Lisa Bevere | Girls Gone Bible

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Singing along with the ones that you love?

Priceless.

Oh, you guys are so precious.

I love you guys.

I'm so happy.

And I'm so happy you're Italian.

I know.

Cicely, are you?

Yes.

You're Cicely.

Yes.

My maiden name is Toscano.

Oh, my God.

Toscano.

That's so good.

You just feel Italian as soon as you say it.

Yeah.

You know, I'm Albanian.

I know, I have Albanian too.

No, you don't.

I do too.

Okay, I do too.

Are you this?

Are you?

No, I want want my sister.

This is Addison.

Addison has Albanian.

Like, we were cracking up.

Do you understand what that means for me?

It was hilarious.

Like, so I, so John is Italian, believe it or not.

He doesn't look it.

Wow.

So he's, he's like 75% Italian and he's like 15%

Dutch or something.

And so John's, I was like, I'm more Italian than you.

So he gets me the test and mine comes back 35% Italian and then Albanian

Levant.

you know what?

They keep changing it.

I like 15% Arab.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

So interesting.

So Albanians, pretty much.

Yeah.

The same.

That is so cool.

And then my other half was from my mom.

But yeah, so I have dual citizenship with Italy.

That's so good.

Did you, so were you born there?

No.

No, but you got it.

I just applied for it.

Yeah.

So my grandfather came over as refugees.

Yeah.

And he never got his U.S.

citizenship.

And so kind of in a way to apologize, that's where WAP comes from.

It's without papers.

papers.

And so they hold it.

It holds them at a poverty level because they can't work in certain realms.

And so the U.S.

government opened it up that they could have dual citizenship.

So it had to be your father, had to be certain things.

So I just applied for it.

I just told John, I said, I really freak I'm supposed to do this.

And we were in Sicily and found out they warehouse our books in the village my grandfather's from.

Are you serious?

That is so sweet.

That is insane.

When that happened, I was like, that's it.

I'm applying for the dual citizenship.

Oh, my God.

Isn't that crazy?

And so, if anything bad ever happens in America, we're going to go.

I'm going to ask them all for the day.

Thank you so much.

Hi, I'm Anne.

And I'm Ari.

And this is Girls Gone Bible.

We're a faith-based podcast where we love Jesus more than anything in the world.

Occasionally, we have really, really special guests come on.

And today is a really good day for us at GGB because we have the one, the only, Miss Lisa Bevere.

Thank you, Jesus, for your life, Lisa.

Oh, you guys are amazing.

I'm so proud of both of you.

I'm just so honored that you guys have had the courage to invite other people on a journey.

And I would even say the humility to say, hey, we want to learn.

And, you know, I...

I've had the opportunity to talk in the car with Angela.

I was not raised to be a Christian.

I was raised to be an exceptional heathen.

And I

got radically saved at 21 years of age and grabbed a hold of the word of God like it was a lifeline because it is.

And I'm watching you guys do the same thing and it just stirs my heart.

It really, really does.

So cute.

I mean it is because we have so many people on here and they're all so special and so amazing.

And I just have always felt so connected to you because you're so open and unashamed about your past.

You're so unashamed of the fact that you were a heathen.

You don't care.

There's nothing about you that comes on and is like, I've been a perfect Christian buttoned up my whole life.

You're like, no, it was really bad.

And look what Jesus saved me from.

And I think you've truly given both of us so much permission to just lean into our past and lean into our stories rather than coming on and being like, oh, I've always been like this.

And I've Jesus, I've always loved him.

And it's always been perfect.

And that's just not the truth for so many people.

So even for Girls Gone Bible, I think it's really special to have you come on and at your voice voice because you just have the authority to say things that maybe other people can't because you know both sides.

You've been in the darkness.

You've come out into the light.

And so you can just speak to people in a way that not everybody can.

Do you feel that?

Yes.

And I also feel like

it's part of the call to redeem.

I mean, David said, cleanse me and I'll be clean.

But he didn't stop there.

He said, then I will teach transgressors your ways.

And so many times we say, okay, I'm clean, I'm clean.

And we don't take this painful life that we had and flip it and redeem it.

You know, and I, I mean, I've I've lived in such a way where I don't want the next generation positioned to make the same mistakes.

Right.

You know, my children are living marriage and parenthood better than John and I have, which I love.

I don't want that.

I don't want to pretend that I have lived a life that never had struggles.

You know, know, I can, since we're just going there,

I can still remember the morning.

I remember the kitchen.

I remember everything.

I am not a morning person.

And my oldest son, my oldest son, Addison, walks down and said, mom,

were you a virgin when you were your dad?

And I was like, what in the world just happened?

Like, what?

He was probably 13 or 14.

And all the boys are like, what's a virgin?

Am I a virgin?

I'm going to be a virgin.

I'm like, what is going on?

I'm like, John's not at home.

And I was so happy.

like, I have all boys.

And I was like,

so my mind is like, what do I say to my sweet little boys that just have heard about sex?

No, your mom was a hoe and dad was an amazing person.

And so I'm like, what do I say?

Do I say that was before I was a Christian?

But then I thought, no, that would mean, no, I was not.

Do I say that's none of your business?

That would mean, no, I was not.

Or do I tell them the truth?

Not the details, but the truth, because only the truth empowers the next generation to walk in more.

And I looked at my sons and I said, I was not, but I want something so much more for you.

And, and, and they just kind of, you know, then they said, was dad?

And I said, yes, dad was.

Yes, dad was.

Mom was not.

Dad was.

And, you know, again, those are moments where you do have a sense of regret, but you also have a sense of redemption.

And when I look at my sons and how they have chosen their wives

and not been Pharasitical and been very redemptive with their stories and loved well.

I'm so proud of them.

Yeah, so

it's redemption.

So special.

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You guys know this feeling when you're just so incredibly worn out like those nights where your body's tired, but your brain won't stop.

That's been me sometimes.

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Yeah, if I know you've probably told your testimony so many times, but if you don't mind just giving us,

however, in detail you want to go, you told me a little bit in the car.

Your testimony is just the best.

It's hilarious and powerful and special.

So if you could just tell us a little bit.

Yeah, so I had picked the University of Arizona to major in suntanning and partying.

And I was driving home in my car by myself on no-doze.

I decided I wanted to do it in a like two-day drive.

I did not want to stay in a hotel.

So I'm yelling, trying to keep myself awake.

I'm hyped on no-doze and I'm yelling out loud, top of my lungs, I'm on the highway to hell.

I'm singing ACDC.

And I just had a moment.

I was like, I

actually am.

I actually am on the highway to hell.

I am an awful person.

I had been alone in the car with myself for two days and I thought, you have become everything you never wanted to be.

You are shallow.

You are mean.

you are, you are, you're immoral.

I mean, I was like, who am I?

Who am I?

And I remember kind of having this fear of God in my life in that moment, but at the same time saying, I don't know how to find God.

I don't know.

I don't know how to find him.

And so I came back to my parents' house.

My dad's an alcoholic.

My parents were married, divorced, remarried each other, and divorced again.

They were in the second separation, and the fighting and the tension and the oppression in the household, I had not been around that for a while.

And so I remember I was like, I don't want to, I don't want to be in this house.

So I went out to the bar, found my dad, and I said, Hey, dad,

I don't want to live with mom.

And he's like, I don't want to live with mom.

And I was like, can I move into the dorm at Purdue?

And he said, absolutely, you can move in the dorm.

She's an ass.

I mean, just like totally disparaging.

I move into the dorm and I meet John at breakfast.

And I am recounting my night from before about getting drunk and falling into a creek and putting a car in a ditch.

And he's just looking at me and I'm cussing because I can't really make a sentence without cuss words.

I thought they were some kind of conjunction.

