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Episode 319 · The Dr. Josh Axe Show

Lisa Bevere: The Truth About Spiritual Attacks on Your Health (That the Church Isn’t Teaching)

We’re living in an age of unprecedented confusion about identity, purpose, and truth. Anxiety, loneliness, and burnout are skyrocketing, and the church is often unprepared to name what’s really happening. In this powerful conversation, Lisa Bevere exposes the spiritual battle behind the crisis and reveals how reclaiming your God given identity can change everything.

83 min
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Josh

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Lisa Bevere

Everything. People will always be depressed when they put their hope in the wrong thing. So when they make that exchange, the hope isn't in getting married one day, the hope isn't in finances, the hope isn't a friendship. It's not— the hope is in God, because that's the only place we can safely put our hope. I want your people to hear this. They can actually say God, forgive me. I put my hope in this or that.

Josh

In a thyroid medication, in a stat drug.

Lisa Bevere

I want to put it in you.

Josh

I want to put it in you.

Lisa Bevere

Yeah. Show me how to make those adjustments. I think the enemy looks for things to blame other than him. So, oh, it's mold. Well, maybe mold is aggravating it, but what's the root of it? Young women are wrestling with miscarriage or they can't get pregnant. And yes, there's all the science behind it. It. But it is a spiritual attack against the children. And so what I'm trying to say is there is a God who supersedes what is in the water supply. There is a God who supersedes. We have a famine of truth and an epidemic of opinions. And, you know, you and I were talking beforehand, people are like, wait, what? Who's telling truth? Who's telling the truth? Well, we know that this is a day and a time that's going to require discernment. And discernment does not happen in the multitude of noise. Tomorrow morning is knocking. Stock your fridge now. How about a creamy mocha frappuccino drink? Or a sweet vanilla? Smooth caramel, maybe? Or a white chocolate mocha? Whichever you choose, Delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries.

Josh

One of the most critical aspects of our health today is our spiritual and mental health. And today I've brought on Lisa Bevere, a good friend of mine. She is an incredible, uh, Christian leader, and we're going to be talking about spiritual warfare. If you're in a battle right now, and even a health battle, are you praying? Are you doing the right things that the Bible talks about in terms of what you need to do to heal? We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about identity. We're gonna talk about so much more on today's podcast. I'm really excited for it. Lisa, welcome to the show.

Lisa Bevere

Oh, I am so thrilled to be here. I love what you are doing and, and what you're addressing. Thank you.

Josh

Well, uh, you and John are such dear friends. We love you. Love your boys.

Lisa Bevere

Thank you.

Josh

And, uh, and again, I'm just, I'm excited to sit down and have this conversation. And my wife has read several of your books. I've read one of your books. I've read several of John's books, and they've had such a positive influence on us.

Lisa Bevere

Oh, I love that.

Josh

You know, I, um, One of the things, and I wanna start the show with this, and I'm really excited about the spiritual warfare piece, 'cause I think this is gonna be such an interesting discussion. But when people, and I hear this from people all the time in practice. Dr. Axe, how do I know what diet I should follow? There's a ketogenic diet, there's a carnivore diet, there's a gluten-free, there's paleo, there's vegan, there's all this stuff. How do I discern truth today? And we see this today, in politics and marriage and deciding morality, all these different things. Yeah. How do you, and, and by the way, one reason why I really trust you on this, I've got to see some of the fruit of your and John's life. You guys, you've raised some children. Your joy. Well, that's the thing I'm saying. You've raised amaz— I, I think that says so much about somebody. If somebody has raised amazing kids. Yeah. Um, Chelsea and I are like, we need to learn from those people. And so share with us, how do you, and how have you taught your kids to discern truth?

