Stephanie Ike - God Will Heal Your Heart and Set You Free

Scripture tells us to ask and we will receive. Our heavenly Father is always ready and he's willing to heal our hearts and to set us free. Today I'm better together. Victoria Ostein, Stephanie Eke, Shilah Walsh, and Hollifurdick are joining me for a conversation about freedom. Come on join us. You know, prayer has been the birthplace of change and transformation in my life. When I encountered God, my encounter really opened me up to recognizing that I am in the presence of the one who loves without any condition. That was one of the things that captured me the most about the Lord. I'm like you truly, everything about you just exhudes love and peace and warmth and compassion, and I truly, in the most holy way, just fell in love with Jesus. And for me it was It meant so much because the first time I ever cried in my life in the presence of God. Growing up, my mom used to wonder. She just thought, like, oh, my strong one, there's my little one. Stephanie does not nothing really shakes her. But there was just a lot of things that were built up that didn't have an outlet of expression because I wanted the outlet to be in a space that would understand, and not that you know, my family didn't understand, but I wanted to be strong for my family. I wanted to show them that no, everything is okay. But I wanted an outlet that would also speak back and give me strategy and wisdom as a kid. But that came from the presence of God. It became the place that I knew that Lord, you see me, you see everything in me, and you love me. And so I was able to just lay it all out before him. Lord, this is what I'm going through, this is what I'm upset at, this is I don't like this. You know, what would you say? And you know it was not just about my complaints. It was also about God showing me myself. Prayer became the place that God would show me, Stephanie, you're being selfish, Stephanie. You need to learn how to love better, Stephanie. You need to surrender this part of yourself, Stephanie. And I could receive it because I recognized the one who was speaking to me is for me. You know, not even too long ago, I remember when in prayer I was just talking to the Lord and he kept showing me that you need emotional accountability. I said, Lord, what does that mean? I have you And he was like, no, you know, you need to be more emotionally open. And I was like, Lord, I truly have the Holy Spirit. That's all the accountability I need. And the Lord said to me, I'm sending you help. And funny enough, one of my amazing mentors, doctor Nita Phillips, she texts me that day right after prayer and she said, Stephanie, how is your heart? And so I said her, this like beautiful, long message and she if anyone knows her, she's very blunt, and she said, Stephanie, I asked about your heart, that came from your head. How is your heart? I said, well, since we're going there, and we had this beautiful conversation and I said, you know, doctor Nita, I literally just came out of prayer and the Lord was telling me you need emotional accountability, and you text me right after that. And so prayer has been the place that has changed my life spiritually and in the most practical ways. In the place of prayer is where I received the understanding of my purpose in God, my calling in the place of prayer is where I'm challenged to live a life that modeled the love and leadership of Jesus. And in the place of prayer is also where God convicts my heart of the ways that I also need to turn to him, that if there is unforgiveness in my heart, he reveals it to me. If there is pride in my heart, he reveals it to me, and he says, now, this is something that I need you to see it so we can work on it together, because if you don't know about it, then you will act as though this area is perfectly fine. And so prayer has truly been for me the place of freedom because it's the place I commune with the Lord. That's beautiful, you know. I love that that prayer isn't to just change all of our external things, but it's to change the innermost part of our heart. And I think that when we come before the Lord, that freedom in the truth that we find in Christ. When you start declaring who God is, we have to realize that we're praying from a position of victory because it's already done. The Lord Jesus has has accomplished every bit of freedom that we will ever need in our whole life. He said he came to save the lost, and he's come to destroy the works of the devil. So sometimes when we come before him, we have to declare. We declare who he is. We declare the great fatness of his might and his power, and in that the freedom of prayer, and in his presence just being healed and hold. You know that the emotional side of things, God can can heal all of that, Laurie. One of my favorite stories in scripture, and it's it was Jesus talking with a woman we just know as the Samaritan woman of the Woman of Samaria. And there was a lot that we know that was unusual. You'll find it in John chapter four. You know the fact that Jesus spoke to her because she was a woman, she was a Samaritan. Jews and Smartans did not mix. But I love that when she works out there's something different about this man, there's something, and so she decides to go in with what her big question was, Okay, you say that you should worship here, We say you should worship here. Where do you say we should worship? And what Jesus says to her has literally changed my life and he says to the time is coming, in fact, is here right now, when those who worship will worship in spirit and in truth. And that little Greek word truth alethea, it means with nothing hidden. That's how Jesus defines true worship. We worship in spirit with nothing hidden. We become an open book. And you know, I learned that