Navigating Faith: Conversations on a Christians life

In this powerful episode of Relentless Pursuit, we sit down with Pastor Tyler, a long-time friend and spiritual mentor, for an insightful and heartfelt conversation about the core of our faith. This episode is a must-watch for anyone seeking to strengthen their relationship with God, overcome challenges, and find healing within the Christian community.

Pastor Tyler shares his wisdom on the importance of prayer as a foundation for developing a deep, personal relationship with God. He offers practical advice on how to sustain your faith amidst life’s daily struggles and how to persevere in moments of doubt and difficulty.

In this candid discussion, we also tackle the painful reality of church hurt. Pastor Tyler offers heartfelt apologies to those who have been hurt by the church and provides actionable steps toward healing, restoration, and finding a healthy, supportive spiritual community.

We dive deep into the spiritual practice of dying to self, embracing humility, and making room for God's presence to dwell within us. Pastor Tyler emphasizes the importance of discernment in our walk with God and how to stay rooted in truth in a world full of distractions.

Whether you're struggling with your faith, longing for deeper intimacy with God, or healing from church hurt, this episode is packed with encouragement, practical guidance, and spiritual insight that will leave you feeling inspired and renewed.

Don’t miss out on this impactful conversation! Hit the subscribe button and turn on notifications so you never miss an episode of Relentless Pursuit.

Transcript

0:00

Welcome back to this week's episode of Relentless Pursuit. I'm so excited for you to join us this week and I know you're going to be impacted. This episode is amazing. We have an amazing guest. Pastor Tyler. I had to throw that in. This man has been a friend of mine, a brother of mine since I was in Bible college. And he is doing an amazing work not only in Houston, where we're at right now, but he's living in Dallas, and so I want to welcome Pastor Tyler. What's going on, dawg? I had to throw in the pastor. I'm not a pastor. Yes you are. You are ordained. Okay, yeah, I am technically. But I don't have a flock at the moment, so in terms of the responsibility I don't have that yet. We're getting there. Amen, but you are an ordained pastor, so you are a pastor. Okay, yes, I am a pastor. I'm glad to be here. I'm glad to be here. I'm excited. We met 2020, 2019, 2019. Yeah. And in such a short time, a lot happened and we got really close. And yeah, I'm grateful for, this opportunity first and foremost. And just the friendship brotherhood that stayed over the course of Five years. Six years. We lost some. We lost some. Yeah, some fell off along the way, it's alright. But praise God that we did it. We praise him. We praise him though. We pray for them. We keep them in the prayer and all that stuff, yeah I'm happy to be here, bro. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. I know what's been, like, I asked what's been on your heart recently and I know the Christian walk and how people push forward in this Christian walk and how they're faithful to God as He's faithful to us. And our whole thing is that we want to pursue God as He pursues us. And our whole relationship is dependent on that, that pursuit of him. Yes. And finding him. And that the key responsibility of a Christian. Yeah. Is to be in the secret place. To be in, in the prayer closet. And so what do you believe or how do you believe prayer is a key element in developing a relationship with God? I believe the value of it in order to understand prayer, you have to understand what it is and what it entails. When we talk about the value of how important prayer is, when we look at a 20 bill, we know the value of a 20. When we look at a 100 bill, we know the value of a 100. But I feel like a lot of believers don't have an understanding of prayer because they don't know the value. Yeah. And We obviously were taught that it is the communication between us and the Lord. But it is so vital that if we're not praying, then you're allowing your thoughts to take the place of where God's supposed to be. Yeah. And it takes a very much of a understanding that God is always near to us to the point where prayer, He gives us this access that opens up heavens. and opens up his ear. Yeah. And not in a sense of things that we don't know or he doesn't know rather, but more so in a sense of he wants to hear us. Yeah. He wants to know that we're there for him. Not for the sake of always just needing something, but for the sake of just wanting to honor him and honor him. Acknowledge him in reverence who he is. Yeah. On a daily basis. The Bible says that you should meditate day and night. Yeah. It's not a it's not a circumstantial line of communication. It's not 911. Yeah. It's not just 911 but it's also your friend when you need him at all times at any time. Yeah. Just