Lisa Bevere

Yeah, well, first of all, I love that you're addressing truth, and truth is not opinions, and a lie repeated doesn't become a truth. And so when you actually are looking for truth, we need to have something that is an absolute, and I believe that God's Word and Scripture is truth, and it's alive, but that doesn't mean it changes. And so that becomes our standard, and, you know, we were talking about People are like, "What should I eat? What should I eat?" I think there's even a deeper question that they have to answer truthfully is, "Why am I eating the way I'm eating?" You know, for example, I'll tell you a story. You may not even know this. When John and I got engaged, I went from being a complete heathen and having an excessive drinking, so I could either starve myself and get drunk, but I was never normal to— overeating. Because Christians, they weren't drinking alcohol, but they were overeating. So I'm now eating because I'm depressed or I'm lonely, and because I'm not dealing with certain things that I actually need to surrender. And I remember I went to put on my wedding gown. It was a size 10, and I'd outgrown it. And they were like, are you sure this is your gown? I'm like, yes, yes, that is fine. And so I came home and I was like, God, I become a Christian, I started my life to you, and you make me fat. And so he was force-feeding me to eat an entire Domino's pizza. And so And I was like, and I heard, I heard, "Your weight and food is an idol to you." And I was like, "What? Idol?" I was thinking like golden calf. And he said, "It's what you give your strength to and it's what you draw your strength from." And he said, "If you'll repent of this idolatry, I'll heal you." And he said, "I'm gonna teach you how to eat until you are satisfied, not until you are uncomfortable. And so it was the most crazy thing where God began to deal with me about how I measured my life, what was going on, how I did not trust him with certain areas of my life. And I think right now we have a famine of truth and an epidemic of opinions. And, you know, you and I were talking beforehand. People are like, wait, what? Who's telling truth? Who's telling the truth? Well, we know that this is a day and a time that's going to require discernment. And discernment does not happen in the multitude of noise. And so we have to actually step back, not intake more. We need to open the Scripture. We need to read it until it reads us. And then we need to say, all right, God, we don't want the media's truth. We don't want our past experiences to override what you say about our health, about our marriage, about how to do life and family, how to interact with people. We are going to actually repent of going our own ways and submit to truth. And, you know, for this year, all I've been hearing is repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And that is truth. And God will put you around people When you say, God, I want truth in my life, he'll put you around people who will ask you the questions you don't want to answer and tell you the things you don't want to hear.

Josh

And that's one of the things, and you know, even social media has really fed into this to where you only see things you agree with over time. Yes. You know, it's like, and so it's just continuing to feed more. If you're believing a lie, it's continuing to feed that, that, that lie even more. You know, one of the principles I've tried to live by in discerning truth is something Jesus said is, "By your fruit you'll recognize them." And so, you know, I'll just use a modern-day example of this, of, you know, I, I, even though I don't know exactly what his faith is, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., I admired him from afar because I spoke with him at some conferences for kids with autism. And one thing that I was so struck by is he was like on the verge of tears and even crying at some, some points because he just felt so strongly he wanted to help these kids. And so I saw this heart of compassion. I saw some of these fruits of the spirit. And then he talked about praying praying every night that he would be in this position to be able to help these kids. And then looking at his own fitness level in his 70s, a number of things I thought, you know what, there is good fruit in his lives to help people get healthy versus the prior HHS secretary. You can look at pictures online or many of the other people, they don't even know what health— I mean, they literally don't understand health and wellness. That's just one example. But I try and do that today when I see commentators and even holding up, like, I was thinking about this today. With 1 Corinthians 13 and it's saying, you know, "Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast," and saying, "Okay, this influencer online, is this them? Are they living this out? Is this person I should be listening to? Is this a person I should be following?" Whether I like them or not or I agree with them or not, are they exemplifying the character of Jesus? And, you know, so I don't know that we're trained in church very often to say, The Bible here, this is the thing that needs to be— you need to hold every single thing against and how to actually do that.

Lisa Bevere

Right. And I mean, and Jesus was the way, the truth, and the life. And so we see a pattern in his life wherever he went, he spoke truth, but he also lived truth. And I love what you're saying. Like, we can say one thing and live another. That's not truth. That's incongruency. And people know. People know. When you are saying one thing and living another. There's always, like, people pick up there's something disconnected here. And it's what you're saying, there's the fruit. And it isn't just the fruit in the moment of popularity. And again, you know, there's such a push, such a push to choose sides.

