When Grace Found Me: Jai Roza's Journey From New Age to Jesus

In this episode of Just Talking About Jesus, Jai Raza shares his incredible journey from a cultural Christian upbringing to exploring New Age spirituality. 

Jai candidly discusses his struggles, including a life-altering moment when he contemplated suicide. 

Thanks to divine intervention through a friend’s timely phone call, Jai chose to seek the supernatural light he experienced that night. 

This pivotal moment set him on a path to create Eden's Conflict, a faith-based gaming system that reflects his ongoing spiritual journey from darkness to creation, illustrating the conflicts and decisions that define our lives.

https://www.edensconflict.com/eden-s-conflict

Jai is offering a Discount code: talkinaboutjesus 15% off our game and merchandise 

Consider subscribing to this podcast, YouTube and Substack- all with the same name: Just Talkin' About Jesus!

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https://jan-johnson.com/

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Transcript

Jan: Welcome everyone, to this episode of Just Talking About Jesus.

I have as my guest today Jai Raza,

who is the creator of Eden's Conflict, which is a faith based gaming system and more.

Correct.

Jai: Always expanding, always expanding.

Jan: Because that's how creative minds go, right?

Jai: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I can't turn it off. It's a blessing and a curse.

Jan: Well, you know, I consider creatives to be the closest to God, the creator.

Jai: I like that. I'm taking that. Right? Make a shirt about it. I'm a bit closer than you are. What does he mean? Closer to what?

Jan: Well, let's talk about that.

Jai: Yeah, actually not be a commissary. That's a really good idea.

Jan: Tell us a little bit about your testimony.

Jai: Oh, my.

Yeah, so that's a bit of a package. But the short story is I was born and raised Christian and but we were very. Well, we were very cultural Christian. So we were the family that people look to at church and be like, there's such good role models.

Like my, my parents would literally get compliments when we were children at restaurants because they're like, your children are so well behaved people. Train shooters would come up, be like, your kids are so well behaved.

And my mom had four boys,

so.

Jan: Well, that's a trick in itself.

Jai: Exactly right. And so it's like, so people would come up and compliment us as the idyllic family. That's like, man, the children are just well behaved in the, in church. They're part of the, the church group.

By 16, I was no, by 14, I was an ordained deacon. So it's like we were, we were, we were in it like we were there.

But then my life at home was very different. Like I had.

Well,

I was actually molested outside the home by another person, another kid at age 8.

And so that started me down,

basically. This duality of there's the presentation side of what others see and then there's who I am personally.

And this became more clear over the years where it's like our home was constantly a mess until we knew someone was coming over.

And then it was like everybody scrambled to clean everything. So anytime anybody showed up, your home is always so nice. And it's like. But if nobody was coming over, it was chaos.

So the,

that duality began.

My beg, I think contributed to my separation from my family, where it's like I had this secret that no one in the family knew about.

And after it happened, I felt basically what I now describe as the weight of sin. I could feel it as a child,

except I Didn't understand that. So when you're reading, you know, Genesis and it talks about Adam and Eve,

hearing the voice of God after they've sinned, after they've eaten the fruit, it's like they hide.

It's like I had that instinctual fear of, like, someone's gonna find out. Someone. Someone's gonna do.

And so this began my exploration of other.

Other faiths, other forms of thinking. And eventually that led me into New Age Christianity,

which eventually just led me to be consider myself New Age. Cause it's like, well,

you know, why are we believing these things? Oh, well, because, you know, this is what our church does. Well, why do we, you know, observe this? Well, because this is what.

This is what we've always done. It's like.

But when your faith is built on the traditions of family,

it's like, essentially Satan only has to attack that family in order to break the tradition.

And so that's what ended up happening. As. As I grew older, my parents began to grow more apart. Eventually they separated. And it was like, once they separated, so did my faith.

Like,

it was just like, okay, clearly you guys are wrong, because you said all these years that the Bible doesn't or doesn't condone divorce.

And it's like, and here you guys are divorcing. So that threw out my faith.

So again, we're just running. I'm gonna run through this as fast as I can.

Jan: Yeah.

Jai: So that. That eventually led to.

By the time I was 17 going on 18, I was considering suicide.

