Richard Matthews has gone viral on TikTok for his videos explaining his testimony, going from an actively openly gay man to a repentant Christian. He is here today to share his testimony in person. This episode is brought to you by our friends at GoodRanchers. Go to GoodRanchers.com, code ALI. That's GoodRanchers.com, code ALI.
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Richard, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. I'm so glad you're here. We just want to hear your testimony. I've seen your videos. I think I've reacted to your videos. Yes. I think that you shared on TikTok. Yeah. Is that what it was? Yeah. That was one of the videos where I was just walking in the city and you reacted to it and I was like, Oh, there's Ali. Yeah. I love that. Okay. Let's start from the beginning. Tell us who you are and how you got here.
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm originally from Georgia. I grew up there in Lythonia. But growl growing up, my family was divorced, separated and things of that nature. My father, he comes from a background of about three marriages and three divorces with a few children as well. A lot of like infidelity and lust and
addiction as well. And I like to mention this because bloodline is so important in families. But I was raised just with my mom and me and my brother were 15 years apart with two different dads as well. And then he went off into the Navy. So I kind of just been raised with her, you know, and I just grew up in church and I grew up with a nice big mega church down in the south.
my mom sunk in choir. So I guess I was a church kid. That's kind of where I felt like really the inspiration to be creative and to dance. I would be in some of the plays at church. But then also my mom would just put me in sports and things. So I played sports, then I was singing, I was dancing, and then I had to make a choice at one point. So I was just like, mom, I'll just dance.
And then I got into a performing arts high school. But all throughout that time, I got through a lot of bullying while I was growing up, not having a dad. People would pick up me about that. And then just make fun of me, my voice, the way I stand, the way I would act. And then they would use that one word called gay. And I was so confused about where this was coming from.
So even as a little kid, it was just peers telling you this or any adults in your life. It wasn't, I would say peers, children, kids, school environments, and even in church environments too. There's this weird sort of like picking and nitpicking that would happen. My mom has, she remembers that sometimes she would be good calls from school because I would like run away.
Um, and just kind of hide and try to be away from people. I even wrote in a journal about like, why, you know, I didn't have my father. And so like there were moments, you know, like that. And my mom just, you know, I guess like in the best way that she could, we kept active because she was a single mom working really hard.
Um, and so me having activities was one of the ways where I could like, you know, express myself, but also just kind of like be busy without really thinking about all of those things. But I kept thinking about the word gay, like where's this word coming from? And I looked it up on my own and then somehow one way the internet was opening and I got into pornography.
I was around 10 or 11 by that time and I was having a hard time really even figuring out what this means with the Lord in that church because when the word gay would be brought up it would be this weird taboo word like people didn't want to talk about it or people was somehow like you know kind of gossip about some people with this word and then eventually what ended up kind of happening was that I looked
in the Bible, what gay means, what homosexual means, and what the Lord had to say about it. And I saw Leviticus 1822 where it says, you know, homosexual, it's a abomination, but I internalized it to me being an abomination. And that was very hard. And how old were
So just to clarify the timeline a little bit. So when you were about 10 or 11, you were getting bullied and called feminine and gay because of how you talk. You decided to look it up on the internet to be like, why are people calling me? That's what does this mean? And then, sadly, that led you to being exposed to gay pornography. You became addicted to pornography, which you say, around 10 or 11. And did anyone know this?
No, I kept it hidden. I kept a secret. Did you have your own like person? I don't know how old you are, but like, are you this is like family computer or did you have your own device? Like, how are you able to hide this? It's such a young age. That time, like, um,
I think I did have my own computer at the time. And I think I also was like, had my own cell phone. And I think the internet was just coming out so people were still filling out what to do, what's really safe and what's nine. I will say everything was very slow.
when I was on it. But as I continued through high school, so I'm 30 now, high school, like 2012 and a little bit earlier, like everything started to get faster. And I wouldn't say that's how old I am. So it's not the internet wasn't new, but like certainly our personal devices and things like that were new and a lot of parents.
