Interview with Kasey Flannikan

TNG Radio, where today's culture and timeless truths come together.

It's reasoned, relevant content apologetics, worldview, and answers to the questions that you need to know. From Alex McFarland Ministries, this is Truth for a New Generation Radio. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. That's 1 Thessalonians 5 18. Another great Bible verse about giving thanks, Psalm 107 verse 1. O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, and His steadfast love endures forever.

Welcome to Truth for a New Generation. Alex McFarland here. We're so glad you're listening. You know, this month we hear so much about thanksgiving, and I hope that God has put within you a thankful heart. We have got a lot for which to be grateful, and we're going to talk today about thankfulness. And I've got a guest, a powerhouse person that I just met. Let me tell you, Casey Flanagan is a Jesus woman. I'm on the road in Florida, and we've had several people that we've met.

And you know, traveling, if you're a frequent listener to Truth for a New Generation, you know that I frequently meet people that we just, we put them on the radio because their story is so compelling. And I was thinking about how much we have to be grateful for. The Bible says give thanks in all things, even in all circumstances. Because you know, you might be in the midst of a bad circumstance right now, but God is powerful enough to weave it into something beautiful. Maybe you've done things in your past that you would just as soon forget.

Maybe you've got more baggage than Samsonite. We want to tell you that Jesus loves you. Jesus really, really loves you. And Jesus will forgive you. Jesus will save your soul. Jesus will restore your emotions, heal your wounds. Jesus will pick you up, bandage you up, and give you a brand new start.

How many people listening right now, you just wish you could have a blank sheet of paper and just start over? Jesus Christ will give you that. And so I'm down here at First Baptist Church of Stuart, Florida, and I met somebody who is just the most dynamic, radiant witness for Christ that I think I've met in many a year. And Casey, I want to say thank you. You're busy, you've got a lot going on, but you made time to come in the studio and record with us. And we just want to hear your story. So first of all, thanks.

You're more than welcome. I'm glad to be here. You said something. All of us from church, we were fellowshipping together after one of the services I was down here to teach. You mentioned your dad. My father. Your father building churches.

All over the world. He is the center point to where they send churches from all over the United States when they want to go on a mission trip. They send them to my father. He makes the plans, stands the church up within two weeks, and then they support a pastor. They set a community.

They go back in two years and watch the community thrive in a way that you could not imagine. It goes from having nothing to something because of the love of Jesus Christ and the living water that comes from that. So would you say in some ways you come from a missionary family?

Absolutely. I started here at First Baptist when I was nine years old on my very first missionary trip. And me, my mother, and my father got to go out of the country and build several chapels. And it started my heart and my love for Christ then as just a nine-year-old young girl. And I would go home and I had all my four girlfriends kneel down on the grass and I told them, Y'all are coming to heaven with me. I found Jesus.

Y'all are coming. I didn't even know at 9 then what I was doing and what the Lord was really setting me up for later on in life. And setting the foundation in such a young age of my life so that way I would have something to come back to.

Now you've got a very dynamic, magnetic personality. When we were, the pastor and all of us, we were out, I saw you encouraging people and you were telling people about Jesus. What do you say, Casey, to the person who goes, Yeah, she's on fire for Christ.

She's out there smiling, talking to people, but I could never do that. How do you give somebody the vision that they too could be a light for Jesus in their community? One thing I have had to remember is that we have a loving Creator that has no physical hands. He has to come through our individual bodies through the unconditional love of each other to be the unconditional love of Christ comes through our physical hands. So the only way to do that is to go and spread love with our own physical hands. And that first comes from the agape love of Christ.

And to have that horizontal relationship before we can go vertical is first and foremost the pivotal point for any human being to be able to start over brand new, be born again, and it doesn't matter. He throws our sin as far as the East is to the West and remembers it no more. Moses was a stutterer and was asked to lead two million people out of Egypt, and Moses said, Lord, are you sure you're choosing me?

