 Well, good morning. So one more book came out this week. So I don't even think there are books in the bookstore copies of this, but this is the Unbound Ministry guidebook translated into Spanish. And we've started, we have Libertad Unbound in Spanish. We have one of the workbooks in Spanish. And now we have the guidebook. And we're planning to do over the next two years to have all our materials redone into Spanish. And we're getting such a great reception among those that are ministering in the Latino community because they have so much experience with deliverance ministry. And it's kind of like when we go to Africa, it's like a shift. Many places are finding that a shift is needed and a shift is being made through Unbound. So we're really working hard to get that done. So sometimes people ask me, how did I get involved in deliverance ministry? And some people say, well, did you ever have a word from God or a sense that he really wanted you to do something like this? And I said, nope, I had no clue. It's never on my mind. But I think one of the things that I did is I have always kind of thought outside of the box. It's like some concepts and some things don't come to me so easily I need to reinterpret it. I need to understand them in a certain way. And a lot of that I learned from Sister Mary Joseph in my grade school. And Sister Mary Joseph was a woman of great wisdom and she knew how to think outside of the box. And I can give you an example. One time the eighth grade girls were causing problems. They had discovered lipstick. And so they would put this lipstick on and then they would go into the ladies room and they kissed the mirror. And the lips, you know, every day they'd come in and all these lip marks were on the mirror. And she corrected them a number of times and nothing was working. And so one day she had them all come in to the ladies room. She invited Alex, the janitor, the custodian in. And she said, you know, I just want you to understand how hard it is to get this lipstick off of this mirror. And of course the girls are, you know, they're just like sassy and, you know, they're going to stop us. This is our territory here. And she said, so Alex, I want you to show the girls how hard it is to get this off the mirror. So Alex takes his little swishy thing and he swishes it around in the toilet, cleans off the mirror, and never had a problem again. So sometimes we just have to learn to think outside of the box and I do want to release you to be taking the materials and to allow your mind and heart to move in ways maybe that are different than what you ordinarily would put certain things into. When Pope Francis was first elected pope in his first interview he said this. And I think for me it just thrilled my heart because it like defined everything we are as far as unbound ministry. And he said, the ministers of the gospel must be a people who can warm the hearts of the people who walk through the dark night with them, who know how to dialogue and descend themselves into the people's night, into the darkness without getting lost. I'll repeat that last part without getting lost. So I've run into many priests over the years. They came out of the seminary, they were going to save everybody. They were going to be the most loving person that could be and they listened to people's stories and they got involved and then some of them in some relationships got entangled and they, people became so dependent upon them they just drain them. Just drain them. And then over time they pull back and they just don't go there anymore. There's a wall. One way of looking at unbound ministry is it's a way of entering into people's darkness, walking with them, accompanying them in their dark night with the number of protections which keeps you from getting lost and puts you in a position to train laypeople to work with you in a way that's safe and they won't get lost if they follow the guidelines that we give. So a lot of the strategies we're going to be, by tonight, you're going to have in place the first four keys and you're going to get a vision and understanding of that. But we have so many more guidelines that we will be giving you and are available to you so that their ministry can grow around you and you can empower and train people in your parish so that people are coming for liberation. And one of the most beautiful things is that when people, when this is going well in a parish, what happens is the laypeople spend some of the hour, hour and a half times with them and then they come to confession and there's a mirror. It's kind of, people are comfortable. We know there's a church in Philadelphia. I've never trained the priest and yet people come to me and say, oh, there's a priest in Philadelphia. He's using the keys in confession. I say, oh, really? Yeah, actually, there's always a long line out in front of his and the other priest is sitting by himself. It's just like word is getting out that something is happening through this ministry. All right, I did mention that priest yesterday. I just wanted to follow a point on it. I said, after we spoke to him, we spoke to the group of priests. He went back and said, there's miracles happening in my parish, miracles that are happening in confession so I can't tell you about it. But then as we went on to have a conversation, he talked about how his whole life changed, that he began to perceive the Lord's work and the Lord's presence. He began to hear things and be transformed internally in a