Ex Convict AND Gangster Finds Relationship With Jesus | You Are Loved Podcast

how hard it is and to show you how loved you are by your heavenly father. This week I have the honor of sharing with you Tim's story. Tim's childhood was filled with drug use, alcohol, abuse, and chaos, which caused him to make some painful choices. He was given labels by the world that shaped his reality. Labels like victim, addict, gang member, and convict. He held on to those because he didn't know his true identity. These lies made him go deeper into drugs and crime, which led to him spending 15 years in prison. His life was a mess and spiraling downward until one day he discovered who he was called to be. Tell me a little bit about yourself. My name is Tim and I was born in Suburial Potency. So tell me, Tim, about what your life was like. I grew up in an extremely deep childhood. My dad was a drug addict and I just had a very traumatic and very chaotic childhood. What did that cause you to feel or do? I had a lot of pain with a heart, a lot of confusion. This I had to learn to deal with and I turned a drug because of that at every age. And what were you? For about 15. Wow. Yeah. Wow. How long were you in addiction? For the next 20 years. Wow. Wow. And what did that addiction cause in your life? A lot of chaos. No stability. I just stayed up. Pretty much lost on the street of a life of crime. Ended up in in prison, spent a very hard 15 years in prison. Wow. So what changed? God radically and completely transformed my life. I went to church at your early age with my grandmother and I always knew who the Lord was and I always knew about the man called his book. And until I got to a true purpose, I never really invited him to come into my heart and I never saw a personal relationship plan. So the biggest thing that changed is a personal loving relationship. I fell in love with my creator. That's awesome. So how long have you been it to perfect about nine months now? Okay. How does life look different today? Wow. I'm a business owner again. I had my my valor's license for the first time 15 years. But the main thing is I have a pinch and joy and comfort that I never knew against him. Every day just seems to get better and better and better. I experience radical transformation daily in my life through a personal relationship with the Lord. So there's a lot of broken people that will watch this video and hear what you have to say. What do you want them to know? What advice could you give them or what could you share with them to help them through their their struggles? Just to pray. Pray. Seek the Lord. Matthew, you should serve the Lord. He says, "Seek the person,

King God, and everything else will be added to that." It's about a personal relationship. I spend time daily in prayer, listening to praise and worship music. He's changed the desires of my heart, the things I used to enjoy doing with my time. I don't enjoy anymore. I have a desire in my heart for the Lord and to show the world God's love. I love the words of labels on me. At a young age, I was labeled as a victim and then I became an addict. A gang member, a calm bitch, and those were all lives for me. And now I know today who I am in Christ. I know my true I didn't. I knew who I really am. And that's really when it changed for me, when my whole life was getting changed and everything started to look like it was supposed to look not like the world told me it was supposed to look. A few minutes ago, we were chatting and you shared a story and I wondered if you'd be willing to share that here. It just gave me goosebumps. It was so powerful about the testimony you'd seen of the guy who said God took his That was so powerful. - Absolutely, absolutely. I was probably about 13, and I was in church in the Southern Baptist Church, and there was a deacon that I looked up to, and respected, and he was giving his testimony, and he was talking about, he was an alcoholic for years, and he prayed, and the Lord just took the taste of alcohol out of his mouth. And I remembered that all to the years of a deacon, you know, I went for 25 years in active addiction, and there would be times that I would see it, and cry, and cry out to God, while I was actively getting high, and asked, "Why am I doing this?" You know, why have you not taken it from me? And then he fast forward about 20 years, and I'm in prison, and I meet a guy that had overdosed in another facility, and he was in my building, and he would read his Bible,