I can't even speak well. And he showed Moses that he was equipped and well to do that. And for anybody who's feeling that they can't share the love of Christ with Jesus, all you have to do is just ask the Holy Spirit to do that for you, and He will come into your heart and do that for you through you as you can be the glass for Jesus Christ in this world.

And it is truly the answer to all of our problems in life. You know, earlier today I was talking with a Muslim man who became a born-again Christian. He left Islam and he became a Christian. And he said something that is so powerful. And folks, if you're just tuning in, we're talking with Casey Flanagan in Florida. In the next segment, you're going to hear her complete story that is just one of the most powerful testimonies ever.

But this born-again ex-Muslim I was talking to today, he said Christians begin to love him, they begin to tell him about Jesus, and he said the love of these Christians was the most powerful Bible anybody could have ever read. Folks, we've got a brief break. Alex McFarland here, and I want to say thanks. You know, 2019 has been a powerhouse of a year, probably 150 different churches and schools, and we've done several major national events.

You know all about that. We did a youth camp. We had kids from seven states at our Worldview camp last summer. For everybody who's been praying for us, you've sent your kids to our conferences and you've emailed and you've said, Hey, Alex, praying for you.

We give God the glory, but we do want to say thanks. Stay tuned. We're going to be right back after this brief break with more of the incredible testimony of Casey Flanagan. I'm tired of living. My life makes no sense. Friend, when you're tired, draw close to God. Draw strength from God.

He loves you. He will renew you. In Isaiah 40-31, we read, Claim that promise today. Don't pull back. Don't slow down.

Don't stop short. When tough times come, remember God is with you. And the I Am A Watchman team stands with you too. Don't hesitate to send questions or your prayer request to IAmAWatchman.com Be bold. Be faithful.

Be a watchman. IAmAWatchman.com If you're a Christian parent, you of course want to instill a biblical view of life in the hearts of your children. If you're a pastor, you want to offer ministry that draws young families to your church. This is Alex McFarland encouraging you to check out my new book and video curriculum, The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask About Christianity. Why do bad things happen? I interviewed hundreds of children, ages 5-12, and we address actual questions from actual children, the spiritual issues that are on the minds of your kids.

Did Jesus ever sin? The book and video lessons are great for groups of any size and was produced with the goal of equipping kids to stand strong for Christ in any situation. The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask, the book, study guide, and video series. You'll find it at AFASTORE.net. That's AFASTORE.net. . As a group, millennials have more than a trillion dollars in purchasing power, so you know businesses are watching us. By 2025, we'll comprise 75% of the workforce, so employers are watching us. Despite these positives, millennials are losing our faith, so we know Satan is watching us. Engage Magazine is for millennials by millennials, and it speaks to faith, purpose, and a closer walk with Jesus. Because above all, God is watching us. Visit EngageMagazine.net. You don't need to have a Bible degree from Liberty University to love, serve, pray, worship, or obey God.

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That's Liberty.edu backslash explore to learn more. Timeless Truths in a Soundbite Culture. Truth for a New Generation Radio. In Ephesians 5-20, the Word of God says, Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome back to the program, TNG Radio, Alex McFarland. And we're giving thanks to God. Casey, we've got a lot to be thankful for, don't we? Amen. Praise God we do. Amen.

All right. So you were in the church as a little girl, nine years old, finding Jesus, going on mission trips. I guess then your life has been just pain-free, problem-free, straight and narrow, right?

I sure wish I say it could and would, but unfortunately it wasn't. Tell us your story. So even through the love of Jesus Christ, which I've carried in my heart deeply and the foundation that I've created, that my mother and father knew, it says in the Word that as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. And if you set the foundation and child that they will come back. So as my childhood went on at the age of about 14, my father became a closet alcoholic and it became a disruption.

I believe the enemy knew that my family was going to make a great impact in the kingdom. And he set his best demons out to attack the weakest link and addiction and alcoholism came into my family and tore it apart. My mother and father got divorced. My mother moved away.