to talk or Just to say thank you. So I believe prayer for as a Christian in the Christian walk in the Christian lifestyle is Just as vital as breathing Almost yeah, it's very important. So yeah. Yeah, and I look at based on what you said I see a lot of Psalms one in it Blessed are the ones that don't walk in the path or the council of the wicked Yeah, and so it's curry creating this distinction like Okay, so you're not supposed to be wicked, you're supposed to be the ones that are holy, righteous, let's say righteous, and then blessed, and it says blessed are those who don't walk in the path of the wicked, or counsel the wicked, or walk in the path of the sinner, meaning, or get in the, in another version it says get in the way of the path of the sinner, so what you're doing is based on your walk with your God, Based on how you're walking or how you're counseling whether it's you're counseling your flesh or you're counseling God You can either get in the path of the sinner meaning you will block them from God Yeah, or you will help them to God and then it says and as it goes on but the light in the law of the Lord And so we have to find our delight in God it's it's it's something more than just like you said more than a 9 1 1 call. It's more than that pursuit after Him. It's the delight in Him. It's your intention. He's trying to find the heart. And when you posture your heart with God do you believe it is because obviously God is a God of intention. He searches the heart. And do you believe that, let's say you're having an off day or whatever, that you need to repent for that off day? I'm just, this is a curiosity question. Do you think that, because you had an off day, let's say your intentions were really bad, you're struggling really bad with anxiety or depression, just this it's like an anomaly day. Yeah. A lot of Christians, what they do is beat themselves up for it. And so what, when we're struggling in that way mentally, when we're like, what the heck is going on? Where I'm, what would you say that our response should be? Our response should be a postured heart and a ready to receive mind. Yeah. And a washing of the word. The sucky thing is we live in a world of evilness, the wickedness. Yeah. Of a lot of things that happen in Genesis one. You know what I'm saying? The prerequisite of this wickedness is the fact that we have the Holy Spirit to allow us to give us a daily refreshing of God on a daily basis, regardless. So people who do struggle on a daily with anxiety or depression from their job or whatever the family, whatever the case may be, I would say to those people, refresh yourself. Have an understanding that God is with you. He's always been with you. He told Joshua that. He told Moses that. And there's no such thing as you're in this alone. And then that goes back to the power of community. And it's having people around that understand you and are able to articulate you in a way where, okay, yeah, you're having an off day. Did you do this? Did you do that? Because a lot of times, The, the backlash of that anxiety or depression is the lack of your perverence or your going after in the presence of God. Not saying that, it just doesn't come out of nowhere, but there are seeds. You've, you, you started doing one thing, you started off well, and then now you're in the season of depression. You slowly started retracting and then you're wondering, Oh, why is depression creeping up on me? Why is this creeping up on me? Or why am I falling into? Temptation is 24 7 business. It, it never stops. Whether, I don't care how saved you are. I don't care how many churches you have. I don't care how many prayer calls you make. Temptation is a 24 7 running business, but sin is the wage. And the wages of sin is death. The moment that you continue to pay for that, the moment that you continue to dive into your temptation, you're gonna always lead yourself to a place of shield, which is death hell. I believe to those who do have those setbacks, those minor setbacks, be encouraged that God Has not left you. Yeah. You just had to put a ear to him, which is where prayer comes in. He isn't, he's he can be your 911 in these type of circumstances, but he also can be that friend when you're in your place of alienation or isolation rather. And you just don't know. You just got, I'm just here. My biggest thing is before I am Tyler, Javonte, Laura, I was made in the presence of God. So I am a presence. I'm a product of his presence in general. When Adam was created, he was created before he had purpose. He was in presence. He was in the garden before God said, okay, this is what you need to do. Go name them animals. Go do this. Go do that. He was in the presence of God first. Yeah. We need to start retracting and going back to okay, where do I need to start? Just get in the presence. Just get in the presence. That's what I would say. And I think that's a temptation too for a lot of Christians that like when they do have these off days, let's