I'm a sinner. Come in my heart and live. I give my life to you. I'm sorry for all the things I've done. And he got that far and started sobbing. And then he didn't use a formal prayer. He just poured his heart out like an ocean. And when he was done, he said he turned up to me and says, I'm ready for heaven now. And so but if this body gets gets electrocuted, I'll I I can live with that because I deserve that. But who I really am now I know. I get I in spite of all the bad things I've done, God has forgiven me. And you know, it's in some of us say, Well, I don't think he should do he deserves that. Well, it's not about him deserving it. What we all deserve is hell. We don't deserve heaven. Exactly. But you know, once you know what right is to do the wrong thing there's a sin, that sin blocks you from heaven. But Jesus was the innocent Lamb of God who shed his blood, so that in spite of us we are forgiven. And not because of us, but in spite of us, the blood of Jesus washes away the sin. And when God looks at us, he sees it through the filter of the love of Jesus. And he sees a clean heart that's willing to be to learn and to grow and to be changed. And that's what he wants for you and me. He wants us to grow and beak with him. And David, I just want to throw this in there. No matter what you've done, no matter what your past is, no matter what the situation is, Jesus wants everyone to be in the kingdom with him at the feast. He wants everyone. God desires this. God so loved the world. He loved us. And think about the sacrifice he gave up for us. Amen. He wants a relationship with you. Don't ignore it. Don't ignore it. Answer that call. Let Jesus come into your life today. So that well as we as we always encourage you, you you you've heard this. You know it. And God is if if you if you've if you're hurting, if you're su if you're struggling, if you've gone through difficult times, if if it if you don't it feels like it's too dangerous even to try, remember I don't blame you for avoiding man. Man fails and and and and and he will fail and fail again. But remember that God isn't man. God is all perfect and all knowing and all loving. And I've had people say, well, why did God let this world be so bad? Well he didn't let it. But when a third of heaven was kicked out with Satan, they decided to destroy this earth by destroying us to hurt God. So we become a pawn in this ugly war. So the the ugly that's been splashed on you this Is not God's plan. It's what the enemy's trying to do to get your eyes off of the love of God. This is your chance to put your eyes by choice on the love of God and to give Jesus a chance to r to listen to you and you to listen to him. So ⁓ you know, there's it's it's as simple as a prayer. ⁓ and as we close today, I'm going to give you my the website that I have, and on it is is how you can know Jesus. It spells it out plainly. And if you want to know, you can go right there and you can get all the answers you want, slowly at your own speed, and you can grow from that experience and you can become all that you want to be for God without any of the men in the way. But it's time for us to pray now, and I'm going to pray for all of you. And ⁓ w w let's let's do that and then I have a challenge for you. ⁓ Heavenly Father, we just praise you and thank you for this day. We ask you to bless, to minister and to make a difference in the lives of every viewer. of of every listener. Lord, we no matter what we've gone through, it's been nothing compared to what you're going to forgive and restore and rebuild and renew and and change in us so that our history becomes our just a stepping stone to the victory and the hope that you give us in the future. It doesn't diminish the pain, but it gives us hope that we don't have to live in that pain forever. Have your will in the in our lives, all of us, and change this for to your So that we'll receive your love in your in your healing and your glory in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Now, ⁓ T. S, you you you've got something ⁓ you got a book to talk about real quick? I do. So guys, if you will, the God Centered Concept Academy is a discipleship. It is focused on real discipleship. And the Embracing the Truth by T. S. Wright is the first lesson book in that discipleship series. We are also launching discipleship classes on TuVu T-U-V-U.com. Go to the God Center Concept Academy community and join. And we're going to be doing live lessons on there. Starting our goal is the week of August 17th is our goal. So as the technical engineers get all the stuff ready, get fixed on the community site, then we can do this and release this. But the embracing the truth. Is the first book in that series. And it is a 20-lesson guide into understanding the truths that we need to have and understand to be able to walk with Christ and become disciples of Jesus. So how do we get that? So you can go to Amazon.com and buy it. You can go to my website and click on through the website, and it'll take you to ⁓ the author page to per purchase it as well. Then, or if you got a bulk order, if you'll Go to the message lines and just send me an a message, you know, go to my email address. Then I will, if you've got five or more books you want to order, I can have them directly shipped to you. That's amazing. Now, you said something about a web page. Yes. So got yeah. Godcenteredconcept.com. That's G-O-D-C-E-N-T-E-R-E-D C-O-N-C-E-P-T dot com. Yeah, God. Centered Concept.com. Well, I'm I'm I'm going to encourage people to go there, to get involved. If they're hungry, if they're curious for more, that's a that's another place you can go. Now, as far as I'm as far as what I do on my end, this podcast has grown so much that we put a website up called ⁓ Godsays Yes Podcast.com. And you're invited to go to that. You can not only see all the episodes that of our our guests have been on there, but there's there's how to give give your life to Jesus. There's testimonials, all kinds of things. You can even you can join, you can become a member. ⁓ if you want to get the newsletter, you can join when you join, you'll get the newsletter automatically. And we'll we'll have you heads up on all the other people and their stories. The g the whole purpose of it is one thing. We want people to fall in love with Jesus. The podcast is just a way to do that. The website is a way to help empower that. But the whole idea is for you to have every opportunity to fall in love with God. So our challenge is fall in love. You want to know God? Just give your heart to him. You want to know him better? Seek Jesus. He's the way to God. Seek after God. He will be found. Give him the chance, and he'll do remarkable things in your life. Trust him. Even though you might not trust man, trust him, and God will do amazing things in your life. This has been the God Says Yes Podcast with David Edel. With Yes. You can get his latest book, When the Doctors Say No, God Says Yes, at Amazon.