so that led me to him, you know, because he was in his word. And I asked him, I said, because I knew he wasn't getting high, I said, "How are you sitting here not getting high?" And he made the exact same hand muckling, and he said, "The Lord just took it from me. "He chose to taste it, but that was my mouth." And then I started asking the Lord, I started crying out after God, and asking him, "Why not me? "Why have you not taken it from me?" You know my heart, you know that I loved, why have you not taken it from me? And a couple of weeks after I got to true purpose, I was on the back porch, and I started crying out after God again, and I asked him, I said, "Why not me or why have you not taken it from me?" And it's plain as I'm sitting here talking to you, after hearing me in my spirit telling me, "Son, I've done everything on the cross "that needs to be done." You have to learn to claim that victory and walking that. And from that moment forward, I can sit here and tell you that I've not had any desire or any thought abusing anything. And it was not about, the Lord had done done his part. You know, he's sitting in the center down the cross with us. He defeated everything that needs to be defeated in our life, but we in the place have to learn to walk in that and claim that that victory is ours.

The battle's been won. He didn't win the battle, but we've got to learn to give it to him and allow him to take that and not pick it back up all the way. - Yes, that's so good. So powerful that a lot of people never, never get that. - Right. - You know, so I love that he showed that to you. - Absolutely, absolutely. And it was a pivotal moment in my life, you know? - So I want to talk about love for a minute 'cause that's, I mean, obviously this is called your love. And goal is to show people that they're loved, but not loved the way the world loves, right? Love the way that the Lord loves. And I think that in our addiction, in the world, when we're living without God is love, so how can we truly know what love is? We get this picture of what we think love looks like or feels like, and until you experience real love, you don't know the difference. And so I wonder if you could just talk for a minute about what you think, what you used to think love looks like. And then today, now that you've had these beautiful radical encounters, what, how you would describe love. - Used to, to me, a love looked like somebody doing something for me, whether you're back a gang or get from somebody, I felt like if somebody was giving me, for instance, money or their time or whatever it was,

it was all about, it was selfish, it looked selfish. People, whatever I can get from somebody, but today it's about what I can do for other people, you know, because that's what the love of Christ is. It's what he done for us and becomes helpless. How can I serve? How can I allow people to see the love of God and the light through me, you know, by giving up my time to spend with other people, sacrificing myself. So really, today, love for me, the sacrifice. - It's being fun. And Jesus made the greatest sacrifice. - Amen. - You lived many, many years in addiction. - Yes. - You spent a lot of time in prison. And I know we can tell by looking at you you have a lot of tattoos. And at one point in your life, those probably harmed your ability to be where you needed to be, right? But today, you view those a little differently, don't you? - Yeah, I look at them a lot differently. They're keys. I look at my tattoos as keys to be able to open doors. The lot of people can open. You know, I can go and minister to the tension centers and prisons and hollow camps where a lot of them, and I'm well-received because they can look at me and my body tells a story.

They notice I've been where they are. So they're more willing to, or open up to me, or allow me to share a piece of me and what I've been through with them. So tonight, I look at them as keys. - They're very precious to me today because a lot of people can't go to the places that I can go. - Right. - And speak to the people that I can speak to. You know, we all have a calling on our lives. And we all have a group. You can reach people that I can. I can reach people that you can. There's other people out there. We're all gonna be able to count them at one point for the people that were placed in our lives. And do we share the gospel and the love of Jesus Christ? Or do we not? So that's really what it boils down to. Yeah, today I will not have to observe their keys. Yeah, yeah. - So you've been in the program, how long? That's fantastic. So what does the future look like for you? I do it one day at a time. It's so bright. I say it's so bright. It's full of peace, joy, love, happiness. Every day, it just seems I'm just better, you know, through obedience and humility

and just seeking what God has for me in my life, you know? I try not to look too far ahead and just take it a day or something. - Right, right. We know the Lord has a plan. I think it'd be scary to look too far ahead. Well, I feel like you're not afraid of anything. - No. (laughs) - No, earlier you were talking about being a fighter and how you used to fight for the wrong things, but you're learning to fight for the kingdom. - The kingdom, I mean. - And that's amazing. - Yeah. - I love that. - I was in Medko for years, you know, and this modern day witchcraft, you know, I've been delivering from that. I've been so delivering from that. I've been delivering from it. Lord, checking that from me. But the areas that I was affected being for the enemy, God has now turned that around and I'm affected being those same areas for his kingdom. He's really turned my pain and the wreckage and the things that I've been through into a purpose, you know. And that's one thing that when I first got to true purpose, I had a counselor ask me, you know what I mean? What does your desire?