Obviously, you had a single mom who was busy anyway, but a lot of parents just didn't know how to navigate supervision of those devices at the time. People were afraid to use credit cards too at the time. People were still trying to navigate what is this internet type of situation.
But that happened with me and I also want to say like I didn't really have a strong biblical foundation. I didn't really have to church to lean on to really talk about this. And then what ended happening was my pastor fell and our whole church collapsed.
And what do you mean by fell? By fell, he actually had cheating and a lot of sexual allegations against young men in the church. So the very person that I was supposed to look up to to be this leader who was preaching the word of God and speaking about going to heaven and not going to hell and not sinning is the very thing that happened with him.
And so I just felt very discouraged along with being alienated. And it really skewed my relationship with the Lord to where I just really thought I couldn't please him and that I had this shame and combination and that he hated me. So, you know, that happened around my high school when the whole church fell.
My mom stopped going to church. We stopped going to church. It was like a big rift in everything in our community as well. But I just focused on school. So I went to college and I didn't declare that I was going to be a dance major. My background is in the arts and as a performer. And I've always loved it, like I said, from being young. But also those environments, they're not the best and they're not bivocal.
unholy in a way. They're very, you know, loosey, goosey, flowy, do whatever you want to do. We start learning these philosophies now in these, you know, liberal art classes where we're talking about, you know, God's not dead. We're talking, we're introducing what homosexuality means and like it can be a part of your creativity. So all of that is being fueled. Um, I did have, um, just, I feel like the grace of the Holy Spirit, where I didn't really dive into anything else. Like I wasn't really a part or part of your drinker or whatever.
But I felt like I already had blood on my ledger because this point thing I continued to do.
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And were you openly identifying as gay at this point? I wasn't. So I still held on to questioning whether I would come out or not because I just felt like it would just be really hard on my mom and my family. And I also was wrestling with what the Lord says about it. But I think when you're in those environments, things start to, you continue to question and then get ingrained into them. Like my sin, like going into pornography, looking back into it, I wouldn't say I had the desire
to be in pornography. I didn't necessarily have a desire to be in homosexual same-sex relationships, but as I continued to become an agreement with the enemy with that sin, the Bible said sin becomes iniquity and then transgressions and inequity is repeated sin that becomes your identity.
So it literally becomes my identity. So of course, when people are saying being born this way, a part of it is like, yeah, I kind of believe you because sin has passed down and we live in a fallen nature. And the more you keep doing it, the more it's ingrained with you. So porn and, you know, all of that, lust, temptation, whatever you, whatever it is, it became a part of like everything that I did. I did it when I was sad. I did it when I was mad, when I was angry. So the same thing. It's like your escape.
Yeah, it was my escape to numb everything. But I still thought about the Lord and everything that I did. A lot of the dances that I would create, a lot of the art that I would create would still just acknowledge the Lord in some way. So the Holy Spirit was definitely still moving and working. But I never, when people would ask me, I would say, I don't think I'm gay, I don't know. But I just went through college and then graduated and became a performer.
My performing was not fulfilling in the way that I thought it was. Sometimes we like to put our identity in different things, and it never satisfies you if it's not from the Lord. So I had about a five-year career just performing and dancing ballet, jazz, modern tap, all the things. I worked on a cruise ship. I lived in Hawaii. I lived in Virginia. I lived everywhere.
But in 2020, when the pandemic happened, no one was dancing. And I felt like a big shift in a reset to where like, I don't really even want to like dance anymore right now. I want to kind of take a break. And during 2020 and 2021, I started to learn more about like self help. I started to going to therapy. My therapy, my therapist actually was a pastor and a preacher. So that was great. Where were you living at that time?
I moved to New York in 2020. And you found a Christian pastor therapist in New York. Wow. Yeah. It was through a lovely connection with some good friends of mine. And I just started to work in corporate. I was thinking about being more creative and entrepreneurial and all these things. But.
none of it was still satisfying. And so I told my therapist about my porn and all the things. And he's like, we gotta, we gotta get you into recovery. And I just had this revelation that my life was out of control. I was watching porn even at work. And I was like, this is not good. So I felt a shift in two ways. Ali, I would say one, I was like, I need, I need Jesus. So let me go find church. And then the other thing was I feel really sad and alone. So I feel like I needed to be in a relationship and I need to come out.