Josh

Yes.

Lisa Bevere

And so, oh, this side is telling the truth, this side is telling the truth. Well, I have found, and to my disappointment, it's easier to choose sides than it is to live kingdom. And in the kingdom, it's usually somewhere in the middle, not compromise, and you get shot at from both sides. And so the good thing is that when you meet somebody that is speaking truth, it usually is partnered with courage. Yeah. So you're talking about Robert F. Kennedy. He was courageous and he was true to what he felt was what God had put as a mandate on his life. And then he was trusting God to actually lead him in this, you know, in this thing. And, you know, he's gone under a ton of battles. But if you have something that you are true to and you actually are anchored in the true eternal, which is we believe Jesus Christ being the Lord and Savior of your life, not just Savior, but also the Lord, he's your guide, he's your pattern, that you take up your cross daily, deny yourself and follow him. Then you are living in a pathway of truth.

Josh

Yeah. One of the things I do want to say here, I do think the courage piece is important, but I also think partnering it with these other virtues, because I see some people online being pretty courageous and ridiculous, but they're lying. But there's no— yeah, yeah. There's no love, there's no wisdom, there's no compassion. And so, and, but I agree, it's so important that we look at, you know, that people are Well, actually, there's one thing that you said, I think not only what's happening now, but looking at what's happened in 2 or 3 years. I mean, I saw this with Anthony Fauci in terms of in the government and the CDC in terms of some of the lies around COVID. And it's like, well, you didn't know in that moment, but a year later, 2 years later, 3 years later, now you're saying, okay, this is, this is the reality. So anyways, well, I appreciate you sharing that because I think it's so important as we enter this discussion, how do we know what the truth is?

Lisa Bevere

Right.

Josh

And being able to use the Bible, And one of the things, you know, I was reading through Proverbs recently and I thought it was only referenced one time. There's a verse in there that says, you know, in a, like, if you need to make a wise decision, there is wisdom with multiple counselors. The multitude of counselors. But actually, as I read it, it was referenced 4 different times, almost the exact same thing in there. I'm like, wow, this is, you know, it's maybe the most repeated thing And so that's another thing I think so often I see a lot of people and, and this happens with church leaders. This is, I think, a problem that I think maybe the Catholic Church might have. Listen, there's positives and negatives, but there's no accountability today with so many people. And that's true with a lot of church pastors. It's true with a lot of individuals.

Lisa Bevere

There's a, there's a big movement towards Anglican, to Orthodox, and to Catholicism because people are like, is everybody rogue here? Yeah, they are wondering like, is there any true structure, you know? And, and I feel like that's something as leaders we all need to, to look at. Yeah.

Josh

Yeah. How have you and John— I mean, I guess I'm curious about this. I just look to set that up in your own life. Like, I remember having a pastor tell me this who was a friend and he was a mentor of mine. And he said, Josh, if you want to optimize your growth, there's 3 things that should always be happening in terms of this iron sharpens iron idea. There should somebody be above you, more mature than you, that is sharpening you. There should somebody be alongside of you, and then there should be people that you're actually sharpening. And he said that makes you the sharpest you can possibly be.

Lisa Bevere

I would 100% agree. John and I had the misfortune, but also the opportunity to grow from— we were under 3 different leaders that all crashed and burned. And I think on number 3, we called some friends and we said, okay, we don't want— like we said, we've, you know, we've seen people start out smart and end up really stupid because they have no accountability, they have no relationship, or they've compromised their health, they have no recreation, their ministry is everything, they burn out, and then all of a sudden there is an opportunity for escape and they do something horrible, you know, betray their family or whatever. And we said, we don't want this. What— how do we do this? And we called somebody and they said, you need to have people on your board who don't want anything from you. You need to have people who are actually transformational relationships because we have mostly in this world right now, transactional relationships. You do something for me, I do something for you. But transformational, those are people in your corner and they're committed to bringing out your best. And so we had some people come on our board, and this was years and years ago, and literally they said, we don't care how many books you sell, we don't care how many meetings that you have, we'll be in your business. And they would fly in the night before a board meeting and meet with our children. Like Addison and Julie were brand new married. We didn't even know. We're like, why are you coming in early? And they're like, we're gonna do dinner with Addison and Julie. We're like, why? And they would ask Addison and Julie, Your parents are saying this. What's really going on? Oh, wow. And then we'd have like a meeting. They'd be like, you guys are fighting about this. This needs to stop. What's going— I mean, like, they would— we were like, what?

