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Yappin’ about real life and the OG.
Culture makes it very easy to hide in because you're seeing me, you're getting the high fives on on Wednesdays and Sundays. How are you doing? But nobody takes the time to actually tell you the truth. The enemy wants to keep us in boxes Yep. To where we feel like we're the only one that has that past.
Corey:We're the only one whose mom was like this or whose father was like that. We're the ones that experienced abuse as a child. We're the only ones that and so the the devil does a really good job of keeping us in these boxes, but the deliverer is knocking at the door. Sometimes the devil will make your prison cell so comfortable that you don't even realize you're in a cell. So many people will sit in churches their whole life and not realize the access to heaven that we all have right now.
Corey:Things, dreams, visions, all these things that I thought was that was not real.
Micaela:Corey, thank you for being on. Yeah. I'm excited to talk to you. We met on TikTok, which is seems abnormal, but it's been happening more and more. And it's been really cool to see how God's been using social media recently.
Micaela:Yep. I saw your online ministry and it was full of wisdom and authenticity. And as soon as I saw it, I was like, this guy's different. Like, I wanna talk to him.
Corey:Awesome.
Micaela:And then I heard your testimony and I was like I was like, this is crazy.
Corey:Yeah.
Micaela:So but to backtrack, I always mention how I see Christ in the guest. And for you, it's been your servant attitude. The things that you could very easily hide or not want to talk about or hold tight to yourself, you haven't. You've been really open and authentic with your ministry in an effort to help others. There's no gain to you for sharing your testimony or your story or giving your time to help with ministries, but you do.
Micaela:And that so clearly shines through you. And it reminds me of Christ whenever I look to you and I'm like, dang, this guy's like, he's committed. He's he's going and he's doing it for others. So I admire that greatly.
Corey:Awesome. Come on, somebody. Yeah. Thank you, Jesus.
Micaela:Absolutely. But I wanted to start with how kinda like the beginning because I know it wasn't always like that for you. And I knew that you said you grew up in the church and you even pastored a church for a while, but you were still kind of one foot in, one foot out. And so I just wanted to start there. Like, what did that look like for you?
Corey:Yeah. So it it's just so wild. The mask of religion is so you know, the whole thing about deception is when you're deceived, you don't know you're deceived. Yeah. And so the mask of religion, it just it makes it so easy for us as human beings to latch onto our performance based identity and what we can do, what we know, what we possess, what we all the all the things.
Corey:Right? And so throughout all these seasons, it's like this Americanized gospel had been fed to me instead of the gospel. And so it it became more about, hey. You know, didn't miss it. I haven't missed a church service in in this many months.
Corey:Or I read my devotional for this many minutes today and I'm being able to answer almost everything in Sunday school now. And so you start getting these false senses of security and you learn the language. The language is so deceptive. And so the Bible really, I think lays it out pretty clearly for us with a form of godliness, but denying the power. And so for me, and that's the whole thing about just, I'm so grateful for God's patience.
Corey:He's so long suffering. Because in these seasons of deception, it was never from a bad heart. I always had this really, really special heart to help people and to to reach out and to be a blessing. But the unfortunate thing for me, that led to a lot of demise is the well I was drawing from myself and not Christ. And so there was no prayer life.
Corey:There was I knew how to pray impressively in front of people. I knew how to speak the language, but I didn't I didn't actually have a quiet time. I didn't know what that looked like. Sitting the concept of sitting down and spending fifteen minutes in prayer to me sounded like absolute torture. And again, not from the heart of, I don't want to pray.
Corey:It's just, I had never seen it walked out before. And so, yeah, just growing up in a church my whole life, being able to hide in the culture. The culture makes it very easy to hide in because you're seeing me, you're getting the high fives on Wednesdays and Sundays. How are you doing? But nobody takes the time to actually tell you the truth.
Corey:And nobody really wants to know. At least, and again, I preface that by saying it's not a nobody wants to know. Obviously, there's a remnant. There's there's real genuine people that, oh, they would they would do anything to know. Like they they want to walk alongside of us, but the greater the the broader spectrum of what I had experienced anyways was people that wanted you to look apart and wanted you to to fit into their boxes, but they really had no interest in what was going on inside of here.
Corey:Mhmm. And so when I started having challenges, you know, I think the most notable time for me that I can remember anyways is early years in high school. I started seeing hypocrisy inside my own family. I was very blessed with the family I was born into, never went without anything, but I started seeing hypocrisies. And of course, we're all going to church, but then when we're having family gatherings, I'm seeing these things that I'm seeing.
