Free Your Mind at the River with Kristi

Good morning victorious living family. I'm Christy Everton Johnson and I am coming to you today from the river. It's called the Tar River and it's called that because it is looking like some tar. I just recently got back from a trip to Houston where we got to go into the Cofield unit, the Michael unit, the Vito unit, and come on Christy, Stringfellow. And it was awesome. And you guys told me how much you love going on adventures with me and seeing the water. And oh, here in a boat, here comes a boat. This is a fisherman who is up early. And I was just sitting down here. I don't stop very often. If you met me at those units, I move quick. I go hard. And this morning I was out walking because it's finally a beautiful day. I think we're supposed to have record highs. I think we had record lows last week and record highs the week before. And it's going to get cold again this week. It's really interesting. It's like the weather does not know what it wants to be. But I just wanted to take this opportunity just to sit. And whenever I get still, I start to think about you guys. I, first of all, before I say anything, because I really don't know what I'm going to say, I just, I want to thank you, those that have been writing in, those that have been sending your hands, traces of your hands. Thank you. We have them up on our wall. We have prayer requests up on our wall. And I wish you guys could have seen last week, we had a church group that came and prayed over every one of the prayer requests again. They had already been prayed over and they got prayed over again. People were lining up on our walls, putting their hands against the hands that you've been sending. And I just want to thank you for just trusting us with your prayer request. And I want you to know that there are people who really do care. If you could have heard the prayer of that pastor as they came in to partner with our ministry, none of us even go to that church, but they came and just prayed over, you could just feel the thickness of God's presence in there. And it was absolutely beautiful. And so thank you for sending your hands, for sending in your prayer, sending in your prayers for us and your ideas. Yeah. Thank you for just being a part of this ministry. We love you so much. When I got to go into those units in the Houston area, I was overwhelmed by the reception that our ministry received. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. We went in all men's units there and I hope to get back and get to the women's unit. I went years ago, is it called Gatesville? I think I got that right, but it's in that area too.

And I went with the Stroms, Jean and Linda Strom, and I hope to get back. So have your chaplain reach out to us because we'd love to go in some more Texas units. We'd love to go in units, more units in North Carolina, more units in Florida and all over wherever you're watching from. But thank you for that reception. I left, our team left in tears just to see the impact and to hear people say, Hey, on behalf of the Muslim community, thank you. On behalf of this community, thank you. We're listening. We're watching. So I just want to say hello to you all this morning or afternoon or evening, whenever you're watching. Let's see. What would the Lord have me talk about today? Oh goodness. We learn a lot when we go on these trips. We learn a lot about each other. We learn a lot about your needs. We learn a lot about what the ministry means to people. But, you know, I think learning about each other and being a ministry that is united is probably, that's our most difficult thing when we're traveling. It's not necessarily all the struggles in the travel. And we did have those. When we left the Houston area, we got caught in that storm and it took us a long time to get home. And Mr. Pat was there. He was there for us. Mr. Pat was, bless his heart, he said this 70 year old body can't take sleeping on the floors of airports anymore. And I know I walked in my house at 6 a.m. the next morning. I was supposed to have been home way before that but I gave my husband a heart attack. But you know that's not the hard part to me. The hard part is all the emotions and all of the personalities with each other because we all have them. Me included. I'm a strong personality and I like things to go a certain way and so is Mr. Pat and Sheridan and JC. We all have different personalities. We all love each other very much but we also we have our own thoughts that come against us. You know often I'm having thoughts of you know why are you even here? They don't even want to hear you. They want to hear a Sheridan. Then the thoughts of you don't look as good as her anyway and blah blah blah. And what was funny is this time she had those thoughts and she doesn't normally get them. And she's like up from 3 a.m. on going you know I don't speak as good as her. What am I doing here? She had to call her husband. I mean she was in tears like the enemy just plaguing her with doubts and insecurities and it rose up to a point