Josh

What's going on?

Lisa Bevere

But they said, no, you either listen to us or we resign your board. And so we have a board that's much bigger than us so that at any point they can— I mean, I think we have 9 board members. So like, John and I are just the 2. And you have to have people that are going to do that for you. And in the ministry, You know, sometimes it gets weird because the God card gets pulled in. But ethics are ethics and truth is truth. And again, you know, talking about Jesus, like he lived at a standard that is impossible for any of us to follow.

Josh

Yeah.

Lisa Bevere

Without the Holy Spirit, without community, without consecration and without conversations. I mean, this is why I think podcasts are so important.

Josh

Yeah.

Lisa Bevere

People are actually having conversations.

Josh

Yeah.

Lisa Bevere

Where people are like, okay, Okay, wait, tell me how you did this. And I've been kind of like saying, okay, the future is male and female, the future is male and female, in the face of this whole narrative that the future is female. But even greater than that is the future is family.

Josh

Yeah, wow. The future is family.

Lisa Bevere

And everybody wants to belong to something. But when you wanna belong to something, there actually means that you have to submit to a level of truth.

Josh

That is so good because one of the things I see happening today is, is there's such an epidemic of loneliness. I mean, the statistics on loneliness are it's worse than smoking a pack of cigarettes a day if you're dealing with loneliness. I mean, it's so destructive on your health. In fact, one of the biggest ways people know, like insurance companies can tell if somebody's likely to pass away soon is if they have a spouse or somebody pass away, their depression and loneliness is so great, their mortality rate just goes through the roof. Maybe they're, their greatest cause of mortality. So it's very, very high up there. My point is this, is that I think everybody wants to belong to something, but oftentimes people get in a, you know, a social, you know, some sort of social movement or even certain churches, and they go in there and there's no standards, there's no bar, there's no accountability. So there's no growth and transformation. One of the things when you read the Bible, Acts 2 specifically, but other places, you're like, whoa, like people were radically transforming every part of their lives.

Lisa Bevere

And yet it was, okay, so I love that you're bringing this up. So, you know, the Think Cultural Summit, I think you've spoken for it. Yeah. I spoke at it. Yeah. I think it was last year. Yeah, it was last year. And there was this brilliant data statistician, psychoanalyst speaking at this summit. And I'm like, uh-oh, I hope he like comes on, like, I hope he leaves before I start speaking. That was kind of my thought. I was like, I'm a random grandmother, this guy, is some brilliant Belgian professor. And so he gets up, he said, "They're only giving me like 9 minutes. I'm used to speaking for 2 hours." I'm like, "Okay." I get 14 minutes. I get up afterwards, he finds me and I said, "Oh," you know, he's like, "May I go to lunch with your family?" And I said, "Wait, you know, are you going to psychoanalyze us? Because we don't want to be." And people are like, "He's not a Christian. He's not a Christian." And I'm like, "Well, okay, either way, he wants to go to lunch with us." We go to lunch. And we start talking and he asked me like, tell me about your life, tell me about your family. I said, okay, why are you so intrigued? And he said, I saw the photo of your family. And he said, family is the most powerful thing. And he said, my country, Belgium, has just imploded. And then we, you know, later on I had him on a podcast and we talked and he said, your country is on the verge of some of the similar things that our country went through. And so I said, okay, tell me what we do. To change that? And he said, well, violence will not change it. And he said, protesting will not change it. I said, okay, what changes it? And he said— this is how I remembered it— constant courageous conversations. And I said, all right. And, you know, I listened to him, and then podcast over, I thought, wait a minute, exactly what you're talking about, Acts 2. How did the early church grow? They went from house house, they broke bread together, and they discussed the apostles' doctrine. So they came in as a large group, but then they came away on their own in a smaller group, and they had hard conversations. Like last night, I hosted these women, and it was just amazing. You know, so I have these women, and I just said, okay, this is why we're here. And I said, we're gonna have— there's no There's no question that is wrong in this room. It's not being recorded. We're not selling it. You didn't pay to be here. And one of the women said, I want everything that the Holy Spirit has for me. I don't know what to do with this. I feel like the spiritual realm is becoming so real and I don't know what to do. How do I get engaged with the Holy Spirit? And it was like the whole room was like, yes, we are picking up the sense that the demonic, the destructive, the divisive, the diminishing, the depressing, all of that is escalating. And then we think, okay, well, I just need more followers on social media, or I just need more purpose. No, we are wrestling with something very dark and we are trying to do it in our own strength.