Excuse me. I was. I wasn't even, well, considering suicide. I was planning my suicide.

but God basically intervenes in that. That evening.

And at this point in my life, I am practicing channeling spirits.

I am addicted to pornography.

I've given up basically on Christianity as a whole.

In what I was experiencing. I was beginning to see through my exercise,

my spiritual exercises, I was beginning to see the spiritual world. And it was. There was so much darkness around me that I just wanted to end it. Like, I was like, the only way I could take my life back here is to choose to end my life.

And so God intercedes in that. He has somebody call me from another state.

And,

like, literally minutes after I had made the decision to end my life, they called me. And it's like 12:30 at night,

and they're like, what are you doing right now?

I just got out of a Bible study. I felt like I had to call you and like,

that in that moment in the spiritual world that I was like looking at,

it was like a flashbang went off.

Now the best way I can describe it is like if you're trapped, if you're, if you've been in a pitch black room and somebody were to like, click, click, like shine a flashlight in your eyes,

your eyes don't adjust, you don't see the room better. And after the light's gone, you're not like, oh, now everything's better,

but your brain is like something different was just in front of me.

And so that's what it was for me. It was like from my, from my spiritual side, I was like, there was a spiritual presence in this room for a moment that was greater than any spirit I've ever communed with.

And I was like, I can always choose to end my life.

I can't always choose to find out what that was.

And that, that's all it took. That one little shift away from like, I choose to end it to. I choose to seek that.

And then I'll. Maybe I'll come back to this point.

But that all that was all God needed in order to get me seeking him.

And that kind of began the journey of, of understanding and what I now call Eden's conflict, which is like that point of decision where,

you know, the very first sin, Eden, is paradise, but there's conflict in paradise.

And it's like that moment of decision shifts the trajectory of everything else after it.

The moment we chose to partake of the fruit,

all of us as their descendants are now suffering because of it.

The moment I chose to end my life,

it was like if I, if God hadn't use this person, if that person, this is now, mind you, this is another team.

They had their own problems. They were not perfect, they had their own struggles.

But if they had chosen to be like, oh, it's too late where he's at, I'm gonna call tomorrow.

There wouldn't have been tomorrow.

It's like spiritual warfare is not about.

And a lot of us think about angels and demons fighting it out and Satan trying to look for ways to possess you and all these things. It's like, like it's not in the typically, it's not in the, the physical spiritual dynamics fighting each other as much as it is the conflict,

the, the mental trickery that Satan tries to use and the truths that God is trying to reveal to you in order to help you choose a different path.

And it's like. And that's the conflict. That's the choice. Am I Choosing self or am I choosing God?

And that. That began the journey of like, what eventually became the game. And I started developing the game. Now,

November is 10 years ago,

so 2016 is when I started working on the game.

So 20 end of 2015 was when I started working on it.

Jan: Yeah.

Jai: So, yeah, it's. It's been a while, but it was that night that. That really shifted my life and my projection after that.

Jan: So tell me,

you get this phone call, first of all, like you just said,

if that person had not said yes to God and acted on that prompting,

which is a message to all of us, that when God prompts us to call somebody or make contact with somebody, do it.

Jai: Pray to anything. Yeah.

Jan: You know, but. So. So what steps did you take?

Jai: Now?

Jan: It's the middle of the night, you're seeing this, you're going, okay, something's gonna change here. And I. I mean, did you even sleep that night?

Jai: Oh, well, I mean, that was part of the problem was that I wasn't sleeping. So. So when I say I was communing with spirits, I mean I was literally.

So I was practicing Eastern meditation, which is a form which essentially, when you break it down, comes to a steps of sel hypnosis, the emptying of the mind and the imagining of a,

you know,

infinite power coming into you is like. It's. They're layers to slowly reveal how to be possessed. That's essentially how it starts.

I had gotten to the point where it's like I was doing that on a regular basis and I would hear thoughts, I would hear other voices.

I was like, that's weird.

And so then I started, like, asking questions and the voices started answering.

And it's like. And then I started asking questions about people and the voices started telling me about them. And then I'd ask the people, and the people would be like, how do you know that?

Like, why do you know that?