Corey:This person's really getting shoved to the side here and this person's getting elevated and and what's the reasoning behind it? Oh, this person has resources. This person has accolades. They've got and then this one over here is kinda like the black sheep of the family, and they're they're the ones causing problems, which happened to be my mother. So I'm sitting here and, you know, now you got some hormones going through your blood.
Corey:You you're starting to become a man, and you start getting this male bravado to speak out and call a spade a spade. And so I start speaking out and I start and this starts to cause a lot of strife and issues in in the family. So I got shipped off to to military school. It was easier to put me out out of sight, out of mind. And so again, it's just, it's a really long story, but it came the easiest way to sum it all up would just be seasons of culture and language and hiding inside of them and never getting to the core issue of what was really going on with me.
Corey:And what was really going on with me is I had a lot of daddy issues. I had a lot of insecurities of rejection and abandonment. My, I had five stepdads throughout my life. You know, unfortunately, God bless her. My mother has had some major challenges in her life.
Corey:And as a result, you know, the kids, we got brought brought along. What we saw going on behind closed doors and what we saw going on at the church house was two different worlds. So, of course, what we learned was this is how you behave in this setting. Mhmm. And then this is what's really going on.
Corey:And it's okay as long as we're keeping things, you know, the Photoshop and edited version in the public eye. But what what happens is now all these internal problems, they just they they they just go out and keep finding friends and coming back. And the party keeps getting bigger, but the one paying the price for the party is the person that's hosting it. Yeah. And so, yeah, that's probably the easiest way to really kind of, you know, for sake of time, just, yeah.
Corey:And what I found is there's so many people with the with my story and maybe not to the to the extremes that I did. You know, before Christ steeped in sin, felonies, failed marriage, just would be most most churches wouldn't wouldn't let me in their door. But but nonetheless, thank you, Jesus. God had a plan for my life. And he he he recompensed.
Corey:He he he bought all that back. That's what that's what the salvation story is. He buys all that back. But in the process of getting to there, when I finally got saved, again, because seven years of ministry, even the head senior pastor of my own church for a two year window back '26, '20 '16 to 2018. Had no salvation, did not know the lord.
Corey:Wow. Again, I had I'm bringing all of my life experiences from childhood and all the broken family issues and the rejection and abandonment. I'm bringing that into my current time and none of that had been redeemed. None of that had been healed. None of that the only thing I learned was how to navigate around it and how to put Band Aids on it so that I could keep that Photoshop and edited version of me on point so that people might actually love me someday.
Corey:The desire was to be accepted. I wanted to be loved and wanted. And that and it's a crazy thing about that is because that's what we all want.
Micaela:Right.
Corey:But the problem is we have this hole of want and acceptance that's been put there intentionally by God that can only be filled by God. Yeah. And that's in Ecclesiastes three eleven that he set eternity in the heart of man. So we have a desire for eternal things. And until Christ, until salvation takes place, the only way we know to even attempt to fill them is by grabbing on finite things that are not eternal.
Corey:Relationships, accolades, standings, possessions, commerce, all these things. And and what it does is it it just creates a lot of unhealthy behavior. So, on my side of it, when I was in ministry, I still had these, you know, I still had the steeped in sin, the felonies, the the drug addiction, all that stuff in my twenties. I was doing everything I could to hide that. Because now I'm a pastor, god forbid anybody find out that I used to have some major issues.
Corey:Right? But when salvation took place for me, it was about four years ago, all the blinders got ripped off. Because when you're free, you don't care about any chains because the chains aren't there anymore. Yeah. You're dancing in the glory of God.
Corey:So then I'm like, oh, wait, wait a minute. I have stuff to hide, but so does everybody else
Micaela:Yeah.
Corey:In varying degrees. But imagine if we could be free enough and confident enough in who God is and who we are in him that we could actually offer a completely vulnerable transparent testimony. Amen. And then the holy spirit was like, yeah, I wrote about that once. It's called Revelation twelve eleven.
Corey:That's how the enemy has overcome because the enemy wants to keep us in boxes. Yep. To where we feel like we're the only one that has that past. We're the only one whose mom was like this or whose father was like that. We're the ones that experience abuse as a child.
Corey:We're the only ones that and so the the devil does a really good job of keeping us in these boxes, but the deliverer is knocking at the door. That invitation to open that door and be vulnerable, Jesus is standing right there. He's knocking on that door. That's the revelation three knock. And and when we let him into that, we see that, hey.