Josh

You know, here's the reality. People are hungry for the spiritual, incredibly hungry. In fact, I think this is why a lot of people are turning to because maybe they're not getting it at church. They're turning towards the new age, psilocybin or ayahuasca or all of these sort of drugs and alcohol. I mean, they're turning to these things and because they've never truly been introduced to the Holy Spirit, to the spiritual. And, you know, and I even— here's a question for you, though. So Jordan Peterson, you know, famous psychologist, he's been battling a major health issue. And I know it's because his daughter came out and shared it and I had messaged with her on this. And so, and she, and she came out and said, we believe part of this, there's mold issues, but it's spiritual warfare.

Lisa Bevere

Yeah. At the very core.

Josh

Yeah. At the very core, this is, this is spiritual warfare. And there's been so many things with her health, her whole family. How do people discern if this is, hey, I've just been eating bad, or this is a spiritual warfare thing happening right now in my life with my health? We know the Bible talks, I mean, like infertility's a big one, right? But I'd love to hear from you on those.

Lisa Bevere

Yeah, no, well, okay, again, I think we need to say, all right, I've been eating, like, I think the enemy looks for things to blame other than him. So, oh, it's mold. Well, maybe mold is aggravating it, but what's the root of it? And I think that everything, I mean, if God spoke the world into existence and if our spirits, when our spirits leave our body, we die. Yeah. Everything can have a spiritual element to it. So, you know, for me, when I was eating wrong, it was because I was looking at my body wrong. It was— I was looking at God wrong. I was like— so I think that you're never going to make a mistake if you say, Father, I'm going to open up the Word and I'm going to ask your Holy Spirit to show me Where is this door? Because see, God is not a legalist, but Satan is. And Satan will always look for an opportunity. You know, it's interesting that you highlighted Jordan. I was at the ARC conference earlier this year.

Josh

Oh, you were?

Lisa Bevere

Yeah. I went to the ARC conference. I went by myself. It was hilarious.

Josh

Well, I'll go with you next year, 'cause actually I was looking for, I know Gabe went, Lions. Gabe went this year. I almost went with them.

Lisa Bevere

Yeah, yeah, no, it was good. I could tell that Jordan was in like a wrestling match. And afterwards somebody said, "He just didn't seem like himself." And I said, "He is under a spiritual attack." And I said, "You cannot fight spiritual warfare with intelligence." You know, he's writing the book he's in the middle of writing right now.

Josh

He wrote a book called "We Who Wrestle with God," he wrote the Old Testament. This new book is on Jesus and the New Testament.