So I knew the voices I was talking to didn't weren't just voices in my head. They were something. They were actual voices.

So by the time I was planning to end my life, it was because I had gotten to the point where I had about a dozen voices at any given time that just wouldn't stop talking.

And what do you do as a teenager, right? You're like, oh, let me go tell my counselor. Let me go tell my parents. Hey,

I got voices in my head that don't talk like that, talk whenever they feel like it.

So that was part of why I wasn't sleeping. It was like, like, you Know, imagine trying to sleep in a room of a dozen people that are just talking to you.

And the only time the voices would leave me alone was either when I was channeling. Actively surrendering more of my will to them and letting them possess my body,

or when I was like,

basically sinning. If I was looking at pornography or doing anything that they condoned, it was just like. Then they were like, calm down.

So it's. It's literally that, like, what starts off as, like, this cool ability and power. And, you know, this is about the time the X Men movies were coming out.

And so it's like the rise of the American, like, superhero theme was still very popular. It was in its infancy.

So, you know, you kind of have that in the back of your head as a teenager. You're like, that's cool. Like, the idea of being special and having powers. And it's like.

And that's exactly what I was getting.

But ultimately, it's like, what was I getting was more and more of their influence and their control over who I was as a person.

And you would see it in my. In my responses. It's like I was very easily triggered to. To fight, to argue, to. To just be, like, very aggressive in my dealings with people for minor things.

So. Which again, it's that duality. Cause it's like, at church, I'm the best. You know, I'm. I'm. I'm part of the deacon team. I'm. I'm helpful in all of the programs.

It's like, we show up to food bank and we help food bank every month. So it's like,

it's. It's. It was literally like. Like,

yeah, it's doing this. It's like, it's serving two masters. It's, you know, and. And you can't do that.

And the reason the Bible says you can't do that because literally it kills you. It's like you're tearing yourself apart,

but you're trapped inside one person. Like, the physical form won't separate as much as the characters are trying to separate.

And eventually one demands authority over the other.

And so it's like, that's what I was gradually giving into, and I was losing it. So that was why I wanted to end my life, because I was like, if I can't control,

then I might as well take over or take control back. Like, and if I don't have control, you don't have control.

And I knew where. Like, because I grew up in the church, I knew where I was headed afterwards.

I had no inclination that I was going to heaven.

In my mind, I was leaving this earth and I wasn't coming back.

But the suffering I was going through was so bad that I couldn't envision myself ever having the peace and promises that heaven promised.

So it's like I'll take anything different from what I'm going through, except it'd.

Jan: Be the same.

Jai: Arguably worse.

So that's the whole point though is that Satan doesn't care. He's like, his whole thing is to get you to. To believe in the lie, believe there is no opportunity.

There is no.

There's nothing greater. There's nothing better. It's like you have this or you have worse.

Do you want to keep feeling this or do you want to keep feeling something else? It's like I'll take anything else as a teenager. It's like you don't. You're not thinking of that.

And I had friends who did end their lives as teenagers. That it's like to them, they were going through depression, they were going through problems at home. They were. They had self image issues.

And it's like, like every teen does. This isn't. It's not an uncommon story. Like we all go through it as if it's like, oh, woe is me. My life is so different from everybody else.

Like, surprise.

Jan: But yours was.

Jai: It's like we've all gone through this on some level.

So you know, it's like the. But. But that's the beauty of scripture is that I find where it's like where sin abounds, grace abounds evermore. It's like if you think your problems are bigger than everybody else's.

Good. Because that means God is more.

Is working on a grander scale in your life.

Not because he loves others less, but because what you need is different from what they need.

And he's going to supply your needs in order to have a relationship with Him.

So that's the beauty of it is like, do we understand our need of Him?

And are we choosing to seek that need over ourselves?

That's where we need to. That. That is the spiritual warfare. And, and that's what I. That's the whole purpose of my game and what we make. The music.

The T shirts that I'm wearing here kind of see the boldest lions.

So it's a lion, but then it's like Christ's silhouette.

The. The whole purpose is to create reminders of who God is, how powerful he is.

To cultivate a Christian,

what I say, a kingdom focused mindset or kingdom first mindset, where it's like, I'm looking at my life today not from the perspective of me today,

but from the perspective of me kneeling before the throne of CR. Of Christ for eternity.