I believe she joined another church and went on to do some missionary work in Thailand and Korea and a few other places. But my dad became further depressed because he really had a heart for the Lord and the drugs and alcohol had taken over. And I can remember as a young child being about 15 years old, I dropped out of high school.

I didn't know how to help or fix. I was just young myself. And I knew that the Lord loved us. And I almost became angry with the Lord in the beginning as a young child, not understanding. And then my dad went to rehab and he got out of it and moved back in with his parents in Tennessee and sold the house and was able to move to Brazil and become now the full-time missionary that he is today, building those 636 churches that we were talking about.

And he's been doing that ever since. But meanwhile, I got left kind of in the dust. And now what do I do with a heart full of God and a world full of flesh? And so I became pregnant at 17 to the drug dealer who spent 10 years of his life in prison. I raised my daughter by myself until the age of, she was five.

And the grandparents, his grandparents, intervened then at that moment and said, we can put her through private school, we can give her cheerleading and those kind of things. And at that moment in my life, I just did not have it together enough to be the parent that I needed to be for my daughter. And I wanted her to have better. And God gave me peace in the moment to be able to give my child to the grandparents. And she, by the grace of God, is a beautiful, wonderful, loving child and she loves the Lord as well today too. Amen.

Praise God for that. So my walk continued on after Jelena was then out of my life, my drug use went plummeting into the depths of utter hell and despair. And in the meanwhile, while I was out there, I can still remember, I would praise God in the midst of being high out in the streets and being around all these people. They must have looked at me like I was crazy because the enemy was leading me down there to kill me. But God's angels were surrounding me going, no. To protect you. We have this one here.

This one's ours. Job was allowed, the gate was allowed to be dropped around Job and the enemy was allowed to attack. But he couldn't kill him.

But couldn't kill him. And to see if he would curse God's name in the whole time, I continued to praise God. And after suffering in that addiction of my own and jails, institutions, and rehabs, I got out of it. I'm now eight years clean and free of all that. I am going back to be a therapist for addiction therapy. I'm going to give back in that area where the enemy thinks he took from me. God says in the word where he began, he will finish. I'm going to come back into First Baptist and start a facilitation for Celebrate Recovery. And I'm going to start giving back what the enemy took from me.

And I hope that he wakes up and knows that he messed with the wrong one this time. God bless you. I want your thoughts on a Bible verse. In the Old Testament, Joel 2 verse 25 says, God restores the years the locust has eaten. I'm a farm boy.

We grew up in North Carolina and we raised crops. And the insects or the deer or the locust could sweep and you've lost a year's work and the crops are dead. What does it mean to you that our God restores the years the locust has eaten? If only you knew the depths of where the despair had taken me. I can only imagine the blessing that my eyes have not seen and my ears have not heard that is going to come down, pressing down, shaken together for me and my family and God's vision for our life to further help educate, fight the demonic force that comes along with alcoholism and addiction.

So we have a lot of listeners. And listen, being a Christian doesn't mean that life is just going to be hunky-dory all the time. Even a born-again believer who's walking with the Lord, look, godly families have challenges. Devout Christian people go through deep valleys.

But Casey, I want to ask you some questions. Is there hope for the family that is just unraveling right now? Absolutely. I can remember walking on a street corner in absolute despair and I felt like I had no hope. But I could close my eyes in that one moment and I could ask the Lord, please, Lord, just give me one ounce of hope. And that's all we have to do.

We can go boldly through the throne. It's just one step away, one call out, one cry. One hope is just one calling.

All we have to do is call and He is there to answer. What about the person who has tried to beat addictions, substance abuse, patterns of behavior, and they feel like they've blown it for the hundredth time? I blew it for a million times over and over.

I'm still blowing it today. I'm not perfect. I find that your addiction and alcoholism can come out in other ways as codependency.