of jealousy. And listen when I'm putting my makeup on those mornings and getting ready to go I'm like thinking you ain't gonna look as young as her. Well of course not. I've got 10 years on her. But it's like you know what are you wearing? It's not gonna be as cute. And these are the thoughts and it's so annoying. It's so annoying. JC's got his own struggles and you know he's got a lot of PTSD and he's he's he's a runner. He's hitting the highway and walking and pacing and Mr. Pat's going after him. Mr. Pat's having insecurities. Why are you even here the devil told him nobody even wants you here. You don't have a purpose here. And so this is what we're dealing with the whole time. And y'all we are people who are walking with the Lord. We are people who love each other. We love what we do. And these are the thoughts that are being assault that are assaulting our minds. But here's the beautiful thing. We are all learning to capture our thoughts. We're learning to recognize them. When that starts coming up and I'm putting my makeup on and these thoughts come I say stop. Like I literally look in the mirror and say stop it. That is your sister and you love her and she loves you. And God has chosen both of you for such a time as this. Mr. Pat goes after JC. JC let's talk about this. JC calling us. Hey I'm sorry about this or can we talk about that. Like we're all starting to realize that's the beautiful thing. And even Sheridan sat with me right before we were I think trying to remember I think we were in the veto unit. I can't remember. I'm so sorry. But she looked at me and she was like no it's the Michael unit because we were able to go on the radio after on the tank. But she looked at me and she said hey I've had jealousy towards you since 3 a.m. And I'm like you against me are you nuts. And so but she confessed it. And I you know in the past have had to confess it to her. And you know what happened in that unit that day. The enemy got a really big black eye. Because instead of JC running instead of Mr. Pat going home instead of me thinking what was me I'm getting old and no I'm not relevant anymore and shared and thinking what am I doing here. She's the founder a world champion athlete and she speaks blah blah blah. Instead of biting that apple that temptation of Satan that lie we all exposed the apple for what it was and we came to the place

we repented we talked to each other we confessed to one another and we got after it with the Lord and that place was on fire. And I know they videoed it and they're gonna have some podcasts that we did afterwards in the tank and that's gonna be shown on the Texas Channel I think on I don't know it's the the tablets you guys have there so y'all have to look for that when it gets up and we're hoping to get rights to that and put it on our channel as well well but it was so powerful listen I don't know what you are thinking about today I don't know what thoughts come against your mind but you have got to be aware of what is coming through I've heard I think it was Joyce Meyer years ago she said thoughts are like birds you can't keep them from flying over your head but you can keep them from nesting in your hair and I just thought man that is so powerful because even mr. Pat okay he has been in ministry I think he's almost 70 you think he stepped in the ministry at 15 16 years old so what is that 55 years he's been in ministry and he still has the thoughts he still says things and he has to constantly capture the thoughts and come and apologize and talk things out I've been walking with the Lord strong if since my 20s and I'm 56 now so 30 some years and I still have thoughts Sheridan and JC are newer in their walk I mean probably coming on 10 years and JC I think about five years four years and listen it's not about perfection every one of us no matter how long we've been walking with God we fall but a righteous man although he falls he gets up every single time he makes amends he captures his thoughts he replaces them with truth he does what he or she needs to do to make it right and I don't know about you today I don't know where you are I don't know the thoughts you're having I don't know where you are in your relationships with others listen even in our ministry I've had people that are now not with the ministry and we had some big talks and I was like listen I I need you to make sure that you're right with every single person on this ministry team because listen I've got carnage in the back of my rearview mirror in ministry and I don't want any more carnage I've got people that I loved I still love but that I had to say you know what we can't