Because it's like, and I love doing this exercise with people. We'll do this right now. If anybody's listening.

If you look back on your childhood or even a week ago,

you today have experiences that that person didn't.

So you could say you are a different person now.

Let's take something that was very painful as a child.

Are you today still hurting from that experience?

Well, no,

you remember it. You probably remember it hurt. But you're not thinking about that moment as like, oh,

I'm, I'm in pain.

And if you are,

you need some help. But that's fine.

That's why we're here.

And so then you could take this, you could take this mental exercise and then you say, okay, well, what would me, a week from now have to say to me today,

to my problems today? What would me, a week from now, what would me, a year from now, what would be 10 years?

What would me on my last day of life say about my problem today?

Because I guarantee they're going to have a very different perspective on problems compared to you right now.

Now, this is where the world ends.

They can't see past their last day of life as hard as they can try.

That's it.

They have no guarantees, no promises. There's no nothing for them beyond. These are your last moments. It's your last hour.

What would you have?

What would you give up?

You'd be like, I'd give up everything to go back to my problems day.

But this is the beauty of salvation, is that you and I can look past our last moments on earth and look to the moment where we're kneeling before the throne of grace and before us is everything we've ever hoped for,

the one we've been waiting for, the one our parents have been talking about.

And now what does that person who's looking at Christ have to say about your problem right now?

Yeah,

they're like, you're like, well, look at the struggle I'm going through. Look at, I'm depressed. Look at, I don't have money. Look, I, I don't. My friends are this way.

What does that version of you have to say about all those problems?

Yeah,

that version is like, look at where I'm at.

Look at who we're looking. We're finally here.

Everything else is not a worry. It's not a care. Who cares about any of that?

Jan: Yeah, this is where I wanted to.

Jai: Be my entire life, and I'm here.

Yeah,

that's the mindset that. It's like having a kingdom. First mindset means I'm working from that person's perspective.

Because if anything, now it's like that person is going to look at me and be like, stop doing those things that are hindering my view of what I'm at.

You're sinning.

That's making it harder for me to see him right now.

Jan: I think that's where all of the trials that we go through is where we have to draw into the presence of Jesus,

into His presence. Because when our eyes are on him as our hope, our redeemer, our solver of problems, our provider, our,

you know, Jehovah Jireh,

just our healer,

all of that God is encompassing.

That's Him. That is Him.

And when we're close to him,

we can be assured one, he knows us and he knows our hearts and he knows what we're going through.

And he's got his arms around us, hugging us tight and saying, no, that's okay. I gotcha. I gotcha.

Jai:  See,

like, those are the things where it's like, all of those are true.

But for somebody who's struggling with depression, like I was, you mentally can't envision it.

There's no level in which you can comprehend those concepts.

So you can tell me all those things, and I knew all those things,

but in my depressive,

abusive mindset,

there. It doesn't register. There is no mental space for those things to even take root.

And so for me, my exploration of this has been like, okay, how do I break down the concepts of spiritual warfare in a way that provides structure and understanding? To be like, I'm not,

I'm not just a.

A leaf on the wind.

Like, I'm not just being tossed around by whatever spiritual force is more potent in the area at that time.

I have decisive influence. And this is, this is ultimately the gift that Christ gave us because he died.

Because if he didn't die,

it wouldn't matter what you and I did.

Our only option would be death.

Yeah, but because he died,

life became a choice to the human race.

And when I say life and death, I mean true life, true death. Like, not, not the concepts we have right now where we're alive or dead. It's like you're either living for Eternity, or you're not right.

That only became available because Christ died. But the fact that he did it means that I do have a choice. And this is what Satan doesn't want you to understand,

that the choice is yours. And so learning to take back the power of the choice, because power of choice is the ultimate gift God gave us through the gift of his Son.

Learning to exercise, that is something that you and I can do at any time.

And so the game is an exercise of choice where we're working together in a card game and the, the opponent is the game itself. So the game is written as a.

If this, then that statement.

So if you, if the dice roll and you see a snake, that means a temptation card is being drawn. And you know, if it's an arrow, that means the temptation is attacking you, yada, yada, yada.