new way, a way that he had never encountered in the seminary. And it's kind of like some of us come out of our place of darkness and need and we encounter Jesus. This man really encountered Jesus at those deeper levels as he served, as he connected, as he entered into the dark night and as he walked with people through it. So there's a grace being released and we're praying that grace will be released in you in a powerful way during this week. So I want to begin. This session is on the first key, which is repentance and faith. And it's another kind of basic teaching. So it's just going to be a short teaching. Then I'm going to give you my testimony, which will be more instructive perhaps to some of you. And Janet will come and give part of her testimony and then we'll wind up with practicing the first key. In Mark chapter 1, verse 15, Jesus comes out of the desert and begins his public ministry. And he says, the time has come. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news. So it's an interesting dynamic. The kingdom of God, God's initiative, God's presence is coming near. And it's in response to that, that the message is repent and believe. A lot of times when I speak about repentance, I discover that a lot of people kind of have a dread about that surrounds repentance. They think of repentance as the long, hard labor of going back and thinking about your sins and working harder and thinking about all those times that they've confessed, they've tried to change, and then they failed. And they just want to avoid the topic of repentance. They want to avoid the season of Lent because they dread trying to stir up the willpower. They need to make new resolution and to be disciplined. And of course, as I spoke yesterday, I was talking about how the enemy works in our minds, twists our thoughts, gets us to think about things in an improper way. And that's one of the ways that we've been deceived about repentance. The dictionary gives a good definition to recognize the wrong and something you've done and be sorry about it, to feel regret about a sin or a past action and change your ways. But as we know, the biblical word for repentance is metanoia, and it has a broader meaning than the dictionary meaning. Basically means a change of mind that leads to a changed life, a change of mind. So again, the twisted ways we think, the lies, the deceptive ways that we've been thinking, hinders us from entering into the transformed life. Before Jesus, repentance meant returning to observing the law, renewing and reforming one's mind and one's attitude. When Jesus came, he radically changed that. He said, repent and believe the good news. The two became one act of conversion. So some people come to us and say, well, why is repentance and faith not two keys instead of one? And the answer is because Jesus made them one. Repent and believe. Change was not a result of going backwards but of going forwards. The good news is the kingdom of God, and we enter into it by faith. So it's pressing into. So many of you are going through various struggles right now, but many of you are going to be set free just by coming here, just by getting together with your brother, priests and seminarians and deacons, and you're going to be pressing in closer to the Lord, and you're going to get perspective, and you're going to enter into what God has for you by faith. So this was the message at Pentecost. Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. So repentance was a repent, repent as John the Baptist, but he was calling for a baptism of repentance. But here with Jesus it's repent and be baptized into Christ. So the focus and the freedom is not where you're coming from, it's where you're going and what God is offering. Now this is important because it underlines three aspects of what we're referring to when we talk about leading people through the first three keys, for the first key of unbound. And the first aspect is conversion. Saint John Paul II defined conversion as accepting by personal decision the saving sovereignty of Christ and becoming his disciple. Conversion is ongoing, and in the context of an unbound ministry session, we're always inviting people to surrender to Jesus, to make a reaffirmation of their decision to follow Him as Lord and to acknowledge Him and receive Him as Savior. The second aspect of the first key is repentance of sin. Sin is disobedience. Sin is wanting to be equal to God. It's a refusal, refusal of the Lordship of Jesus. And we have been led, and we are led by the Holy Spirit to have sorrow for our sins. But we find there's a real pitfall that people fall into. And we should not mistake feeling sorry for our sins as repentance. It's not the same thing. Second Corinthians chapter 7 verse 10, it says, Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret. But worldly sorrow brings death. Godly sorrow, conviction of the Holy Spirit, recognizing what you've done, being convicted, it leads you someplace. It leads you to salvation, and there is no regret. But a lot of people approach repentance and they approach the sacrament of reconciliation, overcome with worldly sorrow. Worldly sorrow brings death. And so sometimes people who are bound and covered by this worldly sorrow, regret, self-pity, they come to confession and they receive the grace and they feel really clean for a little while. But then they return to their stinking thinking and they are under that worldly sorrow again that brings death. Repentance leaves no