just, I'll say, keep saying it like that, man, but they have these off days and what the temptation is to act okay. we are. And then we get into this whole realm of religious Yeah. Or pride. Yeah. And we have this temptation all the time. Okay, we're gonna, we're, I'm going through this, but at the same time I'm a leader in a church, or I'm a leader and I can't go through this. I have people following me. I can't be this, I can't be in this place rather than attacking the root of the issue. We like to hide the symptoms. And then so it takes long-term effects on us spiritually. And yeah, it just seems like we get into this I look at it as a U turn of where we were going, our destination, and we completely do a 180 on it, and but here's the thing, though, is that when we combat it with that prayer or combat it with our presence driven mindset we are able to push through the flesh's desires, really, because what they desire is to isolate yourself in, in and we get into this place where we die to ourself. Yeah. And what is the importance of dying to yourself on a daily basis as Christ said? Just as important as his crucifixion. His one time on the cross is the ultimate example of what we should do on a daily basis. Okay. We're talking about the perfect man. We're talking about Jesus Christ, the one who walked, who was blameless and decided to get on the cross, not decided, excuse me. He was purposed to get on the cross and put our sins on that thing when he didn't have to do that. But he was called to and he was obedient to the call. So dying daily is as important as It is emphasized in the Gospels. And if we don't, if we choose not to die daily, then you're living for something. And it's not Christ. And our biggest mistake in dying daily is, like you said, is our pride. Because then we believe that we can do this thing better than he can. And we can't get into this, in this notion That in our heads where there is a, almost this little angel, devil angel, but it's both devils because they're both in the devils are you. Dying daily is more of a mental freedom than it is a thing we say. Yeah. And it looks you're not going and drinking alcohol when you want to. You're not going and watching pornography when you want to. You're not going to smoke. You're not going to say this about this person or whatever the case may be. Whatever that may be for you, that's what dying day looks like. It's putting your sins on that cross or on that altar on a daily basis. It's highly important and again, There's no title too high for it. Yeah. Whether you got, go back to my point, whether you got 15 churches, whether you got 15 prayer calls, die daily. Yeah. Die daily. Die daily for sure. I am a firm believer in that. It's when we bring spirituality to reality it, it changes your perspective. Yeah. On how we walk this thing out. Yeah. It gives you a open mind. Viewpoint on the spiritual realm and understanding that you just walk past somebody who is possessed by demons and it opens your mind to that or you just walk past this bar or whatever and there's spirits all over the, you know what I'm saying? And it, and that stuff can get attached to you, but you didn't die today. So if you don't die, that thing can get attached to you and it can link with you and it can stay with you. Yeah. And you open some doors and you open doors. Yeah. Yeah. And I think with that, you can't have the wrong emotions because you're dead. You can't be offended because you're dead. You can't have unforgiveness because you're dead. You're obviously not literally dead, but because you're dead to your flesh, you're dead to your desires, you're dead to your will, you can't you're, like, When the fence comes in, you can't receive it because you're there. It hits you. It falls off. Exactly, because you are living as Christ. You are living conformed to his image. And as you are conforming to his image, then you allow the Holy Spirit to be your shield. Yeah. And I think there are so many times that we say scripture. We say that the Lord is my fortress. He is my shield and that we allow these scripture sayings. Yeah. To only rest in our head knowledge, we don't allow it to take root in the heart, but we will so quickly allow our sin to take root in our heart. And what is the difference of weight that allowing, or I should say this how come it's easier for allowing sin to root than allowing something of God to root? I believe it's easier because it's falls back on what we want. And like I said, we grew up when I grew, we were born in a fallen world in general. We have desires that aren't godly. Yeah. And the thing that god wants, he's against. Yeah. And the thing that he wants, we want, we don't want. Yeah. fleshly place. You don't wanna be woken up at 5 You, you don't want to, go talk to that person, and I'm speaking to myself here. You don't want to go talk to that person in the store and prophesy and tell them, hey what's going on with you? You don't want to, do that certain