Dare to be True w/ Madi Prewett Troutt | Girls Gone Bible

Lord Jesus, God beautiful.

I love it.

He's coming back.

He's coming back.

So soon.

I know you wrote about that.

We're all going to be holding up the line when he comes back.

We're going to be hanging on his feet.

Okay.

All right.

Hi, guys.

I'm Ange.

And I'm Ari.

And this is Girls Gone Bible.

We're a faith-based podcast where we talk all things spirituality, mental health, relationships, everyday life, anything that you could possibly be going through.

We probably talk about it.

And most importantly, we love Jesus.

We love him so much.

We love the Bible.

We are Girls Gone Bible for a reason.

And today, we have an honorary

Girl Gone Bible,

Maddie Pruitt Trout.

Oh my gosh, this is my third time.

You are a three-time GGB.

But this is my first time.

That's true.

last time

and oh you know what sitting here reminds me of the first time that we met in the first podcast that we did because it was like kind of similar vibes we had a table

it was so good it was so cute and it was your last book that we were talking about

i remember reading your first book and i'm sitting in my house crying my eyes out and i tell everyone that was my favorite book oh that book touched me and this book this book that we're going to talk about today touched us too yeah i can't wait to get into it.

We're so, so excited.

We are talking about Dare to be true.

It's Maddie's third book.

It's your third book.

Guys, writing books is not easy.

It's not easy.

I want you to know that when somebody writes a book, it's a big deal because it's your heart and soul has to go into this and a lot of time and a lot of effort.

And I'm sure a lot of tears.

Oh, the amount of times that I, I think I called both of you and was like, I almost quit this book two or three different times.

And I just felt such a like war on the topic of it.

Like I changed the topic multiple times, wrote almost an entire book and then started over because I was like, this is not what I'm supposed to write about.

And so when I landed on Dare to be true, oh, it was just like, I was like, okay, this is what.

the this is what I'm supposed to write about.

Wow.

And this is what the Lord has been teaching me all my life.

And I just now get to like tell people what he's taught me.

And so it's a lot.

The writing process is a lot.

We were joking right for this podcast.

I was like, yeah, it's probably going to be a minute until I write another book.

I need a little break, but that's how I feel too.

I know that's just our one that I've got.

Our publishers shared right after this, and they're like, um,

yeah, literally.

Yeah, and Ari and I had to share.

We shared the books.

We only did half of what you've done.

No, but it's so good.

It's so good.

You know what?

Ari's been wanting to talk about the end times.

I just had, you guys should have, well, I don't know if you want to, but I just had a guy on Jimmy Evans, and he's like an end time prophet.

And he literally talked all about end times.

You on your episode?

Yeah.

Has everyone wanted to watch it?

Yeah.

Oh my gosh, I want to watch it.

I've been listening to him for like 10 years.

I listened to him like in high school and college.

Wow.

We're going to be like,

he's like the person I had on my podcast.

It's so funny because I'm like, most people probably don't even know who he is, but he was like the person I had on my podcast that I was like kind of fangirling.

He's like, I listened to you in high school.

That's so sweet.

But yeah.

So that's anyways.

You should check him out.

Yeah, I'll listen to it.

All right.

Maybe we'll talk about that today

um maddie before we start i just i we want to give you your flowers yeah

because i was i've been thinking about you we got to spend the date with you yesterday and like we're so both grateful for your friendship i'm personally like

Just so my life has been so touched and marked by you by the way that you live your life by your influence and like for you to write a book called dare to be true and your podcast is called stay true Like you're preaching one of the most authentic messages I think I've ever witnessed.

And like, yeah, you have so much authority on your life.

I tell you this every day, like the authority in which you, you speak with, um,

and, and you're just a born, you're like born to tell the truth.

Like you really are created to tell the truth.

You're a truth teller.

You never stray away from the truth.

And I think what I love about you the most is like, we live in a time where relatability is the most important thing for pastors for preachers for podcasts everybody's like and it's beautiful like we want to be relatable but like at what cost like people want to be relatable so bad that they will compromise truth and like What I love about you is you don't care to be relatable.

You don't.

You don't.

You never conform.

There is no compromise in you.

It's one of the things I respect about you the most.

Like you guys have to know who Maddie is on a podcast.

I have never never seen such congruency in my life.

Who you are on a stage, who you are in a podcast, you are that person even more so in person.

I am not like we can both vouch like we're not just saying that you are who you say you are.

You truly do stay true in every circumstance.

And yeah, I just have so much respect for you.

Thank you.

You're the friend everybody needs.

Your truth, but your heart as well.

I love you so much because you literally write about us and our families in your prayer book.

Yesterday, she just goes, I'm walking the baby and I just started praying for you and your husband.

Like, that's the kind of friend that you are.

You're constantly praying for others.

You have a heart of gold, like you have a heart of Jesus.

And it's just, you're the friend that we all need, you know?

You've been so monumental in our life.

You guys, I'm so grateful for friendship.

And we talked about this yesterday, but just friends that you can have in your life.

And I hope this is encouraging to all who listen because how important it is to have friends that don't just keep you stagnant in life and stagnant in your faith, but that actually push you to holiness.

That actually push you to get before Jesus and will ask you the intentional questions and that will pray for you and that will encourage you in your faith, but that aren't afraid to call you out and call you higher.

And that's what we need in our life.

And I'm so grateful because I have that in you guys as well.

And just so thankful.

for the journey that we've been on together and we haven't even known each other that long, but it feels like we've known each other forever.

Forever.

And we always will.

We always will.

I just said it on your podcast yesterday that like when you start a friendship in long distance, it's so hard to cultivate intimacy in a friendship like that.

And we like, you're just, we've done that with you.

But I'm trying to recruit both of you to move here.

So to Nashville.

I feel like, I mean, listen, if it's not

California, it might be Nashville.

It's my dream.

Oh, I love it.

Our hair is a little flop out.

So our hair is a little flat here.

Do you guys hear that?

It is humid here.

Is that what it is?

is yeah it's humid like i did my hair this morning and sat outside and then i walked inside and it was a puff ball and i was like what's happening we don't like humid that's why we don't like how we look in florida that's

broken and jesus

right we don't put our value in our outward appearance but in florida i do not look cute i i do not love the way that i look when i go to florida my best friends from uh tiffany lived in florida for a while she texted me one time when she went back home to visit her family she goes do you feel ugly in florida too i said yes my face brings up.

My hair frizzes up.

It's just a knock.

It's just, anyways, dare to be true.

Forget vanity.

Fearfully and wonderfully mean.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

All right, tell me I'm not alone here.

We've all turned to the wrong people for advice.

A barista, your hairdresser, maybe even a random stranger in the bathroom line.

They're fun to talk to.

But when it comes to real issues like relationships, anxiety, or depression, they're not always the right one.

And that's why I love love BetterHelp.

It helps you find your right match with a licensed, credentialed therapist who actually has the tools and training to help you.

BetterHelp has been helping people find their match for over 10 years and has a 4.9 rating from more than 1.7 million client session reviews.

They take care of the matching process for you with a quick questionnaire and with over 30,000 therapists, they usually can get it right the first time.

And if not, you can switch anytime, no extra cost.

Everything is online, so it fits into your life.

Join a session with one click, pause whenever you need to, and know that you're getting a quality therapist who works under a strict code of conduct.

So, no more oversharing with the group chat.

Give BetterHelp a try.

As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise.

Find the one with BetterHelp.

Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/slash girlsgone Bible.

That's betterhelphelp.com/slash gone Bible.

Let's talk about a subject it feels like the world wants us to ignore: our hormones.

Hormones run the show: our energy, mood, sleep, metabolism, even our skin.

When they're balanced, you'll feel amazing.

And when they're not, suddenly you're crying in the grocery store parking lot because they discontinued your favorite snack.

I've been there.

So, what if one scoop could fill in the gaps and keep you feeling your best?

Would you give it a shot?

Well, that's why we encourage you guys to start using Glow by Beam.

It's a once-daily hormone balancing blend for women that has made a huge difference in my life, and you need to try it too.

It contains 18 comprehensive active ingredients.

Combined, they make a daily super powder that supports fluctuations in metabolism, immune function, collagen production, and more.

Vitamins, minerals, and natural antioxidants.

Specially blended to synergize with each other and your body.

No more guests work in the vitamin aisle and added electrolytes for a a hydration boost.

Since it comes in the form of a tasty low-sugar drink mix, it makes hydrating your body simple and delicious.

It is so easy to incorporate Glow by Beam into your daily routine.

All you have to do is simply mix one scoop with eight ounces of water.

You shake, stir, or froth, and you're good to go.

And alongside all of the benefits, Glow actually tastes good.

My personal favorite is the lemon ginger.

Over 40,000 women have trusted Glow by Beam to support their hormone health.

And now it's your turn.

Glow is here to help bring you back to balance because balance isn't a luxury.

It's essential.

For a limited time, Beam is offering our listeners up to 35% off of GLOW.

Just visit shopbeam.com slash GGB and use code GGB at checkout.

That's shopbeam.com slash GGB.

And don't forget to use your code GGB for your exclusive discount.

All right, guys, confession.

Ari and I don't have a cat, but one of our closest friends does, and her cat might as well be our godchild at this point.

All right, this cat was picky, bougie, and honestly, kind of a diva about food.

Then she switched to Smalls, and it was game over.