And he gets up and leaves the table.

And one of the little sisters from his fraternity was sitting there.

And she's like,

I know you don't know this, but he's like a big Christian guy.

And you might not want to cuss in front of him.

And I thought, oh, I don't think I'm a bad person, even though i was and so i found him later but i would it was so strange i would kind of avoid him because he'd always look at me and say you look so tired and i'd be like he's looking into my soul

stop saying i look tired

so you know trying so hard to not look tired and he um so i thought okay i don't want him to think i'm bad so i walk up to him and i said hey I hear you're like the big Christian.

I said, so my mom thinks that she like got healed and she like believes in speaking in tongues or something.

I think she thinks like she's an apostle.

What do you think about that?

And he just looks at me and he's like, if you really want to know more about this, you can call me next week.

And I thought, I don't even know why I'm talking to you.

I am not calling you.

So I didn't call him.

He calls and invites me to a Bible Stay picnic.

I have zero intention of going.

And then he calls me like two days later and says, do you want hot dogs or hamburgers?

I'm like, oh, wait a minute.

Is this a date?

Am I going with a nerdy Christian boy that's colorblind?

Like, wait, that's what just happened here.

And I'd like panicked, but I thought, well, you know, I'll go to a picnic, free food, and then I'll leave.

And then I started to notice the address around the corner from my parents' house.

So I call my mom.

I'm like, you trying to get me to be a Christian?

He says, who's John Bevere?

Like, you know, John Bevere.

She's like, I don't know who you're talking about.

I'm like, I'm not getting saved.

I made it.

I am not becoming a Christian.

I'm going to live how I want to live.

If I want to do this later, my mom was like, whoa, whoa.

My daughter's either demon-possessed or she's on the verge of becoming a Christian.

So I go to this Bible study picnic.

The girls are not nice, they are the Bible study girls.

They've all been like, John is cute, nice, godly.

I come in, this heathen girl, they're all like, She's a heathen.

And he's like, I know.

They're like coming up to me, going, We're praying for you.

And it's like, I need you to stop.

I feel like you guys are angry praying.

That I am in a circle.

This is 1981 because John had been married 43 years this year.

1981.

They're singing songs.

They're putting their hands in the air.

I'm like, so disturbed by that.

I'm like, do you have a question?

You've got a song sheet.

You need to put your hands down.

You're so distraught.

So distraught.

So I looked down at the song sheet, and the next song was a song called Robes of Righteousness.

And it said that when God looked at me, he would no longer see me, but he would see Jesus.

And I heard, I can't look at you.

You're covered in sin and shame.

And I elbowed John.

I said, is this true?

Is this true God could ever look at me and not see me?

And John said, yeah.

And so we went walking on the campus and he preached to me from Genesis to Revelation.

I finally just said, I want to do this.

Like, what do I need to do?

Like, Candle's like, what needs to happen?

I want to do this.

And he said, what?

I said, the Christian thing.

I want to do it.

And

I prayed with John for the, you know, he to be born again.

And he said, now you're saved.

And I said, what does that even mean?

And he said, it means you're whole again, spirit, soul, and body.

He had no idea how broken I was.

He had no idea I had an eating disorder.

He had no idea I couldn't digest any kind of dairy products.

I had lactose intolerance.

He had no idea how crazy I was and my past.

And

I said, okay, so I can have cheese.

And he's like, what?

I said, you just said I was whole.

I have lactose intolerance.

He was just panicked.

He was like, I just got her saved.

And now she's doing this.

So he.

grabs my hand, has me do it, fill in the blank prayer.

Thank you, Jesus, for healing me up.

And I said, lactose intolerance.

And I literally felt love come into my body and untie the knots that have been there since I was 15.

Wow.

And

I got up the next morning.

Well, I spent about an hour and a half looking for the Book of Paul that night because John said Paul said this.

And I had like an away

New Testament.

And I just, I just remember

Corinthians finally and noticed that Paul had written it.

And I got up the next morning.

And as soon as my feet hit the floor, I heard nothing happened last night.

You can't just pray some prayer.

It's not some magic wand.

You're too bad.

You can't just be a Christian after all the things you've been.

And then I realized I've been getting up for 21 years and I'd never heard you're not a Christian.

And I realized I am a Christian.

And I mean, as soon as I shook off that voice, I actually heard.

that the man, I heard this, the man you were with last night is your husband.

And I've called you into the ministry.

And I went home to my mom and because she was a Christian, but she was kind of mean Christian back then.

I went to my mom and she, I said, mom, and I told her all this, and she was like, You probably just feel special about him because he led you the Lord.

I'm like, No.

Because he, what?

Because he led you the Lord.

I'm like, No, I don't feel special about him.

And she said, Well, you probably just feel, I said, I don't even think he's cute.

I do now.

But at the time, I had such a warped idea of what a man was

and what was attractive.

I chose men that were hard to get and therefore hard to keep,

like my dad.

Wow.

Yeah.

And so, yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Sorry.

I just thought I'm like, that's okay.

Go ahead.

Do you need a second?

No.

While we're on that topic, there's so many places we could go.

I think Ari and I talk about this a lot.

Can we just talk about men really quick?

Yeah.

Because I think

all three of us coming from dating from a worldly perspective, you can really mistake lust.

for attraction.

And sometimes when you meet a godly man who doesn't have lust in him, he's not lusting over you.

You actually mistake that for there not being a connection.

But really, it's just so pure.

And so for you with John, what was that switch?

Was there,

I guess what I'm trying to ask.

Did I feel attracted to him?

I guess what I'm trying to ask is because you had a perception of what masculinity was and what was attractive.

And then you meet John, and it's kind of the opposite, probably, of what you thought.

Because when a man is like Jesus, they're probably not like the men we used to like.

Well, I definitely think that you're hitting on something that people confuse.

And I remember I had to actually lay down some of my ideas to God.

I said, God,

I pick horrible men.

I have horrible tastes in men.

And I don't understand the difference between love and lust.

And I need you, who know me more than I know myself, to choose for me.

Because I will go the route of the pattern of a mother who was married, divorced, remarried the same guy and divorced, a grandmother married, divorced, remarried the same guy and divorced.

I will follow a pattern of brokenness if I don't surrender this.

And I had been dating a Serbian before John, like the people that started World War I.

Anyway, I was like Lisa, I was screaming.

I was screaming.

I couldn't find an Albanian, so I had to go for a Serbian.

Albanian, Serbian, very similar.

Very similar.

And I remember when he walked into the restaurant, my mom said, please tell me that's not him.

And I turned around.

She's like, yo, that's him.

And I was like, how did you know?

And she said, because he looks just like your dad at that age and so i was picking i was you know when people have brokenness they either go back to the same thing to try to recover their power or they go to god and say, I need healing.

And so I had to really say, I need healing.

And my husband now is, he's the only man I'm attracted to.

It doesn't mean I don't notice that other people are attractive.

And, you know, that's also probably disturbing for people to even hear that 65-year-olds have any kind of attraction.

But

But there's a difference between love and intimacy and lust and chemistry.

And you build a legacy of intimacy where I swear my husband sees me in the light of the love that we have shared.

He does not see me in an aged body.

He sees me in the way that he loves me.

I know that sounds crazy, but but yeah, we had to, I had to have a lot of deep worship sessions where I say, God, when the Bible says,

and this is the thing, God never said sex is wrong.

He says, it's not time.

It's not time.

And he says, do not arouse or awaken love before it's time.

And I was like, I

stole something that was meant for a different time.

So I've awakened it in the realm of lust.

I want to put it back to sleep and worship so that it can awaken again in the realm of love.

And that was something that was, you know, I try to, Zephaniah 3, 17 says, the Lord your God is mighty to save.

