A Year of Good News [Part 3]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. This is more about a pervasive, really what I think the Bible would call stronghold, that affects and has implications in almost every dimension of our life. That's why we've got to get healed of it. We could deal with just temporary emotions, and it's far different than just a red-faced embarrassment when we make a mistake.

Those things that go, oh, that feels so foolish, but then we move on. This is more about a mentality, and God wants to heal it. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited to be with Pastor Alan again today as we sit to discuss some wonderful ways that your partnership in the Gospel through Alan Wright Ministries has gone far and wide to transform lives. It's the power of the Holy Spirit at work, and it's the hope and the healing.

It's the discussion of a shame-free life, and shame off you is a phrase that you hear a lot associated with this ministry. Pastor Alan, it's good to be here at the end of the year. We're always careful to remind folks that as planning is being made and people are scrambling towards that December 31 deadline, maybe for tax purposes, but ultimately out of the generosity and the passion to see the Gospel go forward, that Alan Wright Ministries is an organization that stands ready and able to continue sharing the Gospel of grace through your contributions, and especially here at the end of the year at PastorAlan.org. We've got it set up quick and easy to make those contributions so that this ministry continues.

PastorAlan.org, or when you call 877-544-4860, 877-544-4860, we stand ready and able to answer questions and assist you in that. Daniel, I too want to say thank you to all who partner with us to make this ministry possible. We are on 400 radio stations around the nation. We buy that airtime in order to be able to share the Gospel. And so when we hear from people, which we love to hear from you, and hear how God is at work in your life and how he's used this ministry, we love it. We're encouraged by that. And you know, we have a ministry like this, you just hear from a small fraction of the people whose lives have been touched, but boy, when you do it really, it helps. And it also helps to demonstrate the power of the Gospel at work. And I wanted to introduce anonymously, of course, but a listener from Utah, where we've been on the radio in the heart of culture that is surrounded by Mormonism, which is of course a very legalistic, religious group, and not lots and lots of Christian ministries there.

And what a joy it's been to be in the middle of that in Utah. Well, we'd love for us to share testimony from a man there, a listener in Utah, and how, just listen to hear how much grace has been changing his life. Dear Pastor Alan, I just had to share with you how much your ministry over the airways has meant to me in absolutely the most trying time of my life.

My wife of 23 years this past summer told me that she didn't love me anymore and has felt that way for quite some time, which came as a complete and total shock to me, sending me into an emotional downward spiral from which I have had great difficulty recovering. This revelation turned my world upside down on its head to the point of where on more than several occasions since then I've considered just simply giving up and either ending my life or running and abandoning my family, neither of which obviously are options that God would approve of, nor would the Holy Spirit allow me to choose. I had been praying regularly daily for many years up to this point in time, but had recently become more and more slack in my daily devotionals. Yet I had developed through the years what I had considered to be a special closeness with the Lord. But I realized through all of this that there was now a real need in my life more than ever to get closer and closer still, and it was there that I would find his grace to help. So I began praying again right away daily, this time more earnestly than ever before.

But prayer alone didn't seem to help much with this or have much effect on the situation as I was focused entirely on myself and the situation and the problem, not giving proper place to worship him or commune with him. So I began not only to immerse myself in more prayer but also in reading the word again, which together proved somewhat to help quiet the very turbulent seas of despair in my mind and heart that I had been wrestling with every moment of every day throughout this time, and I still could not rest in him. After a few months in this state of emotional upheaval, a friend told me about a new Christian radio station that had recently come to our area here in Salt Lake City, the Truth Radio Network.

Since I had been commuting over an hour each way to work, I had tried to use this extra time to listen more to Christian radio during that long drive. I eventually discovered your ministry on my car radio and have been listening to your daily podcasts for nearly two months now, and often I download the podcast directly from your website so that I can re-listen to each one to better absorb the message. The grace and the power and love and authority in the Spirit by which you speak has made such a huge difference in my attitude and has helped give me the enablement to cope and especially find the hope in God that I was so desperate for. Your gift of proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ is unlike any I've ever heard, and I have listened to many a preacher over the past fifty years of my life. You very effectively and powerfully communicate the love, grace, hope in Christ, and the inheritance that we have been given in such a new and refreshing light void of religious legalism and self-righteous dogmatism, helping to build a stronger and more real faith in God and Jesus Christ. You have helped me to see my loving Heavenly Father and my Lord in such a clear and greater way than ever before, which is what I, and I believe everybody else, absolutely needs the most, Him, to be able to come to Him anytime, even if only to cry in His open arms and know that He really and truly cares and find there in His loving embrace the comfort and strength to go on for yet another day as we face sometimes even the most relentless opposition that the enemy can muster.