walk in relationship because there was there was so much friction and so much unwillingness to see each other side that we had to part ways and you know sometimes that happens but I refuse as much as it depends on me to have that carnage and to have people hurt and it's easy to just think you're right all the time it's easy to just avoid hard conversations but if you want a life that's free of hindrances and a life that shines for God and if you want to walk in a way that unstops the flow of God because we stop it when we have jealousy we stop it think think about what God said to Cain remember there's Cain and Abel Cain's jealous his face is downcast he's feeling all bad about himself he feels rejected but here's the thing when you read in Hebrews and other places it said that Abel did what was right Cain did what was wrong and Cain got jealous and Cain resented his brother in his heart and when you let those things take root here's what the angel God said to Cain he says be careful because sin crouches at the door of your heart and it seeks to have you it seeks to control you devour you it says in the Bible that the enemy is like a roaring lion and he's going about seeking whom he may devour and that means in the Greek it means you've eaten it all the way to you're licking the bones like that's what Satan wants to do and he uses your emotions he uses whoa uses your thought patterns to do that and those thoughts those emotions God gave us emotions we've got to be willing to recognize what's happening and I told shared and I said you know it's really interesting if you think about it when I when I'm putting that makeup on and that jealousy comes up when I'm thinking look at all these wrinkles she doesn't have those look at my arms are getting a little more flabby hers are more firm you know you have those and then you have the thought and then as you meditate on it you start to have have these these feelings and I said jealousy is a really sickening feeling like I'm like what is this I feel sick to my stomach and I realized it is it's um sorry my husband's calling me it is jealousy it is jealousy and it's disgusting it is so disgusting and then I started realizing what is this oh that's self-pity what is that emotion oh that's fear and Sheridan can go way more

into all of that but you have a thought it triggers this emotion and that emotion I mean it sounds so silly but it has a real feeling and they're different anger is different than fear and fear can come up in all sorts of ways and then you know a lot of the root of all of that is pride so I want to encourage you and Sheridan can probably give you more exercises but I'm just giving you from my experience when I start to feel those things I'm starting to ask myself what is this like recently I've noticed that I feel something and then I'm having a tendency to lie after like what is that I don't even know if I've confessed this but I've confessed it to some of my other friends and my co-workers but Carla years ago she works for a ministry she gave me a beautiful necklace and I hadn't worn it in a while I've been wearing another necklace and I think I might have shared this with y'all but I'll share it again she asked me a couple weeks ago hey have you been have you worn that necklace lately and it just came out of the blue and all of a sudden this feeling like I felt like a little kid who gotten caught and she was just asking a question but this emotion came up and I lied y'all I said yes I wear it on Sundays yes I still wear and then I added on Sundays because I knew she doesn't see me on Sunday that's how fast I went to self-preservation mode and lied why because of this emotion and I noticed like the week before I'd had that emotion and I'd stretched the church on something and I'd had that emotion again when my dad confronted me on something and I got defensive and I was like what is this Lord it is all of these things that I'm saying are coming after this emotion that I'm feeling what is this and I I realized that it was fear it was fear and so I'm you're gonna have to do your own deep dive but the first thing is to recognize those emotions when they're happening to recognize that it's okay it's time to have them but it's not okay to let them take root and it's not okay to let them settle in and you continue to think on them and then because it leads to actions so as a man thinks it says in Proverbs so is he and so again you're gonna have the thoughts like I said mr. Pat's been walking with God a long long time and he still has thoughts I still have thoughts but what are you doing

with them the the Bible says in Corinthians that we are to capture those thoughts Philippians says do not it says think on what is true not what on what is not what on what else not on what is false and so think about what you're thinking about think about what you're feeling and stop when you start to you got it this takes practice you got to fill it and then you got to stop before you say something before you react and that was something JC said he's like he's standing at the Avis counter y'all we had so many things trying to rent a car the cars not there then he's got to take a four-hour uber ride from the Hobby Airport in Houston up to the Coffield unit and he's he's wanting to punch people at the Avis counter he's filling this he's getting you know triggered and he's feeling disrespected and then he's like you know what he had to stop because he was about to say something he's about to do something that's gonna land him back in a prison so he has to stop and he has to think listen I I bet I go into jails of every week and I get to spend a lot of time with men who are and women but especially the men it's in more of an intimate setting and they I get to be with them for sometimes a year sometimes it's months sometimes it's a couple years and meet with them every week and I get to know these men and I love watching the transformation but there was a gentleman who I he's doing so good but he knew that he was getting ready to get out and he just knew he was going to relapse and he determined in his head this is what he was going to do he was going to relapse because it was what he had always done in the past and I kept reminded him now you've got new tools but the enemy kept coming every day coming against him that he really wasn't a believer well I know he's a believer because I'd seen the growth and you know you the Bible says you can tell a person's genuine faith by their fruit and I had seen the fruit in this man I'd seen the transformation I'd seen the sparkle come in his eye I was seeing him grasp the word and teach the word and but the enemy still had this hold and he got out and he was headed to a rehab place but somehow in between the jail to there he relapsed and he did exactly so as a man thinks so is he I