Corey:It's freeing and sharing my testimony because if I tell you first, then the devil has nothing to hold over my head anymore.
Micaela:Yep.
Corey:So now I boast in my testimony. Yep. I'm meeting somebody for the first time. I'm like, oh, yeah. I mean, I was I was a wreck before Jesus.
Corey:Steeped in sin, felonies, failed marriage. Man, there's no way I should be preaching the word of God. Like it's crazy. And they're like, you see the jaw drop amongst Like, did he really just say that? He just met me.
Corey:He ain't no, no, I'm boasting in my weakness. There's no reason that I should be able to even say the name of Jesus. And what that does is it invites the Holy Spirit to come in and fortify your identity. Because the thing that's always, it always comes back to is identity. Who am I?
Corey:And we will never know who we are until we know whose we are. And and that's that's the hinge pin to the whole thing. So before Jesus, you know, doing my best to serve god, doing my best to be a good person, doing my best to love people, but I didn't have love myself yet. So I had no ability to give true love. You know, Jesus said, if you love me, obey my commandments.
Corey:But we have too many people trying to obey commandments without falling in love first. We've got to fall in love. Everything has to come from love. So now instead of evaluating my Christian walk, I'm focusing on the love. I'm focusing on being in love and doing whatever I have to do to continue to stir my adoration and my affections for Jesus so that I can captivate and keep that flame of love going.
Corey:There's the fire of romances in his eyes. Right? And so now, whatever my focus and my priority is on the presence of god and stoking that flame of romance, then my my walking it out is it's secondary. It's it's a it's a byproduct. I'm not thinking about it anymore.
Corey:It's just happening naturally.
Micaela:Yeah. That's good.
Corey:So, yeah, it's that's the easiest way I can sum it up. There's so many people hurting out there, and there's so many people because it's amazing how disarming it is whenever we have people that are not afraid to share their testimony. Yep. Because they actually believe that God is God. Yep.
Corey:And that God is good. You know? That's it. That's all we need to know. There's only two things we need to know in life, that God is God and God is good.
Corey:That's it. That everything else takes care of itself.
Micaela:Amen. That's so good. So whenever you were kind of in that season where you were pastoring, how long was it that you were kind of like one foot in, one foot out? Like how long was that period of time?
Corey:So it was a two year period of time. And again, and here's what's so amazing about this, because you immediately hear the voice for the church members. Well, how do we know if our pastor's saved? How do we know if he's really doing it from Well, see, now I got another excuse not to go to church because maybe my, no, no, no, hold on. God never punished the people I was leading because of my lack of salvation.
Micaela:That's good.
Corey:When the word of God is going forth, it never returns void. It says the word of God never return, not the messenger, not the Yeah. Whatever. So so no matter where we're at, the word of God's going forth. God's not going to punish his people.
Corey:He's he's a need meter. That's what he does. He always meets the need. So he was feeding his people. There was lives that were affected.
Corey:Eternity was affected. Salvations were taking place. We had bonafide miracles taking place. We had documented cancer case that was stage five. I think they were closing the door.
Corey:I mean, we it was crazy. We we had this one guy, he he went brain dead for twenty minutes on the way to the hospital, and and they instantly had to incubate the guy. Me and the family, we got together and we started knocking on heaven's door together. Again, I was doing what I thought was knocking on the heaven, but nonetheless, we were petitioning in the name of Jesus for this guy to be saved. He literally sat up in the bed, took the thing out of his throat and began speaking and laughing.
Corey:By by all intents and purpose, according to medical documents, he should have been brain dead and a vegetable for the rest of his life, let alone being able to speak, but he sat up in his bed. So we had miracles breaking out, people getting cured of cancer, and I wasn't saved.
Micaela:What were your thoughts with that though, as you're like seeing the miracles? Did you think it was a coincidence at that time or you realized it was God but didn't wanna give up?
Corey:No. No. I just mean, to answer your question, I wasn't thinking anything. I was just like, man, people are miracles are breaking out. Was awesome.
Corey:Like, I was like, this is great. But the problem is eventually when we're not drawing from the well of Christ and we are drawing from the well of self, because outside of salvation, you're drawing from the well of self at best. Self runs dry, but he's the well that never runs dry. Yeah. Right?
Corey:So he's the well sitting on the well offering the water of life. He is the well. And so when we're drawing from him, then it never runs dry. It's the overflow. It's a never stop.