Lisa Bevere

Why wouldn't the enemy, like, I mean, just, I'm kind of like, look at your assignment. Yeah. And then understand what's going on and then close every door that you can. So first and foremost, people forget that the highest form of spiritual warfare is obedience. Like, you can be— you can be praying all day long, you can fast for 40 days, but if you are disobedient, the enemy is laughing at you. So highest form of spiritual warfare is obedience. And then the other opportunity is humility. Humility. Like, I think we have We have this, maybe an American machismo, like, "Hey, we're gonna fight this." And God's like, "I need you to submit yourself to God, resist the devil, and then he will flee." And so what we do is we get under the covenant of God. You know, we were in a situation, it's actually where the "Bait of Satan" book was birthed out of. We were in a situation where we felt like our lives, like we could be fired any moment. I had just had our second child. It was a nightmare and it was a spiritual attack. It was a spiritual attack. And I remember I was praying and I was like, God, is it witchcraft? What is going on? Because, you know, no matter what it felt like, no matter what we did, we just kept hitting it. And there was lies, there was rumors. And God kept saying to us, don't defend yourself. Don't defend yourself. John kept saying, they can't fire me. They didn't hire me. I'm like, I'm pretty sure they're gonna fire you. Like, you, you, you, I think they, you know, they did. And so me, half Sicilian wife, was like, you come after me, That's one thing. You come after my husband, you're dead to me. And so I was like, I'm going after him, I'm going after him. So I get up and I'm praying and I'm walking around in our living room. We have absolutely no furniture, so I'm just walking in a circle. And all of a sudden I thought someone walked in the room. I thought I woke up John. And I opened my eyes and I'm telling you this, there was a 14-foot woman standing in our foyer. Well, we had like a two-story house, like a 20-foot ceiling in the foyer. It looked like a hologram, but there was no holograms back then. Or if they were, it was like NASA using it or something. And she was standing there and it looked like a cross between Cleopatra and Amazon. And I remember seeing this and she was magnificent. She was strong, but she was angry. And I remember I heard, "It's a Jezebel spirit, Lisa. You are wrestling against a Jezebel spirit." And I was like, "It's Jezebel. She hates repentance. She hates humility. She hates God." cooperation, she hates community. And so I was like, you know, praying all strong, go to bed, wake up the next morning, I'm like, what was I doing in my house? Whoops. 'Cause I had seen the discerning of spirits, but now all of a sudden I had to say, why? Why? And next I thought, well, that, so I just kind of almost as a like offside comment, I just said, do I have any sympathy towards that spirit? Because she is magnificent, because she is powerful, but she is angry. What? And I heard, renounce any sympathy you have towards that spirit. And then I had made a list of all the bad things they were doing to my husband, and I was gonna go meet with the pastor. I was gonna let him know how toxic it was. I was just gonna tell, I wasn't even working for them. I was just gonna let him have it, you know, back off. My husband would've been fired. But I was gonna do it. And God said, tear up your list. This is too big for you to handle. He said, you're gonna have to let me do this one. And so I think there comes a place where you have, you humble yourself and then you say, all right, God, I've done this, I've done that, I've done this. And this is on you. You know, I'm resisting the devil and he must flee. And then it says, having done all to stand, stand therefore. And I think too many people, they start backing away. And you know, it's crazy to me, we've got aliens now, we've got everything going on. So the spiritual realm is more and more making itself known. But just as the evil is, there is also the angelic. Yeah, there is also the authority in the spirit. And I remember John and I were told something in the very beginning of our ministry: if you do not take your authority in the spirit, The enemy will take it from you and use it against you.

Josh

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Lisa Bevere

Yeah.

Josh

And, and so this is sort of like an ancient rabbinic story. And so there was this— there was a famine in the land for a pretty long time. And, and the lead rabbi at the time went and prayed forgotten to rain and it didn't rain. And then Rabbi Choneh drew a circle, prayed it to rain, and it started raining. And this little girl came up and asked the lead rabbi, "Why when you prayed it didn't pray and Rabbi Choneh prayed, it rained?" And he says to him, he said, you know, "I'm the very sweet, kind little daughter. He's the, you know, bratty, drive-you-crazy, whatever daughter." But it's sort of that parable of just, knocking, knocking, persistence. Yeah, but I think, I think about like this: how should I approach the Lord as if, like, if my own daughter approached me? Or like, what would make me say yes? Yeah, in that same way. And there's a level of, Daddy, I need you, can you help me, I love you, this persistence, some of those qualities.