And so you're working together because believers, I think this is another part where we struggle is believers are so wrapped up in like, well,

you believe this. Well, you go to church on this day. Well, you. We're so caught up in like my traditions.

Yeah. Which again, Satan only has to attack the tradition in order to break you down.

So, so I'm trying to break that down. Get back to the point where we're like,

hey,

do we agree on who the enemy is?

Yes.

The enemy is what? Sin, Self evil? Okay, all right, so then who's our ally? What are we fighting for? It's like, are we fighting for the same cause? Do we believe in the same Savior?

Okay, yes, we do. All right, do we believe that it's by his power that we're transformed? Yes, we do. Okay, how do I then become a conduit for his power?

Not my will. His power.

Jan: Yeah.

Jai: The only part I have to play is the choice. Do I choose to surrender to his power or do I choose to do my will? And so the game lays that out where I'm making a series of choices while playing a card game.

Except I'm choosing which scripture to battle temptation in my mind.

And ultimately, if I choose wrong, the temptations will overcome me and take control of my character. They will possess my character.

So that's the concept. We're working together in the game. And actually one of the, one of the grace cards, which are like power up cards is intercessory prayer, we call it.

I have it labeled as true meditation because that term meditation was Christian. And it's kind of been taken away from us trying to bring it back.

But true meditation lets me either meditate on the word and boost one of my scripture cards, double at points or use it as intercessory prayer and take away a temptation from another player.

And I don't just take it away. I actually convert its points, its negative points into positive points.

Because that's the experience. It's like intercessory prayer is a positive effect.

And in a moment of darkness where I was about to fall,

God is able to use somebody else to intercede on my behalf.

And that negative experience becomes a positive.

Like most people won't want to talk about. Oh, I came close to,

you know, considering suicide.

It's like. Cause that's a dark moment in your life, that's personal, you know, it's not something you.

It's like. But for me,

that's one of my greatest moments in life because it proved God was real to me. It was one of the first times where it's like I had a personal connection with God.

And he didn't, you know, he didn't do it with.

With a series of.

What's the word I'm looking for?

Like catchphrases or Christian songs. Like, they weren't. It wasn't just a bunch of nice sounding words.

It was through what I was willing to learn and to look for.

And in my case, this. This is kind of a follow up to that. Like, what did I do right after that call?

So I was again, I was practicing channeling and I was practicing looking at the world and seeing it from the spiritual perspective.

And after that,

my Bible began to have a glow to it.

Jan: Yeah.

Jai: And I was like,

well, that's different.

And I would ask other people that I knew were kind of dabbling in this. I'd be like, what does this look like to you? Like, does this book. I wouldn't tell them it's a Bible.

It's like, do you see any light? And they'd be like, no,

there's nothing there.

And if I held my Bible,

the voices kind of became more muffled. Like, they weren't. They wouldn't go away, but they were muffled just by me having it close. So I would literally like start falling asleep.

I couldn't fall asleep without holding my Bible.

I literally sleep with my Bible because it's like it muffled the voices enough that I could at least sleep.

Jan: It was armor.

Jai: I'm learning, right? It's like, it's like. But God was teaching me with what I was doing to. Because I was genuinely seeking to. To. To. To know him.

And so gradually. And this is always a fun quiz because everybody has Their own ideas.

There was a particular chapter.

Well, a particular book. Particular chapter, but a particular book that shined the brightest in my Bible. Can you guess what that was?

And when you hear. When you. When you hear the answer, you're gonna be like, that makes sense.

Yeah.

Jan: I don't know. It's not. Guess.

Jai: Old Testament, New Testament.

Jan: Oh, for the whole book, you mean?

Jai: Yeah, the whole. Well, yeah.

Jan: Oh, well, it's not Jonah. He was stubborn. Let's see. Joseph was just favored all along, wasn't him. Esther had a purpose.

Jai: It always makes people a little uncomfortable because, like, I have to pick what's the Right.

Jan: Right. Okay.

Jai: This part of the Bible, I don't know.

Jan: Maybe Revelation.

Jai: That's a good guess.

It was Acts.

Oh. And. And it's like, what is different about Acts that we don't see in the rest of the Bible?