She literally ignores her old food now.

She goes straight for Smalls every time.

And here's why.

Smalls cat food is protein-packed recipes made with preservative-free ingredients that you'd actually find in your fridge, and it's delivered right to your door.

It's so good that cats.com named Smalls their best overall cat food.

Smalls started in 2017 with two guys home cooking cat food in small batches for friends.

Now they've served millions of meals to cats across the US and since making the switch, our friend swears her cat has fewer hairballs, more energy, softer fur, and a way less stinky litter box.

Other cat food brands know this, but they choose to put their wallets first.

They fill their food with mysterious meat byproducts, artificial flavoring, and preservatives with names I don't even want to try to pronounce.

If that sounds gross, imagine having to eat it every day.

The team at Smalls is so confident your cat will love their product that you can try it risk-free.

That means they will refund you if your cat won't eat their food.

Plus, and this part's wild, 88% of cat owners reported overall health improvements after switching to Smalls.

And for a limited time only, because you are a Girls Gone Bible listener, you can get 60% off your first Smalls order, plus free shipping.

When you head to smalls.com/slash GGB.

That's 60% off when you head to smalls.com slash GGB plus free shipping.

Again, that's smalls.com slash GGB.

Guys, we're so excited to talk about this book.

All right, we're going to take you through a couple of our favorite chapters.

And we're going to start with chapter one.

Okay.

So the first chapter is called The Truth About Feeling Bound.

Okay, so this entire book, you can tell us about it, but from my understanding, and tell me if you want to elaborate, we live in a world full of lies.

We live in a world where culture and society and the media and the internet and social media are feeding us lies all day long.

Lies about who we are, about who God is, about what Christianity is, about what sex should be like, about whatever everything is a lie.

Anxiety is a lie.

Depression is a lie, like tormenting thoughts, everything, insecurity, self-worth, body image, like these are lies, the things that people deal with.

And you wrote a book about the truth of Jesus and like where you find Jesus in a world full of lies.

So can you just elaborate just like as by and large the book?

Yeah.

I remember having this moment because I

have been, I would say, a believer probably most of my life.

Grew up in a Christian home, you know, saved, love God.

But I found myself, I mean, even just like three or four years ago, where I remember crying and being like, I just want to be free.

Like, I just want to feel free.

Like, why do I not feel free in my mind?

Why do I not feel free in my relationships?

Why do I not feel free?

What lie am I believing right now that's keeping me so bound?

That's keeping me so stuck and wanting God's best and God's more for my life.

And I just remember having that moment.

And I was in the process, I think at that time of writing The Love Everybody Wants, my book on kind of like relationships.

And I had this dream.

I woke up in the middle of the night and I never remember my dreams.

I'm not the person who's like, God spoke to me in the middle of the night.

I pray for that.

I'm like, Lord, I want that, please.

But that just is not like really my life.

I would love for it to be.

But I had this night where I woke up in the middle of the night.

I like wrote something down in a journal, didn't even remember it, woke up the next morning, looked at my journal, and I wrote out the truth everybody needs.

And the book I was writing at the time was called The Love Everybody Wants.

And I just remember sitting with that.

I was like, okay, like the truth everybody needs.

I don't know what that means.

I don't know what that's supposed to be.

And a year later, I ended up starting my podcast, Stay True.

And as I was praying through my third book, I was bouncing through different topics, you know, purity, all kinds of different things, and landed on dare to be true, how to defeat the lies that keep you bound, but find and live out the truth that sets you free.

Because I have seen in my life that there are a lot of forgiving Christians, but there are not a lot of free Christians.

There are a lot of Christians that are feeling so bound, whether it's mental health, whether it's addictions, whether it's the same sin struggle again and again, whether it's believing lies from the enemy, whether it's falling into temptation from the things of this world.

And I found myself in a place of believing lies and trying to strive and perform and maintain this like image and keep up with the rest of the world.

And I finally got to this place where I'm like, if I call myself a follower of Jesus, why am I modeling my life

so based off of the world and like what the world wants from me and is expecting from me?

And

I just, yeah, I just remember having this conversation with Grant.

And I was just like, I just want to be free.

And so I just started praying through that and I just started processing through it.

And I was like, okay, it's only Jesus who can set us free.

But how do you stay free?

Like, there's a lot of people who have had this one time moment of like breaking free.

But then they return back to the same sin or they fall into another sin and they feel bound again.

And so how do you actually stay free?

How do you keep in step with freedom?

How do you live a life of freedom every day to where you're not going back and returning back to the same bondage again and again and again?

And that's what I wanted to write on, because like you, you just said, the enemy is cunning.

The enemy is cunning, but he's he's not creative.

He, he plays the, he runs the same play again and again and again.

And so you look back in Genesis 3 and you see the way that he approached Adam and Eve, the way he approached Eve was he lied.

He questioned God.

He created doubt in her mind.

He caused her to doubt doubt that what God said was really true.

He's the author of confusion.

You see that lie happen at the very, very beginning of time.

But then it says in scripture that everyone born after Adam is born into sin.

So because of Adam and Eve's sin, we've all been born into sin.

So therefore, we fall for the same lies of the enemy again and again and again.

And I just, I just sat on that Genesis 3 and I was like, it's so crazy because the same formula that he used in the garden is the same formula and tactics he uses today.

And I look at our world and our generation today, and we as a generation, just as a generation, have bought so many of his lies, so many of his lies.

My body is my body.

I can do what I want to do with it.

Like, I can do whatever I want to do with my body.

Like, freedom of expression, freedom is found.

And I'm going to follow what I want to follow.

And I'm going to, I'm going to love who I want to love.

I'm going to be who I want to be.

I'm going to, and it's all about self.

It's finding just this, like, I don't even know, freedom, happiness, whatever pleasure, looking within or looking at it, you know, trying to find it in other people or in money.

And I just see that the enemy has been so, um, he's deceived so many of us and he dangles these things that look pleasurable and powerful, but yet when we take the bait, we end up in bondage.

And you see that in our world today.

We are in the great, I mean, the depression, the anxiety, the suicide, the mental illness, the, I mean, the relational tension, the division in our world against, against race, against, I mean, denominations, all kinds of situations happening in our world today.

And what's the foundation of it?

The lies that we're believing.

And so not even as a generation, do we believe lies and as a culture and as a world, but personally.

And so I would ask the person listening or the person watching, like, what lie are you believing right now?

Like, what lie are you believing right now?

If you get really honest with yourself, is it about your looks?

Is it about God?

Is it about a relationship?

Is it about, do you not feel good enough?

Do you feel too far gone?

Like

we

constantly find ourselves believing lies.

And so I wanted to write a book where not only do we call out and confront those lies, like these are the lies that we're up against, but here's the truth.

And here's how we can replace those lies with the truth.

Here's who God is.

And here's what God's word says.

But not not just that it's not enough just to know the truth right you got to follow it daily yeah and it's the truth that sets us free and so how do we walk in that freedom daily how do we stay free and so the book is this like truth and dare type like combination and so the first half of the book is like confronting lies dealing with lies and then the second half of the book is like now let's dare to live it let's dare to live out the truth let's dare to walk in freedom every day um because it's faith and action right It's truth and action.

It's so good.

You know what it comes to, do you know that verse where Jesus is, sorry, give me one second.

I love the topic of truth because we talk about this all the time.

We talk about it all the time in a world.

You have a chapter in the book that talks about your truth, my truth, their truth, our truth, whose truth.

No truth.

Truth is not subjective.

It's not because if truth is subjective, there's no basis.

It's not solid.

Why do you want the foundation of your life to be like flimsy and replaceable and changing rather than to be like on a truly firm foundation?

Scripture, when Jesus says,

are you offended?

I tell you the truth.

I'm not even going to try to go for it because I'm like, I'll probably end up quoting another.

Galatians 4, 16.

Jesus.

Says, so then have I become your enemy because I told you the truth.

Yeah.

Have I become your enemy because I told you the truth?

And And like you are probably so many people's enemy because you've told the truth.

And that's what you've done your whole time on social media, in ministry, speaking, is you've been the enemy a lot of the time for speaking the truth.

And so I don't know, it just comes to me to ask you, what,

what

gives you the confidence, who gives you the confidence to continue telling the truth, knowing that you're going to be somebody's enemy?

Like you sit here with so much conviction and you know that you're going to offend people.

You know it's going to be hard to hear.

How, how?

How do you do it?

Because at the end of the day, I'm going to be face to face with God one day and I'm going to have to give an account for my actions and my words.

And I want my life to be all for him.

And I want to be found.

I want him to be pleased with me.

I want him to be pleased with my life.

And you look at John 18 when Jesus and Pilate are having this conversation.

And this is a part of what inspired this book for me where Pilate looks at Jesus and says, what is truth?

Which is the cry of our world today.

What is truth?

What is true anymore?

What's true about me?

What's true about my sexuality?

What's true about my body?

What's true about eternity?

What's true about God?

Is there a God?

I mean, there's so many of us asking, what is truth?

And I love Jesus' response because we're actually right before that, he says, I was sent to testify to the truth.

And then in John 14, Jesus says, I am the truth.

And so he was sent to testify about himself.

And then when Jesus ascends to heaven, it's like, oh, did truth just disappear?

No, the Spirit descended onto earth and to us.

And so we have the spirit of truth that the role of the Holy Spirit is to point us to the truth.