regret, guilt, or condemnation. So many times when people come to us, I will say to them, have you confessed your sins? And they say, oh, yes, many times. And I'll say various things. But one of the things I'll say is, so you know God's forgiven you? Yes, I do. I know he's forgiven me. And then I might say, have you forgiven yourself? And they just clearly say, no. They need help to get rid of that worldly sorrow, that self-condemnation, that spirit of regret, that shame, that thing that makes them think, well, I got to be better to be loved by God. And there's a whole world of thinking that needs to be uncovered for people to take full, to respond fully to the grace of the sacrament and the forgiveness that has been given to us and made available to us through the sacrament of reconciliation. Confession is an expression of repentance that's necessary to be right with God. We have an incredible gift in sacramental confession. Ongoing confession of our sins and receiving God's forgiveness is part of the process of conversion and transformation. An honest confession begins with the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and we start to think differently about our sins. As I said yesterday, sometimes we come, we confess our sins because we know we should, or we know we have to. But the transformation hasn't really happened when we start thinking differently about our sins. And now for some of us, and I know this is my experience, I think differently about my sins. I'm sorry, I confess. And then I'm thinking new. And then over weeks of time, my thinking starts to grow dull again. And I'm not thinking the same renewed way about my sin, and I become more vulnerable all over again. So the transformation of our mind, the confession of our sins, the freedom that we have in Christ, the using of the five keys, it all flows together. So many people come to us for unbound ministry having confessed their sins over and over again. But for some reason, which has to be discovered, they failed to access the power of repentance. So this leads me to my third point about the first key. Part of every sin is deception. This is how sin entered the world from the beginning. And Jesus confirmed it when he hung on the cross, and he said, Father, forgive them. They do not know what they're doing. Now, we know enough to be responsible for our sins. God treats us with dignity, and he wants to save us. He doesn't want to pretend it didn't happen. He wants to transform us and bring us into the fullness of sonship. But we're still not fully aware of the implications of our sin. There's always gonna be a veil. The angels had no veil. When they sinned, it was it, that was it. There's a veil for us. We don't fully understand how deeply we're offending God, how we break his heart. We don't fully understand how we're hurting ourselves and others. There's a level of deception that surrounds sin. So this means that the father of lies has had his hand in every sin in a direct or an indirect way. And as we tell stories and as I share my story, I want to help you to uncover some of the ways in which deception has ever worked in your life and to gain awareness of these levels of deception that are affecting those that you minister to. So as I share my story of deliverance and how I learned, I want you to be aware of how connected it is to the biblical concept of repentance, metanoia, how it's involved with the change of mind and the change of heart. So in January of 1970, I was a junior at Fulanova University. I transferred from Franciscan, now Franciscan, and Father Mike Scanlon was over at our home and he had just been baptized in his spirit and he told some stories and I wish I had time to tell you, but I had an encounter with Jesus in my den at home. He just, Jesus showed up in my den. It was amazing. And I knew that my life had changed. Nobody led me in a prayer of surrender. I had to learn that on my own two months later. He just came and he got me. And as I, from that point on, I started reading the New Testament and then I was also reading the Old Testament slowly. But I couldn't help but notice that in the New Testament, there were so many instances when Jesus drove out evil spirits. And I thought, I've never heard a homily on that in my life. I have no clue what that means for today. I just wrote it off because before the Bible was the Bible and this was my life, but now the one that inspired the scriptures was living in me and everything I was reading was alive and true. And it's like, if I didn't understand it, I needed to be taught. So I just would say, Lord, you're gonna have to show me about that. So it wasn't too long after that that a friend of mine, who had been baptized in his spirit at the time. And he came up to me one day and he said, I was set free at the prayer meeting the other night. I said, what do you mean you were set free? For me, being set free was encountering Jesus. So from the very beginning to me, evangelism was the calling. It's like, we need to tell people about Jesus because that was where freedom was found. But he said, no, I've had a problem with habitual sin and I've confessed it and I've been honest and open with my spiritual directors and I've tried the discipline and I've done everything I could, but I keep falling into it in an oppressive way. And I know last night, the Lord set me free. Well, that got my intention because if that's possible, the whole world needed to know this. That was my thought. And look where I am, like 