So there was this weird double life happening now around 2022, where I was going to church at my home church now at V1 Church. Shout out to Pastor Mike and Julie Cignarelli. And I started to go on dates and I started to explore what this would look like since I had been holding on to this and not coming out for about like, what is this, 20 plus years. And so- Had you had relationships?
I hadn't had any like real relationship, really any real like homosexual relationships. I had crushes on people in high school and college. I had some, you know, gatherings together, maybe with a few people with the crush that I had, but it was never really actually like a relationship together. 2022, I did get into a relationship though.
So I went on some dates. I did get into relationship with a guy for about maybe two months. And then we just ended up not working out. But I felt like the pool was like, I need Jesus to really come out of this pornography. So I had this like real like critical, like crucial, like reality of like my life is not good. And in the queer community, and I've been around, you know, some of events that they would have. And it's like,
Everything's great and we're just drinking it away. We're sexing it away. And I'm like, why is my worth attached to how much partying or how much sex that I can do? You know, you know, obviously I was, you know, I grew up a little bit in church. So I feel like that played a part into it, but I just felt like still alienated even in the community. Like they kind of like are click-ish in a way. Like you're too feminine, you're too masculine, you're too tall, you're too fat, you're too this.
So this like loving community wasn't really loving. And so I decided to go to my church in V one and I went into the recovery group. That was my first small group that I was in. And there I learned that the Lord loved me because all this time I thought the Lord hated me.
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So 2022, I'm going through recovery, 12 steps, going through all of this. I'm still kind of battling with this idea of maybe potentially being a gay Christian because nothing was working where my porn wasn't resolved and I still had these desires and attraction. So I made a prayer or I set a prayer in 2023 of January where I said, Lord, I feel like I can't change and I feel like I can't really fully come to you and devote myself to you.
I said, if being gay and being Christian is not true, let me know and I'll accept it. But if it's true, that's great. I'll accept it. But I said, at this point, I just want you. My prayer was not for me to be straight. My prayer is that I wanted Jesus. And when I said that to the Lord, sorry. When I said that to the Lord, I heard him tell me to come to Him. And that's what it says in Matthew, come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.
And I'm so thankful that I heard him and he was able to really give me a new heart and transform me. And all of those desires and everything started to go away around March. I woke up one day like I haven't watched for it in like two weeks. And so it was an act and a mercy and a grace and a miracle of God that he literally transformed my life.
and started to really transform my desires. But ultimately, that prayer was really what changed everything. A few months later, I got through deliverance because often people don't really know that there's a spirit behind homosexuality, the agenda that is happening in our country and against our kids. It's not a new thing. It's an old thing that has been talked about in the Bible.
And so we have to overcome these principalities with the power of the Lord. And so I went through deliverance, but it was so sweet how the Lord did it. I got deliverance in my bedroom and with the dream that I had. And it was like I was asleep, but I was awake. It was really beautiful.
And the very room where I would watch pornography, the very room that was death and destruction and torment. Like I was depressed, I was anxious. I had like insomnia moments where I couldn't go to sleep. I would have nightmares. Like I would have like, I wouldn't want to be able to go to work. I wouldn't want to be able to get out of bed. Like I was that stressed and anxiety induced to the point where I like was, I wanted to disconnect from everything.
even having just unalive thoughts and things of that nature and being so severely depressed where the Lord transformed all of that in one night in my bedroom. And I had so much peace the next day. And then a couple months later. And what did that look like? Because I come from a reformed background, so we really don't use language like
deliverance or like a particular spirit behind a sin, I would say that it's all of the flesh, it's all demonic, it's all satanic, anything that draws us away from God. And so that's not theological language I would use. So can you describe what you mean by that? Yeah.