He will rejoice over you with singing.

He will quiet you with his love.

And I needed that area of my life to be quieted.

Was that hard for you from going from a worldly life to then walking, because it would seem like it was a quick revert, right?

Yeah.

No, you went from worldly and then you started walking in purity.

was that tough for you or it was because again i didn't know you could even surrender that to god wow i was like oh that's carnal god doesn't get involved in carnal yeah uh and i realized no wait anything that affects our life is important to god yeah like i i didn't know you could talk to god i mean so even though i was like oh yeah i'm trying out for the sexual gymnastics team at the university of arizona even though i had that kind of past that i thought was freedom it wasn't freedom right it was lust and it was bondage and it drove me i did not control it so now

i have to invite god into a place that i felt nothing but shame you know and so i had to to realize that he wasn't angry at me matter of fact you know when we see the woman caught in adultery, which that just got so much in there, but he says to her, I do not condemn you, but he also says, go and sin no more.

And he also says, I am the light of the world.

And he who walks in in my light no longer walks in shadow.

And so I had to leave a shadow realm and walk into the realm of light where I had to just be honest.

So it was, it was hard.

And I've tried to tell so many young girls, like, okay, when Addison and Julie got engaged,

Julie was kind of like, hey, you know, we're engaged.

We're kind of married in the spirit already.

It's okay for us to be a little promiscuous.

And so Addison, my son, Julie,

no, you have to love her.

You have to love her.

And she would tell you this.

And so Addison was like, Mom, I need you to start texting me every night at 10, at 10 o'clock.

So they're engaged.

I'm like, no.

And he's like, nothing good happens after 10.

And Julie is not respecting my boundaries.

I'm like, what?

He goes, you need to talk to her.

I'm like, she will hate me.

Are you serious?

No, I'm not talking to your fiancé.

And so he was like, mom, no, she's not.

She's not respecting me.

I was like, oh my gosh.

So I remember this moment where I bring Addison and Julie out on the deck.

And I I said, Julie, I have your past.

And I said, you

think

that you guys are married in the spirit.

You are, but, and I said, you are going to regret awakening your sexual intimacy in this realm because then you're going to have to fight to win it back in a realm of love.

And she, of course, looks at Addison, like, you told your mom.

And he's like, I told my mom because my mom understands.

And I said, I, I'm not attacking you.

I'm actually actually trying to rescue your future intimacy.

And I remember when she gave birth to Asher, I was in the room with her and she looked at me.

She said, I'm surprised you didn't kill me.

And I knew what she was talking about.

And I said, I thought about it.

I thought about it.

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You know what's coming to my mind?

Because you come from a similar background too, just of like with brokenness and family dynamics of dysfunction and there was yelling in your home and there was ways of responding in conflict that's obviously not healthy.

You meet John, you guys go on this journey together.

You just meet Jesus when you meet John.

So

you're in your dating process.

How long were you guys dating and engaged?

So, all right.

And that's kind of a journey too.

So

we immediately started dating.

Yeah.

I think we were dating for like a week.

And John says to me, I could never marry you because I'm called into the the ministry and I'm probably going to need to marry a pastor's daughter.

And I said, I don't remember asking you to marry me.

And at that point, he was like, all right, I have met my match.

How Italian of you.

I am so, so Italian.

And so I was like, I, I, I'm not, you know, I'm not asking you to do that.

And so he went to Dallas and I went back to University of Arizona.

So he had already graduated from Purdue.

I went back to University of Arizona and found out pretty quick that it felt like every single day I was walking past my past.

I remember being in an econ class, and the student body president stood up in this big like lecture hall.

And he's like, Hey, Toscano, I hear you're jumping for Jesus now.

He's like, We're going to land on the Theta house and we're going to pick you up in a helicopter and we're going to make you do illicit drugs and sex.

And I just like in front of everybody, I just like stood up and jumped and then sat down since he said I was jumping for Jesus.

But it was like, it was so hard.

And then I was this

wild Christian who doesn't know a whole lot, but loves Jesus a lot.

And like walking the halls, praying over my swordy sister's rooms, calling him out of a kingdom of darkness.

And I get in trouble for that.

Like the president who's a Christian, she's like, listen, you're just taking this too far.

You need to calm down.

We're all Christians.

I'm like, you're a Christian?

You'd come in my room and ask me about my partying.

You knew I was sleeping.

You knew how broken I was.

And you never once told me about Jesus.

You were living vicariously through me.

Why did you not witness to me?

And so then I had freshman girls that would come and knock on the door and say, We heard that you used to be mean.

I had been elected to be the marshal in my sorority, which is in charge of all hazing and initiation.

Hazing?

Hazing.

That's when you're mean to the freshman girls, the oath of pledges.

You like try to break them as they're coming in to pledge.

I had just come back and I became a Christian.

I said,

I'm not going to do that to the freshman pledges.

I'm not going to be mean to them.

And they're like, well, we elected you to be

mean.

And I was like, well, I've become a Christian.

And this is who I am now.

And so the girls would knock on the door and say, We heard you used to be this.

We heard you used to be that.

We heard you used to be loose.

And now you're a Christian.

Can you pray for us?

And I was kind of like, wait,

I take the campus crusade track off the thing.

I'd be like, close your eyes.

I like pray everything, even in the instructions.

And just make sure.

And then they'd be like, why, what am I feeling?

I'd be like, that's the Holy Spirit.

And they'd be like, can I get that?

I'd be like, sure.

We'll ask the Holy Spirit to come into your life.

And they were like, what are you doing?

You're converting freshmen.

I'm like, I, they're coming to my door

they're coming to my door wow that's prophetic for how your life would go that's crazy but i mean i didn't know it was like illegal if i wasn't i don't know say for 18 years so i'd been you know safe for like two months i hope that i hope the college girls do this that are listening this is so good yeah this is so helpful that's so helpful because i think obviously ari and i have wrestled through that too where you become a Christian and you're just flailing your arms trying to figure out like you love Jesus.

You don't know everything.

And so I think people can really look down on new believers sometimes and be like they are not equipped to be going and talking and witnessing.

And it's like they're the ones who are as on fire as they are because they've just seen Jesus for the first time.

So I think that's really helpful, even for us personally, that you're just, it's never too early.

You're never too new.

Like you can go out and change lives the day you meet Jesus yourself.

Absolutely.

And Ashley, you really need to.

And

I get very concerned that there is a religious spirit in operation in the U.S.

church.

I was reading through the book of Acts, and you know where it talks about how, you know, Peter and John, they pray for the lame man and the whole city's in an uproar and the religious leaders bring them in.

And what do they do?

They forbid them to preach and teach in the name of Jesus.

And of course, they answer back, well, do we obey God or do we obey you?

And they said, well, as far as we're concerned, we're going to obey God.

And when I read that, I heard, I heard a generation of women have been sent out to preach the gospel and the religious leaders are calling them back and forbidding them to preach and teach in the name of Jesus.

And God is saying, I need my sons and my daughters.

You know, and here's the thing.

All of us are called to preach.

Not all of us are called to pastor.

All of us are called to preach.

And at the end of the day, are we going to obey God?

Are we going to obey the fear of man?

Are we going to obey a religious spirit?

John's working through the seven churches in the book of Revelation.

And something he saw, he said, Lisa, you know, I'm reading.

And Jesus is talking to one of the churches.

And he said, you hate this wickedness, you hate that, you hate that, but you've lost your first love.

And the truth is, if we really believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life,

how can we bow down to the fear of man and be quiet?

And And I watched you guys from afar and

I consider it an honor to pray for you.

And I want to say this as an older woman, like you inspire me because you can become a place where you become used,

used to the word of God and it loses its wonder.

Used to the privilege of traveling and speaking and it loses its wonder.