don't even know how it was possible because he's caught straight to the rehab place but he ran out and he did exactly what he told me he was going to do what he was afraid he was going to do and you know I'm not disappointed in that man I love that man and he's in a he's in a dry out place right now and then they're gonna give him another chance but I hope that he's gotten it out of his system but when I think back it's like you know what he knew he was gonna do it he told himself he was gonna do it and he did it and so I want to encourage you brothers and sisters who are in jail or prison right now you you know that maybe you're you're getting out soon and you've got real fear you're having emotions I need you to figure out what those emotions are I need you to be watching some of Sheridan's programming and figure out what to do with them I need you to take them to God if you've always relapsed if you've always gone a different you know come right back to prison that does not have to be your story just because it's happened in the past it doesn't have to be your story I know it doesn't have to be your story because I work with people who it used to be their story like Sheridan says by the nighttime she came in that jail everybody knew her name it was a pattern it was a pattern it was a pattern it was JC's patterns it was Christina's pattern that was Julie's pattern it was Rob Whitner's pattern these are all people that Corey Gordon's pattern and they broke the pattern because of God and that's what I told that gentleman last week I said you keep telling me what you're going to do but you're discounting the fact that this time you have God this time you have the Holy Spirit inside of you brothers and sisters if you have put your faith in Jesus you have the Holy Spirit's power in you and it is the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the grave it is the same power that will give you the ability to get up and to stay up and if you fall to get back up again it is the power of God and it says and I need you to read Zechariah I've just loved this passage and my eyes fell on it when I was getting ready to speak at the Michael unit maybe it was the last one up at Springfellow but yeah that's where it was and I saw Zechariah 3 and 4 it is at the very end of the New of the Old

Testament and it says in chapter 4 not by my might not by my power but it's by the power of God you won't stay clean you won't stay out of jail or prison in your own strength you won't be able to stay away from crack and meth and heroin and gambling and pornography and all those things if you don't have the power of God at work in you. And if you are a believer, it's there. It's there. But you know, I think about, if you look at this water, these are the waters I skied in when I was a little bitty girl. And there's docks behind me. I would have to get off the back of the boat, because usually we would load up at a place down the river. We would load up in our boat. We'd have two or three boats, actually, because other families trained with us. One would be the ski boat. One would be the boat we'd put all of our gear in and our coolers and stuff, because we'd be out there all day training. We didn't have a place to come to shore, which is why my father ended up building Lake Christie, a place for me to train, so that in between sets we could get out of the sun, and we could get out of the wind, or we could get warm, get dry and not be rotten in your bathing suit. But I had to make a choice every day to not just hold my rope and be connected to the boat, but to get in the water and be surrendered to the boat's power. And so this, if you've never skied, this will still make sense to you. I always envision God is like the boat. And let's picture the boat right here. It's my fist, okay? Okay, you can't see my arm right now. Let's pretend. Okay, there's the fist. All right, so the fist is the power source, the boat. God says, no man comes into a relationship with Him except through His Son Jesus. So that's what the Bible says. Don't shoot the messenger. And I believe the Bible. I believe it from front to back. So God so loved us that He gave His Son Jesus. He threw out salvation, which in all the translations in the Bible, it basically comes down to the word rope and hope. Hope and rope are intertwined together in the Greek and the Hebrew language. And it's just so cool. So He throws out salvation to us. He gives us salvation, His Son. And salvation, you know, you think about Rahab who put the cord. It was a rope, a red rope, and it was salvation. She put it in her window. It was a sign of salvation. So the rope of hope is given to us, Jesus. Now, if you got this boat and you got a rope, this is the line, you got to, I'm the skier, I got to be connected. I got to pick it up. Okay, I got to pick up