Well, it's Acts, chapter two. It's the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Jan: Yes.

Jai: And what am I dealing with in that moment of my life? It's like I'm channeling spirits.

And so the spirits hated. Every time I went near the Book of Acts. I would literally walk out of a church if I heard that Acts was going to be preached on.

And I didn't know why. Like, one day I saw myself. I was like, why am I leaving?

Like, why am I so angry about somebody talking about Acts? And as at like, that's what was literally the brightest in the. In the book.

Not because it's more holy than the rest of it, but because it's got the most direct connection to the throne in form of, like, the church is being poured out upon.

The spirit is coming upon the church for the first time in a way that it's never done before. That, like, we have individuals have.

Have community being poured out in this way.

And so that's where it's like, the spirits hated the Book of Acts. And. And I felt that way. And then I started questioning myself, like, why do I hate this?

Like, let me read through it.

That's why I hate it, because it tells me real spirit is who. Who. Who God intended to possess my vessel. Not. Not these spirits which are tricked their way into taking possession.

It's like he's offering it to me as a gift. Not a. Not a curse that takes over you, but a gift that flows through you.

Jan: So that's a battle not against flesh and blood, but by the spirit. Yes.

Jai: Yes. Principalities by powers. That's literally the title on my game. It's like, it's Eden's conflict because we do not fight against flesh and blood.

So that's, that's literally, that's literally it. So it's like. And That's Ephesians. Ephesians 6, I believe.

Jan: Yeah.

Jai: So that, that is the thing where it's like Satan will try and find ways to trick people. And I always caution people who work in deliverance ministry because one of the.

The things I see with a lot of the deliverance ministries that are out there is they can get caught up in thinking that they. They have figured out how Satan gets into you.

Right. They think they've figured out the strategies, the methods for how spiritual warfare works and how people go through possession and all of this.

And while.

And this is just my own experience, but while there are times and places of possession, physical possession, like we read about in scripture,

still happens today.

The majority of people that I've come across don't need to be possessed.

Satan just needs them to believe they're possessed.

And it's almost harder to reach somebody like that because they.

Because the spirit is like, sitting back and laughing.

He's like,

I'm not even there.

They're doing my bidding. They're doing my will, which is essentially the same thing.

They. They're acting up and creating a scene in church and people are gathering and praying over them and. And nothing seems to work because the spirit's not there,

but the person believes they're possessed.

And you might say was like, how did somebody get to that point where they believe they're possessed? It's like you get to that point by practicing things that are putting you under possession.

And so the Satan's like programming you. He's.

Jan: He's.

Jai: He's setting your mind up to. To trigger you to thinking about it. In the same way that it's like I would get up from church when I heard the Book of Acts being preached.

And you might say, oh, that's the spirit possessing me, that's getting me to leave. And it's like. But it wasn't because one day I stopped and I was like, why am I leaving?

He was. He had programmed me to think in a certain way that pro. That shifted my attention away from him or away from God.

And this was it. It was like the spirit was trying to trick me in saying, like, yeah, we have influence. See, we're in your body. And it was like,

no, you don't. Christ died for me.

I'm free to choose him.

If he hadn't died, I wouldn't be free to choose him.

Jan: Yeah, it was like brainwashing because he.

Jai: Did die,

you know? And even the demoniacs, all right, the people who were so possessed, they lived in the tombs with the dead and literally had chains on them because they had broken out of their chains.

The demoniacs who come to Christ,

they come running at Christ screaming.

I don't think those. I don't think that was the spirits that were screaming. I think it was the soul of the individual crying out for help. When he saw Christ,

he was crying out for help, except he couldn't speak. The spirits spoke,

but he saw Christ and he saw his way, like, way to freedom. And so it doesn't matter what level you think. If you're listening to this episode and you're like, but I'm struggling with.

You're not a demoniac sitting in a tomb somewhere.

If you're listening to this, you're not at that level.

But they were.

And they still managed to receive deliverance from Christ because they cried out to him with a genuine desire to be free.

Jan: Right? And isn't that the bottom line? Key?

Right.

Christ died. We have a choice.

We come running to him and he says, yes, here I am. I've been waiting for you.