Used to actually having messages without the Holy Spirit or the presence of God because the church has gotten so good with atmosphere, you know, and we forget that we need to rely on the word of God and the spirit of God, not the letter, but the love.

And so I am proud of you guys.

And I've, you know, I've, you know, women my age, we, you know, sometimes they, they get a little bitter.

And they get frustrated.

Like, why is it so easy for them?

Why is it such, well,

I have always prayed that what was hard for me would be easy for the the next generation.

And I remember a beautiful young girl preaching a message.

She had read my book, It Touched Her.

She asked me to come to her very first conference she ever held.

And I said, I would be honored.

And I'd come to it.

And

I'm sitting listening to her.

She's ministering Friday night.

And she gets up and she preaches a message that I had written out in my book better than I've ever preached it.

Cuter, doing it cuter,

cuter clothes, no struggle.

And I'm like getting mad thinking, she didn't pay a price for that.

She didn't pay a price for that message.

And I'm just like, in my head, I'm starting to get mad.

And God said, oh, you're despising the answers to your own prayers.

Wow.

You said you wanted it easier for them.

And now you see it easier and you're mad.

And he's like, took me to the whole parable about those that labor for eight, eight hours and then the ones that come in at the very end.

And it gives them all the same.

And then I love how the message translation said, Are you angry with me?

Because I'm generous.

You agreed.

You agreed.

And so, in the last days, God says, and that's what I always think about Acts 2:17.

In the last days, God says, I'll pour out my spirit on all flesh.

What does that mean?

That means he's going to pour it out on people I don't think he should pour it out on.

Wow.

He's going to pour it on people I don't think have earned the right to be poured out on.

He's going to pour it out in unexpected places.

He could pour it out in

a gathering of gay pride.

He could do whatever he wants.

Because God's outpouring is not his approval of behavior.

His outpouring is his love of the earth.

And so he said, I'm going to pour out my spirit on all flesh.

And then he says, your sons and your daughters will prophesy.

And prophesy means to speak under divine inspiration.

And then he goes through and he talks about the signs and the wonders.

Young men are going to have visions.

Old men dream dreams.

And then he goes, and on my men servants and my maidservants.

And so when people say, oh, women can't preach, I'm like, we're not in, and we're not in first days.

We're not first days where women couldn't read the Bible.

We're in first days.

We're in last days.

And in the last days, God's going to have a say.

Oh, such a good point.

Yeah.

Oh, you just say that.

Everybody asks us that.

You just completely, I've never heard anybody.

with that revelation of like the how you combat the scripture that says like women stay quiet in churches.

He literally comes back and says, man and woman on everybody, I will pour out my spirit and they will all stay quiet.

And he says in the last days.

Yeah.

And again, Paul's speaking.

And again, I get it.

I get it.

You know, I feel like there's an understanding for some people to say, well, women can't pastor.

Or, you know, like, here's, here's the thing.

What is it?

What is the saying?

If you beat the word of God long enough, it'll say whatever you want it to say.

You can take scripture and you can twist it however you want.

But

we have to understand that preaching is a command.

And, you know, like one of my favorite, I think it's Augustine who said, preach the word word at all times and when necessary use words I mean so we are people that should preach with our lives yeah that's the platform the the idea of a pulpit did not even happen till a couple thousand you know like like I can't remember it was 1200 AD so pulpits were not a thing and and Paul was telling the women when he said I suffer a woman not to preach or teach or have authority over a man

there was a lot of reasons for him to say that.

Number one, the women were uneducated.

Number two, there was persecution of the church at that time.

And, you know, even when he says, I suffer, like, it's, it's crazy.

Like, even the church, the religious spirit can happen so fast.

The church father Tartillian, I remember he found out a woman had written a song and he was like, the church is singing a song a woman wrote.

We need to stop singing it.

And they like put it through a man, whatever.

What about Miriam and Arian?

First song ever recorded was, I will sing unto the Lord, for he is triumph gloriously, the horse and the rider thrown into the sea.

And it was Miriam and the women singing.

So like, this is a weird distortion.

It is the enemy of both male and female.

When you isolate men from women and women from men, we are back in the garden where the man is blaming the woman.

The woman is trying to take the man's power.

Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost.

And we lost our relationship, male and female, as well as sister to sister, brother to brother, people to the earth.

And Jesus is coming and saying to his church, come on, I need all hands on down.

I don't pastor.

I don't pastor, but I don't feel like I have the right to tell somebody else not to.

Right.

If they feel like God told them to do that, and that seems to be, to be honest with you, that seems to be such a point of contention.

And, you know, in my mind, it's not whether what the biological sex of the person preaching is, it's what are they preaching?

It's not that, it's not whether they're male and female.

It's Christ being preached.

It's just ridiculous.

We fight over who is saying it.

I've literally had people say to me, a woman with the name of Jesus in her mouth in the pulpit is a witch.

And I'm like, well, what you just told me was my gender is more powerful than the name of Jesus.

Do you understand that?

I've even gotten in trouble for putting Instagrams of a woman's meeting on where men can see it on Instagram.

So it's a religious person.

I wouldn't expect they'd be like out there evangelizing, doing something productive.

I mean, it's just, it's, it's just too much.

It's just too much.

I can't believe that you deal with stuff like that.

I mean, we don't.

I'm sure you guys do.

I'm sure there's a couple in there.

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If we can just get a little insight for people who come from dysfunctional, broken backgrounds,

and then they enter into even just a life with Jesus or even a marriage where now like you have your parents' marriage that you saw, their parents' marriage, divorce, brokenness, fighting.

And then like, for example, you meet John, you guys get married, and then your problems don't just go away.

And Jesus heals and he does beautiful work of the spirit in us by the spirit.

And, but unfortunately, things follow us from our past and our upbringing.

And so what do you just, what do you say to people who are trying to heal brokenness, who are trying to change the way they respond to conflict?

If you're somebody who yells when you get angry, abandonment gets triggered, deep deep wounds get triggered, and you lash out on people.

You know, I think I've heard you speak about just like the early days of marriage.

The first eight years.

Yes.

So, yeah,

I definitely had a problem with anger.

And

I just remember there was a New Year's Eve.

I had one son and I prayed.

I said, God, you know, I want you to come into my life and I want you to excavate it.

You know, I want you to take every hidden thing, every

displeasing thing, and every shadowed thing.

I want you to excavate my life.

Two weeks later, I was like, I did not mean that.

I said excavate.

I meant to say accessorize.

I was like, what has just happened?

My anger that was kind of out of control, maybe right before my period, it wasn't once a month anymore.

Now it's every two weeks.

I'm just like.

angry and snapping at my husband.

And

John would say, what is wrong with you?

I'd be like, yo, what's wrong?

I threw a plate.

I threw a plate at John and it missed him and it broke a window in our apartment.

It went out a picture window in our apartment.

John was like, you just threw a plate at me.

And I'm like, I can't even throw a frisbee.

I'm talking about what you're doing.

I'm sorry.

I'm like, I saw that every other weekend.

He was like, I am going to have to call the apartment complex and tell them my wife tried to decapitate me with complaint and broke a window.

And I said, you know, I don't want you to lie, but I don't want to be here when they tell him.

So I got in the car and I was like, Jesus, Jesus, please.

You know, I saw like the headlines, youth pastor's wife breaks window.

I was like, try to shame myself.

I felt really guilty.

I prayed everything.

I promised away my firstborn child.

And then I wait.

And I see the maintenance truck.

He finally leaves.

I come in.

My husband looks at me and goes, you must really love God

or you must.

No, he said, God must really love you or you must have been praying.

I was like, I was praying.

I was praying.

He said, well, when the maintenance guy came, Addison, who was to, opened the door.