And I said, I want to take the pain that I've been through and everything I've been through and be able to package it and give it back to other young men in a way that helps transform their life or change the trajectory of their life. 'Cause what greater on is it than to be able to sit down with somebody that's going in the wrong direction, share my experiences and what I've been through and lead them to the truth. And if they received that, if they choose to receive that and they change the trajectory of their life, what greater on everything I've been through, all the pain, the homelessness, the nights in prison, everything that I've been through is gonna be worth it to me if I can use that to change the matter for the lot. - Yeah, like that the enemy meant for evil, God will turn it in very good. And what a blessing would do that. - Absolutely, absolutely. - And even you just being here and sharing your story and people watching this video, they're gonna see you and they're gonna see hope and they're gonna see joy and they're gonna think, I can do that. And I love the greatest thing for me about these interviews is people don't have to stay in their brokenness, but sometimes when you're in your brokenness, you don't see the light at the end of the tunnel, you don't know how to get out of it, but then you can watch a story of someone who was so broken and so lost and so in the world and they met Jesus

and everything changed. - Everything changed. And that was my prayer, that's my prayer for this, is that it reaches somebody, somebody hears. And that's all I wanna do, I just wanna tell people, well, God done for me. You know, there's a point in my past when I was a young, 13, 14, I said, wanted church and you didn't buy water to live in your heart, right? But for some reason, there was a saying about staying up and saying, I love the Lord, I'm a Christian, I follow Christ and today I would be ashamed not to do that. You know what I mean? I am the Jesus Spirit, I am that guy that tells everybody about the Lord, how could I not? - Everything you brought me from and saved me from, I delivered me from, I will be ashamed not to tell people about the Lord. - That's awesome. Is there anything else that the Lord's put on your heart that you wanna share or anything I didn't ask you about? - Just when you said the thing about it, there is hope, hope is a very powerful word because you feel so hopeless and addicted. And I just want people to know there are, there is hope, there absolutely is hope. And you can find that power and that strength in Christ. You can't do it along, but once you lay it down, it's being Jesus and you sincerely ask him to come into your heart and he helped you,

he's gonna show up, he's gonna show up, but you also have to do your part. You know, you also have to do your part, continue to seek that personal relationship. It's about the personal relationship. Falling in love was your creative. Head over heels, falling in love with the person that saved you. And it will change your desires to things that you enjoy. I mean, I don't even know I don't even know that man. I don't even know anything about him. 'Cause there's no personality traits. I walk different, I talk different, I act different. Everything in me is different because I am a new creation, in Christ. And it's nothing to do with me. God gets all the glory. I have done none of this. All I do is give every day and say yes Lord. What do you want me to do today? How do you want me to do it? Sometimes it takes time to do that, and sometimes it's as simple as just make her well be done. Make her well be done in my life today, Lord. Help me and lead me and guide me with your spirit. Yes. Well, thank you for saying yes to this. Absolutely. For revealing to share, I have no doubt that it's... It's gonna touch people and...

Actually, we all say thank you. You're welcome. Wow. I love when Tim said that he is now walking in victory. And you can too. God wants to give you peace, joy, love, despite all of the daily challenges that we face. Life is hard, but I love how God reminded us through Tim of how he can take our pain and use it to change others' lives. Tim mentioned True Purpose Ministries and how much staying there has changed his life. This is not just some rehab facility. This is a faith-based organization that helps men and women not only lead lives of lasting sobriety, but also find their God-given purpose. Join us next week to hear another encouraging story and be sure to subscribe or follow so you never miss an episode. Most importantly, I pray you know that no matter how far you or someone you love have run from God, it is never too late. There is always hope because you are loved. [MUSIC PLAYING]