So this is what I will say. I know people have different backgrounds and they can agree or disagree. But in 2023, what happened for me was I was unemployed, I was furloughed, and I spent all my time reading the Bible. And when I read the Bible, we see there are miracles and signs of wonders in the Old and New Testament.
but what Jesus does in the New Testament is he calls and speaks to people and speaks behind the spirits for them to be, you know, cast it out of them. And so this might be new and new language for some people, but the agenda, the sin, everything is there's a spirit behind it. And so I guess I really don't know another way to say this, but I will say all of the thoughts that you have
They come from the flesh, but they also come from the enemy Satan. And he has things orchestrating where his goal is to destroy families and destroy men, destroy women. And he does that. I mean, he's not omniscient. He's not omnipresence. He's not everywhere all at once, but he sends his his enemies out to be able to to torment you. And it happens when we come into agreement, like the Lord is life.
Like, pornography is not life, it is death. Everything that we do that is outside of the will of God is sin and separation from God and it's death. And in order to be resurrected and redeemed from death, we need the power of God. And so in order to do that, deliverance is a way to do that. So you just, once you profess Jesus as your Lord and Savior and you confess Him in your heart, just like it says in Romans and believe,
You know, you have authority now that God gave Adam and Eve, which says in Genesis that the devil took back, but now you have authority. So you just declare his name and anything that is not of God, anything that is not bringing life, it has to go.
You know the Bible says that we are a holy temple unto the Lord So our bodies are reflection or even like the tabernacle in the wilderness, you know, we have the outer quartz We have the holy place and then we have the most holy of holy place that is an analogy of also your body So you are being a holy temple that is holding the presence of God and so we want to be able to purify and consecrate that as much as possible But you know
People can agree or maybe they have questions about that. I encourage people to dive in and read as much as they can. But this is my story and my testimony. And I know a lot of people need to know the love of the Lord and they need freedom. Deliverance is just the love of the Lord. That's all it is. You know what I'm saying? So that's what I would say for that.
We might use different language, but we both mean similar things when we talk about sanctification. When the Lord starts working on your heart, C.S. Lewis has this amazing quote, and I'll butcher it if I try to paraphrase it, but basically he doesn't want part of you. He wants all of you. When he walks into your heart, he's not just taking up one room. He says, no.
this is all mine. And I am going to make it my own. If this is going to be, you know, where I sit on my throne, like this, I'm going to make this my own. And that working out our salvation with fear and trembling, the sanctification that is required, the continual self-sacrifice that is required does mean God-ridding us of sin. And that doesn't mean that we won't struggle. That doesn't mean that we won't have temptation. That doesn't mean that we'll never feel anxious or
fearful. As long as we are on this side of eternity, we still have to bear some consequences of the reality of the fall and sin. But Jesus in our salvation and the grace that he gives us, you're right. It's not only salvation. It also can be.
deliverance from sin and he can change our desires. That's something that a lot of people don't believe or he can rid us of some struggles. So I think what you're saying there that God can take away desires. He can change desires. I think that's important to listen. I was literally one way before and now I'm not. It's only through the power of the Lord, you know, and even you can look back in Exodus with Egypt. That was a deliverance. The Lord was delivering his people from slavery and bondage out.
Same thing is happening with his people. This is what we're talking about here. What we're talking about there is there. Yes, there has been attack, but the Lord is coming in and he's bringing back his children and he's saving lives and he is indeed sanctifying them, you know.
And so a few months after my deliverance in me going through a process with my church being sanctified, the Lord told me to start to share my testimony, which was around, I would say, May of 2023. I opened up a TikTok. I never had a TikTok before. I was done with social media. And the Lord was like, no, you need to open it. And I was so frustrated, but I did. And then a video went viral from a short clip of my testimony. And then I just kept posting and sharing on TikTok.
All throughout 2023 2024 comes around and Thankfully, I'm working with corporate again. I'm still making content in videos But then unfortunately around June of 2024 this year They saw some of my content and listen, I you know I was recording in some conference room But a lot of my content is yes talking about the Lord But also just being silly with the Lord because the joy of the Lord is our strength
You know what I'm saying? And so I was having videos that went across that also went viral. Me just walking in the street talking about the Lord. I believe David Harris, he reposted one of my videos, which is cool. And I think that's also the video you posted. And then they called me in one day out of nowhere. I was praying with the Lord, and the Lord was like, prepare my heart. And I was like, what's going to happen today? But he was like, I need you to pray, I need you to fly. I was like, OK.