45 years later. The Lord really wants to set us free from our bondages. And for so many people, it doesn't mean that the deliverance piece sets people free permanently, but for so many people, it means that it's the missing piece. So I do know people that have struggled with pornography for 30 or 40 years and got this piece and were set free. I do it, but other people haven't done that work of repentance and change of mind and pursued it and the deliverance piece is part of the ongoing transformation. So that was my first introduction to wanting more. And it wasn't too long after that that a friend of ours was over to our home and he took a call from his mother in the next room. And we could hear through the room, first him getting angry and then he became enraged and then it sounded like his voice was another voice. It didn't sound like him at all. Once he got off of the phone, he was obviously embarrassed knowing we would have heard it and he came into the next room and he said, I think I need help. I think I need deliverance. And so Janet and I being wise and mature about 22 years old, we said, oh, we read one book on deliverance. Well, sure, we'll pray for you we'll do it on Friday. We'll pray and fast on Friday and then we will pray for you. And I think there was only one book on deliverance out at the time and it was called Out in the Name of Jesus. And so on Friday he came and he sat down on the couch and he sat down on the couch and then Janet and I were standing there across from him and I don't know why we were standing across from him. I don't think that was in the book. I think it was probably just, we didn't know what was gonna happen and we wanted to be able to run. So I did what it said in the book. I said in the name of Jesus, I command any evil spirit here to leave right now. And immediately his face began to change and to twist and I kind of imagine I was like, and I forgot everything else that's said in the book. I didn't know what to do, but fortunately Janet was there and she said, it's hatred. And I could have said, of course it's hatred, look at it, you know. So I said the name of Jesus, I command hatred to go. I like to obey my wife, command hatred to go and immediately face came back to normal. We said, praise God, glory to God. Oh, let's go get some pizza. We wanted it to be over. We did what it said in the book, not to find a print, but we had our first experience. Now I'm sharing these stories. I'm gonna share one more because we learn a lot by our mistakes. We learn what we don't know and then we start to learn what we need to know. Wasn't that long after that, that a woman came and she was asking for prayer. And so she said that often when she looks out the window at work, she has this urge to jump. She says, I don't want to commit suicide. That's not on my mind at all, but if I go by the window, I just feel this urge. So I'm thinking that sounds like the devil. But this time I wanted to be really, I really wanted to be wise. So she was sitting in the chair and I was praying my nice spirit led prayer over her. Da-ba-da-da-da-da, Lord by and da-da-da-da. So I'm praying that Jesus would come and I'm praying and then it comes time. I have to slip it in. I have to be obedient. If this is the devil, I need to try to help her. So I lower my voice and almost do a whisper and I say, in the name of Jesus, I command any evil spirit here to leave right now. And then I'm just gonna quickly go back to my normal prayer, having done my duty. And she looked up at me and I'll never forget her eyes beating out at me and she says, do you know what you're doing? I said, oh, yeah, Jesus has come to set you free. Isn't it wonderful? And my heart was like, I don't know what I'm doing. And I'll tell you something, nobody else on the East Coast knew then either. We called everybody that we knew that was doing the Liberance Ministry at that time and they just said, keep going forward, keep going, you know, just press on. And we didn't know the five keys. We didn't know about the necessity of expressing the will, repentance and faith. We didn't know about the needing to forgive if you're gonna be released from bondage. We didn't know that you need to renounce the enemies and stand in authority and receive the kingdom in the Father's blessing. So it went on for a number of weeks. Finally, the Lord gave me a word of knowledge, just gave me a sense that had her renouncing command to go and she felt free, glory to God. But it wasn't the whole picture, it wasn't dealing with her whole heart. It was just a piece that we were starting to learn. Now, whether those folks walked in freedom or not is not any of my business. But chances are, if you're not dealing with the foundations, the entry ways, how things began, how things opened up, they're not going to be walking in freedom for very long. And we had a lot to do, a lot to learn. And there's two important lessons that I want to pass on to you about those times. It has to do with fear and pride. In Luke chapter 10, verse 19, it says, I've given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions to overcome all the power of the enemy and nothing will harm you. Now, those who struggle with the fear of the devil need to underline that in their Bible and need to believe it. Nothing will harm you. And I have met holy, holy men and women throughout the world that have an irrational fear of the devil. It's irrational. If you're going to be afraid, and this is what I say to them, if you're