Corey:It it's it's a never stop supply. And so but but when you're around it and and so and I always say like this, you know, I can go to the Texas I can go to Hurricane Harbor this season. I can get a I can pass. I can put the swim trunk on. I can stand under the the ride.
Corey:And guess what's gonna happen? Some water's gonna come off of that slide every once in while. Some ricochet sprinkle water is gonna come off. I'm gonna get a little spray every once in
Micaela:a while.
Corey:I'm gonna get wet. But if I never get into the actual water, then all I did was get a sunburn. You try going? Good. Yeah.
Corey:So so I was in the theme park and it was entertaining. It was it was glorious. There was people were getting rocked, but I didn't understand how I had never been on the ride yet. I was on the ride. I hadn't gotten and so
Micaela:So what got you onto that ride? Like, what was the moment that you went from lukewarm to on fire? Yeah.
Corey:So, married to my beautiful wife now, almost seven years. We're about to, celebrate seven years. Congratulations. Yes. Thank you, Jesus.
Corey:Before salvation, I never had a relationship the last more than a year in my life. Mhmm. I was such a broken person. I didn't I had I had only me to give, and I was a very broken individual. Still am by the grace of God, man.
Corey:I never lose that place of I'm deeply in need of the of the grace and mercy of God. So so so the goal is to stay broken. We're just broken in different ways. But four years ago, my wife was twenty seven weeks pregnant with the COVID, delta wave of, COVID hit that was taking out pregnant women. She was admitted to the emergency room.
Corey:She's the most fittest, most healthy person you could even you could ever dream of. And she she, long story long, was on the eve of needing to be intubated because she was gonna pass away that night if she didn't. They pulled me out to the hallway and they said, mister Freeze, you need to decide if you wanna save your wife or you wanna save your son. And, my son was twenty seven weeks and two days in her stomach at that point. And I said, oh, that's easy.
Corey:You saved my son because God's gonna save them both. Unsaved man proclaiming healing and and proclaiming life over my wife. She was in she was in a coma for eight days. That time in COVID, they weren't even letting people into the hospitals, even to say goodbye to their loved one as they're passing away. By some miracle, I got invited to come into her emergency room.
Corey:And I had remembered this message, that I heard from Bill Johnson, where he had a friend that had passed his his wife had passed away, and he was in the room with her. And he pulled up a chair and told the devil to sit in the chair, he was gonna watch him praise God. And I remembered that story while sitting there in this room with her, holding my wife's lifeless hand. And, and and this light bulb went off, and I said, yeah. Yeah.
Corey:That's what I'm gonna do. So I pulled up a chair, and I told the devil to sit down because he was gonna watch me praise god. And I began to sing praise and worship out in the room. The the air became electrified. Again, I still was not saved yet.
Corey:Three days later, she woke up. She was only the fourth one out of the entire hospital to live. And so, she woke up and she she instantly Corey. Corey. Corey.
Corey:Listen. Jesus came to me in the first night of of the coma. He spent the whole night with me, and he told me that he's gonna spare my life, but you're gonna do ministry. You're gonna do full time ministry. We're he's gonna spare my life, and and she did this.
Corey:And and I'm thinking, oh, yeah. Sure. And and I was in a relapse state at this moment. I had relapsed. I had fallen back in to a to a moment of of of addiction.
Corey:And so I'm in a relapse condition. I'm professing life over my wife. My wife has this amazing sleepover with Jesus. They're in their snuggie together just, like, doing all these stories back and forth. And then, she wakes up and tells me about the time I'm like, oh, yeah.
Corey:Jesus came to you in your dream. Sure. Let me write that down real quick. A week later, god came to me in a dream, and he took me to the gate of judgment. And I began seeing people being judged, I stepped up to be judged.
Corey:And he took me out of the dream, and he said, Corey, if you run from my call one more second, I'm gonna take your life. And that was four years ago. I believed him. And so we took our very fruitful, very lucrative business. We had a con contracting business in Dallas Fort Worth, and we turn we shut it down instantly.
Corey:We took all of our life savings, and we moved into a little sardine box on the church property. And we became a family in the in that trailer house. I mean, it was it was the most beautiful thing ever. But I knew in that moment, if I was actually gonna be a Christian, I was gonna have to learn how to pray. And so I just had this thing in me.
