I had my battles. I had my times of just being upset and God would show me, 'Hey, I'm right here, I'll walk you through this and it doesn't make sense now but just trust me.' That's where faith come in - trust.
When you have an open wound, it's festering and hurting constantly. Then it finally heals and then becomes a scar. Well, pretty soon you're not feeling it and not really paying attention to it.
I get on stage and realize what God has given me, and not just I sing some songs and tell a couple stories, or something that God's done. It's more like, 'OK, guys. I want to encourage you to go out to this world and show love and truth.'
If I'm on stage and ministering my heart and pointing people to Christ, then that's all I can do.
There are a lot of people doing social justice things, which is great. But we can't just say, 'Here's some food. Here's some stuff.' We have to be able to give the gospel, share the hope and have a real heart for that.
I realize now that God has been with me every step of my life - through the suffering.
It's been a crazy whirlwind, but I'm so blown away by God's hand on my life.
Unfortunately, with addiction, there's manipulation and deception.
I remember the Lord speaking into my heart and saying, 'Jeremy, I want you to stand up and worship me.'
No matter what hard thing you may go through or what kind of pain you may go through there is still hope.
I have to be so thankful. I have two kids, my beautiful wife, I'm just blown away at God's grace and God's faithfulness.
Let's come together as the body of Christ and reach out and be the true hands and feet of Christ.
God's grace is definitely abundant.
Everything is in your face. The battle is that you're getting things from all ends like never before and the intensity is being turned up like never before. So there's a call to be set apart, and there's a call to speak the truth, and there's a call to start standing up and putting your faith in action.
People who are in jobs are striving to gain the most they can before they die through financial means, through their flesh, the lust of their flesh and man's drive for power. But as believers we are to be the opposite. We are to be humble, not prideful. We are to think of things that are true, whatever is noble, and whatever is worthy.
You see God's hands in so many situations. Then someone will point to all the bad things that are going on. Well, it's because we don't want God in our society. We are pushing God farther and farther away. And we can now see those consequences in our society.
I lost my wife to cancer and I saw the impact of telling my story - this is what happened, this is what God did and why he was faithful.
God had to teach me a lot of things.
You can fill up your time with anything that you want. And stuff per se is not bad - technology is awesome; if you use it for the right the reason, it's great.
We live in such a self-gratifying nation, and everything is instantaneous.