going to be afraid of something, it'd be better that you be afraid of your pride than be afraid of the devil. Following in Luke chapter 10, verse 20, Jesus warns us about pride. He says, do not rejoice that spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. How is it that your name is written in heaven? It's by grace. You have nothing to boast about, nothing to be proud about. The danger is more in your pride than in the devil because God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. Sometimes people think, tell me, oh, the devil's really after me. The devil's doing this and the devil's getting all the glory. And sometimes it's just the Lord is letting the enemy just have his way because he wants you free from your pride. He wants you to get free from the thoughts that you can do this. That it's all about you. That you have a special gift. God loves you so much that he's willing to humble you. How many know that the prayer that God always answers is Lord, would you humble me? I mean, if you're lacking a little faith right now in God answering prayers, Lord, would you humble me please? Probably five minutes, 10 minutes. He loves you so much, he doesn't want you to be walking apart from him. And sometimes it hurts because sometimes it's through humiliation that we experience humility. But God wants to set us free and he doesn't want us to have any irrational fear of the devil. Now, he doesn't want us to be stupid. He doesn't want us to go where we're not commissioned to go to try things that we're not supposed to try. He wants us to learn, he wants us to be wise, he wants us to be humble. And we hope we can help you with some of that. So now I'd like to tell you my story and then I'm gonna have Janet tell some of her story. It was a couple of years after I experienced the Lord in a personal way, my life was changed. A couple of years later, I was going through a dry time. I went to someone, I received some inner healing and the inner healing had to do with my dad and it happened with pictures and I didn't really understand what happened. God just did it, but now I know that what it had to do with was forgiveness and the Lord set me free. And I found myself freer than in the past. I found myself able to express myself or stand up in front of groups and talk in a way that I hadn't been able to before. But even so, after I tasted that freedom, I was suspicious that I needed more freedom and I thought I needed to be delivered. But every time I brought it up to someone, they would dismiss me. So someone would give a talk on deliverance, tell the stories and I'd say, you know, I've often thought I might need deliverance, but you know, would you pray for me? And they would say something like this, don't give the devil so much credit. And I'd say, okay, all right. See, I didn't qualify for deliverance. I was praying every day, I was leading a Christian ministry, I was to everybody's viewpoint, I was living a righteous life, and I was trying. And I didn't know yet that I was really the older brother that had to come home as well as the prodigal, but that's another story. And so it went on like that for almost 15 years. They would say, they'd say, don't give the devil so much credit, so I'd go back to the scriptures I knew. You'll know the truth and the truth will set you free. Resist the devil, he'll flee from you. And so I went back and hung on to that, but every once in a while it came up in me, I'm not as free as I'm supposed to be as a son of God, I'm not as free as I should be, and I need help, but no one would help me. Or I didn't know how to ask, I'm not sure which. But sometimes we go through long periods of time to break free in something, so we really learn it, we really understand it, so it's impactful, and then we become a door for others. And that's what happened in my life. So finally I was at this conference, and God just touched me deeply during this conference, we were singing these beautiful songs, love songs to God, and I began to weep, just because he loved me and because I was being able to tell him I love him. And I hadn't wept for many, many years. It was like a new washing, and a new cleansing, and a new encounter, and then I saw this man that I knew prayed for deliverance, so I went over to him and I said, you know I've often thought that I might need deliverance, I'm wondering if you wouldn't minister to me. I'm thinking I'm gonna go for the whole thing here. And he said, what makes you think you need deliverance? And I said to him, I said, well a lot of times right before a spiritual event my back would go out and like this retreat I was in the back laying on the ground and I couldn't sit for the first two days, and that's all I had to tell him, I couldn't tell him anything better. And he said, okay, I'll pray for you. And so what happened was he, we met in an appointment, he sat across the table for me, and he prayed for a moment, he said, do you feel that? And I felt something here, but in my head I'm saying that's not a that, that's me. Because what I felt was so familiar to me it felt like it belonged, but in this moment of grace it was being exposed as something that did not belong that was not me, and in my head I was protesting. And then he said, what happened to you? And I didn't respond from specific memory, I just responded from my heart in response to the authority and the grace at the moment, and I said I was humiliated in front of the class in first grade, I don't remember the process, whether