And then a couple of hours later in the afternoon, they let me go. And so I was just, and I wasn't surprised. Like the Bible talks about him first Peter, he was like, don't be surprised with shock for any persecution. And just as we suffer for Christ, we're gonna suffer in his glory. So blessed are the ones who are persecuted. So, you know, I let the Lord handle all the things that he handles on the back end, vengeance is his, but my story has catapulted since then through the grace and the favor of the Lord.
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tell me about that time that you joined this small group for recovery. And then before you actually were saved and the Lord helped rid you of your addiction to pornography and healed you.
Was the church that you were a part of? Were there people telling you directly? No, you cannot be actively gay and be a Christian because today it can be really hard to find Christians or a church who will tell you that. They'll say it's fine. You can do both at the same time. So was there anyone in your life who was telling you the truth?
Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily say in my small group, I would say in the actual sermons of my pastor. But also, like I said, the Lord was doing a work in my heart where I feel like I needed the Lord and I'm going to stay even if it feels uncomfortable. I would do that. They would preach and speak about the truth of what the Lord says about sexuality, what he says about marriage, what he says about
you know, your identity. And I would say, you know, sometimes people would leave, but I just felt this such conviction to stay and know truth. I think when you're hungry for truth, you're going to find it. But also, like I said, it was the understanding that I think sometimes we think Christianity is what not to do. And it's like, yeah.
For sure, but it's also I love the Lord so much because he is good and I obey him because he's good and because he loves me and I'm undeserving and worthy for it. So I think sometimes people kind of get caught in that trap and it becomes very religious. It comes very like condemning in that way to think almost that you're trying to like
like work your salvation through works, which is not even the gospel. So in that small group, it's why I learned that Jeremiah 29, 11, no, I have good plans for you, plans to prosper you, not to harm you. My life first that saved my life was Matthew 3 17. I learned that with my friends Aaron and Frank and Chris about, this is my beloved son and whom I love and I'm well pleased with him.
This is what God says to Jesus when he's baptized before Jesus did anything. Before Richard did anything, before Ali did anything, you are loved by God. And that is so freeing. So to answer your question, yes, I always was hearing truth, but it was the combination of the truth along with the mercy and the grace and the love and kindness of the Lord that transformed me to now that I know that I know I'm a royal priesthood.
Period. I'm his son. I'm a son of the great high king. And if you're not going to die for me, you have nothing to say to me. So I will gladly crucify my flesh because he crucified his flesh on the cross, you know?
What would you say to someone? Because a lot of people say this, well, you didn't have to give up being gay. You could have stayed in that relationship and you can be both at the same time. There are plenty of people watching this and listening to this that think that. What is your response to them?
God is a God of covenant in the Bible. He's often described as the bridegroom and we are the bride at the body of Christ. We are in a marriage and a covenant with him. The Lord doesn't do over relationships. Just like a regular marriage doesn't do over relationships.
He is looking for us to be in a complete covenant and total surrender with Him because He is a God that doesn't change and doesn't lie and keeps His promises to us. In Exodus, it says to have no other God before me. So when you are wanting to compromise your sexuality with your faith in a way, you are holding your sexuality above the Lord.
That's idolatry. It even talks about this in Malachi. Malachi one and two, I was reading about the offerings that the Jews were giving unto the Lord. And the Jews were thinking, everything's fine, Lord, like I'm giving you offerings, like I'm giving you a sacrifice. And the Lord's like, no, like the sacrifices and offerings that you're giving are compromised.
They were supposed to give their first, their best, the lambs, the goats, and they're giving things that are defective, that are compromised. And then the Lord continues to talk about, I'm not even worried about the sacrifices at this point. I'm worried about your heart and the intention behind it. Your own heart is even compromised.
So the word of the Lord has been true from the beginning of days to now and it's continued to be consistent. You cannot serve two masters. So, you know, when I talk about this for people, I tell them that you have to love the Lord completely. Jesus Christ died for you completely. He didn't die for you happily. So we must do that as well. Yeah. And I'm sure you get plenty of criticism and push back for people online. What are some of the things that you hear?