It can come out in workaholism and other ways. So you just have to really stay on top of getting a new routine where you've plucked out the old things, put in new positive things, find a good Christian church, and surround yourself with people that can fill you up from what the enemy has taken from you. To everybody listening, and we've got to take a quick break here, but look, be a part of a church. We need that encouragement.

That's right. We need that accountability. And you, as part of God's family and being a part of a church, you're going to be used by God, and you're going to be a blessing to somebody as you grow and your life as a witness to those around you.

Now stay tuned. We've got a powerhouse segment with Casey Flanagan here on Truth for a New Generation. Be thankful to God, and we'll be right back after this. Christians don't necessarily agree with one another when it comes to questions of religious pluralism, homosexuality, the role of government, abortion, and war. Too often we manage these disagreements by ignoring them. Yet we're called to engage the world for the sake of Christ.

How can we be effective if we avoid society's most pressing questions? In 10 issues that divide Christians, Alex McFarland challenges us to drill down to the biblical core of 10 current issues, such as social justice, evil and suffering, pornography, and environmentalism, as he echoes the biblical invitation, come, let us reason together. Only by engaging the scriptures deeply, thinking clearly, and speaking truthfully can we and God's family address our differences and discover the peace that comes with unity of purpose. 10 issues that divide Christians. Find this book and many others at AlexMcFarland.com 1 Peter 3.15 tells us to be ready always to give an answer for the hope we have.

We're instructed to be prepared to defend our faith. This is Alex McFarland for the Life Answers teams, students we train at North Greenville University, a leading Christian college in South Carolina. The Life Answers teams are made up of students who will inspire and equip your congregation. These apologetics teams we train speak in churches to youth groups and train Christians of all ages to address key issues of our times from a biblical perspective. Like, is there a God?

Is the Bible true? What about gender and moral issues? Call me at 864-977-2008 and we will arrange for the Life Answers team to come to your church and give a presentation that will benefit your people for years to come.

864-977-2008 and always be ready. In the midst of a culture obsessed with relativism, Alex McFarland is a voice you can trust to speak the timeless truths of Christianity in a timely way. You're listening to Truth for a New Generation Radio. Welcome back to TNG Radio.

We're going to continue talking with Casey Flanagan, but I just want to say this to everybody listening. Believe this. God loves you. You say, but Alex, this happened to me. God loves you.

You say, but Alex, I did this. God loves you. Believe that God loves you. I want to give a scripture, and we're going to hear from Casey again. But Colossians 3, beginning at verse 15, says, Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called into one body. See, you were called into the body of Christ to give peace. And it says, And be thankful, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your heart to God. Now listen to verse 17 of Colossians 3.

This is awesome. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Notice, there's the peace of Christ that comes through a relationship with Christ, and we maintain it through the word of Christ, and we foster it, stoke it, build it up with gratefulness, and everything we do in the name of Christ. And that's the Christian life.

And Casey, let me ask you this. A lot of times people, let's say somebody gets sober for the moment, and we think, well, I've got to be sober for the rest of my life. Well, we don't know the rest of our life. We just know this moment right now. And maybe is it fair to say to somebody, don't think about trying to beat all your bad habits for a decade at a time.

Just do it for an hour at a time, or the next five moments at a time, or the next moment. Because isn't the walk with Jesus a day-by-day, really moment-by-moment thing? It really is. I had to notice in my own life and in my own walk with the Lord that it says that He is the vine and we are the branches. And the spiritual fruits—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, long-suffering—those begin to grow, but our dead fruit has to fall off first. And that pruning, it says in the Bible, tends to hurt. And sometimes that's the loving hand of a caring father that comes in and says, I love you so much that this is unacceptable in your life.

This is unacceptable in your life. And he comes in through a loving hand and a guiding hand. And sometimes it feels like we're being ostracized or rejected. And in those moments, that's when we need to seek out most someone with a Christian basis background that's going to uplift us and pull us up, because it says where there's two or more gathered in the name of the Lord, He is there in the midst. And so when you're feeling that negativity or feeling something pulling you down, you can't get out of it.

