- When you become master
over your own thoughts, you're going to succeed
in all areas of your life. (deep intense music) Truth isn't something concrete
that's to be discovered, it's something to be
created by the individual. We're ingrained with
this sense of knowingness that there's something more
than just this physical life. (deep bass music) Like a lot of people, I was raised in the church and
I went to Christian private school growing up. But that started to get questioned for me when I discovered the topic of aliens. I was getting into my
hands channeled material that was apparently given to us by aliens. When I was reading it, the type of spirituality
they were teaching, it was universalism, it was religious pluralism, it was new age spirituality. And so, I began to practice meditation, I began to practice lucid dreaming, different forms of contemplation. I had experiences that
seemed to verify the research that I was coming across. At the same time, I was investing almost as much time into Christian apologetics. Everything that I was
studying had to take Christ into account somehow. He was someone I knew
had to be made sense of. After I began researching
this stuff obsessively, I put together a Facebook page called Spirit Science and Metaphysics. And within a year and a half, it grew to over 500,000 likes. And so, I decided to make a website. In the first three weeks
of my website being up, I made $57,000. I bought a nice little, you know, 4,000 square foot house. I didn't live with a budget. I did whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. This entire time, I'm literally living the dream. But the more worldly success that I had, and the greater spiritual wisdom, ironically, the less
fruit I had in my life. I was the most wicked person that I know. I had violent fantasies, anger problems, an obsession with serial killers. People were pawns on my chess board. I'm writing articles on self-control and I'm thinking like a psychopath. My psychology was just a black canvas and there was no light on it. (soft peaceful music) There reached a point in my
life where I was not able to continue on in those things anymore and I felt, all of a sudden, convicted that I needed
to confess these things. During this time, I put my career on hold. I had to figure out some
things about, you know, who's God, who's Jesus, who
am I, what is this thing? Like, why am I here? The next few weeks passed
and I had another set of lies that I was suppressing
and I felt God try to pull them out of me. That was the first time
I ever looked at myself in the mirror. Clearly, I saw that I was pathetic. My life was pathetic. I was a broken vessel. And I had no good in me. Like, no life in me. No life. I knew that I had been sinning and that I had committed
moral crimes against people and against God. That's when I realized I
don't just need to be fixed, I need to be saved 'cause
I know I'm in trouble. I went outside and I just
fell at the feet of Christ. Just really hoping that
He would like, hear me and forgive me. He was my only option. I'm on my face just weeping before Him and I feel in front of me, in like, the horizon, His presence enter in. Totally loving and gentle, but holy. Powerfully holy. And His attention was set on me. He was focused on me. The first thing I sensed was His lordship. I was under Him and He
was so far above me. Not only above me, but above creation. I could sense when I was in His presence. Creation, it recognized Him. It was glorifying Him
and like worshiping Him. I'm saying to myself, Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. It's so simple. He's not a mystic. He's not a guru. I don't have to try to
ascend to some level of self-divinity through secret
knowledge and meditation. Jesus is the Son of God
just like I had been taught growing up and I missed it. I missed it the whole time. (peaceful music) And so, I went back inside
after I had this experience. I had pure rest. Looking at my bookshelf with
all my new age material, I remember looking at all of
it and realizing I have it now. I'm done. So I quit my job. And I confessed to people
online the Lordship of Jesus. I apologized. I repented to everyone. I said, I'm sorry for leading you astray. This is all demonic strategy
set up to lead us to hell. My inbox the next day, just blew up with like, are you joking? You got hacked. Steve, go kill yourself. Steve, F you. It was a lot of persecution. I had to sell my house
'cause I no longer had all this income coming in and I sold my car. He says, "If you lose
your life for my sake, "you'll find it." And it's so true. It's not worth messing
around with this life and trying to find yourself just to end up standing before the judgment seat of God. Everyday that we don't
bend the knee to the cross, we're playing Russian
Roulette with our own life. And the truth is, God is holy so He requires
a price to be paid for sin and that He loves you and
He's already paid that price for you in Christ. You need to believe on Him
to receive that atonement. And He has good things for you now. He wants to restore you and make you whole and full of love and peace now. It's not just some
afterthought in eternity. He says, "I came that they may have life "and life more abundantly." He says, "Whoever believes in me, "out of his belly will flow
rivers of living water." From death to living water. That's the gospel.