Corey:Okay. I'm gonna give God ten minutes in the morning before my kids and family woke up. I knew it needed to happen before they woke up because if if I waited, it was gonna be game over in ten minutes before I went to bed at night. And I just did. I was diligent.
Corey:I didn't miss for a single day. And about six weeks into this daily diligence of spending time with God, this time starts growing organically. I'm starting to experience, and I'm saved at this point. I I the moment that I got saved was when I held my son for the first time. The power of heaven just hit me like a tidal wave.
Corey:That's when I got saved. I got a picture of it. I was telling you about that the other day. But so we're six to eight weeks into the salvation thing, into praying daily things, spending time with god, and all of a sudden, I start seeing angels going around the room, and I'm like, what is going on? This stuff isn't real anymore.
Corey:I was raised up in a tradition that taught that that stopped back with the first apostles. And so I'm like, some I'm, like, hallucinating. Maybe I'm having a, like, a retract from a drug episode or something. And I'm like, okay. Okay.
Corey:Lord, help me because this is kinda scary. I'm a tell you right now. When angels start coming in your room, it's it's not a, this is awesome. It's a fear of the lord. Like Yeah.
Corey:I don't wanna move. It's there's a reason that that he bowed down and started trying to worship the angel in the book of Revelation.
Micaela:Right.
Corey:So, I'm like, Lord, help me. How do I know this is real? How do I know this? And so my eyes are closed as I'm seeing these balls of light moving around, and I heard the holy spirit say, just move your head to the right and left. Because if it's a defect with your eyes I'm a real rational person.
Corey:Like, I'm trying to methodically think things out. If you move your head to the right and the left, then those those balls will move with you Mhmm. If they're coming from you. But if they're in the room and they're real, then they're not gonna move at all. And I'm like, okay.
Corey:Here we go. And then I start moving in the balls of light because the bible talks about angels being light. They come from light. He is light. And, and so they were just doing their own thing.
Corey:They were just dancing in the glory of God because the presence of God was so thick in that place. Wow. And and and what I love to point out is it wasn't because I was so focused and I was such a good prayer warrior. I was only six weeks into even knowing how to like, learning how to prayer. It was the fact that I was being diligent.
Corey:The bible says those who diligently seek me will find me. The most basic thing, like, I didn't know what the heck I was doing. I just was stupid enough to show up every day. And because I was consistent with it, heaven started breaking into my prayer sessions. And this is almost four years ago, and to this day, I haven't missed a single day since because once you touch heaven, you you won't settle for Netflix.
Corey:Yeah. Like, you're just and I'm not saying we don't do, like, wifey and I, we Netflix and chill for sure, but I'm just saying, like, the glory of god or or Netflix? Tiger King or Netflix? You know? And it's like, I'll take glory of god.
Corey:And so I
Micaela:remember you mentioning the room that you prayed in for a while. There were some really cool details with that that you shared and kind of how that was the place that it sounds like that was where you came to. Yeah. Yeah. Would you share, like it was even to the point of the name of some of the stuff.
Micaela:I love that story.
Corey:Yeah. So walked away from the business, walked away from all this money, and and we're we're talking about significant money. We're not talking about, like, oh, he was doing pretty good for we're talking about, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. We're talking about, like, oh, just you could do whatever you want whenever you wanted. I only had to work about three hours a week.
Corey:So it was like it was like the sometimes the devil will make your prison cell so comfortable that you don't even realize you're in a cell. Right? And so, well, God's blessed me. But actually, no. There was a real enemy that was coming for me that did not want me to figure out the freedom and being uncomfortable.
Corey:Wow. And so so yeah. So I was a contractor. We just moved on the church property and and I was like, okay, we're in this tiny little sardine box because it was not one of the big glorious, trailer. Like, was it was it was an economy one.
Corey:And I was like, okay. Got, you know, I got five kids coming in and out of here. I I can't like, I need a quiet place. I need my own secret place. Like, I need a place that I'm gonna be able to continue to do this daily thing that I've been doing up until this point.
Corey:Because we didn't move on to the church property for about six months after I got saved. So six months, I had my own bedroom for my quiet place. Like, I was super spoiled. Mean, we we were very successful in this this business we were in. So we had a brand new five bedroom house.
Corey:I had my own bedroom for my Quiet Place. So I was super spoiled. And so I was like, Lord, we're following you. Like, we don't know how this is gonna work out, but we're following. So I need you I need you to provide me a secret place.