the handle, the rope. How do you do that when you're walking with God? How do you do that to come into a relationship with God? It's by faith. You say, God, I believe that You have given me Your Son, that Jesus paid for my sin, that Jesus loves me so much that He gave His life for me. And that when He died, He paid the price for my sin so that I could have the right relationship. It's Him giving us a gift of salvation. We can't earn it. We can't do enough good things. That's not to say we're not supposed to do good things. We are, but they're motivated out of our gratitude from God's goodness to us. It's motivated out of our love for Him and our love for people. And so you got your power source, you got the rope, and now you pick up the rope by faith. Now, let's say I'm standing on this dock right here, and I'm standing up, I'm holding the rope. There's the course, there's everything down this river here, everything that I'm supposed to be out there doing. I can't do that unless I say, hit it, to God. Hit it is what I used to say to the boat driver. Unless I'm willing to step out of my comfort zone and go with Him. And when I do that, I am, I have to say, I'm going to surrender, because I can't get out there and walk myself on the water. Only Jesus and Peter did that. But what I can do is connect to a power source that will pull me up. And so that's why I say, hit it. I surrender to the boat's power. I'm connected to the boat's power, and all the power of that boat comes through the line into me. And when I competed in water skiing, it enabled me to do things that should have never been possible, ever been possible, to get around buoys that I physically couldn't reach. The rope was four and a half feet short of even reaching the buoy. But because of the power, because I would tap into that power, I would get this edge, rotate, let go, and extend. But I'm still connected, but I'm letting go of everything else that I'm trying to do. time to hang on to, the impossible happened. And so if you're getting out of prison, you're getting out of jail, and you've always just gone back to what it is that you did those things have a hold on you. What you have to do is you have to let go of those you have to grab hold of him. And it's not about just saying, I believe in you, I believe in you, I believe in you. It's about letting his power come through you. Because

greater is his power in you, then the power of those drugs, the power of the world, the power of those thoughts, the power of sex, the power of the flesh, the spirits power is greater, but it will not take control, you have to give it control. You have to yield to it, just like I had to yield to the boat, I had to get in the water and say, I am going to let the boat pull me up. I'm going to use the boat's power to do what I cannot do on my own. It's realizing I can't do this on my own. If Jesus isn't with me, if God's power is not in me, I cannot say no to that. But because I have him, I can walk a different life. Because I have him I can stay clean, because he's going to give me his strength. And Ephesians 3.20 says that he will do abundantly more than I can ever hope for or imagine. Are you hoping and imagining a different future or like my friend? Are you imagining going straight back to the crack house? So you have to imagine it. Think it's something different. I want something different. And God Ephesians 3.20 says you'll give it to me through the power of God that has worked within me. It doesn't just happen just because you're a believer now. Victory will not just happen. You're going to have to trust God. You're going to have to stand firm. You're going to have to say hit it God. You're going to have to surrender and operate in his power, not your power. And that takes time to learn. That takes constantly letting go, constantly gauging your thoughts, testing those emotions. What is that, Lord? And then you had to sit and say, Lord, what is that? What is that junk I'm feeling? And sometimes you might have been walking in that junk your whole life, and you don't even recognize that it's not normal. I know for me, the thoughts that I had of constantly, come on, you idiot,

do better, do better. You're not done enough. Go harder, go harder. These are the thoughts. I didn't know they weren't normal. You're so ugly. You're fat, blah, blah, blah. These were thoughts that I had. And I just thought, that's how I'm supposed to... That was me talking to myself. That was my inner thoughts. That was my inner pep talk. You idiot, work harder. Don't fail. Don't fail. And it all came out of this when I got layering down out of fear of failure, fear of man, not having an identity in Christ. And that has taken me decades. And I still fall. Like I shared at the beginning, but I keep getting up and I keep learning and I keep getting stronger. And that's what it's about. It's about a journey, y'all. And so I don't know if any of this has made sense. I didn't really have a plan, but I just wanted to take a moment and just sit here with y'all. I was supposed to be sitting here with the Lord. But me and the Lord sat with y'all. And I feel like he's reminded us all of something special. But yeah, so let me give y'all a good view of the lake. I'm going to pray us out and then I'm going to church. Okay. Cause it's Sunday morning. Not that you can only have church. Okay. Let's see here. Let's turn this around. I don't know how, so I'm just going to do this. Isn't it beautiful? Oh Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds I have made. I hear the stars. No, I see the stars. I hear the rolling thunder. Thy power throughout the universe displayed. Then sings my soul, my savior God to thee. How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee. How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Lord, we thank You for the sound of the birds this morning. Father, every time I hear a bird, I am reminded in the Scripture where You say,