One of the two craziest things is that, one, I'm still gay. That's what people say. And then the other thing is, I was never gay.
Oh, okay. So it's like this weird, like, dossy dough. Why do people say those things? What's their reasoning? People are going through their own healing and sanctification, and so a lot of them, they'll be influenced by those spirits where they're just acting out. And people are saying these things because they don't really believe that God is good.
I get it. I think sometimes we don't take our faith seriously. And we are not like the Bible says Paul talks about this in Corinthians. I just read this. He said Christianity the way following Jesus is not about talk. It's about the power of God. And so when we look at all these other religions, we've kind of been kind of lukewarm and unfaithful kind of sitting around on the benches.
But when we are serious about our faith, you say like, no, like this is what truth is. And this is what good is. And this is what life is because that's what God is. That's about of his care during his nature. He says, I'm here to give you life and life more abundantly and that he's good. But you will never know unless you read this. You will never know unless you see the consistency of the Lord when I started reading this. And I read this thing for myself.
I care less what you have to say. I've read this. The words that the Lord has spoken about me have just been so beautiful. Like, I came from a spirit of being an orphan, being abandoned and rejected. And a lot of those people who, you know, maybe they're out in their sexuality, that's, that's really what the root is. The sexuality is a leaf on the tree.
then wanted to be transgender, then wanted to do all those things. It's a leaf on the tree. The root is there is a disconnect of the unbelief and the goodness of God. That's really what sin is. So we need a revelation of that. And so we want to share that as much as we can.
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You know, you mentioned when you were young, which I just find so heartbreaking that anyone would say this to a child that people would criticize you for your mannerisms, or how you talk, or maybe the two were in dance, and they said, that's feminine, that's gay. And still today, when I see some of the comments that people leave, they say, oh, while you still seem this way. And how does that make you feel, and how do you respond to something like that?
I like to quote my pastor about this, like, about just having an unaffinable heart. And so if I'm saying that I'm crucified and I've died with Christ, I'm truly dead. So you can keep kicking, but I'm a corpse and I'm going to be resurrected to new life as a new creation. So they can keep saying those things, but they're talking about a corpse and everything else has just been me being a new creation with the Lord.
I don't really have anything to say. If the Lord is leading me to evangelize and share the gospel to people in some way, if He's giving me room to connect with them in that way, I will. But I'm not on a mission to try to make people understand me if they've already committed to misunderstanding me.
Yeah, I think that's probably good advice for all of us. That's true. What do you have to say about this kind of dichotomy that we see playing out or this competition between just affirming people, just being nice to people, never telling anyone hard truth and then speaking the truth in love? Yeah.
Paul says this, he says, I came to you in weakness, in timid and trembling, and my message and my preaching to you were very plain. Rather than using clever speeches or persuasive words, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit. I did this so that you could trust not in human wisdom, but in the power of God.
There is a fear of not telling truth because you want to be kind or affirming because you have pride in your image, which is idolatry. You're fearing what other people think about you. And then there's also the other end of being obsessed with heart truth and weaponizing it.
to where there's an abuse there, which is also pride. And neither of those is how we share truth and love. The way to do that, as Paul talks about, is through the power of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is not a gimmick. It's not a genie. It's not like a quick
thing. It is a part of the Godhead of the Triune God. He's important. He's allows people to move to speak to what they need to be to hear. That everyone is going to need all of the scriptures. The Holy Spirit will tell you to be quiet and just listen to their story.
The Holy Spirit will tell you, hey, I'm gonna give you a word of knowledge and I'm gonna tell you some facts about them to bring up so that we can talk about a conversation. The Holy Spirit is gonna tell you what to do because we are not the savior and we do not convict only the Holy Spirit, only Jesus Christ is able to do that. And I say this to say, and I'm so passionate about it because when we read scripture and when we look at our lives, we have to remember that we were once an enemy of the Lord.