Corey:And I was like, oh, cool. You asked the right question. So, so we got a $50,000 building donated to us and I got I got to customize, build it. But the thing about getting donated materials to build something is you don't get to pick what it is. You're just like thankful for the stuff.
Corey:And so god gave me a dream, and he told me that the that the plate it was supposed to be 12 feet by 12 feet to the inside of the walls. And then, of course, my prophetic will start spinning. I'm starting to look up 12 by 12, a 44,000, the 12 get the, you know, 12 apostles, the like, all this stuff. So the the numbers are like god speaks in numbers like crazy. He never and that's the thing about his voice.
Corey:He he he never stops speaking. You just have to stop listening to other things long enough to hear it. And so he's he's like, it's gotta be 12 by 12. I want high vaulted ceilings, 10 foot walls, and a big like, I'm gonna build you a mini cathedral. And I'm like, this is awesome.
Corey:So I give, the donor, the the the company that was donating, shout out to GNS Lumber Terrell, Texas, donated this entire building for us. And they they're like, okay. Cool. So you we need something to wrap the studs with, right, the Tyvek type deal, but they didn't have Tyvek belt. They had called noise canceling wrap.
Corey:So it's it's the very film that they put over sheets of metal and fabrication, businesses when they're with that laser beam that's cutting the metal. So it's not like ear splitting loud and damaging eardrums. Mhmm. So it's noise canceling film. So I wrapped the studs with noise canceling film, and then the sheetrock that was donated was 10 foot sheets, and it was called Quiet Rock.
Corey:It was a pane of sheetrock, a polyethylene blend, a membrane in between, and then another pane of quiet rock. So he built my secret place with noise canceling wrap and quiet rock. So, like, this stuff, you you just can't make it up. Yeah. But this is the god that we serve, and and it's it's it breaks my heart because so many people will sit in churches their whole life and not realize the access to heaven that we all have right now.
Corey:Totally. And it's nothing special about me whatsoever. Like, I'm the least un and most unqualified person that you could ever imagine. Like, I stumbled into this stuff accidentally. Like, the the prophetic realm, things, dreams, visions, all these things that I thought was that was not real.
Corey:I thought it was fake. Even even in the season when I was a pastor before, I thought people were making this stuff up to sell books or to pack seats in their churches. But but to finally stumble into it, knowing like, hey. If he's letting this happen to me, if if I'm getting to to touch this, then that means we can all touch it.
Micaela:Mhmm.
Corey:And and so the the the to be qualified to touch heaven, there's only one qualification, the blood of Jesus. Amen. That's it. And Paul did he went to such great lengths to to debunk this mythology around the spiritual elite. Yeah.
Corey:And because there's still this spiritual elite out here to this day. Well, only they get to experience heaven like that. Well, only they get to hear god's voice. Like, only they get to see dreams and visions and and but but it's it's a it's just not truth. The truth is we all have access to this.
Corey:The only thing we have to do is allow our world to come slow long enough so that we can catch up to the speed of heaven because heaven's so much it's so much beyond what we're doing. But we have to allow ourselves to become slow and become nothing. And that's why Jesus said in Mark one thirty five that he woke up hours before the dawn. Because hours before the dawn on the fourth watch, that's when the world is most still. So when the world is most still, it's the easiest for us to tap into the world of heaven.
Corey:It's easiest for us to tap into heaven whenever the world itself is the most still. And so that's why this sacrifice of getting up a little bit earlier to get with Jesus, it just pays dividends. And then now all of sudden, it starts getting on you, and it's game over at that point. Mhmm. You start having all all kinds of stuff start breaking off, and and it's just it's game over because you're just not gonna settle for anything less.
Corey:And then you start fasting. You start learning the power of fasting, and you start learn and all of sudden, you're going on a you're going on a hunger strike for more of the bread of Evan. Yeah. Because because his bread just fills in a way that the world can't. And it is yeah.
Corey:So sorry. I'll start getting all excited
Micaela:about this No. This is like I am so much wisdom, and I love that you can see your your fire for God. And, like, it's tangible. And that's something too. I'm really glad that you mentioned the, like, spiritual gifts because that's something I wanted to ask you about because me, personally, I was in the same boat where I thought that kinda died.
Micaela:I didn't think that existed anymore. And then I started experiencing them for myself, seeing healing and prophecy and words of wisdom. And I was like, wait a second. Like,
Corey:this This isn't supposed to be out anymore.