And that's what's so crazy is when you look at scripture, if you like really study it, and I think too often we like to be honest, like we don't do enough like studying and deep dive into scripture and like really wrestling with things and asking God questions and asking for a spirit of wisdom and revelation to understand the word of God.

We just like turn to honestly to podcasts or books and we don't do enough like inner, you know, like God, reveal it to me.

I want to understand, like, remove the veil from my eyes so that I can see you clearly.

And for me, like, I, I, I, I, I pray that.

Like, I try to remember to pray that every day, like, Lord, when I read your word, give me wisdom and revelation.

I want to know you.

I want to understand this, this book, it's, it's not just a book.

Like, this is the word of God and it's alive and it's active.

And it's, I want it to rebuke me.

Yeah.

I want it to offend me.

Like, I want to be offended by the truth.

And I want to be, I want to be as close to him as possible.

And I want to look like him to this world.

And it talks about in scripture, like, if you are ashamed of me, I'm going to be like, Jesus says, if you're ashamed of me here, I'm going to be ashamed of you in front of my father in heaven.

And so, like, if you're not going to represent me here, if you're too afraid to speak truth here, like that's going to end up costing you something later.

And so for me, knowing that I don't live for the approval of people, I live for an audience of one, my life, just like Jesus, who came here to seek and save the lost and to testify to the truth, that's my role mission.

You know, it's like, I'm here to testify to the truth.

Like that is, I'm not here to live it up, YOLO mindset.

You know, this life is about me.

Let me get as comfortable as possible.

And you're like, well, why?

I've tried that.

I've tried that.

And I write about that in the book.

Like, I've tried to follow the things of this world and find pleasure in relationships and in

pornography and in money and in what I look like and in getting attention and in getting followers.

I've tried those things and I just, I felt bound.

I felt like there was so much more for my life.

But when I, when I turn to truth and when I follow the Lord and I put my faith fully in him and I say, you know what, I don't, I may not understand.

everything.

Like if I get in like some debate with some atheist, they may have some like good points, you know?

And I'm like, I may not be able to like this, be this theology, theology, however you say.

Theologian.

Yes.

And like point you to every single thing.

But what I can say is Jesus Christ has changed my life.

Yeah.

He has absolutely changed my life in every single way.

Like you want peace, Jesus.

You want hope?

Jesus.

You want love?

Jesus.

And so many of us are searching for those things and it can only be found in Jesus.

And it's why we find ourselves stuck in sin or trying to cope with something and numb something.

And then it's this endless cycle.

And then there's shame and then there's isolation.

And then it just keeps going and repeating and it's like but Jesus breaks all of those things off of our life and it doesn't mean that life just magically gets easier it doesn't it doesn't and and and I don't want to ever preach a gospel that says that this is not a prosperity gospel I don't I don't want to preach no prosperity

but it's like but I have found true life in Jesus and and that's what and that's what I would say is like I can preach and I can teach and I can encourage from a place of authority because he's changed my life and because the spirit of God lives in me.

And it's no longer I who live, but he who lives in me.

And I'm not trying to point others to me.

I'm trying to point others to him.

And that's why it was even, I think, so important for me to write this book, even though like I wanted to give up a million times in writing it.

And it was a very, very hard project.

But I just was like, man.

So many of us are bound and we're bound by things that we can't even see.

And we're bound and we don't know why.

And we're bound and we don't know how to get free.

And we're bound bound and we feel hopeless and so i i remember having this moment grant and i moved uh whenever we got married we moved to waco texas and we moved into a home neither of us had owned owned a home before and so we had no idea what we're doing we were like someone should like teach a course on how to own a home because i don't know what i'm doing and we like we had problem after problem like we could not figure out there was like just constantly things going on with our home there was air problems water problems there's just things happening left and right but there was one situation that was the worst because we couldn't figure out what the problem was and it was costing us our health.

Like we were getting really, really sick.

And every time we would step foot into our home, we would feel so sick.

And we were like, what is going on?

And we had, you know, mold specialists come over.

We had, we had all these different people come over to try and figure out what was going on.

And no one could figure out what the problem was.

And so we literally would like go stay.

And this is like two months married.

So we're, everyone would just laugh at us and be like, welcome to marriage.

And I'm like, no, you know, my headache and nausea is not just because I'm married.

I don't know, maybe.

But I was like, no, there's something going on because when we leave our house, like everything's fine.

But when we step back into our house, like something is going on.

And we even went and stayed in a hotel for a couple nights.

And then we came back and we're like, no, like our home is supposed to be our safe place.

We've got to figure out what's going on.

And we had our, we had a plumber come over and I'm like, Grant's like, we got to call the plumber.

And I'm like, what, what are you going to do?

Unclog some toilets.

Like, how is that going to help our situation?

And the plumber comes over and he like pulls out this like beeper thing and he starts like going around the house.

And I'm like, hey, bro, what you doing?

Grant's at work.

So I'm like, I don't know what any of this.

Like, I'm I'm asking, I'm like, I don't even know what your, your job is.

I don't know what this beeper thing is.

And he's like trying to explain to me what he's doing.

He's like, I'm checking for a gas leak.

I'm like, okay.

And so he's going around our house and he's like checking for a gas leak and he gets into the living room close to our fireplace and the thing starts going crazy.

And I was like, what does that mean?

Oh my gosh, are we okay?

And he explained that.

our fireplace had been turned on and we had never like turned it back off.

He was like, how long have you had the fireplace turned on?

And I was like um like since we moved into the house months ago

and he was like oh my gosh well good thing you know you didn't light a candle or else your whole house could have blown up and i was like i light a candle every day in my quiet time i'm like what do you mean and he's like well this is not good do you want me to turn it off for you and i'm like well please turn it off and anyways we had found out that we were doing it all wrong there was like an actual manual thing that you had to like turn on and like turn off but we were just using this like remote control thing to turn it on and off, which you like do, but you also have to like manually go and turn it on.

We learned a lot in that situation.

I say all that to say, the Holy Spirit spoke to me through that because I realized, I was like, just like this gas leak, many of us are living with something that is just slowly killing us.

And the reason we don't, we're not even aware of it is just like the gas, methane gas is odorless.

You can't smell it.

You know, you can't see it.

And so we're living with things that maybe you can't just see immediately or you can't smell immediately, but they're slowly killing us and they're robbing us of the life that God has for us.

And just like the only way that Grant and I were going to be able to get free from that little situation was it took the plumber to come out and turn it off.

And I'm like, in the same way, the only way we're going to be able to break free from the things that are slowly killing us is Jesus Christ.

Not that I'm comparing him to a plumber, but like Jesus Christ is the only one that can set us free from the things that are trying to take us out and kill us.

Wow.

So I have lived this.

I have, I am still learning this book and I'm still daily

having to decide I have to defeat the lies with the truth.

Wow.

Before I ask you the next question, there's so many new believers that listen to our podcast.

And one of the questions we always ask is, where do I start in the Bible?

So where can you encourage a new believer to start in the Bible?

My favorite book of the Bible is the book of John.

I write honestly in this book so much about from the book of John because I love it so much.

I feel like John writes from such a amazing perspective of like Jesus as king,

but also like Jesus as just human.

And it's like it shows both and, but it's the life of Jesus.

And there's, so there's four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

And John is the one gospel that is very different from the other three gospels.

And so so much of John's material is very different from Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

And so if you read those three, you're going to be like, wow, it kind of feels like I'm reading some of the same things, maybe from a little bit of a different perspective.

But John kind of gives a totally different angle and perspective on the life of Jesus.

And it's just, it's beautiful because it's, it's easy to read and understand, yet it's so profound that it will change your life.

And so it's, if you're new in your faith and you're new to the Bible and the Bible feels super overwhelming, I would always say start with Jesus.

Like learn and read about the person of Jesus, because if Jesus is the one that sets us free, then let's learn about him.

Let's read about him.

And, and then I always like to start there.

And then, my next favorite, I would probably say, is the book of Ephesians.

I love Ephesians.

I feel like it's just filled with grace and love and truth and really shows you how to live.

I mean, holy and set apart in the world we're living in today.

I love it.

Thank you.

Okay, if if you know us, you know we love our sleep.

We started joking about recording in bed because our new mattresses are literally that comfortable, and that's thanks to Brooklyn bedding.

Okay, here's the story: we finally ditched our sad, saggy old mattress, and when we unboxed our Brooklyn bedding one, it was a game over.

Legit the best sleep of our lives.

We each got to pick the firmness we wanted, and it's handcrafted in their Arizona factory so you can actually feel the quality.

No middlemen, no gimmicks, just American-made craftsmanship.

They also make mattresses for every sleep style and even have cooling options like Glacio Tex TM covers and copper flex TM foam.

So if you sleep hot, you'll stay cool all night.

And here's something we didn't know.

Brooklyn Bedding is one of the few mattresses brands endorsed by the American Chiropractic Association for Spinal Alignment and Back Health.

Plus, they're 100% fiberglass-free, which gave us serious peace of mind.

We love ours, but don't just take our word for it.

Brooklyn Bedding has been named best mattress by CNET and best hybrid mattress by Wirecut.

Our mattresses are our new favorite thing in our houses, and we want you to try it too.

Go to brooklynbedding.com and use my promo code ggb at checkout to get 30% off site-wide.

This offer is not available anywhere else.

That's brooklynbedding.com and promo code GGB for 30% off site-wide.

Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you.

Brooklynbetting.com promo code GGB.

All right, pop quiz.

What's the second largest organ in your body?

Okay, I'll tell you, it's your liver, and it's out here doing over 500 jobs for you every single day, quietly being the hardest worker in the room.

But here's the problem: over 30% of Americans have a sluggish liver, which basically means a third of us are asking our MVP organ to run a marathon in flip-flops.

And that's why we want you to start using DOS for your liver.

It was designed to support your liver, aid digestion, and keep your body's filter running smoothly.

And the receipts in a double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial dose-lowered liver enzyme levels by 50%

in over 86% of participants, which is science speak for it's actually doing something.

Plus, one shot of dose is 17 shots of turmeric juice, which means my liver is happy and I don't have to chug turmeric like a TikTok wellness dare.

And yes, it's gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, and vegan.

Save 25% off your first month of subscription by going to dosedaily.co/slash GGB or entering GGB at checkout.

That's D-O-S-E-D-A-I-L-Y dot C O slash G G B for 25% off your first month subscription.

Grand Canyon University, a private Christian university in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, believes that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

GCU believes in equal opportunity, and the American dream starts with purpose.

GCU equips you to serve others in ways that promote human flourishing and create a ripple effect of transformation for generations to come.

By honoring your career calling, you impact your family, your friends, and your community.

Change the world for good by putting others before yourself to glorify God.

Whether your pursuit involves a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree, GCU's online on-campus and hybrid learning environments are designed to help you achieve your unique academic, personal, and professional goals.

With over 340 academic programs as of September 2024, GCU meets you where you are and provides a path to help you fulfill your dreams.

The pursuit to serve others is yours.

Let it flourish.

Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University.

Private, Christian, affordable.

Visit gcu.edu.

You teach readers how to identify the voice of the enemy.

You said, the moment you believe the lie, you empower the liar.

The moment you believe the truth, you defeat the lie.

We listen to the lies and accept them as truth.

There is an attack on the mind more than ever.

I believe it starts as when we're kids.

I have battled obsessive compulsive thinking since I was a kid.

And so can you just get into being tormented in the mind?

How do we defeat these lies?

It's like, the best way to describe it for me is like, I have one voice right here and one voice right here.

And it's like, I want to pull out my brain sometimes because I'm being attacked so much since I was a kid and I've been healed so much, but sometimes it does come back.

So can you speak on that?

Yeah, absolutely.

The enemy knows exactly where we're weak and he likes to attack us where we're weak.

And so he knows the right lies to whisper.

How he whispers lies to me is, I'm sure, very different of how he whispers lies to you, how he whispers lies to you and how he whispers lies to every single person listening.

I wish it was all the same.

Like, I wish it was like, you know, we all have dealing with the same line.

We can like defeat it together.

But, you know, he, he's, he is crafty.

Like, he knows how to, you know, try and take R out.

Like, he, he's very aware of maybe your weak spots.

He's very aware of my weak spots and when to attack me when I'm weakest, you know, maybe when I haven't spent as much time in the Bible and reading scripture, or maybe when I,

you know, am really tired and my, my daughter's waking me up all the time and I'm not getting sleep.

And so he starts whispering all these lies to me because I'm already running on little sleep.

So I'm a lot more susceptible to fall for his lies when I'm tired.

And so he knows how to target us.

when we're weakest.

And you see even in Matthew chapter four, when Satan comes to tempt Jesus in the wilderness, and we talked about this on my podcast off of y'all's book, Out of the Wilderness.

But when Satan comes to tempt Jesus in the wilderness, he starts whispering all these lies.

But you see how Jesus responds.

And it says, like, in this moment like jesus is he's weak like i mean jesus is not weak because he's jesus but jesus is weak because he's also human yeah and he was being targeted when he had been fasting for 40 days imagine not eating for 40 days

i am the definition of the snickers commercial i'm like if i don't have food like i'm not myself i'm not me when i'm hungry and so i'm like the enemy knew okay this is when jesus is going to be most tempted like this is when jesus is going to be weak Let me come at him after he's been fasting for 40 days and 40 nights.

And in the same way, he knows when to target us, but you see Jesus's response that every single time, the three times he's hit with a lie, at all three times, Jesus responds with the truth.

Every single time he doesn't, he doesn't engage trying to be like, okay, every single time he just quotes scripture back.

He just, he quotes the word of God to the enemy.

And he's like, no.

And, and, but then you go back to the garden and you go back to Adam and Eve and Satan comes at them three times or Satan comes at Eve three times and whispers these lies.

You know, did God really say

you won't die?

Like that's if you take that fruit, like you won't die.

Um, if you, if you eat this fruit, you'll be like God.

And so you see.

that the first way that the enemy comes is he tries to create confusion and doubt.

He's the first one in scripture that asks a question.

And so he's the author of confusion.

He asks the question, did God really say, are you sure that's really a sin?

Are you sure that's really bad?

I don't, are you sure?

Wow.

And then next, his approach is, you won't, you won't, you won't die.

Like, come on, you won't.

It's sin's not a big deal.

It's not that big of a deal.

And then his next approach is, you'll be like God.

Like there's power if you eat that fruit.

There's pleasure if you eat that fruit.

And so he's not only, you know, making sin seem like it's not a big deal, but he's also speaking to the advantage of sin.

Like if you sin, like you could be like, you could be powerful.

You could get all you ever wanted if you fall for this lie.

And so he, I mean, you got to recognize like he's not coming at Eve with like, you know, a gun.

He's coming at Eve with fruit that looks good.

You know, like he, he always is dangling something that, that looks good.

It's not like he's, he's making it look bad.

He's making it look really good.

And, you know, I just, I see that happen again and again, even in.

with us today, you know, it's like the lies, there's, there's a little bit of truth in it.

And so it can feel like truth.

You know, when he says, you won't die if you eat this fruit.

Well, the reality is, is they didn't actually physically die.

Like they didn't fall over dead in that moment.

And so there was a hint of truth, but something inside died.

And even though Satan came as the tempter, He didn't stay the tempter.

He then turned as the accuser.

So he comes at us and he tempts us.

But then as soon as we fall for the temptation, as soon as we fall for the lie, what ends up happening is we don't gain the power and the pleasure that is promised.

we then fall into shame and then we fall into separation from god and separation from people because we feel like how could i have done that i like i i can't i can never i can't confess this to to other believers because they'll judge me i can't i can't go to god he doesn't i'm so unworthy to be like he doesn't want anything to do for me i'm too far gone and we separate ourselves from god and from other believers because we're so ashamed because we fell for that sin and so it's the same cycle as it starts with satan's lies and then after satan's lies, when we give in and we fall for the lie, it then turns into sin.

And then when it goes from sin, it turns into shame.

And then from shame, it turns into separation from God and people.

And it's the same process again and again and again.

But the second half of that quote that I talked about in the book is when you believe the lie, you empower the liar.

But when you believe the truth, you defeat the lie.

And so the way that we overcome the lies from the enemy is we believe the truth and we speak the truth.

You look that that lie in the face and you say, I hear you, but I choose not to, I reject you in the name of Jesus.

And this is what my God says about me.

This is what God's word says about what real freedom is.

This is what God's word says about real purpose.

This is what God's word says about real identity.

And you, and you speak that in the face of the lie and you choose to believe the truth.

You're going to be faced with those crossroads all the time.

And I'm faced with them daily.

And that's why I said, like, this, this book is still a message for me.

It doesn't matter where you are in your faith journey.

This is a message for anybody because we're going to constantly be whispered lies.

And it's that Romans 12, too of like, don't be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

The only way we can be transformed by the renewing of our mind is to be in the truth and is to be in the word of God and to.

speak to the lie with the truth.

What are some of your favorite scriptures that you speak to yourself when you start to get those thoughts in your mind?

Yeah.

I I mean, I think about Romans 8.

I just memorized Romans 8, like the whole passage, and it was one of the hardest, truly one of the hardest things I'd ever done.

I didn't realize how hard it was going to be, but there's so much power in it.

There's so much power in, obviously, the word of God, but it just speaks to so many different things.

And so it warns you that the mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the spirit is life and peace.

And so when I give in to the cravings of my flesh, those desires, those passionate desires, when I fall for the temptation, when I believe the lie, it's going to lead to death.

But when I choose to cling to the truth, it's going to lead to a life of life and peace.

And so like reminding myself of that, and towards the end of Romans 8, it's so, so powerful.

And I honestly could, could even just like read it, but

over everyone, but it's so good.

It says, like, who, who is the one who, who condemns?

No one.

Who is the one that

can come at you and come against you?

And it's like, no one.

It is God alone who justifies.

And then it goes on to say, like, if God is for you, who can be against you?

Like, who can separate you from the love of Christ?

Can trouble or hardship or famine or persecution?

Can any of these things separate you from the love of Christ?

No, no, because like his love is greater than life or death or trouble or hardship or any of these things, like angels or demons, or it literally goes on to give this crazy list that nothing, literally nothing can separate us from the love of God.

So when I have a moment of feeling unworthy, like God couldn't love you, I turn to Romans 8 and I'm like, actually God's word says that nothing can separate me from the love of God yeah and when I feel ashamed because of something that I've done or something that was done to me I say no actually Romans 8 1 says that therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus when I feel tormented in my mind I remind myself okay if I give in to the things of this world if I give in to the lies of the enemy it's going to lead to death Maddie but if you trust that God's word is true that he is for you and that he is where life is found then I'm going to choose right now to submit my mind to Jesus.