And the maintenance man sees the broken window and he sees Addison and he's like, whoa.

And John starts walking in the room.

The maintenance man has pulled out the sofa and behind the sofa is a tonka truck.

And he's like, he picks up the tonka truck.

He looks at Addison.

He looks at John and he said, say no more.

This is why we have insurance.

These kind of things happen.

And John was like, started to say, no, it's not my two-year-old.

It's my, it's my wife.

It's my 29-year-old wife that did this, her 28-year-old wife.

And the guy was like, say no more.

No, seriously, it's no problem.

Just put some plastic over this and we'll replace the window.

And I remember thinking,

see, John shouldn't have uncovered me.

Like at this, this brain, like my brain.

And then I had my second child.

And then my second child, I was just like,

I couldn't get anything done.

I was staying home full-time.

We have one car.

John's leaving every day.

He's coming back.

He's like, what do you do all day?

And I'm like staying there with my nursing flaps down and a baby in my arms and one on my leg and a spank spoon in my hands.

And I'm like, John, people are calling saying they're going to commit suicide.

And I am offering to join them.

I'm like, what is going?

Do not ask me what I'm doing all day.

And

one day my son came down the stairs, Addison, and I no longer saw a child.

I saw this is this is the one keeping me from getting anything done.

This is an enemy.

And I grabbed him and I was storming up the stairs with Addison.

And I thought, what do I do so he doesn't get off his bed?

Just so I can take a shower, you know, before the baby wakes up, what do I do?

And my brain was like a storm.

And I remember I lifted Addison up eye level and I heard a voice say, Slam him into the wall and put him on the bed.

Then he'll know not to get off the bed.

And I thought, yeah, that's what I need to do.

I lifted my son up eye level

and I saw something I'd never seen before.

He was not afraid of what I was going to do because he had no idea what I was going to do.

He was afraid of me.

And when I saw the terror in my own son's eyes, it broke me because I grew up in an emotionally and physically abusive household.

And every time my mom hit me, slapped me, kicked me, slammed me into a wall, I made myself a promise.

I will never treat my children this way.

And here I was, a born-again pastor's wife, getting ready to slam my son into the wall.

And I just completely broke.

I mean, I just, I completely broke.

I put him down.

I didn't hurt him.

I put him down.

And I just went downstairs and I said, oh, God, it's me.

It's not my husband.

He's not here.

It's not my parents.

They're not here.

It's not, it's not the Sicilian.

It's not the Apache.

It's not because I lost an eye to cancer.

God, it's me.

I have a real problem with anger.

And I don't know if you've ever cried until there's just nothing.

Yeah.

And in the stillness, I heard, because you're no longer justifying this,

I'll take it out of your life.

Wow.

And then he brought up an incident that I'd never forgiven my mom for.

Just one.

Just one I'd hidden in my heart.

I was like, I forgave her of everything, but just one from when I was seven.

And what I didn't forgive my mom for is what I almost did to my son.

Wow.

And God said, call your mom.

Call your mom.

Now she's a Christian.

My parents are divorced.

I call her and I'm crying.

And I say, mom,

I almost hurt Addison today.

And I realize now it's because I never forgave you.

And I really felt like the Holy Spirit said, specifically cite the incident.

So I described the incident and she just burst into tears.

And she said, that is the one thing I've never been able to forgive myself for.

Well, it's the parable.

The sins that we retain, they're retained.

And the sins that we remit, they're remitted.

We prayed together.

We decided that this pattern of sin is broken.

And I remember I called one of my friends and I said, I'm just so, I almost hurt my son.

She was like, but you didn't.

And I said, oh, but

yeah.

And so

I was forgiven, of course, when I confessed it to God.

When I confessed it to my mom,

there was healing.

But then when John came home, I told him.

And then there was accountability.

And that was when the work started.

And that was actually the first thing I ever shared:

how God set me free from anger with forgiveness.

And I used to just lay in my bed and I would be like, God, I want to be slow to speak, quick to listen, slow to wrath, put a watch over my mouth.

And

it was the beginning of a walk-in journey towards freedom for me.

And then there was other, like, I don't notice this.

God takes care of one thing.

He's like, no.

I keep thinking of

it.

He's like, wait, just

kind of have a holiday with you, Baba.

He's like, you asked for excavation.

You asked for excavation.

You're good for me, Lord.

Okay.

Don't use excavation.

It was a horrible horror choice.

It felt like a Holy Spirit in the moment.

But it's like lifelong, right?

Like you still are going, right?

Yeah.

Oh,

absolutely.

There was, I mean, I can blame it on Jetlike or whatever.

I flew home from Australia Monday and Tuesday.

I woke up and I saw something and I was like,

and I just, I kept it inside of me.

And, and I was like, what?

Seriously?

I've already done this.

I've already done this.

And I'm, you know, I've already done this.

I've already done this.

And normally what I'll do is I'll tell my husband, because my husband is, he has been the catalyst for more growth in my life than anybody else.

And, you know, and I guess you can tell another woman and there might be understanding.

Like, oh yeah, I felt that way too.

For me, I don't want an excuse.

I actually want someone to hold my feet to the fire and say, you're better than that.

That is not, you're too mature of a Christian to be even like carrying around those thoughts, Lisa.

You're 65 next month.

You do not get to behave that way.

And I'm like, okay.

But he calls me higher.

Yeah.

He doesn't shame me.

He doesn't call me out.

And I'll actually just say it to him like, you know, the Bible says, confess your sins one to another, that there's healing.

Like if things grow in the dark where there's no conversation, where there's no opportunity and

lose its power.

Yeah.

Confession is so powerful.

Yeah.

I was listening to an interview with a priest that was saying that,

what was the thing?

He said, one confession is way more powerful than.

like five exorcisms or something.

He said, when you repent, repentance is always the door to freedom.

Amen.

Yeah.

So good.

Oh, this is so good.

Sorry, at least you just took me on a whole journey.

Don't know where to go.

Nobody ever talks about anger.

Nobody ever talks about the things that are like really embarrassing and the things like the fact that you would share that you held up your child and had the thought to hurt him.

It's my very first book.

I wrote this.

Like, do you understand what that does?

for people who go through that on a daily basis and i got incredibly touched by that because i know know what it's like to deal with anger myself and you probably had it when you were little right

right and so it's just like it is so healing to hear something like that to know that sometimes in moments of like deep rage and anger and like just being uncontrollable like you are so deeply deeply hurt and like it's a place to explore and like every time something like that happens to you

bring it to the Holy Spirit, bring it to Jesus, and like finding the origin of whatever incident that caused like this deep-rooted issue to take place, like that is the power, you know, that's where we find free.

But not, and I think too many people make excuses, right?

Like we've given a lot of excuses to people to not get free.

And I remember I was crying out, God, set me free, set me free.

And one day he said, what do you think I've left undone?

I give the life of my son completely, that you would be completely free.

And you just pick and choose.

And he was like, you need to surrender all of your life to me.

You don't get to keep excuses because

as long as you don't own a mistake, it owns you.

As long as you say, oh, it's my mom, or oh, it's my dad, or oh, it's this, or, you know, like I had, I had a resume.

It was like, I lost a night of cancer when I was five.

My parents were crazy.

My mom was crazy.

Yeah, I grew up abuse.

My dad was an alcoholic.

You know, it was a bit, I had a list and God was like, you are not defined by what was done to you.

Yeah.

You are defined by what was done for you.

And he was like, you are living less.

And, you know, here's the thing about I am the privilege of being the mom of four sons.

I would not give the life of any of my sons.

But Jesus was the only begotten son of God.

And he gave.

the life of his son freely.

What if I gave the life of one of my sons and then somebody was like, yeah, think, no, I don't want everything.