it was forgiveness, what he led me through the next few minutes, but I just remember him saying, in the name of Jesus, I command a spirit of rejection to leave. And I felt this thing that I thought was that, and I felt this that that I thought was me just kind of gently lift off my head, and I knew I was free. And I knew I was right all those years. And now we're in a position where we're helping people throughout the world to listen to people's stories and understand them and how to lead them through a simple process by which things gently just lift off and just go, and people realize that they've been in bondage and they are now free. I'd like Janet to come up and to share some of her story and then I'm gonna conclude. So I'd like to share the beginning of my testimony of the Lord setting me free because as Matt said this morning that for most of us, it's a process of the Lord taking us deeper, but the beginning goes back to 1996, which was a very significant time for us in terms of learning about deliverance ministry and the whole unbound ministry beginning for us. What my life was like before that time was that I was really struggling for quite a few years with migraine headaches. And they were severe and they were, it felt like as time went on, as I struggled with them, it felt like they were really affecting my life in a deep way because when I got a migraine headache, what would happen was I would need to take some medication, I would need to be in the dark, be by myself, hope that the medication would help me to fall asleep and that when I woke up that the migraine would begin to go away. And so that really affected my life, my ability to care for my family, for my children to go to work at the time. And over time, the migraines started to get worse and worse and I started having neurological symptoms with them. And so some of those symptoms were really frightening to me, symptoms like I was driving one day and suddenly lost my vision in one eye. Or at times as a migraine was coming on, my speech would become garbled, like what I wanted to say wouldn't come out of my mouth. I had this fear that the first time that maybe I was having a stroke, it was those kind of symptoms. And so as time went on, it seemed like it was only getting worse. I saw lots of doctors, the best that they could do for me was give me some medication that sometimes, as I said, would help me to fall asleep. But over time, I also began to feel like, even though this was a very real physical problem that I was experiencing, that maybe there was something spiritual connected to it because it seemed like any time that I went to give a teaching, go on, retreat, anything spiritual, something for the Lord, I would wind up in bed with a migraine headache. And so over the years, I asked lots of people to pray for me that the Lord would heal me of these migraines. What happened for me in 1996 is that Neil and I were going to a conference that we were gonna learn about deliverance ministry because there was gonna be an event in Philadelphia. It was called 30 Days of Gathering Around Jesus, bringing together different denominations, different churches in the city of Philadelphia just to worship the Lord together. Very exciting event, but we knew surrounding this event, we were gonna need to learn how to minister to people in deliverance. So I got to the seminar, I got there early, I was really excited about learning, I was sat in the front row, and sure enough, as I was sitting there before it began, I started to see flashing lights in front of my eyes. And that was the sign, the symptom for me that I knew within a half an hour, I would have the headache and probably need to go home. So I asked a few friends that were there if they would pray for me and they did, and the symptoms just seemed to get worse. So I was actually got up out of my seat, I was going to the back of the room and I was gonna leave. When one of the men who was helping to facilitate this seminar, he saw me, I had met him, and he asked what was going on, and when I shared with him, he said, would you let me pray for you before you leave? And I said yes. He did something that was a little bit different for me at the time. He asked me a few questions, did a little interview, and he said, how long have you had those headaches? And I wasn't sure, but I said, I think it's been about 15 years. And he said, what was going on in your life 15 years ago? And I described a time that was very stressful for us. Neal's mom had come to visit us on her way. She actually got meningitis, wound up in the hospital, and during that hospitalization, she almost died several times. And when I said that to this man, he looked at me and he said, it's fear. And when he said that, I just doubled over, and I started weeping, just really, really crying from my gut. And I didn't understand at all what God was doing, but when I stood up, I knew that God had touched me, and I believed that He had set me free and that I was healed of the migraine headaches. Now, I wasn't even sure that that headache was gone because I had cried so hard for those couple of minutes that my head was still kind of fuzzy and my vision wasn't totally clear, but I knew that God had touched me. I was so sure that I went running up to the man who was leading the seminar and I said, I just want you to know before you start, I received ministry, I've been set free, and I've been healed of migraine headaches. And he said, good, we're gonna start the