thing because it, it contradicts our mental. Yeah. It contradicts and that's another, it stops at our head. Like you said, it doesn't get here. It doesn't even travel. Yeah. It turns it's, there's traffic. It's too much traffic. Yeah. When we were traveling. I like that. When we were traveling from Dallas to here, to Houston. Yes, yesterday? Yeah, yesterday. We, I was on the road and I was just in my zone with God so There was a lot of traffic. Yeah. But you know how when there's a lot of traffic and then you get to that point of traffic and you see there's no car wrecks, no this, no that. Yeah. God spoke to me. He said, that's a lot of us. Oof. He said, there's nothing in the way. It's just too much going on. Come on. It's just too much Conjunction people. You got too many people in your ear. You got too much things. Too many distractions. Just surrounding. You got too like you got too much going on. Yeah. There was no crash. There was no life or death situation. There was no family member that died that set you off or there was none of that. You just got too much going on. And you're wondering why it's so hard for you to get free. You're wondering why it's so hard for you to be free and then for you to go smoothly to where you need to get to. But the reason why is because there's too much traffic. So in the in the metaphor, in the figurative picture from going here to here, there's too much traffic here. It's starting up here. And we get so much in our heads. That is hard for us to get to this place because we think we got it here. And then when we see somebody who doesn't have the same thing as we don't then that's when pride becomes. And then that's when pride starts to sneak its way in. You ever seen a motorcycle person? They have this thing called they can drive like in between the lines. And that's how pride is. Pride gets to sneak its way through to our hearts and get to the freedom before Everything else does. I'd be scared for them people too because they sneak up on me and they sneak up. It was one yesterday. He was just going through and I'm like, dang, like he just gets to go through and guys like, yeah, that's pride. Pride gets to get through there and go through between the lines because you decided to let all this traffic build up. They can go on the sides. They can go this way and that way. And the crazy thing is that's illegal. Yeah. So pride is illegally Going through every little thing, crevice it can get to, to get to your heart. Yet, you are too prideful to allow God to really un congest you and get you out of traffic. Yeah. But, yeah, it's very important that we decipher the moments where God is trying to get something to our hearts and not just get it to our heads. Yeah. And I think that to I like the little motorcycle analogy because we have to be so presence driven that we allow this pride to root. And what happens is because God hates the, or God resists the proud. And so we're presence driven, we're like, we're praying in tongues, we're praying in all this we're seeking the face of God, but we still have that root of pride. That's why the Bible says when you go into the temple and you bring an offering for God, first go ask for forgiveness or forgive your brother before you get, because that's another sense of pride. God is attacking on this Sermon of the Mount, a lot of it is pride. When He says, cut out your eyes and, or if you're, when I cause you to sin and cut it out. That's another sense of pride because he wants you to remove yourself 100 percent from the thing that's causing you to sin most. But because you have so much pride, you're not willing to address it right on. When it says cut off your hand, same thing. You're not willing to address the thing in your life that is causing you to, whether it's like a bad apple on a tree and it's causing you to be infected, you're not willing to cut it off. And in this Christian life though, there are so many areas that we can go. And so many areas of a Christian's walk that, that need developing and need to be aware of what's going on in their surroundings. Yeah. But in order to build that discernment how would you say is the key thing that you need in order to build discernment? The key thing in discernment is knowing what discernment is. And I feel like a lot of people don't know what it is and they just they think they have a discernment and. It's not true. Yeah. And the sermon is a tool to help you to know how to respond. Yeah. And a lot of people use it for evil purposes or wicked purposes rather. And they use it to look at people's lives and Oh, I felt this for this person. And it is, don't feel right. Or whatever the case may be. And. The truth is discernment is the distinguishing of the spirit. Yeah. The state of someone. Yeah. Are you operating in your flesh? Is this a demon or this is the spirit of god and a lot of times people don't understand that when you're discerning something. You are being used in that moment to be a tool to help to