I just want to go to heaven when I die.

I don't want to bring people to heaven.

I don't want to witness.

I don't want to learn more about your son who died for me.

I don't want any of that.

I would be like, okay, my son should have only been beaten.

He should not have, like, if you're not willing to surrender all of your life.

And, you know, we were singing a song in Australia, and there's songs

in worship where we're crying out and we're saying, God, I want more of you.

And I will often hear him say back to me, if you want more of me, I want more of you.

Like he's like, give me more.

If you're saying, you want more of me, make room.

Yeah.

Through obedience.

Wow.

And obedience is the highest form of worship at the end of the day and warfare.

At the end of the day.

It really is.

Spiritual warfare is one in obedience, not one with just praying and disobedience.

You've got to have obedience behind your prayer.

You've got to have humility behind your prayer.

And the anger thing with women has been stirred up for a really long time where women are being told they're a victim, told they're a problem.

So, we've got the church telling women to be quiet, and then we have the culture silencing women, and I mean, sexualizing women.

So, we have silencing in the church, sexualization in the culture, and then women are like, What am I?

What am I?

Am I silenced and unsexual?

Am I sexualized and loud?

And so, we have to understand that women were first formed by God to be an answer to the problem that it's not good that man be alone.

And women were created to be an answer to be embraced, not a problem to be controlled.

And it was God who said,

I need the woman to have voice.

See, she was always in the man, but it was God who said, I'm going to bring her out.

And there are things for the man to speak to and there are things for the women.

to speak to.

And we have made the mistake of using our voices against one another instead of the things that God gave us authority to speak to as women and as men.

So

you

just on the topic of spirituality and

you everyone that I talk to about you kind of describes you as one of the most powerful and prophetic female voices of our generation.

And when I hear about John, your husband, I just hear he's just one of the most respected men out there.

Like he really is.

He has so much authority on his life.

That's all I hear about John.

Can you tell us a little bit, our listeners, and specifically us, so we could take you, this is more for us than it is for anybody else.

Just like about spiritual formation, like I know it's intimacy with Jesus.

I know it's, I heard John say something.

In a sermon or a video where he was like, I prayed for years.

By the way, I say this all the time.

John, who's here, my John, we both have Johns.

Our Johns are very similar.

I like, John makes fun of me because I bring it up all the time, but your John said something like, I was asking God for the longest time, show up in my meeting, show up when I speak, let your power come into a room, let your power fall.

And it just wasn't happening.

And then finally, he was like, Father, you told me you were going to come.

What is going on?

And he's like, son, you tolerate sin.

You tolerate sin in your own life and in the lives of others, in your mouth, in other people's mouths.

Like until, and so basically, essentially, until you clean up this area like don't expect my power to fall it can but it's just we had also prayed some other prayers we had prayed that that god would never bless us or empower us beyond our character to carry it wow and so god was like i heard that

so you know we're like we've seen people that have mistaken the gift of preaching or the presence of god on their life to be the approval of their character.

And they forget that the gift is always about the people.

It is never a validation of the minister.

And so when you begin to get confused, you think, oh, yeah, it's me.

I can live by different rules.

I can sin in private and then I get up on the stage and I have the most powerful meeting I've ever had.

There's a lot of ministers that John and I sadly have had opportunity to sit with.

They were confused.

They're like, but yeah, I did this, but then I got up and I did that.

And I said, well, that's because you were confused.

You thought it was about you.

Yeah.

And so, you know god in his mercy works through us to touch lives yeah but what as soon as we begin to think his touching lives through us is about a validation of us we're in trouble and so we had prayed those prayers that god would deal with everything hidden that god would not because we we are under leaders that we saw do those things that we're like no no no we don't want to we don't want that you know we don't want to have our marriage break up we don't want to find ourselves in in bed with somebody or with drugs or embezzling or whatever the thing might be.

Like, we don't want to do that.

And yet at the same time,

I want to share this because I feel like your generation is going to lose some costly things if

they're not able to make some separations.

Yes.

So there's been a lot of shaking with ministers recently.

And

when that thing happens, of course, it shakes everybody because we're all part of the same body.

And one of the ones really upset our staff because we were a little bit closer to this particular one.

And I came in in the office and they were like, how can somebody do that and then build this?

We don't understand.

We don't understand.

And I was like, Holy Spirit, help me, you know.

And I said, all right, what if you were starving and somebody gave you a loaf of bread and then you found out later that the person that gave you a loaf of bread had done something absolutely horrific?

I said, does that make the bread bad?

And they said, no, no, the bread would still be good.

And I said, but does the good bread make what they did right?

And they said, no.

I said, this generation has to learn to separate the two.

And so, you know, God can do something beautiful through somebody, but that doesn't mean he validates those other things.

And so to be able to be wise stewards, we're going to have to separate.

those two things.

I mean, you know,

there's been some horrible things happening with some worship leaders and people like, we're not going to sing those songs anymore.

Well, then don't sing David's songs either.

Yeah.

He was an adulterer and a a murderer.

So like, what are you, like, what, God, God actually anoints us and heals and ministers life through us in spite of us.

Right.

He really does.

It's, yeah.

It's the scripture that talks about some people preach with selfish ambition, some with pure motives.

Christ is preached.

But regardless, Christ is preached.

And I think it's so beautiful how that no matter how messy we are, it doesn't make it okay.

But it's just like, It just proves the power of the gospel that no matter what we do or what we are, like there's still transformative power in the gospel itself like it's not us it actually proves that it has nothing to do with us and it's all jesus in the gospel so yeah and so maybe just about spiritual formation what advice can you give to people read the word i i mean i there's no there's no exactly read the word i mean if you do not read scripture

Scripture is alive.

It facets your life.

It gives you the ability to discern, you know, between

motive and intent and thought and soul and spirit.

It It is the word of God that reads us.

And, you know, if you don't read the word, you will be deceived.

And we're living in a time period where our minds need to be renewed.

We just came out of COVID where everybody thought entertainment was

for everything.

Right.

And they dulled their spiritual sense.

They're watching fornication.

They're watching adultery.

They're watching perversion.

They're being entertained by things that they no longer have authority over.

So when you partner with something in entertainment, you actually need to actually say, forgive me.

Wow.

And then you need to get back your spiritual authority in some of these areas.

But you will not, like, so the word is the sword, sword is the spirit.

It is invincible.

It is invisible and is eternal.

And so God gives us the ability to renew our minds.

And yet, so many people are studying their past.

And what Philippians says, it says, forgetting what is behind and straining for what is ahead.

Most people are straining for what is behind and forgetting what is ahead.

They are so busy living in their

gazing of their trigger world.

You know, like I get it, but triggers is a signal that God wants to heal something in your life.

You don't live in a place of constant agitation.

And your generation, I believe, is so attacked by the enemy because there is an incredible call in your generation.

And so, you know, when I get a chance to speak to the young people, I say, the enemy is not attacking you guys because you are victims.

He is attacking you guys because you are threats.

And he does not attack or go to steal what people do not have or what is not a risk.

And so in my Sicilian mindset, it was probably an Albanian, it's probably an Italian.

In my mindset, if I get attacked, and again, I'm not talking about saying something stupid or ungodly.

I'm saying if the enemy comes against me, I have decided it's because I'm a threat.

And the attacks on our lives, the enemy will use our history, but he's ultimately after our destiny.

And so the attacks on our life have more to do with who we might be in the future than who we have been in the past.

And so for me, that past, like I'm like Paul, I'm like kind of all done.

Like if God can use it and redeem it, and I can say to somebody, I understand that sin has pleasure for a season, but not life forevermore.