on the floor of a psychiatric hospital, you know, my first night there, feeling like, you know, I'm a disgrace, I'm too broken to be healed. And when I began to understand that, Jesus said, no, come as you are, and that really he redeems our pain. I mean, God tells his story in scars. You look at Jesus, that's God telling his story. That's him saying, this is how much I love you. And I think that when we learn you know, I'm thinking of any of you who are watching right now, and you think I've messed up too badly or those things that nobody knows about me, A Christ already knows. B If you've placed your trust in him, you're already covered and forgiven. But you get to tell him the whole truth. That's the most beautiful thing to me. We don't have to hide anything back. We get to pour out the whole truth. It's like the woman with the issue of blood. You know, she came because she wanted to be healed, and she touches jesus garment, so she's healed, but she is not whole. She could have slipped away and gone home seven days later, present a pigeon, you know, as an offering, and she's declared clean, but she would still have been broken. But she falls at the feet of Jesus and she tells him the whole truth, and he looks at her and says to her, daughter. The only time Jesus calls one woman daughter, he renames her. You're not the woman with the issue of blood. Daughter. Your faith has made you well. Go not go home, Go in peace. When we tell Jesus the whole truth, there is a freedom and a peace that nothing else in this world can give. When Jesus had that encounter with the Samaritan woman before he tells her that, you know, when he mentions her life to her, you know you have been married, and even the one in your house is not your husband. I wonder if Jesus was testing if she would actually agree and confess that that has been her truth before he continues further right, because that would have been something that would have brought shame and say, no, that's not my story. I don't know who you're talking about, sir. But in that moment, because that story was so irrelevant to the context of what was taking place, So could it be that Jesus was saying, now, I'm going to be practical with you. Let's bring your truth to the surface as I teach you how to worship the Father. I love that if that reminds me of the scripture that says where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So is that mean that when you really can be truthful and you can be just honest before the spirit of God, that's when he can set you free. Because you think of the samerited woman, and once she was free, all the things that held her back, the reason she didn't come to the well, all the things that held her back she was free of. She ran to the people that she once hid from and she began to tell them everything, which was very unlike her. So that whole thought today that we're talking about, is that real truthfulness, that real openness before God? Just laying it all out and being honest is just really powerful because I can just hear someone saying, well, how do I do that? You know? And that is to really just open your heart to him. You're not opening your heart to man, you're not opening heart to anyone. You're opening it to God. And that's why it's a very private thing. And maybe that's why she was by herself that day because it was a new way for her to really be open so that she could receive the freedom that God intended her to have that day. So that's a really a beautiful story and picture that we're painting here of that. Just oh it all God, Like you said, Laurie, you know it at all. There's nothing that I can hide. There's no hiding place from you. The spirit seeks out all the things the Bible says, it goes to the innermost parts of us. Yeah, it's really interesting, Victoria. I love the part in that story where when she goes back to the town and she says, come and meet a man who told me everything that I ever did. And I think that's such a beautiful picture of God because we're reminded that God knows, he knows more about me than I know about myself. And I find that when I come into God's presence and I find that he welcomes me. He knows everything there is to know about me, and he welcomes me, and my view of God becomes so much bigger than me. And I begin to realize that God, he transcends time, that he he trenscends space, that he comes behind me, and he goes before me, and it just encourages me to remember. So I come into his presence and I realized, God, you know so much more about me, and yet you still want to use me. You still love me. You know what's happened in my past. So therefore I can give you my future. And it just it can bring you so much comfort to know and to realize how big God really is. Yeah, so beautiful. There's such security in that, such security in knowing. You know. I love the way Joseph Prince has always said, he said, you learn to love God dwelling on how much He loves you. You know, sometimes we try to work it up. Go, Okay, do I love God with all my heart? You know? And I think that a lot of people go through that, like do I have overwhelming feelings of a love for Jesus today or a love for God. Actually I didn't even think about him yesterday, you know. So I think people go in all these emotions, but it's dwelling on how much God loves us. That that's the whole thing. And it is as it is becoming a child. You know. Jesus said, you cannot enter into the kingdom without becoming a child. And I had a child. I have two sons. I did have a little one that always learned the hard way, and it absolutely broke my heart, you know, because he got more discipline and he he just always chose. The hard way. And it was like, man, could you just listen the first time? And if you think about how God has these boundaries and these beautiful