Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. Brian phillips here with you today. Welcome back to the grace Ops podcast. So I got to drop this. I'm going to have fun with this episode. I don't know what I'll call it. I'm not sure yet. Be a betsy. Lessons from Betsy.
[00:00:29] I don't know, but it changed my life. It was absolutely life changing.
[00:00:34] Whoever brings a sinner back, what does it say? If anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let them know that they saved their life from death and will cover a multitude of sins. Right. So want to share this with you. When I was 17 years old, I gave my life to christ. It was a very radical experience. Radical is an old word from the 1980s, I think. But it was definitely very impactful, and it changed the trajectory of my life. It changed the course of my life and my plans for my life.
[00:01:12] It brought me into actually what I'm doing today. But in my first year or so of following christ, I wandered. Maybe you've wandered. Maybe you're wandering right now. Maybe someone needs to save you, or maybe you need to go save somebody, right? But I want to share this story with you about, I don't know, about a year into this wandering time of, there was, I got a phone call. I was in this youth ministry, and this girl named Betsy called me, and she was just a leader. I didn't really know her. We weren't like, know I didn't wander away. And she was like a leader over me or anything like that. It just was one of those things in my life where she just called me, just recognized I wasn't around anymore, and she was like, hey, phillips, where are you at? Where have you been? And I'm like, I'm describing know I'm dating this girl.
[00:01:59] I'm not around, and I'm just not around. I just don't know if that's my thing anymore. And she just challenged me. She listened to me, which was cool, but she challenged me, really emphasizing the destiny on the decision I made to follow Christ and the implications that I could face if I didn't follow.
[00:02:19] You know, it was the call from Betsy that got me back at it. It got me back in the game. She saved my soul from wandering. She actually did what the scriptures say in James five. If anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back. So I want to talk about that energy real quick.
[00:02:39] Do you know anybody that's wandered from the truth?
[00:02:42] Are you a Betsy? Where can you be like Betsy in your life and bring someone back? How can you invest energy today, this week, on a text or a phone call to reach out to someone? Like, she didn't know me. She took a risk. I could have told her to bug off or could have chose other language, but she took a risk to come after me after I returned to my faith. I never hung out with her. We didn't become buddies. It was just this one and done call where it was risky for her, and she cared enough to realize I wasn't around. And she was like, I have some peace to make with that guy and I need to challenge him on the destiny and the call on his life that he's forfeiting if he plays games at this juncture and the impact that will come upon him. And I remember that call. It was, I don't know, 1520 minutes. She listened to me and then she challenged me. And she did it in a really cool way, and it got through. It worked. I went back about that same time, I had another friend of my life who did another, pulled another Betsy on me, right? And this guy was like, bro, I walked around your house seven times. The Bible talks about how Israel walked around the city, Jericho, seven times. And so he just picks this number and he's like, I did a Jericho march around your house, and I was praying for you.
[00:04:05] And this is exact same time I was telling Betsy I'd met this girl or whatever, and my friend was like, hey, you're sitting in a prison, but the doors open. What are you going to do to get out? And I was like, well, the only thing I can do is to get up and walk out of it. And he said, yeah. He goes, go break up with that girl right now and go home with me, and we'll play Xbox or whatever game station we had. And I was like, do what now? And he's like, yeah, dude, you heard me. And so I actually did that. It was wild. So crazy wild. But it brought me to where I am today. And the girl wasn't my problem necessarily. That wasn't the issue. The issue with my wandering heart.
[00:04:41] The issue was I need to get back with God and focus on things like prayer, reading my bible, focus on, oh, yeah, the 212 goal. There you go. Throw it in there. But, hey, who can you be like that with this week, today?
[00:04:58] Who do you know that you could go after who could just save from their wandering? Take a risk. Maybe they'll tell you to bug off, but maybe it'll work. Maybe God will meet you in that courage and you could help save someone from death and from a multitude of sins. Until next time, live upright.