Like it will, it will, it will drive you, it will, it will corrupt you, it will distort truth, and we don't want that for you.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, I very much have a passion for the millennials and the Gen Zs and the Gen Alphas because I am very aware

of the attack is because they're a threat.

It's so true.

So God.

Just really quick back to the word.

Can you just give us?

No, just because I think, what do you suggest in reading the word?

Like, because obviously girls go on Bible, we're obsessed with the Bible.

We both met Jesus through scripture, basically.

Well, how I've heard people say the best thing to do is read one chapter a day, read you two chapters a day.

Some people say read as much as you can and don't stop.

Do you listen to commentary?

How would you suggest we study scripture?

And where do you start?

Yeah, so I'm believing.

When I was up for a new baby Christian, I started with the gospels.

I mean, I started right away in the New Testament because I was really upset about some story about this guy coming out and said, I'll sacrifice anything.

The first thing that comes to me, I was like so angry about this in the Old Testament.

I was like, no.

So I was like, I need to get a relationship with Jesus first.

I do,

John is very disciplined where he reads Old Testament, Psalms, Proverbs, and a New Testament chapter every single day.

I tend to be more like, I'm going to deep dive into the book of Isaiah.

Like I'm going to like live in the book of Isaiah.

And it could be for months.

Oh, I love that.

Yeah.

And I'm also very topically driven.

So

I'm like, okay, I really feel like the Holy Spirit's speaking to me about this.

So I might go and do a search to a commentary and be like, everything on this topic.

And then I'm going to study everything on that topic.

But everybody, it's different seasons.

So if you're just starting, I think Psalms, Proverbs, New Testament.

is a beautiful place to start.

I think they're going to lose their way in Leviticus.

They're going to be like, what?

But I do think that there's magnificent stories in Genesis.

I think you have to know your origin.

I think you have to know the story of Genesis.

Genesis is my favorite.

Yes, it is.

It's the best.

Oh, I love that so much.

It's the best because it's so rich, and people are just like, Genesis, weird.

I'm not going to go there.

I'm not going to worry about it.

I agree with you.

Yeah.

I always, I always include the origin story in all of my books.

You can't, you can't not.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So good.

Can we, so your new book, The Fight for Female, I'm so excited.

We're so excited to read it.

Could you

talk a little bit about it?

I would love to talk about feminism and what God thinks about it.

Yeah.

Well, first of all, God loves women, you know, and God did not create woman just to be.

She was an afterthought.

She was a necessity.

And I think too often women think, oh, I'm just for the man.

Well,

it's together.

It's not this, the man is amazing and the woman is an afterthought.

It's male and female both capture the image of God.

Matter of fact, Adam and Eve were Ish and Isha.

Their names were so closely related that

that's how they saw one another.

It's kind of like two sides of the same coin.

But then the fall happens.

And you know, with the fall,

now all of a sudden, there's a break between the male and female.

There is a, you know, dominion turns into domination and manipulation.

Order changes to chaos.

Multiplication changed to division.

And there's this fall.

But there's also this prophetic word that God says, I'm going to put enmity between the woman and the serpent.

And you think about that.

If God puts enmity, which is an unresolved hatred and hostility that the longer it grows, the greater it becomes.

God actually puts the woman on his side.

And it's so crazy.

People don't want to just like, they freak out.

Like, oh my gosh, what's she saying?

I'm like, there's only good, God, and...

evil, Satan.

So when God prophesied to Eve that her seed, which was Jesus, was going to crush the serpent's head, but he was also going to bruise her heel, he was prophesying through the woman.

He was prophesying the redemption that we see in Mary.

And, you know, we see this battle goes on.

It starts with one woman, even a serpent.

Then it becomes the woman who is Israel, then specifically Mary, and then collectively the bride or the church.

And so now we've got a dragon in the book of Revelation.

And in Revelation chapter 12, verse 17, it said, and then the dragon was enraged with the woman and went to make war against her children.

And if you look at what is happening in the culture right now, there is a war on our children.

Yep.

And there is a war on what it means to be a woman.

But it's not the man doing it.

It's a dragon doing it.

And the enemy has tricked male and female into thinking that we are enemies instead of allies.

And so we are using our voices against one another when they should be used on the serpent.

Like Jesus said, it is is written.

That's what we should be saying.

We don't yell at each other, it is written.

We say to the serpent, it is written.

And Jesus had to take back every area that Adam had lost.

And so that's, you know, when you see him in the desert, he takes back every area that Adam had caved in.

And so now there's that battle that the men have fought, and there's a battle for women to fight.

I don't know if you guys can even like show this,

but I had gone to a coffee shop in Franklin, it's the Christian bubble, wearing a t-shirt, the future is male and female.

And I had guys like, thank you, thank you for including us in the future.

I'm like, you're welcome.

I've got you.

I had women say, I want that t-shirt.

So I thought everybody's happy.

So I take a selfie.

I should have brought it for you.

I took a selfie with the t-shirt and I just wrote, The Future is Male and Female, because without male and female, there is no future.

That's right.

922 comments later,

people blew up on me.

This is going in like all lives matter.

You are a homophobe.

You are a transphobe.

You are a Karen.

You are a bigot.

You are a demon of hate.

I mean, people just freaking out on me, screaming back and forth.

And then the people that were attacking me got attacked by the people who love me.

So like now everybody's fighting.

And I thought, wait a minute.

When there is this much of a disportionate response to something that is just your parents, like something's going on.

So I just type in to my laptop, what is the origin of the quote, the future is female?

And it goes to a,

it goes to a Washington Post article, and it is from a lesbian separatist group called Labras.

Labras, I thought, what is Labras?

Well, it's the two-headed axe carried by the Greek and Roman goddesses.

And

it was part of a presentation called What a Well-Dressed Dyke Would Wear.

And

they said that the quote, The Future is Female, was a call to war, an invocation, and a spell to cast.

They said,

and I'm like, what in the world?

And about that moment, my grandson, who lives down the street from me, comes into my house, and I'm pretty sure this is what happens.

They're like, mom, I'm hungry.

Mom's like, no, you can't have food.

He goes to the grandma's house.

And the grandma, of course, gives him food.

And so he's in my pantry eating.

And I said, Asher,

what are your thoughts?

on the quote, the future is female.

And he said, that I'm unnecessary.

Wow.

Do you know the suicide rate for young men 25 to 34 has never been this high?

I sat next to a man on the plane yesterday.

He has two beautiful daughters, just brilliant daughters.

He said, in four years, they haven't been asked on a date.

And he showed me pictures of them.

They're beautiful girls.

Men are being emasculated and women are,

you know, like, I want the men to be strong.

No, we don't want them strong.

Yes.

I mean, it's just like this crazy thing.

And somehow in the whole scheme of it, we have forgot that God created us to be an answer, to be be a multiplier, not to be a divider, that we are the ones that come alongside and take what's not good and make it so very, very good.

And so now the men have been emasculated, pushed aside, labeled toxic, and now the women are being attacked and actually partnering with the enemy about the man is the problem when he's not the problem, nor is he our answer.

Jesus is the answer.

And so we need to get it to the right place.

But when the enemy gets the women, they're the last line of defense for the children.

And right now we have a generation that is being told their formation is a mistake.

And when you think your formation is a mistake, it's really hard to trust God with your transformation.

And so we need to actually speak that, yes, we understand.

It's uncomfortable to be human.

It's uncomfortable.

But we have a high priest named Jesus who understands and yet never, never sinned.

Who, I mean, people like freak out about this, but they need to think about what Jesus actually did.

Jesus was the son of God.

And Philippians says that he set aside his divine privileges, took off his divine form, emptied himself his divine identity, took on the nature of a servant and became us.

He became us.

He became the son of man.

So that we could become like him.

So he was like,

I'm going, so we could be in Christ.