standards in his word that have come with such a lie from the enemy saying that that that's God keeping you from having any fun, or that's keeping you from having joy in your life. Is these boundaries that are actually it's for your protection. It is to give you peace beyond measure. It is to give you abundant joy. It is to give you eternal life, everlasting life here and now. And so these beautiful boundaries in The security that we have in Christ's love for us is so overwhelming, and the freedom that is in how much he loves me and how much he loves you, and he knows you, you know, if he knows every hair on your head, if he knows how many you have, you know that he thinks deeply about you and that he loves deeply. And if we can rest in that man, our world gets so much better, Our minds get so more peaceful, our emotions because healed and whole, and we become we just become healthy, healthier, healthy people all all around. Yeah. Now, I love even what you mentioned about how it translates even into our everyday life, right, how this freedom that we get in the presence of God, it causes us to be healthier people, you know, healthier people to our family, to our friends, to the people we serve, the people we meet. It just you. You walk in a type of vulnerability that becomes healing for other people. You know, you walk in a type of honesty and love and compassion that people are drawn to you, and ultimately, by being drawn to you, they're drawn to Jesus because they want to know, like, what is it about you that just you know when you small, it's like there's something else, you know, glowing and people are trying to figure it out, and you're like, look, I've met someone. I've met a man. His name is Jesus, right. He is my Lord, he is my savior. He's the one that I can lay my anxieties before him. It doesn't mean that things don't trouble me, but I know the one who holds my life. There is something so beautiful about walking in a life of freedom with God, because it becomes infectious when people meet you, and the way that you don't hide things about yourself. Because when I started learning, the more vulnerable I became before God, the better I became as a friend, as a daughter, as a sister, as a stranger. Because then I don't feel like I need to hide something. If you're sharing a story that I connect to. It might have brought shame in my life in the past, but Jesus has taken that shame away. And I know what it means to repent. I know what it means to turn. I can openly tell you, oh, I've been through that. You know I don't think they're even when as a pastor a lot of people when they say that, oh, you're my best friend in my head because I say everything I tell you my life before Christ, because it's not connected to shame, it's not connected to condemnation. It was the place I met the unconditional love of God. It was the place God transformed me. God healed me. And so it is so beautiful when we know that it starts with God. When you can come before the Lord and just lay it all out God, this is how I think, This is what I love. If you love the thing that you know you're not supposed to love, if you like to do the thing that you're not supposed to do, if you're living what might seem like a double life for some of those listening, bring it before God because he is the one that knows how to deliver you to walk in the nature of your true self. But don't hide it. Don't feel like you need to walk around with this, you know, huge bag of guilt every single day. There is the one who is powerful enough to deliver you from it all and to bring you into true freedom, to make you a healthier person in your life. So good, and that's how you become light and solved to the world. That's how you give forth this living water. If we don't have something different that the world's got to offer, something's wrong, right. And so in prayer and communion with God is changing everything about our inner man, our inner being in being whole, being, life giving, taking our minds, putting it on him, being transformed by the renewing of our mind, and changing the world by being salt in life and different from other people because we have something to give. We have life, we have life giving words, we have life giving affection to people. We have that hand extended, We've got the right words to speak into people. And it's all being in communion with God and the Holy Spirit. I met a gentleman at the end of a conference. You know, everyone had kind of I hung around just to say hi to everybody, and then there was one gentleman that was holding back, and I thought maybe he wanted more of a private conversation. So I went over and as he turned his face toward me, it was shocking. Half of his face was almost gone, and he said to me, I just wanted to tell you my story. And he told me that when he was fifteen years old, he took a gun and he placed it underneath his chin, and he pulled the trigger and he said, in that nanosecond between me pulling the trigger and that bullet entering my skull, I heard Jesus say, do you want to live? And I said yes. And he's now married with three beautiful children, I said, and I asked him this question. I said, when you look in the mirror, is that a reminder of a devastating time in your life? And his eyes filled with tears and he said, no, Sheila, this is a daily reminder of the grace of God, he said. He uses it. No, it's become his story. When people say, hey, what happened to you? Dude? He said, I have the opportunity to tell people. I don't care how far down you have gone, there is a Jesus who wants you to live. And I discovered that in my own life. Our brokenness is a far greater bridge to other people than pretend wholeness. Ever is so good. You know, that's what prayer is, is coming back and talking to him. And you know, because