You need to get connected into a Christian-based, Bible-based, believing people that will help pull you out of any situation that we can overcome together, because it says through Christ we can do all things. Casey, I meet a lot of people and they have done things that have been, you know, destructive to themselves and others, but the majority of people I meet blame other people. Yeah, I did this, but Mom and Dad caused me to.

Yeah, this happened, but it wasn't my fault. How do you honestly accept and own your own decisions, but at the same time move on in the restoration of Christ and not beat yourself up for things that went wrong, that if we're honest, hey, we did this, we chose this. You know, we made decisions. How do we own our own decisions, but move on in the restoration of Jesus? First, I had to realize in Come to the Realization that everything that I went through was okay, and the Lord knew about it before I ever would go through it. And in knowing that gave me a sense of peace and through the love of Jesus Christ and the studying of your word, you will see countless times throughout the stories of how many people messed up.

I want shirts printed out that says no perfect people allowed. David, the man after his own heart, he was not a perfect man, but was considered the man after God's own heart. In our own mistakes, every single human being, we were born into captivity. We were born into sin.

It is what naturally comes first. And through the love of Jesus Christ and being reborn again into this beautiful family that's here for you, you can learn to live a new life and how to have meaning and have a future and a vision that God predestined and ordained for you to have, and your life will change tremendously. Praise God.

And that is true, folks. And, you know, sometimes people ask, why did I go through this or that? I was thinking about 2 Corinthians 1, verse 4.

It says, God comforts us in all of our trouble that we may be able to comfort others with the same comfort wherewith we ourselves were comforted from God. See, folks, sometimes circumstances get our attention and they turn our eyes to Christ, and then we wonder, you know, why were things this way? Well, sometimes the deep valley where we learn the faithfulness and the power of God is also preparation for ministry, isn't it?

Absolutely. I would not give back any of the time that I spent in jail or rehabs or out in the streets. It taught me so much about the loving care and grace of the Lord and how much He just loves us anyways. He gave me a big vision. It's called the Promised Land. I want to own a big piece of property to bring a lot of people that are in my same, like the verse you just read. You know, the struggles we go through are often the places we're hurt the most is where God wants to use us. Yeah. Would you pray, not only for the people listening that need, some need to come to Christ, some need to come back to Christ.

Hallelujah. But would you pray for America's youth? Casey, I was in West Virginia. So many kids are dying by drug overdoses.

I was in Ohio. I mean, there are states, they've got to put it in the budget to bury all the people that overdose. Correct. Satan must not kill this nation.

That's right. And we have power in the name of Jesus. We've only got a minute or so. Would you, though, for this nation and for the fellow strugglers out there, would you lead us in a word of prayer? Dear Lord, Heavenly Father, just thank you right now to be in your presence, Lord. Lord, we just bind the enemy and all of his demonic forces that he has sent out with addiction and alcoholism into this nation and against our youth. Lord, we stand up and we know that you are raising a mighty army to come and fight against that with knowledge and truth, because it says in your word where there is truth, it will set you free and then you are free indeed. And I just pray for the entire nation and all across the world, for all the children, men and women that are being used and abused by addiction and alcohol, that it will be broken off of them.

In the name of Jesus, the chains will be broken. And we thank you and praise you in all this in Jesus' holy, precious name. Amen. Amen. Casey Flanagan, thank you for being on Truth For A New Generation radio. Thank you all for listening. And most of all, thanks to Jesus, our Savior. That's 877-YES-GOD-1.

That's 877-YES-GOD and the number 1. Or give online at AlexMcFarland.com. While you're there, listen to program archives, read Alex's blog, invite Alex to speak at your event, or contact Alex with a question or comment. AlexMcFarland.com. Thanks for listening today and join us again next time as we bring you more truth for a new generation on TNG radio.