I'm going to choose to submit my mind to the Holy Spirit because I know that's where life and peace is found.

So good.

And so I would say like more than even reading scripture, what I would even challenge every single person listening is.

memorize scripture.

Yeah.

Study it, meditate on it and memorize it.

And it's not, it's not for like the Bible scholars.

It's not for like the Bible teachers.

I promise you, I have the worst memory.

I wish I had a better memory.

And I shouldn't speak that over myself,

I have been transformed by the word of God and by memorizing scripture because you can't defeat it.

Like, say you're in a moment, you don't have the Bible on you, or you don't have your phone on you, and you're too weak.

If you don't have the word of God written on your heart, you're going to fall for the lie every single time.

So God, you've got to have it written on your heart.

You've got to have it in your mind so that you can renew your mind with that truth again and again.

and again because it's going to the lies are going to keep coming so good maddie could listen to you all day

you also say in the chapter, you say we listen to lies and accept them as truth.

And I think that's something that's so unbelievably profound to say because it's so important.

I even look at my own life and R, I think you're like this too.

Sometimes, especially if you deal with anxiety, if you deal with OCD, if you deal, if you, if you're even like one degree on the side of someone who overthinks, you can get stuck in loops.

Totally.

But you can get so used to these these loops you can get so used to these thoughts that you actually don't you're so desensitized to them you're not even aware that they're happening anymore so we're being fed lies all day all day and but you're not even noticing it anymore and now you're just letting it happen and you're letting satan literally run rampant in your mind speaking over and over and over again and just letting it happen and accepting it as truth and you just allow it and just say like this is my reality this is how my brain works but god is so intentional when he tells us, like, we're supposed to think about things in heaven.

We're supposed to have thoughts that are like pleasing and uplifting and beautiful and lovely.

And so I encourage everybody and myself and you that like when we're sitting here and we're in a loop, like we have to be aware and conscious of what's going on in our heads.

We cannot sit here and be like, I'm just anxious.

No, what are you thinking?

Analyze your thoughts.

I was struggling yesterday a little bit and I'm sitting in my room and it's like an hour has gone by where I'm on my phone and I'm just like purposely trying to numb out to the fact that like I'm believing so many things that are not healthy and they're not even real and I'm just letting it take place in my mind until finally I literally felt wake up.

And I think that's the message for everybody.

Wake up.

Our reality is not like we cannot be sitting here just letting Satan have control over our minds and just letting it take place.

There is an urgency that needs to take place.

Like we do have to be aware.

It is a battle 24 hours a day and Jesus is love and light and peace.

And there's a battle taking place and we have to fight and we have the tools to fight and we have scripture, but like we cannot sit here and just allow Satan to do whatever he wants in our minds.

So I love that you write that we listen to the lies and we accept them as truth and we just accept it.

So many of us.

It's crazy.

That's such a powerful, I love that you're you're speaking to that because I think we often want, we want something that's immediate.

We want something to just like go away immediately, but with the Lord, it's, it's in life, like it's always a process.

And it's, and what I love about that is

there's, it's, it creates such dependence in our hearts when we have to cling to Jesus, when we're like, I'm desperate for you and I'm desperate for the things of God.

And the reality is, is if Jesus is truth, you also look at, so it says in John 14, 6, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

Well, John 8, 44, Jesus is describing Satan and he says he is a liar.

He is the father of lies.

He knows no truth.

He has no truth in him, which means that literally Jesus is truth and Satan is lie.

He's liar.

He doesn't know how to speak truth.

Every time he speaks, he's speaking a lie.

And so every time we have those thoughts, it's having a moment.

I think so often we just, we don't, we don't take inventory, you know, we just, we just let them go.

We just, it's like, oh, this is what I'm thinking.

This is what I'm thinking.

It's like, you, you have, there's so much power over you.

You have so much more authority than you think you do.

Like your mind doesn't have to just lead you and control you.

You get to tell your mind.

Like, what are you talking to you more than anybody else?

What are you talking to you about?

Like, are you talking to you about the word of God?

It's like when those thoughts come, you may not be able to, you can't control when the lies hit you.

You can't, like they're coming, they're coming always, but you can control whether you choose to believe them and listen to them and run with them.

That's where we, we have that decision right there at that crossroads moment.

It's like, okay, when I get hit with a thought of like, Maddie, you're not good enough.

No matter how hard you try and you strive and you do, you'll never be good enough.

I get hit with that lie all the time.

When that lie comes, I have

a choice right there, you know?

And am I perfect?

And the choice is to like always choose truth and speak scripture, no, yeah.

And there are many moments where I'm not strong enough, so I have to have people of God around me to say, Hey, I'm believing a lie right now, exactly.

And that's where confession is so powerful because we talked about this yesterday.

But the way you kill shame and the way you kill lies is you bring it into the light and you confess it.

And so you say, Hey, right now, Lord Jesus, first of all, I repent that I'm believing a lie right now.

I repent that I'm believing what Satan says about me over what you say about me.

I repent that I'm believing what culture says is good over what you say is good.

Will you please forgive me?

But also going to a sister in Christ for me to say, hey, I'm believing a lie right now.

And I honestly, I don't have the strength to like cling to truth.

I just don't.

Like I am so weak right now.

I feel so beat down right now.

These lies feel like truth and I don't know how, I don't know how to get out of this.

And to have like someone like you guys and and to have women around me to look at me and say, okay, let's pray.

Let's pray.

And let's pray the word of God over you.

And let's pray for you to set your mind on things above and not on earthly things.

Let's pray for you to have the mind of Christ.

Let's pray for your mind to be renewed by the truth.

Let's pray for you to recognize that what God says about you is true.

And

he is the God of good gifts.

Every good and perfect gift comes from him.

And he doesn't change like the shifting shadows.

The enemy tries to come in to steal, kill, and destroy, but he comes to give you life.

And to have people around you that can quote scripture like that over you and pray for you and encourage you is so important because we're all going to have moments.

Every single one of us, I don't care how strong you are.

I don't care how much you know the Bible.

You're going to have a moment where you can't, you can't do it on your own and you weren't meant to.

Every single person in scripture, every single character of the Bible, you see the importance of like they're doing life together.

Even when it talks about it in Acts, again and again and again, it's talking about the church and it's saying one another.

It's saying together.

It's It's saying we, it's saying us.

And so it's just, again, it's, it's, it's a, it's a togetherness.

We can't defeat the lies on our own.

And the enemy has so much more power when we're isolated and when we keep things in the dark.

He has a heyday when we keep things in the dark and when we just let it live rent free in our minds.

You've got to bring it into the light and confession to Jesus, but also in confession to one another and to ask for people to pray for you.

It says in James 5, 16 that when we confess to our friends who believe in Jesus and they pray for us, that's where we experience healing.

That's where we start experiencing freedom.

And so the importance of when those lies come is I've seen for me in those moments that knowing scripture and speaking scripture out loud, literally out loud over my mind is so powerful.

And then I would say the next, the next thing to that outside of speaking scripture and praying is turning to a friend and saying, like, I just, I can't, like, I'm believing this lie right now.

And I need to confess that.

And I need your prayers.

Yeah.

Thank you for talking about that.

I was just going to ask you to talk about that.

That's amazing.

So good.

In chapter six, it's called your sixth chapter of the book is called The Truth About Shame.

And this is a really vulnerable chapter for you.

And so I kind of want you to just tell us a little bit about what you wrote about, what it was like.

And one of my favorite quotes from this chapter is, you said, the enemy wants to define you by your scars.

Jesus already defined you by his scars.

So could you just take us through chapter six a little bit?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I open up in the book about my struggle with pornography and masturbation and how I grew up in a Christian home.

And so I knew what was right and I knew what, you know, what I was.

supposed to do and what made God happy and all the religious things.

And in middle school, I was exposed to pornography and it just, it had a stronghold on my life.

And it became such a dependence.

It became such an outlet.

It became an addiction.

And I didn't know how to break free from that.

And what happened was it led to so much shame.

And so I was dealing with that sin in secrecy and wondering why I couldn't find freedom.

And I didn't know if freedom was possible because I literally, like the hardest part was I loved Jesus a lot.

Like I really loved Jesus, but I was stuck in this secret sin that no one knew about.

And I didn't know how to shake it.

I didn't know how to get free from it and and I would feel so bad I would feel so dirty like every single time I would fall for it I just remember immediately after I just was like Maddie how could you do that yeah how could you call yourself a Christian like how could you act like you you represent God when you're struggling with this and nobody knows about it like that's no no girl struggles with that Maddie I mean all of these lies just plaguing my mind and what happens was because I wasn't confessing it and bringing other people into into it, it just continued.

The sin and the shame continued for a long time.

And it wasn't until college where I finally hit a point where I found a girl, a friend, and I said, hey, I'm struggling with pornography and masturbation.

And I need to confess that.

I've never said those words out loud.

And I'm honestly like shaking saying it.

And I feel so unworthy to be loved by God.

I feel so unworthy to be like representing God and calling myself a believer.

But I know that until I get free from this, like it's going to have a hold on my life and I'm not going to be able to have the relationship with God that I want to have.

And it wasn't literally what's crazy is the enemy will be like, if you confess that, they're going to judge you.