first session with your testimony. So I did, that day I gave the testimony of what had just happened to me and how I believed I was free and I was healed. I told several hundred people. And I know now how important it was for me to give my testimony that day because the enemy was gonna try in the days following that to convince me that it wasn't true. And I will share a little bit more about that part of my testimony when I give a talk tomorrow. But I love to share this testimony. I do it every time we give one of our conferences. I love to share it because I want the testimony of my freedom to provoke you to want to go for the freedom that you need in your life because I know that God touched me and he set me free simply because he loves me as his precious daughter. And he wants each and every one of you to know the same thing. And so I just really share my testimony to encourage you. There's gonna be an opportunity during this week for you to receive ministry and Neil shared with you that we have teams coming so that they could spend time with you and take you through the five keys. I wanna encourage you if God is touching your heart during these talks and something is coming up for you to go for it and to receive ministry. And even, you know, there's going to be a talk on renouncing and there's gonna be a talk on forgiveness and we're gonna lead you as a whole group to respond to the Lord. And we've seen people set free just in those practice sessions. So I just encourage you to go for it during this week. God has the same freedom, the same liberation that he's done in my life. He has that for each and every one of you. So go for what God has for you this week. Amen. So I'd like to give you four quick guidelines on how to seek the Lord for deliverance. First, avoid extremes. Some people believe that the devil is responsible for everything. Some people discount any influence from evil spirits. Just remember, we believe in angels and demons so it's somewhere in between. There's influence, spiritual influence. Second, ask God for revelation. Deliverance begins with God revealing our hearts to us. So in light of the types of message we bring, go to the Lord and say, Lord, reveal my heart. You can't make it happen. You can't, all you can do is seek him and trust him. And when you hear a little whisper, a thought, do your best to make a response. Third, deliverance is a process. We used to think it was once and done. People come to my conference saying, oh, I went through deliverance 30 years ago and it was great, but I swore I'd never do it again. And I'm so glad I came to your conference because it's just gentle and different. We need to create an atmosphere where people aren't thinking once and done. We wanna create an atmosphere where they're continuing to turn to the Lord for greater and greater liberation. Fourth is we need to understand that deliverance moves us from a place of bondage to a place of weakness and dependency on God. I remember the first time I shared this with someone who said they felt free. I said, great, now you're moved to a place of weakness and dependency on God. And they said, oh, I don't wanna be weak. That wasn't appealing to them. They wanted to be healed and self-sufficient. And I said, well, you don't understand, it's, see, we get to meet Jesus in our weaknesses. That's where we get to know Him because that's where we depend on Him the most. That's where we work things out. And our weaknesses therefore become our strength because that's the place of where we meet Him and we're living with Him and encountering Him. So I'm gonna give you an opportunity together. Last night I talked about the prayer of surrender. And I'm just gonna, why don't you stand. And we're gonna do two things as we conclude here. We're gonna just practice a little. I'm gonna lead a prayer of surrender and you can give your hearts to it. I don't know that I'll have you repeat after me, but then I'm gonna give you a little instructions on how to make it simple. I was at a, back in 1996, I was at this big event in Philadelphia. I was one of the few Catholics there and these two young men came in, they were drunk or high on drugs or something. And this African-American pastor got with them and they just totally sobered down immediately and he asked them if they'd like to receive the Lord. I don't know what his language was, it could have been salvation, I don't know what his language was. But for some reason he called me over. And it could have been the sinner's prayer, I don't know what it was called. But he said, you need to lead them to Jesus. And I felt really inadequate. I said, I don't really know what I'm supposed to say. I mean, I did the life and spirit seminar, we had to read it, read after me, commitment to Jesus and I didn't know what the Protestant soul used. But I prayed this prayer with them, led them into prayer and the pastor said that was really good so I said, okay, I'm on my way to learning. And I'm just gonna give you some simple tips on just what's involved with that to be used any way that you find appropriate. But first let's pray. Call to mind his presence and we're always aware when we pray that we do it in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Lord Jesus, we come before you right now and we thank you that you died for me. Let's make it personal right now. Jesus, you died for me and I thank you for what you did. You paid the unpayable debt. You died for me while I was still in my sin. And even today