of response. Yeah, and there's no such thing as it Countering acting against you because again at the end of it all should lead to Jesus Yeah, the gifts are set up for you to be led to Jesus. Yeah, and When we talk about the sermon we have to really understand that he is God is So merciful that he allowed us to have a gift to pick out people for the sake of him so that we can lead those people, said people to Christ. So the importance of discernment is highly and discernment has to be used properly and if it's not. We've seen, there's people who are in industries who have discernment, who have used their discernment for the sake of their own good, and it is shown, we've seen it. So discernment is important, highly important. And so with that, like it's something you said I really liked is that every gift that you have should bring people to Jesus. And there are so many people, and I think of this I think of somebody and that calls himself a prophet. I don't want to, I don't want to go into it, but they they go, do you want me to prophesy? And then he has a whole group around him, prophesy. And it reminds me of like a black panther when they go. Yeah. Oh, my bad. You go like that. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways. My point is that there's so many times where we utilize these gifts or people, I should say. Utilize these gifts in the wrong way and then it brings the people who are recipients of these gifts or receiving these gifts to, let's just say church hurt. And so people for the people who are dealing with the church hurt in their life that have been affected by these people who have utilized their gifts in the wrong way or they've just received or they picked up offense when they shouldn't have. Yeah. What would you say to them? What would you say how they can walk in the forgiveness that they need and release the unforgiveness that they carry? First, I'm going to look at the camera and say this. Go ahead. On behalf of every church that has hurt you, every person of the church that has hurt you, I apologize. I'm sorry that they misrepresented Christ the wrong way. Let me first say that. Secondly, I'm going to say that in order to understand and really come out of church hurt, people who have church hurt have a prideful in themselves to have a sense of pride in themselves to in a sense in this way, meaning they won't never go to another church or they will turn their back on God. I know close people who were results of church hurt, and now they're living the complete different lifestyle of where they were before they were hurt. I've seen you at the altar. I watched you. Sometimes get baptized. Sometimes. Get baptized. Some of y'all I walked past. Not to let you do deep into it, but like some of y'all, like I've talked to y'all, I've had conversations with y'all, like we've had prayer nights, and the church hurts you and all of a sudden you're changing your lifestyle and it breaks me. Yeah. But it's at the same time, I can't really feel bad because you were in the presence. Come here Lucifer, you were in the presence. You got mad and you left and you chose not to go back, not to release that. So for people who are dealing with church hurt, not trying to not be sympathetic to those who have been church hurt, that's why I apologize first but at the same time you have to have an understanding that not everyone Represents Christ. Unfortunately, yeah, it's a perfect message. Yeah, there's imperfect people. And at the same time, you will never find a perfect person. Yeah. And that is the sad reality. That is the sad reality we live in. We live for Tyler. Shut up. We live in a reality where you won't find a perfect person. And you're going to have to follow imperfect people. And your pastor, he's imperfect. I'm sorry to tell you. He's imperfect. He isn't the perfect person. He's probably the best representation of Christ but he isn't a perfect person. The highest ranked bishop, he isn't a perfect person. So for you people who, for you people, my God, for people who, you know, who, you deal with church hurt. Christ loves you. Number one, first and foremost, Jesus loves you and he's never too far. Secondly, I would find a community that is healthy because we like to not equate spirit field with healthy. Yeah. Just because your spirit field is, you're not healthy. Yeah. In fact, they go together so much so that And when people walked with Jesus, Jesus was spirit filled and he was also healthy. He had a healthy mind, healthy emotions. So we, we have to really understand the importance of having emotional, mental health and how important it is to be healthy and walking with that. But finally a healthy community of people that know God who are sold out for him. Who aren't just, how should I say this, word slayers not people who just throw scripture at your head, but people who bring love with the scripture. Yeah, all my church people, Christ loves you. If you need a church to go to, he has a church. Go to his church. Go to his church. In Arizona? Yeah. He has a good church. He found a good community. For people who. Tyler leads a church of a couple thousand. Praise God. Praise God. But yeah. Aren't you preaching at the NRG stadium? Who? You? Aren't you preaching this weekend, this Sunday? I ain't preaching nowhere. But, What's the Texas stadium? You came here to do ministry. Actually, I didn't. I came here to visit family, which ended up doing ministry. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. But anyway, I love the Lord. I just love the Lord. Whenever he calls, he's good. He's good. Church hurt. Anyway, God loves you. Seriously. He really does. Yeah, he does. There's no such thing as not being a part of somebody, a community with perfect people. Yeah. And did I say that right? I think I did. I think so. Okay. But yeah we, you get a part of something that's healthy for you and God has you. He will fulfill all your needs but don't be prideful and go off to the other end, to the other end though, because then that's where I'm going to have to be like, okay, you're in the wrong. Yeah. Yeah. People as we're coming to a conclusion here I think the, I mean for the word of the year for RP and my family has been dwelling. Dwell. And so what that whole word of the year is centered around is preparing your heart to be a dwelling place. So I remember, think of when David said, the whole scripture is David in Psalms 132, I believe. One through five is it's amazing scripture. It changed my life. It touched my heart like really strongly and That's where the word came from. But he says how can I lay my head to rest? how can my eyelids have rest if The God and of God the Lord of Jacob does not have a dwelling place If he has no place to rest and then I think of when Jesus said foxes have dens birds have nests but the son of man has no place to rest his head. And in that church hurt, when you're walking this Christian life, when you're doing the things of God, it doesn't matter what area or what level of spirituality you have, you are always called, whether you're hurt, whether you carry unforgiveness, whether you carry pride, whether you have been dealing with things since you were young, no matter what area of life, you are always called to be a dwelling place for God. for his Holy Spirit. You are a temple. And that's what we miss sight or we lose sight of the reality that we are a dwelling place for God and we carry his spirit. And so in order to carry his spirit, we have to carry the fruit of the spirit. And so I just want to encourage you guys with that. But Tyler, you got any finishing thoughts for us? Just one little thing. You brought up that the Word of the year for your, for relentless and for your family's dwell. I want to also go to Psalms 51 where David, he mentioned something that I think is, I personally think is overlooked a lot. We always hear, renew a right spirit in me, O God restore the joy of my salvation. But in between that, it's do not cast your presence away from me. David didn't say don't take my kingdomship away. He never said that. He didn't say don't take my title away. He didn't say don't demote me. He said, don't take the presence of god away. I would encourage someone in the midst of your seemingly dark time. If you just send yesterday, if you just send before you watch this, just know the grace of god is meeting you. And your dwelling place right now. Yeah. And I pray that the presence of God hits you so heavily and not to the point where you become stiff, naked, and religious, but that you are humble and you know that God is with you through anything, through any time. He doesn't. He has no respect. He's no respect to a person. Yeah. So just understand that David cried out who was one of the most well known Kings in the Bible. He said, don't take the presence of God away from me. Yeah. So I pray that the Lord is settling with you and dwelling in, in your midst at this time as we are shooting this video. So yeah, that's all I have to say. Thank you guys all for joining us this week. I know that you were impacted this week. Don't forget to follow, share to all our social media platforms. We know that you're gonna be touched and that we ask that you share this with your friends, share this with your family. Not only does this conversation need to be Picked apart and understood. But it also needs to be expanded. And let this conversation be a starter for your guys conversation. The people that un deal with unforgiveness, let that be a spark that where you are willing to address it. Let this if you've allowed anything in your life, let this be a, an opportunity where you address these things where yes, you do ask God to search your heart. Where you come into the conversations with your friend, your friends too. We don't want this to just be us. Talking. We want this to be you talking. So comment message us back, and we'll be sure to reply and respond. So thank you guys so much. We'll see you guys next week.