I have found grace to help me in this, my greatest time of need, and I found it in the loving and powerful exhortation from God's Word from Him who is at work in you both to desire and do His good pleasure. Thank you, thank you, thank you so very, very much for sharing the light of the great news of healing and hope with me and all those who are tuning in each day. There must be many, many listeners out there who are and have experienced healing like I have by God through your words of blessing and encouragement, through your many labors of love, and so I just wanted at the very least to share with you these words of encouragement just to let you know how much of a difference your gifts, your calling, your stand, your life in and through Christ is making and how much it means to me. You and your beautiful family are in my prayers. May God continue to bless you all and your wonderful ministry. Love, grace, and peace to you through Christ from West Jordan, Utah.

Wow, that's a beautiful note. Great testimony going far to explain why we're on the radio. I'm Daniel Britt with Pastor Alan sitting here today at the end of the year reflecting back not only on this year but many years of great ministry here, and I love the words of this listener that came because of healing and hope. It's great news, the relationship between the good news and the healing and hope is central to this ministry made possible by generous gifts from friends like you, and you can get involved today by supporting Allen Wright Ministries at the simple website, pastorallen.org.

I say simple because it's easy to use, but boy, it's chock full of great resources as you'll quickly see, pastorallen.org. But Pastor Alan, do you want to explain more about this relationship between the healing and the hope? And those are two words that I hear a lot within the walls here. Well, I love the words of this listener who wrote this encouragement.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. So very, very, very capitalized letters very much for the great news, capitalize of healing and hope for those that are tuning in each day. And I like that phrase healing and hope that's related to the great news, this good news of great joy that we have of the gift of Christ. And I think in a lot of ways, Daniel, healing and hope summarizes what we're all about at Allen Wright Ministries.

I think that a lot of people have experienced an expression of Christianity that felt to them more about outward conformity to a moral code than it does actual transformation. And part of the reason I think sometimes we aren't transformed and we feel that we're still stuck in some of the old patterns and maybe we don't have the freedom and joy that we see on display in the New Testament is that we treated our wounds too lightly. So there has to be healing because we all have been through difficult things. And I just think of Jesus, his compassion for people, and he went about healing. And there were times when he was tired and was thinking about just getting alone, but then he had compassion. He had compassion. He would be moved in his inmost being because he wanted people to be healed.

And I feel that way. This is more a ministry of the healing of the soul than the body, but I believe God delights in both. But we are a ministry that really exists for the healing of the soul. And I think part of it is, Daniel, that I've had so much healing in my own soul. And, you know, we comfort with the comfort by which we've been comforted, Paul says. And when I know that God has done so much to heal me of shame and change the mentalities of my life that formerly would have made me far too driven, honestly far too, too woeful of a look over my life and a hidden sense of anxiety.

And God's healed me of all of that and brought so much joy in my life and enabled me to raise kids in a completely different environment of grace than what I would have been and to heal trauma from my dad's leaving and his struggles with alcohol and how that brought shame in my life and to be able to be set free and to, to have my soul healed. You see, this is what God wants to do. He doesn't want to simply say, Hey, you need to be more Christian. You need to be more like my son.

You need to try harder. He doesn't just say that. What he says is here I am, and I'm the healer, and I would like to be able to, to heal you and go to the deepest place. And so that's a big part of what we're all about is the healing, but it's not just healing.

We're not just like a hospital where people just get better and then go on their way. It's also about hope. It's about destiny. It's about why you were made. It's about your identity. It's about who you are.