I don't believe we're gods, but so we can be in Christ.

And so I have to wonder if there's anybody that's ever been uncomfortable in the human flesh.

I'm guessing it was Jesus

because he was the son of God.

Like we've known, I've never known anything but this.

Wow.

But he had been in glory with his father.

And he said, I'm going to

become them so they can become one with us.

And so we need to understand that we have a whole generation that is being told they're a mistake and we need to say, we can't just say what's wrong.

We need to say, let me introduce you to the one who understands and can make things right.

What a beautiful revelation.

If anybody was uncomfortable in his own skin, it was Jesus.

And that's why he understands everything, even something like that,

gender, dysphoria, and

delusion.

Like even he could even understand that, which people who are probably in that position would probably never think in a million years somebody like Jesus could understand them, but he can.

It's just, it's devastating what people go through.

It really is.

We're supposed to live Christ-centered.

You know, when we only think about ourselves,

it's very, people don't understand.

It's very Luciferian.

Satanists don't say worship the devil.

They say worship self.

And I mean, like, we don't, we, we get confused.

It's, and it's self, self, self.

I mean, I have so many people say, I just need to focus more on self-care.

I'm like, the Bible is self-care.

Like, I'm not saying, I'm not saying be a, you know, don't take care of yourself.

Don't sleep, don't eat right.

But the Bible is self-care.

And if you have a crazy mind, I don't care how much essential oil you do and long baths, you're going to still have a crazy mind.

Like in the bathtub, you'll have a crazy mind.

So I'm like,

you need to renew your mind.

And I've been through menopause and that is when a mean lady is in your head saying things like punch her husband, just punch him.

And I was like, oh, no, I can renew my mind because it will take you emotionally hostage.

And too many people are emotional hostage on political issues, on whatever they're, you know, and think about it.

The enemy has just been isolating people.

And there was two, there was two epidemics released.

There was COVID and cowardice.

People lost their voice.

People shut down.

And you guys know.

I know that you've experienced, I've experienced, you use your voice.

You're allowed to use it just so far.

But if you go too far, then the enemy is like, I'm going to shut you down.

And a lot of people, they cave to that.

And what they do is they shut themselves down.

The enemy doesn't have to cancel them.

They canceled themselves.

And what we need to do is this more.

We need to have courageous, constant conversations that honor God and bring people.

into a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

And that is how the early church started, not mega churches.

I'm not against mega churches, but it said they went from house to house and discussed the apostles' doctrine and broke bread with one another.

And there are people right now watching your podcast and eating, watching your podcast at school, watching your podcast, and they're finding themselves where you guys were, you know, in college or, you know, just, I mean, I know that you went through an eating disorder, right?

Yeah, I hated my body and I had broken relationship with my parents.

I just imagine if when my parents were divorced for the first time, someone had come to me when I was 12 or 13 and this awkward young girl living in Oshkosh, by gosh, overall, so that nobody knew I wasn't growing breasts.

I wonder if somebody would have come to me and said, you know what, you're probably born in the wrong body.

I would have said everything else of my life is wrong.

And that is what's happening to this generation.

They've had their hope stripped away.

They've had

curses spoken over them.

They've been indoctrinated with a hopeless, senseless that humans are a problem.

I forced myself to watch The Matrix coming back from Australia and I thought, wow.

The whole AI

thing.

It's wild.

I mean, I'm not against AI.

I'm against the wrong use of it.

I'm against people counseling with it.

People want to counsel with the AIs?

Yeah, Mark Zuckerberg said to people are lonely.

They should just have AI as a counselor.

Oh, my God.

Like a collective consciousness.

I'm like, how about the creator of the universe?

How about I go to him?

That's crazy.

It's really

weird, the connection between the Holy Spirit and ChatGBT.

It's been like, it's on my mind heavily recently.

I'm just, yeah,

just the reliance on or the replacement of the Holy Spirit, like things that you would say, hey, Holy Spirit, like, what is the answer to this question?

And like, allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal something to you rather than just being like, Chat GBT, what's the answer?

Which is like so tempting because you want it right away and you don't want to wait on the Lord.

Chat GBT doesn't have the Holy Spirit.

Yeah.

And it's not alive.

And the Word of God is.

Amen.

Amen.

That's been the biggest thing right now, Chat GBT.

They're using it for sermons and stuff.

AI sermons?

What do you think?

I think it's good for research.

Right.

But

I don't want it to replace the Holy Spirit in my life.

I don't want to sound brilliant in my own strength and not be led by the Spirit.

And people don't.

I mean, Paul was like, hey, it's not the persuade folks' conversation.

It's not this.

It's the power of God.

It's like to let ChatGBT replace.

Like, I think what we've seen is people chat GBTing or AIing like heartfelt messages or like anything that is like supposed to be your own heart-centered formulated opinion.

And you use AI to get there.

And it's like, oh, that actually, you didn't say that.

It just gets really tricky like that.

You know what I mean?

So I mean, I think like if you're writing a business letter, you can run it through chat GTP to like get, make sure it's professional.

I am horrible at grammar punctuation.

Me too.

Absolutely horrible.

I always do that.

I'm really bad.

I'm horrible.

And so like,

I don't use chat GTV.

I don't know how.

I'm not against it.

I just have never used it.

So I would call my team and say, hey, I'm writing.

I'm going to be researching dragons.

Can you just print out everything on dragons?

It gave me hardly anything.

Yeah.

It gave me hardly anything.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

The Holy Spirit gave me way more.

Yeah.

I believe it.

I believe it.

Well, Lisa, we love you so much.

I wish I could sit here and talk to you all day because I, first of all, I've cried three times just listening to you talk.

So real.

Yeah.

Thank you for being so real.

You are awesome.

So real.

So special.

So genuine.

And you're just powerful.

And like, do you mind if I call you a few times a day?

No, you guys can call me.

Okay, cool.

Call me.

Especially since you're marrying a job.

Yes.

Okay.

Especially because I'm marrying a John.

It's so hard.

I'd be like, I'm not you.

I'm not you.

You're perfect.

I'm not you.

Listen, if you know how many times I look at him and go, you know what?

I'm Lisa.

You're John.

I'm sorry.

I don't know what to say.

I feel like I was listening to you, you and John.

No,

you should hear.

I'll never forget.

She goes, you said the funniest thing with time in a sermon.

I couldn't believe you said it.

You're just the best.

You literally, I imagine you getting on stage and just like every religious spirit in the room breaking because it just can't be in your presence.

You get on stage and you're like, yeah.

And so I meet John Bevere and he's this like sweet, kind, virginal young boy.

And here I am, a crazy hoe.

I was like, when you said said a crazy hoe i was like that's my girl yeah i was you know but i'm not still the good thing is no the ho no more

i'm just saying that's how real you are i was just saying i was like no and people are like what did she just say what did she just say but that's to me i i feel like i am a poster child for redemption yes yes you are so are we sister found it

we've also never said hoe on here that was the first

i feel that i could bring that to your audience

I love you so much.

Thank you so much for being here.

You're the angel.

Oh, I love you.

You're the best.

All right.

Well, I have to come back.

Absolutely.

You will.

You promise you'll come back.

100%.

Okay.

Yeah.

Or you guys can come to Franklin.

And we'll come to Franklin.

Oh, I mean, we're going to come to Franklin.

Yeah, and no, no, because I like you can, we can, we can use our studio, make it your studio.

Okay, we're going to be there next month.

We are going to be there next month, actually.

And Franklin.

When?

I'll give you the dates.

I think June 12th.

I'll be in Italy.

She's going to be.

Okay, well, thanks for for the invite

can we come

all right guys we love you so much give me a hand sorry 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 shalom shalom he said it doubles we can't stop saying it Looking to buy your first car or home?

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