Micaela:Yeah. So I wanted to touch on that for anybody that might be listening that is unsure, either, like, maybe what convinced you of it. And then I loved to hear kinda were saying how we can grow in them, which it sounds like you kinda touched on. But, also, what are they even for?
Corey:Yeah.
Micaela:Yeah. You know what I mean?
Corey:Yeah. For sure. The first question I'll answer is what are they for? They're to show God that or show people that God's real. Yeah.
Corey:That's it. A word of knowledge, in my opinion, is one of the most profound miracles because even more than the healing. We were out doing street ministry, a couple weeks back, and we were just in a strip mall just walking up and talking to people about Jesus. That's what I love. We don't have to overcomplicate this thing.
Corey:It's just making ourselves available. And so, this this gentleman, he's probably in his fifties. He had a 13 year old son with him. They walked up on us, and, and, you know, we're we're kinda praying for him. And and as we get on praying, the lord tells me that his father is is terminally ill, the, the 50 year old gentleman.
Corey:And so when we got him praying, and and this it's it's really just being willing to be wrong, like, willing to be wrong. Yep. Like, god just want all he needs us to do is to be willing to be wrong. Because I wanna clarify, the Old Testament prophet to to today, the gift of prophecy is totally different. The Bible says in the New Testament that we see in part and we hear in part.
Corey:So it's very much a muscle. It's something that we're gonna learn how to tap into. We're gonna learn through trial and error how to discern his voice over our own voice and our soulless voice. And so it's just being willing to be vulnerable and to be wrong. Yeah.
Corey:And so just through through the time and and and just history with God and learning his voice, I'm able to discern that he's telling me this guy's dad is is, like, terminally ill. And so we get up praying, I'm like I'm like, hey, man. Like, I realized I don't know you at all, but, like, I kinda felt like God was telling me that that you had a father that was, like, terminally ill. Like, he was very, very sick. Is that is that true?
Corey:And you should have seen this 13 year old boy. His eyes got as big as plates, and that's the point I'm making. That guy knows God is real. Yep. He doesn't know me.
Corey:I don't know him. There wasn't an audience to give me a round of applause. It was just a man in front of a man and willing to be vulnerable and to be used by God and to give a word of knowledge and and him's yes. He was. And then, of course, we were able to pray for him, but that guy walked away knowing undeniably that God is real.
Corey:That guy doesn't know me at all. He's there's no way he could know that. Like, I was talking about his dad. His dad wasn't even there. Mhmm.
Corey:So I couldn't, like, see a guy with a in a wheelchair and be like, I discern that you're no. Like, the guy wasn't there. So the point I'm making is it's simply us dying enough to self that we can hear the emerging right now Rhema word of god. That's it. That's all it is.
Corey:It's just us being dead enough that he can actually be alive in us. And so so yeah. So that and then, so so it's it's really heartbreaking. But in the body of Christ today, there's two major parties, and they are, and I won't go too deep in it just for for sake of time, but, this is a very highly controversial topic.
Micaela:Right.
Corey:It is, those that are, in in the party of that the gifts ceased with the original apostles, that they were only, available for a time to form god's church, and that is what's called cessationist. So the word cease, stop, is the root of that that phrase. They take one passage out of, one of their main passages anyways is out of first Corinthians 13, and that's where it's going through the gifts. It's funny you're asking about gifts. And it's it's talking about prophecy.
Corey:And if you prophesy without love and all this all this discussion. But it was saying when the truth shall come, they'll be doing they'll be doing away with healing. They'll be doing away of prophecy. They'll be doing away of all these things. So, this party that believes that gifts that stop are saying that truth being the written word of god.
Corey:So, they believe that when the written word of god became circulated and available for the larger massive public that the gift stopped because now the church is formed, and there's no longer needs of it. But then on the other side of the on the other other road, you have what's called continuous. They believe that god continues to operate in this. Now back to this passage, the truth coming is very easy to see that it's talking about the second advent. It's talking about when Jesus comes back to take us home because Jesus is identified as the way, the truth, and the life.
Corey:So when he takes us to heaven, there won't be a need of prophecy. You're gonna be in the presence of the spirit of prophecy, which is Jesus. There won't be need of healing because you're gonna be in your glorified body. You're not gonna be you're not gonna have cancer doesn't exist in heaven. It it is not in the language of heaven.
Corey:Disease is not in the language of heaven. Also, disease is not in the language of what god's authored over anybody's life either. What we know is disease and all this horrific stuff we deal with is the fall of Genesis three. It's the fall of mankind. It's us mixing the bloodlines and us being, just a debauched, degrade, and dark people for hundreds and hundreds and thousands of years, and and it all comes together and culminates.