Jai: And it doesn't mean you're perfect at that point.

Jan: Well, nobody is ever perfect.

Jai: And that's the beauty Christ was. Christ was to prove that it is possible for humankind to be perfect.

But since the rest of us don't have that experience,

we have to look at him and be like, okay, how did he do it? Let me keep looking back at him. Let me look at him. Let me look at him.

It's looking at him that we then reflect his perfection.

But the moment I look away, I'm no longer reflecting his perfection. Now I'm gonna reflect whatever I'm looking at.

So since he's the only perfect being, to look away at anything else makes means to break away from perfection.

But the. There's a key point here I was gonna bring up.

Okay, It'll come back to me. Do you have another question?

Jan: What would you tell people then?

I mean, what. What would you tell somebody who's caught in the middle? How. How do you. How do you approach somebody who's caught in the middle of that?

Jai: Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay. And actually, that reminded me of my thought.

So this was an experience I had where this is now probably 10, 12 years later after that night. So I was 17 when that happened. I'm 29 around this time, going on 30 and probably.

Yeah, 30, 31, maybe.

I'm having a relapse, right? Because it's like, I've had my moment of salvation.

I've been. Now, at this point, I've already been rebaptized. I'm not communing with the spirits. But I also couldn't turn off their voices. And their excuse was that, look, you've tried twice to commit the unpardonable sin.

You've tried to separate yourself intentionally from God.

We have the authority to test your faith as long as you're here on this earth. That's what the voices were arguing now.

So I'm ignoring them.

But they would claim they have the authority to come to. To test me whenever they felt like it, because that's part of their right,

and I don't have anything to say about that.

And the part that was really hard for me, which I genuinely believe was a type of almost Stockholm syndrome,

where it's like, I'd been so abused, I had learned to fall in love with my abuser.

I. I would have these moments of relapse where it's like I'm following the way, Following Christ, following his Word, learning to claim the promises.

And then it's like,

wake up.

I want drugs. I want pornography. I want whatever I want. I want to. I want to put myself in a meditative trance and be possessed again. It's like it would night and day.

And it was just like,

why do I keep doing this? Like. And it was one of those moments where I'm pleading with God and I'm re. Repenting for the sin that I've committed so many times before.

And I'm like, God, why am I doing this? Why would you allow me to continue to do this?

And now this is the part where he started to teach me the power of speech.

And this is throughout Scripture. But it's especially important because when you look at our world, we are a verbally created world. All right?

Why is that important?

So I'm here being like, God,

I'm repenting, right?

I am a sinner. I am a liar. I am an addict. I am. I am. I am. I am. I'm a list of things, you know?

And as I'm reconfessing all of these things,

he's like, stop.

His voice speaks. And he's just like, stop.

You are not allowed to talk about yourself except the way that I would talk about you.

And I was like,

now. He reminded me of something that I knew from my time as a spiritualist,

which was that in Eastern philosophy, the I am is sacred.

Not just in reference to the Creator,

but it's sacred because it is a form of self identity in that you are God.

So to diminish the I am is to diminish your godly power. In Eastern philosophy.

Now here am I putting the I am statement and attaching a negative attribute to it.

But as a believer, who is the I am?

Jan: Right, Right, right.

Jai: So in my confession of repentance,

I. I am declaring God,

adding negative attributes.

And I was still exercising my old belief, which is like.

And he told me this, he says,

who are you to decide where your sin lies?

I have taken your sin and cast it as far as the east is from the West.

So if you are still claiming your old sins,

you are claiming my authority.

You're claiming to be God,

to be able to take back your sins, which I took away from you.

And I realized the only sin I was committing was this old belief.

And so I started thinking about it and I said, how would God speak of me?

He's like,

he would say that I am born again,

I am saved by the blood of the Lamb. I'm a prince in the kingdom of eternity.

All positive attributes for what God declares you to be.

But the transformative power, the way that words work and the influence they have over somebody's life begins in a declarative statement or a declarative style.

And so whenever you speak in this declarative format,

you are exhibiting either God's influence or Satan's influence.

And what I tell people is in the spiritual world,

faith is the, is the spiritual currency.

How we act,

who we declare, what we worship.