all of this that we're talking about is such a process. You know, maybe some people haven't ever prayed before, they don't really know how to pray. You know, and it's just a process. It's a process just like you would get to know a friend, just like the more you get to know someone, the more you can talk openly with them, the deeper your relationship becomes. And I think that's the way it is, even when we're building this foundational relationship with christ is that it does. It takes we ease into it. We talk to him more, he talks to us more, and he does talk to us, and we have to understand that that he does speak to us, you know, in many different ways, but he'll speak right to our spirit. And so I think the whole thing about being able to get to these places that y'all are talking about and that we're experiencing today, is that just walking with him every day, coming back to him every day, not feeling that condemnation. And so I think it is it's a process that people when you get to walk with him long enough, you feel more comfortable being in his presence, just like you would if someone walked in the door of the President of the United States, if you were a friend of his, you know, you would feel very comfortable. If you didn't know him, you'd be like, you know, or anyone important. I'm trying to, you know, make that point. It's just someone of importance. And so it's just. Interesting that it's a process. And so I know there's people that are thinking, you know, this sounds so good, it's almost too good to be true. But it's not too good to be true. But it does take time. I find in my life when I have a relationship with God, it's like the ultimate friendship because it's like being friends with somebody where you can completely be yourself. You know, you can come to God with your mistakes, you can come to God with the things that you're excited about, you can come to God with the things that you're disappointed in, and you can just completely be yourself and have this as you learn and as you grow. Like you're saying, Victoria, it takes time to develop a relationship with a person, but it's like the perfect person to have a relationship with. It's someone who knows you inside and out and who loves you no matter what. So when you come to God, you get to come to this friend who completely accepts you for who you are. I love that where we hit on that too, because I think, just like you mentioned, Holly and Victoria. You know, someone might be listening and feeling like, yeah, I don't know where to start, like, you know, because I think on learning is actually more difficult than learning on learning what many have thought about God on learning that maybe he is just this tyrant. And but I think in the process of that recognizing like you're coming in the presence of the one who is for you more than you are for yourself, right, and just to recognize like, at the end of the day, he is not condemning you. I believe that for anyone who is recommitting their life or who is taking this step to say, you know what, God, let me take off the pretense, let me take off what I feel like I'm supposed to do, and let me just open my heart before you. Because it even takes us a process to get there, right, you have to first know the person that you're praising. You have to have an understanding of the identity of the person that you are coming before to say, oh God, I just magnify you. Who am I magnify? And so you might be in a place where you just need to get to know him. You just need to know who is Jesus, You know who is the Lord what is this love you have about me? Right? And that takes just that, even the discipline of just saying I want to know you. Right, I'm gonna wake up, I'm gonna come before you in prayer. I'm going to study about you, and I'm just gonna lay it before you and let me see who you now become. In my life. Because before I encounter the Lord, I thought I really didn't want nothing to do with God because of what I heard about him. Not what I knew about him, It was what I heard. But what I heard about him made him seem just evil and mean. And I'm like, oh, no, God is mean. But when I met him, everything changed, and now I can praise him even in the hardest times in my life because I'm like, no, I've met you. I know who I'm worshiping, and this is such a beautiful moment. I believe to just pray into right and just praying that for everyone listening to this, that for those that might feel like God, I've heard about you but haven't met you, and maybe what I heard about you pulled me away from the truth of who you are. You know, we talked about the Samaritan woman earlier and when she talked about Jesus. There were many who said, you know what, we came because of what she said. But we have believed because of what you said, Lord, And I just believe that even as you've heard what we have shared about the Lord, that he is a good father, he is loving, that you would believe in him because of your experience with him. So I just want to pray that over you, Heavenly Father. I thank you. I thank you for your sons and daughters, and I thank you for fresh encounters with you, Oh God, that it will not just be about what they heard, good or bad, but it would be about what they know. That you will begin to convict their hearts of your goodness, of your unfailing love, Oh God, and they will come into this beautiful, loverly relationship with you where they will find true freedom in Jesus' name. Amen. At TBN, our mission is to use every available means to reach as many individuals and families as possible with the life changing gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank you for helping make the gospel of Grace go around the world. And it's because of you that partner with us that this ministry continues God bless you.