It's about where you're going. And every listener under the sound of my voice right now, I just want to say that not only does God want to heal you of the wounds of the past, but he wants to set you on a pathway towards your destiny, that you have hope in front of you, that you have a purpose in your life, that you were made for wonderful things. And so we don't just stop Daniel at the idea of healing. We, we continue in the believer's life by helping them know their identity so that hope is always in their heart. We need hope in the world today. And so that's why I love this testimony when he says, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so very, very, very much for sharing the great news of healing and hope. That's why we exist healing and hope. You know, some of us are so very close, I think to receiving that healing. We're, we're, we're close. We're right there. And then we hear something that changes our perspective and the Holy spirit comes in, but then you get like this letter and we were choosing to keep this anonymous, but you know, the location Utah, and you think of how rigid and how, how a search for freedom from a, from a spiritual point of view and the healing of a soul here, boy, that that's a, that's not always so close.

It's a little bit more of a far span to jump over it, but yeah, it's transformational. And I think that's what makes this letter extra special. Well, you know, I would be honest about it when, you know, airtime radio airtime is not inexpensive and this is why we need our listener support. It's the only way we're able to do this.

There's not, there's not some other source. It's all from our listeners. We are very, very streamlined ministry and we count our pennies and we, you can count on this listeners that what you give to this ministry, it is going to, in a very direct way, get the gospel out. And I remember a years ago when we think about being on a Utah and I remember some people saying, well, you don't want to be on in the salt Lake city area. There are hardly any Christians out there who's going to listen and make donations.

Well, we don't, we don't make our decisions based on that. We're going where we think, you know, God has given us opportunity and I've been able to become such dear friends with Russ, who manages the station in Utah. And we've had many, many letters over the years from people, including ex Mormons who are desperate for a message of grace. And so that listener and many, many others, if you're listening in Utah, God bless you. We're so glad that we're able to, uh, to be there and for every single listener, I want to reiterate the same hope that this listener and Utah's discover is the hope that Christ has for you as well. Here as we approach the end of the year, inviting you in your partnership with Alan Wright Ministries, of course, to see your life in a whole new light and to help others do the same at pastor Alan dot O R G that's pastor Alan dot O R G where you make a contribution.

And at least for those in the States, a tax deduction here at the end of the year, as a five Oh one C three, it qualifies. You know how you felt when you first discovered that freedom in Christ and when the shame was lifted and you can pay that forward, you can help somebody else experience that through the teaching ministry here of Alan Wright Ministries at the end of the year, inviting you with your partnership in the gospel at pastor Alan dot O R G. You can make your contribution here for the end of the year. And as we start off the new year strong in 2023, pastor Alan dot O R G and we're just celebrating the goodness of the Lord and how he has not only blessed the ministry, but that helps so many through it and such as the case with this next story. Thank you for letting God use you to help set the captive free. It's so hard to serve God when you're all bound up. And for most of my Christian life, I lived that way, always feeling that I was never good enough always feeling like I was a failure or not smart enough.

It seemed like I was always envious or jealous of somebody because I could always see them as better than myself because I never really liked or loved me. Because of Alan Wright Ministries, I am beginning to see some light. I have prayed for so long for help with this particular sin in my life. I mean, I've confessed to God and to others, but this sin seems to have me in its clutches.

So pray for me, that God will fill me with his wonderful love, which I so dearly I'm praying for. All I really want to do is serve and love God's people. I just want to be free.

Freedom theme there. Alan Wright Ministries exists to help people like this dear listener. So our tagline these days, see yourself in a whole new light. Pastor Alan is with me in the studio. Why is understanding our identity in Christ so important, Pastor Alan? Well, what God wants to do is not just show us that he came to set us free from the regrets and guilt and shame that can so easily bind us, but he wants us to see ourselves in the light of the gospel. He wants us to see ourselves as he sees ourselves. And that means to form an identity that's accurate to who you are.

Daniel, we live out of a sense of identity. If a student thinks of him or herself as a, hey, I've got a good brain and I think of myself as an A student. Well, how will they act? They'll study. They'll do what they think it takes to excel in their academics. If a student goes, I'm stupid, I don't have a good brain.

I've been told I'm not going to amount to anything. And that becomes their identity. Well, they won't try at all.

Maybe not even try to tackle some things that they very easily could tackle. You see how, how unconscious our identity is shaping everything about us. It's shaping how we think, it's shaping how we feel, and it's certainly shaping how we behave. So our ministry does not spend time trying to simply address the behavior.