They're going to think differently of you.

You're never, you're going to be so ashamed.

Like it's so crazy how he twists truth.

And so I was so afraid to confess that.

But what's wild is as soon as I brought it into the light, it was like the chains fell off.

Seriously, as soon as, because I had confessed it to God multiple times, like every single time I had fallen for that sin, I said, God, I'm sorry.

Like I won't do it again.

I won't do it again.

I can do this.

I'm strong enough.

I can defeat this.

I can overcome this.

I had had this thing with God for a long time, for years, but it wasn't until I confessed it to a sister in Christ and I said,

This is something I'm dealing with.

And I've kept it in the dark for so long.

And I'm bringing it into the light because I believe that when I confess this shame and I confess this sin, that there's power in confession.

And as soon as I did, it was so crazy because it literally felt like the yoke fell off.

And I'm not saying that the temptation never came back.

It 100% did.

But the chains just broke.

And she prayed for me.

And then she looked at me and she was like, you know what?

I've struggled with that too.

Wow.

And I was like, other

people struggle with this?

Because now, I mean, people talk about this a little bit more openly, but at the time,

no one talked, especially a female.

It was like a thing where like men, you know, the male pastors would get on the stage and talk like, men, we got to overcome a spirit of lust, you know, we got to defeat that temptation.

No female was talking about it.

And so I felt so dirty.

I felt so ashamed of my sin struggle.

And I didn't know how to

break free from it.

Like I felt so hopeless in it.

And it really took that confession and bringing it into the light.

And what's so crazy is, you know, our shame tries to, you know, make us run from God.

You know, we feel so ashamed.

So we want to hide ourselves.

You see that in with Adam and Eve in the garden.

What happened right after they fell for the sin?

Well, they, they hid themselves from God and then they covered up with the leaves.

And so they literally felt shame and they had never known it.

Like what's so crazy, one of the most powerful verses in scripture that we don't talk about enough is in Genesis 2, where it says, like, they were naked and unashamed.

Like they never knew shame when God had created them and they were made perfect in his.

And then as soon as they fell for sin, they experienced shame for the first time.

And since then, it's the same process.

When we fall into sin, we then experience shame and we hide ourselves.

We cover up from people and from God.

And that's what I saw happening in my life.

But as soon as I realized, I was like, man, what's so beautiful?

And again, this is in Genesis 3, not to just like keep going back to that, but it's again, it's the same process today.

But what happens is, is Jesus or God came after them and he goes, where are you?

Like he comes searching for them.

And we're like, man, no, God would never want me.

I'm too far gone.

I'm too dirty.

I've got to hide from him.

God came searching for them.

He came searching for them.

And Jesus came and he died on the cross and he took on our sin and our shame and he became sin so that in him we could be made righteous.

And

that's the gospel that the devil don't want us to know.

That's the gospel that the devil is so afraid for us to actually understand and believe.

Because the thing about shame is it may cause us to separate ourselves from God, but it doesn't cause God to separate himself from us.

God comes, he comes searching for us.

He comes running after us.

He wants us.

And there is no sin.

There is no shame that is too far for his hand to reach out and grab you and pull you in and embrace you and love you and say, you are my daughter.

You are my son.

And I love you.

And I want a relationship with you.

and that sin that's keeping you in bondage.

I have so much more for you.

Like I have, I made you for this life of freedom and my word, you obeying my word that the world wants to say is, is like you're being stripped of freedom.

No, when you obey the word of God, you find real freedom.

So good.

Because freedom is not in doing whatever you want to do.

Freedom is in submitting to the one who created you because only in him can you find life and only in following him do you experience the life and the peace that you were made for.

And it says in Ecclesiastes 3 that God has put eternity on all of our hearts.

And so we can try and grasp for the things in this world and we can try and fill our souls with that, but we're going to continue to be left empty.

And just like Jesus met the woman at the well in John chapter 4, and he says, hey, you're coming back to this well and you're trying to get this water.

And again and again and again, you're going to find yourself coming back to the same place because you know what happens?

This water runs out.

That's right.

This water is going to run out.

But you know what?

The thing about me is I'm the living water.

And with me, it never runs out.

You find everything you're looking for when you come to me.

And that's what I can say about my life is I was grasping for these things and coming back again and again and again, even with pornography and masturbation.

It's like I was going for it again and again, looking for something that I'm like, it's not satisfying.

Maybe for a second,

it satisfies for a second, but then there's shame.

And then there's, then I feel condemnation.

And then I feel, you know, and it just creates all these things.

But every single time I chose to pursue purity and I chose to obey the word of God is when I actually felt free and when I actually found purpose.

Can I just stay on this for one second?

Just because we have so many people wanting to know about masturbation.

It's a really touchy subject.

Some people say, if I don't have thoughts, it's okay.

Can you just clear up the masturbation?

There's so much confusion.

There's confusion around it.

Can you speak on it?

Even amongst leadership.

Oh, totally.

Yeah.

I know.

I know.

And what's hard is: are there gray areas of Christianity?

Absolutely.

Are there things that aren't just so explicit in the Word of God that sure you could justify here and there?

I think for me, where I land is when the Word of God is talking about flee from sexual immorality.

All other sins a person commits is outside of the body, but he who sins sexually commits a sin against his own body.

For me, it's like getting myself worked up like that and causing myself to orgasm and experience this

thing that was only meant to be experienced in the context of marriage is, it's like, why?

Like, I'm creating soul ties with something, whether it's my hand, whether it's a screen, whether it's a steamy romance novel, whether it's someone I'm dating, I'm creating an attachment because an orgasm is meant to create unity.

That's why it was created for sex within marriage.

It creates a union between you and your spouse.

But what happens is when you do that outside of marriage and you take what God meant for good and you fall for the lie of the enemy and you use it for bad, then it creates all of this shame and soul ties and division and confusion and all of these things that we were never meant to experience.

And I think like.

The whole idea of you can be, I'm like, I don't know.

I don't know if it's actually possible to masturbate to like thinking about holy things.

I mean, I would be, I would go as far as say as it's not possible.

I don't know that I could say that I could sit, I could go masturbate and like actually think about the holiest things.

Now, I don't know, there's some arguments out there about in the context of marriage, if you're thinking about your spouse.

I just think you're, you're giving the enemy a foothold.

And I think when you open up that door and you, and you start feeling those feelings and you realize you can do that to yourself, and it's like, then why would you do it in the context of marriage?

If you're opening up that door, it's just going to open up doors to sin in so many other areas.

And so for me, I don't think the question is, is how close to sin can I get?

I think the question is, is how close to holiness and God can I get?

I want to glorify him with my life.

I want to glorify him with my body.

It says in the word of God that our body is not our own.

We are temples of the Holy Spirit.

If the Holy Spirit is living in me, I can't in good conscience go and masturbate saying like, this is holy unto God.

I'm like, for me,

That was and this is again, this is not to speak shame against anyone if that's been your story up until this point because like I've just admitted that was a part of my story.

And that was something I had to overcome.

And realizing that every time I fell for that, it didn't lead me closer to Jesus.

You know, it led me into sin and it led me further away from him.

And I couldn't, I didn't feel holy.

I felt shame.

I felt dirty.

And so, yeah, I would just say that

anything that's not, scripture is clear, anything that's not done in faith is a sin.

And so if you think that masturbating is like faith for you and like good good and like leading you to God, I would love to have a conversation with you and let's just talk about it.

But I think for me personally, when I read the word of God, I can't in good conscience say that, you know, masturbate.

And that's something that Grant and I have talked about because we have heard from even other pastors say that in marriage, you know, if you're away from each other and you don't want to, you know, go look up something and masturbate to something online, then you can just think about your spouse and masturbate.

And Grant and I have talked about it.

And we're like, listen, no, like, let's not give the enemy a foothold.

I don't, I don't, there's no reason we should be opening up the doorway in that area of our life.

Like, we want to experience an orgasm in the way in which God created it.

And so I just believe that God is, he's just the inventor of all things good.

And when we do things God's way, it doesn't lead to shame and division.

It leads to unity, love, peace, holiness, and everything good.

And everything of God.

Beautiful.

And I think you have to focus on, we, we so often focus on the defensive side of purity of like, just don't do that.

That's bad.

That's bad.

That's bad.

And I think, yes, that maybe is a part of it.

Yes, flee from sexual sin, flee from sexual immorality.

But at the same time, there's also a pursuit side of things.

It's like, but also pursue love, pursue righteousness, pursue holiness.

It's an offense and a defense.

It's when you pursue the things of God, you begin to hate the things that are not of God.

When you pursue righteousness and when you pursue holiness, you are so disgusted by the things things that are not holy.

And when you fall for it, you immediately have a conviction and you repent and you're like, I want nothing to do with that because that was not good and it wasn't you and it didn't lead me closer to you.

And so, Lord, forgive me.

And so, that's, you know, that's what I would say.

Again, I can't, can I point you to a verse that's like, do not masturbate.

And I think that's what a lot of people want.

But I do think that scripture is very, very clear about sexual immorality.

And that is a part of sexual immorality.

That is a part of sexual sin.

And so when it talks about it, it doesn't just mean sex.

It means all sexual sin.

So good.

And I would just encourage anybody that's listening, if it's something that you continuously have to ask and seek out and wonder, you probably just shouldn't do it.