So, whether you feel like, oh, I don't want to speak to offend or whether you feel like I need to get this out and you're trying to hammer stuff, it's because you have forgotten that you were once an enemy of the Lord. What the Lord gives me to speak or not to say, I do it through his love and his obedience and knowing that, wow, like,
I'm only here because of you. So we have to do away with pride and do away with idolatry. And the Bible, it says, Mary Magdalene, the woman with, you know, the seven demons in her, it doesn't say the woman with the seven demons is his Mary Magdalene. We have to get off our couches and go up to people and talk about and ask them their name. They have a name because yes, they were born in sin and they were born in this fallen world, but they are made in the image of God.
Jesus loves Mary. She was there at the resurrection. He knows her name. The Lord does not get pleasure in being quiet or wanting to offend people in that way or hammer things down in that way. He doesn't get pleasure out of that. It says a scripture that it's the kindness of the Lord that leads one to repentance.
So the only thing that we have to do is allow the Holy Spirit to move and tell us what to say and we say it. And then that's it. Whether the person receives it or not, it doesn't matter. But I've been putting myself in more positions to just hearing people and seeing the image of God even past whatever they're going through.
And we need to be a church. If we're supposed to welcome these people, we want people to get truly saved. We need to do the work of sharing the gospel and having people be saved by going out to them and being inviting to the church when they come in. Because it's not going to be about their exterior or appearance. It's going to be about their heart. And we have to minister the truth to their hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit. That's it, Ali. If you want to get better at whatever you need to say, you need to lean and yield to the Holy Spirit, period.
Amen. You know, so much of what you say reminds me of, you know, what Christopher Yuan who has not the same testimony, but a similar testimony of coming out of homosexuality and just being separated. As you said, an enemy of that is we all once were in the passions of our flesh. We were by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. That's Ephesians two. You're absolutely right. We were all that, but his testimony is similar to yours in the sexuality aspect and
I just remember my mind being blown by what he said in his first book just about how your sexuality and your sexual desires are not contrary to what the world says who you are. This is not your identity. You mentioned something earlier about how
The first thing that you were repenting of, or the primary thing that you were repenting of, was it? Your sexuality was actually your unbelief. And you were becoming a believer in Christ. And through that process, he delivered you from sin. He saved you. He sanctified you. I think that's so important for people to understand.
and free no matter what your sexual inclinations are or your thoughts about your identity or how you present your gender. The important thing is that those things and how you feel, your confusion, your desires, your lust, they are not who you are. The only person who can define you is the God who made you. Yes.
And it's actually such a freeing thing that we don't have to self-identify, that when we become new creations, we just become co-hears with Christ, and that's our new title. That's it. I said that with my pastor, I was like, being outside of the will of God and trying to divine yourself is so exhausting.
Yeah, because it's always new. Like when I was growing up, it was, you know, how the LGBTQ in the community is right now was it's way crazier than it was growing up. And then we hear about LGBTQ. And now we're adding letters to it. What are all these letters?
And then there's just a plus sign. And I looked at the flag and I was like, why is there's all these different colors and there's a circle? What does this mean? What does that mean? And so it's just like this never ending sort of definition, but when we come to Christ, the Lord defines us with the period. He says, this is my son. That's it.
that's so freeing that I don't have to define myself and it's so freeing to know that I am love and that I don't have to I don't have to earn love by what I'm doing or even through sexual inclinations like that doesn't define me I'm defined and I'm already loved as I am and there's a friend of mine says this there's there's no other man that can love me the way that the Lord loves me
Because are you going to die for me? The answer is no. Yeah. Dying for someone that you hate, that's love. Yeah. Or dying for someone who hates you, dying for someone who is an enemy, someone who spat at you, which again, we all once were. And the Bible even says that for maybe for a righteous person, one would surely die, but Christ
showed his love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, he died for us. That's the amazing thing. As yet, we were undeserving and not only undeserving, but didn't even want or realize that we needed salvation. Christ died for us. And no one, even if someone would sacrifice himself on our behalf, because people do that, but
Nothing is comparable to God sacrificing himself on our behalf. It doesn't compare. The Bible says in Hebrews, I read this this morning, he was innocent. He was perfect. And he is now our great high priest who is interceding for us. That's like no other man is going to do that. Yeah.