Do not worry about today. Do not worry about tomorrow. Consider the sparrows. Consider the lilies of the valley. Consider the sparrow that not one falls to the ground without me knowing. And they don't have to fret to know how they're going to live because the Heavenly Father provides for them. And how much more will You provide for us? Father, I pray for my brothers and sisters who are fighting emotions today. I pray for my team who are fighting emotions as well. Many who don't feel like they're as good as other team members, or that what they do doesn't matter as much, and that they can't do things right. Lord, these are all things that we all struggle with. And so, Father, I'm asking You to help us all. Help these men and women that are listening right now to know You, to know Your power, to know their identity in You, to know Your love. And Father, would You work with all of us and help us to be able to capture the thoughts? Help us to recognize the emotions and name them? And to identify what's going on in us with Your help, with the Holy Spirit's help. Your Word. David prayed that in Psalms 139, 23-24, I think it is. He said, Search me, God. Search me, God, and know me. And show me if there's any offensive way in me. Father, would You search us? Would You know us? Would You show us? Would You be intimate with us? Within to us would You see and reveal to us what it is that we're thinking that's not lining up with Your thoughts? Show us the apples that we're biting into that Satan is offering us, that cause division, like Cain and Abel, where we're resenting our brothers and our sisters, maybe flesh and blood, or maybe it's those being housed near us or next to us, and we're resenting people and we're bitter. We're bitter towards this system. We're bitter towards our family. We're wondering, When's my turn? When's my turn? And we're growing hopeless, Lord. Father, the Word says that a bitter root destroys a bitter root that is enabled to— excuse me—a bitter root that is allowed to take root in our heart. It says it defiles many. That includes us and others and our relationships.

So, Lord, help us today to identify those things with Your help. Then give us the power, God, to capture those thoughts. The power, God, to think of what is true. The power, God, to walk a different life and not assume that we're going to go back. This time we have You, and as we surrender to Your power, we can be different, and we can stay clean, and we can stay out, and we can walk a victorious life, because greater are You that's in us than he that is in the world. Father, we receive it today in Jesus' name. And, Father, if there is anyone who does not know You, people who have been sitting on the sidelines and they've never picked up the rope of hope by faith, may they pick it up right now, God. May they move out into the waters with You. May they accept the free gift of salvation that You've given, that while they were dead in their sins, You died for them. You knew everything that we would do, God, before we did it, and yet while we were Your enemies, You died for us to pay the price for our sins so we could have a right relationship with You. May they receive it today. Do y'all see the fish? May we come up and take hold of what You have, and may we go out into the deep, God. You have deep things for us to show us. You have a current, the place that You want to take us somewhere, God. We love You. In Jesus' name, Amen. All right, y'all. Ooh! Ooh, my arm! Okay, have a great day. I've got to go to church. I've got to go get a bath. Talk to you later. Love you. Don't forget to look at the slides and be sure to write us.

Send us your prayers. Trace your hands. Send them. We'll get them up on the wall. Send us your prayer requests. We'll make sure we have people praying over those. your praise reports too. And also, listen, if you're in Texas, we need you to have your chaplains call us about the magazines because we are hearing that all the magazines are going to have to go a different route. We need to connect with chaplains. We need to be able to still get our magazine to them, but there's going to have to be a different process. So we need to figure that out together. If you don't get our magazine in your prison, have your chaplain call us. And if you would like our team to come visit you, have your chaplain call us. And they can go on our website to vlmin.org, and they can, there's a chaplains tab right there, and they can make inquiries. They can order magazines. And anyway, God bless you. We look forward to hearing from you and we look forward to seeing you soon. Bye-bye. Thank you for watching our broadcast. Are you an incarcerated brother or sister who needs encouragement? Write to us at Victorious Living Correspondents, P.O. Box 2751, Greenville, North Carolina, 27836. Or email us at hope at vlmag.org. To view Victorious Living magazine in its entirety, please have your chaplain contact us at 352-478-2098. Or email us through our website at vlmag.org. We are happy to provide our Victorious Living magazine free of charge, in bulk, with or without staples.