Like, I know that.

opening my Bible and reading it is good for me and I never doubt it.

If there's something that you're constantly on the fence about, I would just opt out of it because for what?

Like I think that's a telling sign.

If you're constantly wrestling like, God, can I?

But why not, God?

but i don't know this person said i can it's just like it that's a really telling sign that you could just like go the other way 100 and so we also need to be careful um to justify things in our life based on the leadership based on other people we're not following people we're meant to be influenced by holy godly righteous people but like they're still not the people we're supposed to follow we follow jesus

I love Michael Koulianos.

I don't follow Michael Kulianos.

I follow Jesus, you know?

The whole time in this book, you speak about truth.

And the reason why you're able to live by God's truth is because you have a heart that's humble enough to seek it.

And the reason why so many people don't live by truth is because they're not, they don't have the humility in their hearts to like truly seek.

When you seek the truth, you have to be okay with whatever the answer is.

And that's when God actually like deposits truth in you is when you're open to it.

Because so many of us like say, we want, for me personally, I want, I want the truth, God, but then I didn't like the answer I think so many of us want

we kind of customize Jesus into being the God we want him to be instead of seeing him as Lord and master of our life and submitting to him and obeying his word and the way it talks about in John 8 32

if you are truly my disciples you will obey me If you are truly my disciples, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

The only way we find freedom is when we know the truth and we follow the truth.

It's It's not, it can't just be head knowledge.

It's got to be life transformation.

It can't just stay as something we read.

It talks about in James, don't just be a hearer of the word, be a doer of the word.

And so for us to follow Jesus, it's self-denial.

It's dying to self.

And

it does cost you something.

It costs you comfort.

It costs you those lustful desires.

It costs you what the rest of the world is chasing after and doing.

It costs you those things.

But what may feel like a cost actually ends up being the greatest gain of your whole entire life.

And when we keep our eyes on eternity and know that I might have to turn down some temporary pleasures here, but I'm not living for here.

I know heaven is my home.

And so I'm running for a crown.

I'm living for a crown that's never going to fade.

I'm living for a true reward and true riches that I'm going to have in heaven one day.

I'm living for a kingdom that is everlasting.

And when we keep our eyes on eternity, it totally, I love that you said, like, we're asking the wrong questions because it's so true.

Even when you read Hebrews 12, where it talks about throw off the sin, throw off the weights that so easily entangle and run the race that is marked out for you.

Fixing your eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of your faith.

How do we run the race?

How do we throw off that?

We fix our eyes on Jesus.

He's the prize, but we have to throw off.

That is a action, you know, like that's something we have to do.

The sin's going to come.

It's going to try to entangle itself.

The weights are going to come.

They're going to try and entangle themselves.

You have to throw it off in order to run the race that God has for your life.

So many of us are asking, what is the will of God for my life?

I want to know the will of God for my life.

It talks about it again and again and again again scripture.

It's like, you want to know the will of God?

His will is for you to be sanctified and holy.

His will is for you to live a life of purity.

His will is for you to obey his commands.

And we just, we want God to come into our life and say, like, God, I invite you into my heart.

Now I'm going to live how I want to live and I want you to bless it.

No.

And it's one of the most terrifying, yeah, like one of the most terrifying verses in scripture is when Jesus says, I never knew you.

Yeah.

I never knew you.

But Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name.

Lord, Lord, we did all of these things in your name.

And he says, I never knew you.

Because you can have a really good looking resume.

You can look really good on the outside.

You can have all these things.

You can have a microphone.

You can have a podcast.

You can have all these things.

If your heart is not pure, if your heart is not submitted to God, if you haven't gotten to a place where he is the king of your heart, he is on the throne of your heart.

He is Lord of your life.

Because here's the thing.

We live, and you kind of spoke to this at the beginning.

of just this desire for relatability in our in our world and our generation today.

I haven't really talked about this much, but I think it's really important.

We're at a crossroads here in our world where we want Jesus to be our best friend, and that's great.

Jesus is my best friend,

but we haven't made Jesus our Lord.

And there's a difference, you know?

And everybody wants to be besties with Jesus.

But like, do you fear God?

Like, do you, do you submit to him?

Do you say, Lord, it is no longer I who live, but you who lives in me?

I'm dying to myself.

And I, I want you to lead my life.

I want you to receive glory.

I don't want to receive the glory.

I want you to receive the glory.

And I want to live my life knowing that one day I'm going to be face to face with you.

And when I get, when I get to heaven, I don't think you're going to be like, man, Maddie, you did so good when you preached that message.

Like, man, Maddie, like, look at all the followers you gained.

I think you're going to be pleased with me when you're like, you loved your neighbor so well.

Like, you shared the gospel with that barista.

Like you, you, you chose to lay your life down and you chose to serve others humbly and love and you chose to be countercultural and to be undefiled and to be uncorrupted and not conform to what everybody else was doing, but you chose to pursue humility and purity and holiness.

And it says, you know, that broad, wide is the road that leads to destruction, but narrow is the road that leads to life.

There's a lot of people, a lot of people that are on this road that are leading to destruction and and not a lot of people that are willing to to go against the grain and to really live a life of holiness and purity and and to be fully submitted to the lord because it comes at a cost yeah it comes at a cost

i was grieving the other day i have so many unbelievers in my life but they pray to god and they're praying to god why is he he brought me this i go do you even know him

do you even say what i want to know you that's that's the problem with

my heart i prayed the other day i'm like please jesus these people are living in such ignorance just what you said they want to do whatever they want but then they want to pray to jesus i'm like you don't even know him you don't know anything about him but you're asking him for all these things and to bless you it's I'm just like, wake up, you know, it grieves my heart so much.

So thank you for talking about that.

People needed to hear that.

So many people just don't know.

It's so crazy.

And people don't know though because they've been like the culture.

It's the cultural

Christianity.

What grieves me so much is people have no idea.

They're, they're begging God for help in all of the chaos in their lives, but not knowing that if they would just serve him and actually step into the will of God, all the chaos would stop.

Yeah.

That's where, that's, that's what.

living like a life of peace is is when you're following Jesus.

It's only in obeying and following that the chaos just that's what people are living in, just so much chaos.

And they don't know that he's not just there to answer your prayers.

And he does.

He's that gracious and that good and that patient that he will answer your prayers.

He did mine.

I was living that way for so long where I was just like, do all these things for me.

Thanks.

And that's, that's the extent of it.

But yeah, I love that you said that, R.

Yeah.

And James 1 talks about that.

Like, he, he wants us to pray.

He wants us to ask for radical things.

He wants us to ask for

miracles and deliverance, all of these things.

Okay.

But it says in James 1,

James is very, oh, he speaks the truth.

Wait, the other day, John goes, have you read James recently?

And I was like, what is that supposed to be trying to say?

Well, if you want to join me, I'm memorizing James right now.

The other day, he told me I have to be above reproach.

I said, if you weaponize scripture,

you're like, don't you know my girls going Bible?

I know my Bible.

You want to get in a scripture war?

No,

I'm memorizing James 1 right now, and it's so convicting because it says, if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God who gives generously without finding fault.

But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt because whoever doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind.

And then it goes on to say that person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord because it says such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

Because here's the thing, we can't come before God and ask for something in faith, but also in lack of faith.

Like, you can't have this like double-mindedness of like, God, I'm asking for you to change my circumstances, but actually, I don't know if you actually will.

Like, God, I want these things from you, but I'm not actually going to serve you.

Like, God, I want you to give me this, but I'm not going to actually submit to you.

Like, we should not expect to receive anything from the Lord if we're approaching at it.

He's not a genie in the bottle.

He is a God to be worshipped.

He is a God worthy of our worship.

He is a God to be served.

And he's worth worshiping and he's worth following because he saved us.

And

it's like, I love what you guys are saying because it is so true.

We,

God was not made for us.

We were made for God.

We were made to worship God.

We were made to know God.

We were made to depend on God.

And so often we have it flipped like, God, you, you were made for me.

Like, I need this.

God, hey, I need you to change this.

I need you to fix this.

I need you to do, like, aren't you God?

Can't you do it?

Oh, if you can't do it, then maybe you're not God.

Maybe, and it's like, we were made for God.

We were made from God and for God to worship God, to honor God, to be known by him, to make him known to other people.

And we can't get it twisted or we're going to live our life constantly in confusion and constantly in doubt.

Because then when he doesn't come through, then immediately we're like, well, God, see, maybe you're not God.

Like, that's why I don't trust you.

You didn't come through for me.

It's like, that's not how it works.

He says in this world, we're going to have trouble.

Like he promises us that even as believers and Christians, there's going to be persecution.

But the reason that we can lean on him and keep our eyes on him and not grow weary in doing good and stay true and stay faithful is because we're not living for the here and now.

We're living for eternity.

We're living for heaven.

And that's the way.

like I've been able to go through really, really hard things is I'm like, you know what?

No matter what comes in this life, even if he doesn't change my circumstances, I get to hold on to hope knowing that heaven is my home.

I get to hold on to hope knowing that there is a day coming where I will never cry again.

There is a day coming where I will never have anxiety again.

There is a day coming where there will be no more relational tension.

There is a day coming where there will be no more angst and anger and lust and fear.

There is a day coming where I get to hope that my tears will be dried up and that there will be everlasting joy.