Like, what we spend our time talking about is feeding the spiritual influence of one or the other.

And it's giving that side more authority in that space.

So this is why Paul is talking about pray without ceasing.

He doesn't mean be on your knees 24 7.

He means to speak as if you were talking to God in the moment.

Jan: Yes.

Jai: Would you be saying those things to the person who cut you off on the road to God in prayer?

Because you're, you're feeding the authority in that space,

the spiritual authority. You're, you're providing it an avenue to amplify its influence not just on you,

but on the kids in the back seats,

on the other person who sees you shouting at them.

Perhaps that person knows you, what church you go to now, what are you doing? You're planting a seed in their heart, a seed of doubt. Be like, oh, that's the brother from.

You know, that's. That's Deacon so and so he doesn't seem happy.

So it's like the. This is what the spiritual warfare is. It's. It's progression of truths and lies.

And we are contributing through it, through our voices.

We are echoing the authority of one or the other.

And that's. That's part of the reflection. Right. Who am I reflecting? And this is why scripture is such a key part in the transformative process. Because for somebody who's saying, I'm struggling and I'm hearing all these things, but I don't believe it.

I. I can't believe it. I can't comprehend it.

You need to learn to echo the voice of God.

And that is something you can choose to do even when you don't feel like it.

In that moment of repentance, I didn't feel saved,

but I believed that he would talk about me in a different way.

Jan: Yeah.

Jai: And that's the key is learning to exercise again, that moment of choice. Learning to exercise my will to influence his power in my life.

Jan: Yeah.

Jai: And so as we read scripture, and a lot of times people will say, well, where do I begin? What do I start with?

Well, and I'll tie this into the game. In the game,

there's temptations and there's promises. And each temptation has a counter promise. They're color coordinated,

so lust and love will always be red cards.

And if I have lust on the board, but love is present, lust has no power over me now. The love card is vulnerable to everything else. That's not lust.

If I get attacked and the points are not strong enough, I can lose my love.

And then lust is powered again.

But the concept here is that with every temptation, there's a way of escape.

Every thought, every action, every type of sin. There is.

There is a counter promise to am I spending the time exercising that promise through my reading, through my declaration,

through my exoneration?

This is why we started getting into music too. Because it's like we try and make scripture,

or at least the core, the concept of the scripture in the chorus.

Because then we're tying in the promise into the chorus, the part that gets stuck in everybody's head.

Jan: Right.

Jai: So the music we make is for that. It's a. It's another level of spiritual warfare. I joke with people, I say, yeah, my goal in life is to be a spiritual arms dealer.

Like, I'm just. I'm just giving out armaments on, like, what you can do.

I'm a weapons developer.

Jan: Okay, almost out of time. Tell us where we can find you. Where we can find your game and how we can spread it around.

Jai: Sure. Edensconflict.com that's where you can pick up the game, pick up a copy, it will ship out. It takes about two days to ship it out. Our music is available on Spotify, Apple, all the major streaming platforms.

And if you want it, you can download it for free from our website.

It's. If you're like, I don't have those platforms, that's fine. The website, it's free. You just enter your email. That gives us way to contact you later when we put out new stuff.

And then we also have shirts on there again, we want to create culture that thinks Kingdom first mindset or Kingdom focused mindset.

And follow us on Instagram. Instagram's where I'm most active. I have one under my personal name, but I'm still starting that account that's more of a test account. So Eden's conflict is where you'll find anything I create and put up on there as well.

Jan: Great. I'll put all those links in the show notes.

Jai: Wow.

Jan: We could talk for a long time.

We could just go on and on with this. What a great topic. And I think, I think this is really going to resonate with people.

Jai: And we'll do. Actually, we'll do a discount code too for your listeners. So if you're listening, put in the word. Talking about Jesus. Is that. That's okay. Talking about Jesus. Put that in all lowercase one word and you'll.

That'll be a discount for, for the website as well.

Jan: Perfect. Perfect. All right, well, I will add that in there too. So thank you. This has been so rich.

Just a.

A whole new level of whole new layers.

Whole new layers and layers and layers. Yeah. But. Oh, just such a great conversation. So thank you.

Jai: Oh, thank you for having me on. I love sharing about this. Yeah.