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You know, you talked about before we started rolling, you said that you had listened to the conversation between Christopher. Yeah. And you said that you had, after I reacted to one of your awesome videos, you were like, like, were you already familiar with relatable before that?
By that time, yeah. So 2023 was like a year of like early sanctification and we're all still being sanctified until we get our glorified bodies. Think the Lord because the earth is ghetto, but I was doing a so much of a deep dive of just getting constant testimonies too, because I think another fear or another lie that we see is like, oh, you can't be free of this and there's no testimonies.
So your channel was just really awesome. And, you know, I saw Ross Johnston, I saw Christopher, Dr. Christopher Yuan, Dr. Rosario on here, and just like learning so much. I also know Beckett Cook, he was been instrumental. And Jackie, you know, just different testimonies. Jackie, Angel, Cologne, people in Rainbow Revival, just hearing testimonies. And your channel was a big part of that. So by that time, yeah, I got all of that in, you know.
Well, it's their stories and their courage. And I love all of the people that you mentioned. And that's why I love having conversations like this because, okay, you listened to Christopher Yuan, which I think one of my very first episodes was my first conversation with him and then I've had him on since then.
Now you are it just I love how the Lord works listen to their episodes and they encourage do and now you're here and God is going to use you and your testimony to encourage someone else and you I know you already know this but it's good for me to remind myself to like you
Don't you will not know everything that your testimony does until you get to glory and God and his grace will reveal the constellation of lives that have been impacted by your courage. And that is the hope that we have even amidst the mean comments and the pushback in the lives. And I know you're a strong person. So you don't need to hear it from me. But you know, it's good for us to all remember that that's what matters that God right now. Yeah.
is putting together the solar system of people's testimonies that all somehow in his providence work together for his glory and our good, even as the chaos of the world roars, even when sometimes it seems like the devil is winning. I like to say that God's eternal plan of redemption is always going off without a hitch.
Since Genesis. And by his grace, he uses his believers. He uses the simple obedience of believers to accomplish that purpose. So thank you for playing your part in that. Is there anything else that you would like to share?
I mean, I was just going to say like I'm, I'm just honored to be here and I'm honored, you know, that the Lord has, he's literally placed me here. Like I, this was not a part of my bingo card. I'm just here from the Lord. And I know you, you know, talked about I can come off strong, but I'm strong because I, you know, I boast about my weakness in Christ. Like I am nothing. Like the only good thing about me is because of Jesus Christ.
He makes me good. I'm still a sinner just like everybody else, but you know now I'm a saint because I have Jesus with me I made holy and righteous with him and Testimonies are powerful is the spirit of prophecy So, you know if the Lord can do it for dr. Verkursa for you on he did it for me and he's gonna do it again You know and I just want to encourage anyone who's listening like I said earlier seek Jesus
When we read scripture, he says, I will give you a new heart. He said, I will renew a right spirit in you. He doesn't say behavior modifications. He doesn't say try to like be masculine or feminine, whoever you are, or try to like leap into maybe marriage or some kind of relationship. Seek the Lord and the Lord will transform you inside and out.
Because the Lord is not interested in behavior modifications. He's not interested in your works. He's just interested in you opening your hand. And he's interested in holding it and saying, I love you. You are my son and my daughter.
and your behavior does necessarily modify when you start to follow Christ. But to your point, that's not what saves you. He's not saying change these things before you come to me. Just come to him. It's the prodigal son walking back home, probably stinking with the slop and poop of pigs and his father sees him from far away and he starts running to him.
And the sun didn't clean himself up. He couldn't do anything. That is who we are to the Lord. We are dead in our sin, which in a dead person can't earn anything. A dead person can't work for their salvation. They stink and they're helpless. And it is by grace through faith that we are made alive in Christ. And so thank you. You get washed through the blood of the lamb and you get conformed to his image as you continue to grow in him.
and things will start to shift inside and out slowly, but surely. Yes, and amen. Well, thank you so much, Richard. I appreciate your boldness and thanks for coming on Relatable. Yes, thank you so much for having me. Thank you.