And it says in Psalm 16, 11, that in his presence there is fullness of joy and eternal pleasures at his right hand that is what is promised to believers that is what is promised for etern in eternity with him and so you know we we we kind of see heaven i think we we like fear eternity it's like heaven kind of is like scary to a lot of people it's like what are we just going to be like these you know babies and diapers like floating around doing nothing for all of eternity like that freaks people out Heaven is going to be the greatest party of all time in the best way.

Are we going to hang out in heaven?

I'm sorry.

I just pictured all of us in diapers floating around clouds.

And then I'm on the cloud in my diaper.

And I'm like, can you take a photo of me real quick?

Hopefully, we're in Reformation dresses on clouds.

What are we going to be wearing?

We are going to be clothed in white and we're going to be worshiping and we're going to be experiencing joy like we've never known.

I know.

And it's going to be the best ever.

Like we, we have only the happiest we've ever been here is in dull in comparison to what we're going to experience in heaven.

Thank you, Jesus.

It's the lowest of the lows of like, it's just, we can't even comprehend how incredible heaven's going to be.

But I think on the flip side of that, you know, in the songs that we

listen to today and all the things out there, it's like, hell's one big party.

Hell's a good time.

Hell's not that bad.

No, listen,

hell is to be feared.

God's wrath is to be feared.

Like, that is not something you want to play around with.

It's legit.

That's right, sis.

It's it's legit

for the love of god will you stop saying because i started saying sis recently and i can't stop

like at least four times since you've been there

that's amazing mans i love you you're insane you are insane

i'm sorry okay we do have to wrap up because it's 1234.

i am rocked I am rocked by what you just said, the scripture, about how, what was it again?

The sand being on the sand.

Yeah, just being thrown thrown around back and forth.

They're double-minded and you're doubtful and somebody who asks for things on one hand and then doubts God on the other.

And like, I just think of like literally so many people in my life that I know who are believing and asking for things, but then are like, but I don't believe.

I don't, I don't really, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

It's just.

It's crazy.

I'm seeing it so much in this moment where I'm like, oh my gosh, my heart for every person watching is like that scripture that says the prayers of a righteous person avail much, like the person who lives righteous, the person who lives right, the person who lives pure, like your prayers, like there is something to it.

God does not favor, you know, it's not that he's going to favor you more than another person because you're more pure, you're more righteous, but there is something scripturally to living a righteous life that like you just place yourself in alliance with God.

You place yourself in the will of God.

And so it's just so crazy.

So anybody listening who, if you're living in chaos chaos and you're living double-minded and you're living with so much doubt in your heart and you're like that scripture that Maddie talked about, that you're just thrown around back and forth.

You believe one second and then you don't the next.

Like you just, you have to, you have to like look at the word of God and you have to say to yourself, I want to believe this completely with all of my heart.

Even the parts that I don't understand.

We can't believe half, one foot in, one foot out.

Like you can't have half belief and half doubt.

Like you have to just, even the parts of the Bible that you don't agree with, that like from your human understanding, from where you're at, from your background, from where you come from, like for me, where I came from and what I knew and what I was doing, I did not understand parts of the Bible.

And it

inhibited my life so much for what?

Until I finally said, you know what?

I'm going to believe all of this at face value for what it is.

Even if I don't fully understand, even if I don't actually agree.

I didn't fully agree about modesty stuff because because I didn't know.

But once I took a step of faith and obedience, even like that wasn't restricted to my own understanding at that point, true faith in my heart followed.

It did.

And so, yeah, that's what, if you're just living in all this chaos, just know that like.

if we truly submit to the word when we don't fully understand, your heart will follow.

Yeah.

You know?

And that's what faith is.

I love when you said that even through your doubt, in my journey, I had doubts.

I was so new, but you keep showing up.

You keep reading.

You keep fighting for community.

You keep going.

That's what faith is.

And I love that you touched on that.

And you pray that's where

there's this story in the Bible where this man and Jesus are having this conversation.

And

he says to Jesus, he says, help my unbelief.

Yeah.

Like, help me.

Like, I want to believe.

I want to have faith and help me for any area of my life.

life where there is doubt.

And that's a beautiful prayer to pray.

And God sees the purity of our hearts when we pray that because it's, there's a difference when we don't want to be submitted to him and we want to live our own way, but yet we want things from him.

We can't bless that.

But when we come to him humbly and say, you are Lord, you are God, I may not understand everything, but I trust you to be sovereign and help me where I lack faith.

Help me where I have unbelief.

I want to trust you.

I want to lean on you.

I have those moments so much.

I don't have this like radical special, like, no, like I have so many moments where I'm like, God, help me.

Help me believe.

I want to believe your word is true.

I want to believe that you've got this.

And I know that right now I have a little bit of fear.

And I know right now I have a little bit of unbelief.

Help my unbelief.

Yeah.

And praying that prayer does so much to your heart.

And I just, I want to say this.

I know we have to wrap up, but I want to say something that's so beautiful about following Jesus and why Christianity is so much different than every other religion is that

God loved us so much that He came to us.

He came to us.

He, He, He made the effort and he came down to us and he took on all of it and he died so that in him we could live and we could be made alive.

Every other religion says, work your way to God, go to God.

Hopefully your good works will get you there.

Hopefully you can be enough.

Good luck.

Hopefully if you do the right things, if you say the right chance, if you pray as many prayers as you're supposed to pray this many times a day in this thing and wearing this and doing this, and it's all of these rules, it's all of these religions.

And Jesus came down and he said, no, it's all about relationship.

All you have to do is follow me.

And people want to say, Christianity, it's so exclusive.

It's so exclusive.

No, Jesus literally says, anyone who wants to follow me, anyone.

So the addict, the sexually immoral, the drunkard,

the prostitute, the one who was born in a rough family life, the one who looks in the mirror and hates herself, the one who starves herself, the one who cuts herself.

Doesn't matter who you are or what your past has been.

Jesus is saying, you, you can follow me and I will change everything about your life.

I will show you the truth and I will give you a new life.

I will make you a new creation.

The old is gone.

The new is here.

There's hope in me.

Christianity is not exclusive.

It's open to everyone.

The invitation is open to everyone.

You can make that decision right here, right now, listening to this podcast.

But here's the thing, it's open to all of us, but it's up to us to accept the invitation.

He doesn't make us follow him.

He doesn't make us believe him and believe in him.

We have a choice.

He didn't make robots.

He wants a relationship with them.

And he wants us to have a relationship with him and to give it all up for him because it's in him that we find true life and freedom.

Can you lead them to the Lord?

Oh my gosh.

Oh shit.

Yes, I can.

My alarm just went off.

Hello.

Father God, I thank you for every single person.

who is listening to this podcast right now.

Lord, I thank you that this is not accidental.

You were so intentional.

You are so good.

There's a reason that they watched this episode of Girls Gone Bible.

There's so many episodes.

They watched this one, Lord.

There's a reason for it.

And you want to speak something to them right now.

You are drawing near to them right now.

And there is an enemy that is after them who has come to steal, kill, and destroy.

There is an enemy that has been accusing them day and night, saying, you are in filthy rags.

You are too far gone.

There is no hope for your life.

You will never be happy again.

But

am so grateful, Lord, that you take on our filthy rags.

You became sin so that in you we could be made righteous.

And instead,

you put on us robes of righteousness.

You clothe us in white and in purity.

You give us hope, Lord.

In you, there's hope.

And so no matter what they are going through, I pray right now you would reveal yourself.

Whatever has kept them blind and kept them from seeing you, I pray that right now in this moment, they would see you clearly.

That whatever whatever lies, Lord, have been filling their minds, I pray right now you would expose those lies and you would lead them into the truth.

And I pray for every person who wants to make a decision.

Okay, maybe I, maybe I've gotten this whole thing wrong.

I thought I was following Jesus, but I really wasn't.

And I thought I loved God, but really I just had one foot in and I was holding on to God, but I was also holding on to sin.

And I was living in relationship with God, but I was also living in relationship with sin.

I pray for that person right now.

I pray for the person who maybe grew up in a home where they've never been taught any of, they've never heard the gospel.

They didn't know that grace and truth could coexist.

They didn't know that the truth was what would lead to actual freedom.

Lord, I pray for that person.

Lord, I pray for every person with the sound of my voice that wants to make a decision to go all in with you.

And if you're listening to this and you want to make that decision, I encourage you right now to pray out loud, Lord Jesus, forgive me.

I am a sinner and I need you.

You are my Savior.

I believe that you died on the cross for my sins.

I believe that three days later, you rose from the grave and that you are the resurrection and life, Lord, that only in you

do I have life.

And only in believing, Jesus, that you are the way, the truth, and the life can I be made right.

Can I find my true ticket to heaven?

And so, Lord, I choose to make you the Lord of my life.

I submit myself to you and I ask for your Holy Spirit to guide me and to lead me into the truth that I may live a life that honors you.

In In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

Can I have your hand?

Thank you so much.

You don't know what you just did today.

You broke chains.

You blessed us.

Thank you for blessing Girls Gone Bible.

This was one of the most incredible.

episodes and we thank you and we bless you and you are the greatest leader and inspiration for this generation.

Thank you for being such an incredible role model and being real and raw with love and truth all in one.

We love you.

We love you.

Guys, we love you so much.

Please get Maddie's book, Dare to be True.

It is going to bless you.

We love you guys so much.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

May He make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.

May He turn his face towards you and give you peace.

We love you.