there's some ways that I'm still identified with some of the sins that I've confessed and yet you don't withhold your love from me. You've never pulled back from me, I pulled back from you. Lord, I want to be free. I want to walk in that new level of freedom that I know in my heart is available to me as a Son of God. Come Holy Spirit, search me, O God. Know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way that is everlasting. Search me, O God. I lay before you my agenda for this week. I'm looking to you. I want everything you have for me and I choose you today again. You are my savior, my savior. You are my savior and I choose you as my Lord. Throughout today I ask you to fill me again and again with your spirit that I might live the life of the new creation. Forgive me, Lord, for not believing there's more. I declare, Lord, there is more. There's more. You have more, fill me with your spirit. And we pray this in the name of Jesus, who is Lord forever, amen. So be seated for one minute. I'm gonna ask you to do something that will help you maybe to get to know somebody around you and also maybe to affirm and reaffirm some of what we have just done. So I didn't know what to say when I was asked, I was put on the spot to lead these two young men to a commitment to Jesus right there. I knew it was like, well, I'd like to take him through a life of the Spirit Seminar. I'd like to do this, but it was like the moment was here and why not? And what do you do when the moment is right? Well, Nicky Gumbel, who teaches the Alpha Course, kinda made it really simple for me. He said, you need to remember three words. Sorry, thank you, and please. Sorry, I'm sorry, I should start with thank you. Thank you, sorry, and please. Thank you, I'm gonna say this for myself now. Thank you, sorry, and please. Thank you, Lord, for what you did for me. And if you've done an unbound session or you've heard some confession or spiritual direction, you know exactly where that person's at. And so with unbound, we've learned to lead people to have them repeat after us. And so we listen, we take the notes on the interview and we say, now I'm gonna lead you through the five keys. Repeat, you can just repeat after me. If I say something wrong, you can change it. If you wanna make it better, you can. But what we want is our hearts to be connected with the person and so that we would lead them in the beginning, the first key in a prayer of surrender. So it might go something like this. Thank you, Lord, that you died for me. Thank you that you took all my sins to the cross. Thank you, Lord, that you've taken all my junk as well. I'm so sorry for having pulled my heart back from you. I'm so sorry for every time that I confess my sins and leave my sins on the cross, I come back, I take them back again. Today I wanna leave them here. I wanna leave them here. Then depending on their story, Lord, I'm tired of making such a mess of my life. I'm tired of just going back again and again to the old ways and forgive me, Lord, for not believing in you and trusting in you and forgive me for withdrawing my heart from you and all the ways I've rebelled against you these last couple of years. Forgive me withdrawing my heart and having my heart hard to you, please give me your Holy Spirit and fill me. And today I choose, I choose to receive you as my savior. I receive you just as the world received you and just as Mary received you, I receive you. And I choose today, I choose you as my Lord. I wanna be your disciple, you're the master. So those are just some of the elements. But I said it in a way that hopefully he just catch the spirit of it. It's not an automatic thing, it's just helping someone give expression to their hearts with simple, simple guidelines. And now I'm confused if sorry or thank you comes first. But we can do that. So I'm gonna ask you, some of you have paper with you, some of you don't. I'm gonna ask you to take about three minutes, maybe four, to write down in your paper a prayer that you could lead somebody to. You could do it on your phone or you could just close your eyes and you could just imagine someone who's really broken and lost. They don't know what it means to be home with the Lord. Maybe they come to mass all the time but they've never broken into understanding and knowing they're home. So I'd like you to take a few minutes just to jot some thoughts down. And then I'm gonna ask you to share it with someone you're sitting next to or around. And if you would, practice. I mean by that is just grab your brother's hand or put your hand on his shoulder and just say I'd like to lead you to surrender to the Lord. I'm sorry for my sins. That's a general thing as well as it could be specific, but it's just that acknowledge of I'm so sorry Lord. And I acknowledge I'm a sinner. And thank you for what you did and please give me your life. So take about three or four minutes and then in about three or four minutes I will give you permission to either continue to write or think and give you permission to move to sharing with a brother. So now I would like you to, if you need more time that's fine but I'd like you to ask a brother near you whether you could lead him in a prayer of surrender and don't start speaking right away. Put your hand on them if they're comfortable with that and just pause, let the Holy Spirit connect you to their heart and just lead them from that place. A prayer of surrender. Thank you Lord. So you're free. We have 11 minutes to do this.