Corey:It's the it's the fallout of free will as well. You know, he didn't want robots. He wants romance. So he he gives us this free will, this scandal of grace to choose him. And here's the most here's and I'll just drive this right at the heart.
Corey:This is what people miss. We have the free will choice to choose. So what does that mean? It means that the savior of the universe wants to be chosen. He wants to be chased.
Corey:He wants to be romanced. He wants to the same way that we we we chased our our our better halves, the same thing that god wants to he wants to be chased. He wants to be chosen. He wants to be selected. He wants to be picked.
Corey:He wants to be oh oh, are we gonna have are we gonna sit in front of a TV for four hours? Are we gonna get into the prairie? He wants to be picked. He wants to be chased. He wants to be wanted.
Corey:He wants somebody to look back. That's it. He just want he's just looking for people that'll look back, that'll slow their world down just long enough to look back at him. And he's leaning into that moment that he'll catch our glance, that he'll catch our gaze. He's sitting on the outside of eternity, and he's leaning.
Corey:He's like, man, I know today, they're gonna put their life on hold just long enough just to see me. And for those people that will stop long enough, they'll see the fire in his eyes, and they'll be conformed to the image of the sun by the fire in his eyes instead of the fire of tribulation and trials. There's a there's a there's a forming into the image of Christ that can take place in intimacy that we can sidestep some the fires of the world. And so these these gifts, these the prophecy, all these things, they're here now because god's still forming his church. Yeah.
Corey:He's still building his church. He's still building the ecclesia. And so the that that's what these gifts are for. The it's much like an orange tree. The tree itself was never meant to harvest the oranges and nourish itself.
Corey:Those those oranges were only ever intended to be harvested from the tree so that they could nourish and bless others. And the beautiful thing about these trees is they regenerate. They produce more fruit. So, yeah, so that in a nutshell is what the spiritual gifting is for, and it is for today. It's still here.
Corey:The the bible clearly has is such a huge argument scripturally for the gifts being now. Jesus said in the gospel, read letters, my my disciples, they will be known by this. These fruits will follow them. These signs will follow them. They will cast out devils in my name.
Corey:They will heal the sick in my name. They will resurrect dead bodies in my name. These are things that we should be seeing in our world if we truly are following Jesus. And so there's but but what this party of cessationist does, it takes the responsibility off of them to actually be walking in the signs and wonders
Micaela:Right.
Corey:For us to be carrying the weight of heaven with this.
Micaela:It takes a lot of faith, though. Like you said, it and I love how you put it. You said letting yourself basically, the ability to be wrong.
Corey:Yeah. Being willing to be wrong. Yeah. Because you're gonna miss it. Yeah.
Corey:They're gonna be like, yeah. No. No. Never been married before. That's like, oh, man.
Corey:I'm so sorry. I just I feel God's heart for you so much. And and, there's ways that we can phrase it to where it doesn't make it so theatrical and so, like, mystical.
Micaela:Right.
Corey:Like, instead of instead of thus says the Lord Yeah. It's, you know, if god was here right now, I feel like he would he would be saying this to you. I just feel god god's pressing on my heart this about you right now. I feel like he's showing me, like, you've got such compassion and your willingness to just. You're serving behind the scenes when nobody's and you don't need the pat on the back.
Corey:And I just feel like God's just saying to me right now that he's so proud of you. That's how you can give a word of knowledge. It doesn't have to be wrapped up in all this spiritual elite, cultural language.
Micaela:Right.
Corey:And so that's where we miss it a lot because
Micaela:How can you grow in that, though? So, like, I guess, let's start with the person who hasn't experienced this or even seen it maybe. How would they move from, I think you called it sensationalist
Corey:Yeah. To Cessationist.
Micaela:Yep. Cessationist into, like, the spiritual
Corey:Continuous. Yeah. So it's it's simply just but you know why that guy got healed? Because he kept showing up. God has made this thing so simple for us.
Corey:All we have to do is keep showing up about how often am I touching heaven, not how long.
Micaela:I'm worried that if I said the wrong thing that then they'd be like, oh, these Christians are even crazier than I thought.
Corey:Use the sandwich theory. Love, word, love.
Micaela:Is there a way that you kinda decipher what's from the enemy, what's from you, and what's from God?
Corey:Yeah. Usually when it's God.