The behavior is important. I mean, God cares about that. He cares about every detailed behavior of our life, but he's interested in the inward transformation that gives us an identity that then we live like co-heirs with Christ. We live not like slaves, but as people who've been set free, we live as those that have joy and living out the gospel. And that's what we're all about.

We are about helping people be set free and to discover their true identity in Christ. So they see their lives in a whole new light. And when you do, then without thought, just, just seamlessly automatically, even you're transformed, you begin to discover, Hey, I'm thinking differently now. Hey, I'm, I'm, I'm acting different now. I'm not the same person that I was.

What's not because you tried harder to be a better person is because God has actually changed you on the inside. And that's why we really exist to help people discover their true identity in Christ and over and over and over through the power of blessing, through the liberating words of grace that set people free from shame. We are helping people discover their identity. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries, and this broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. And as we're hearing these wonderful stories, these, these testimonies of how God has used either a writing or a spoken word here on the radio or through a conference ministry and teaching, you're part of that with your giving. And we're happy to invite you into this partnership here as we close out 2022 and welcome in 2023, Pastor Alan's got a brand new book coming next year, and you can be a part of that as well through the special partnership with your giving of any amount right now. It's welcome at Pastor Alan dot O R G Pastor Alan.org, or when you call 877-544-4860, 877-544-4860. And just like we heard the stories today, if you have a story to share, we invite those as well here, as we close out the year, contact us.

And even if it's just a sentence or two, we love hearing your testimonies at pastor, allen.org, pastor, allen.org. Can you imagine what it would be like to be accepted perfectly envision it being free to be yourself with no fear of rejection. If you mess up, people don't roll their eyes, make fun of you or love you less. Imagine no more of that anxious feeling to get deep down in your gut that makes you feel like the pressure is always on.

So you can never really relax. What you're imagining and longing for is a life with no shame. In paradise before sin came into the world. The Bible tells us only one thing about Adam and Eve's relationship.

They were naked and felt no shame. Ever since the fall, the human heart has been riddled with shame. It's a lie that says until you measure up, you can't be truly acceptable. Shame causes some to say, I'll try to be perfect in order to be accepted, and others to decide since I'll never measure up, I might as well rebel.

Either way, the heart is poisoned by shame and there is only one antidote, the grace of God in Jesus Christ. In his highly acclaimed book for yourself be yourself. Pastor Alan Wright not only exposes the lies of shame, he leads you into a revolution of God's love that heals your soul.

Discover freedom, joy and destiny as you shed performance based living and let God take the shame off you for good. It's a life changing full length book from Alan Wright for yourself be yourself. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Leaving shame and regret behind. It never gets old for me. You know, those are those are pretty, you know, churchy kind of terms that we hear. We sing a lot of songs about it. And yet it somehow we can live a lot of our lives even into adulthood hearing hearing these truths, but somehow they don't sink in. And yet a writing like shame off you free yourself be yourself or a teaching here on the radio comes like for this person and it makes all the difference. It's one of the foundational ministries the Lord has given you Pastor Alan to help people heal from shame. You know, many, many years ago when I began to teach, write and hold conferences on the subject of healing from shame, there was very little talk about it. And in fact, it was interesting, Daniel, that when I first discovered about shame and its toxic effects on the human soul and personality and all the problems that it caused it, it caught me off guard.

I would have never thought it was an issue for me. You know, I thought maybe shame that's for, I don't know, somebody in the gutter or some somebody that has, you know, made just horrible, horrible mistakes. And it certainly it certainly is a tyrant that would afflict those who have had that. Today we've been talking about shame and how debilitating it is and how freeing it is when we discover the grace of God. But as we spoke about today, there's not only healing, there's hope. And to begin to see your life in a whole new light, it requires the power of blessing. And this is something that is a very, very powerful revelation.

When you begin to see your life through the lens of God's plan for your life and have it proclaimed over your life and learn to proclaim it over others, this is God's principle force of change. And again, I want to say, Daniel, to all of our listeners, thank you for your support. Please do all you can here at Year End to help other people be set free from shame, discover their identity in Christ, and to learn the power of blessing. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at pastorallen.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching delivered right to your email inbox free. Find out more about these and other resources at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.