Lisa Bevere

So this is outside of your character. I mean, think about Moses, and it aligns with my will, and Abraham they all negotiated with God. Like, would you kill the city, Sodom and Gomorrah, if there was 50? Okay, not for 50. Okay, well, what about just for 10 less? What about 40? You know, all the way down. Because, and they would say, God, you are a good God. You take us out here and you kill us, the Egyptians are gonna say you just brought all the Israelites out to kill them. You can't do that. You know, and so we, I do believe that God wants us to ask, And he wants us to ask persistent. I mean, you look at the most amazing prophet. What does he do? He calls for rain and he sends his servant. Nope, nothing. Do it again, do it again, do it again. And you're like, he cries out to God and he said, "Well, I see a cloud the size of a man's hand." And what does he do? "Get ready, the rain is coming." I'd be like, "Okay, we need to keep praying." So there is something about a different spirit. And they talked about Joshua and Caleb having a different spirit where the majority of the people don't have a different spirit, but they can, they can, they can change that. So 10 of the 12 spies, oh, there's giants. Oh yeah, yeah, there's fruit in the land, but there's giants and we're grasshoppers in their eyes. And we're, you know, this is, 2 were like, stop, stop, that's an evil report. And it wasn't about we're able, it's, Our God is well able.

Josh

Yeah.

Lisa Bevere

And we've gotta get to this place where it isn't like our government is well able, or even our church is well able. It's like our God is well able.

Josh

You, you said something earlier, I think this is so important. Everything is spiritual.

Lisa Bevere

Everything.

Josh

Everything. And so like if you are sitting there and you have this anxiousness or fear or depression, I think today a lot of Christians believe, well, Well, that's just a biochemical imbalance in the body. That's spiritual.

Lisa Bevere

What did David do when he was depressed?

Josh

People poured his heart out to God.

Lisa Bevere

He said, no, he said, soul, oh, why are you downcast?

Josh

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Bevere

Put your hope in God. So people will always be depressed when they put their hope in the wrong thing. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So when they make that exchange, the hope isn't in getting married one day, the hope isn't in finances, the hope isn't a friendship. It's not. The hope is in God because that's the only place we can safely put our hope. And he spoke to his soul and people were like, "Oh, that's New Age." No, you know, like, we believe, therefore we speak, you know? So he like just, and I want your people to hear this, they can actually say, "God, forgive me.

Josh

I put my hope in this or that." In a thyroid medication, in this statin drug, in a—

Lisa Bevere

I wanna put it in you. Yeah. Show me how to make those adjustments. I mean, I'm so upset now that all these people that have been on antidepressants, they're like, oh yeah, sorry guys, that didn't even work. You know, like you were on that and it dulled you down.

Josh

Yeah.

Lisa Bevere

And you lost your ability to rightly divide. You lost your ability to experience. Yeah, you weren't depressed, but you didn't experience joy.

Josh

Yeah.

Lisa Bevere

Oh yeah, you hid from pain, but you did not, you know, I'm like, What in the world? I'm so glad they're reducing the number of advertisements for those things that have like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah." "And side effects might be suicide." Can you imagine if there was advertisements on TV for "Just turn to Jesus" as many drug ads there are? Yeah, no, that would be wonderful. And again, I think there is such a hunger for the word of God, but people also want the order of God. I think people are like, We want men to be men, and we want women to be women, and we want families to be valued, and we want families, our children to be safe. You know, it's crazy what is happening. I was just driving over here, and my daughter, one of my daughter-in-laws called me. She'd had a medical situation, and she went to a hospital, and, you know, she was like, hey, I'm here for a treatment. And the first question, they're like, so, Who are you attracted to sexually, men or women? And she was like, what?

Josh

That was the first question.

Lisa Bevere

Yes. Yes. I told her, you need to call them. You need to tell them you felt unsafe.

Josh

Yeah.

Lisa Bevere

That you felt unheard. And I said, you know, I mean, I was mad and she has a really sweet voice. And I said, and if you aren't comfortable doing that, I will go in personally and I will do it for you. But I mean, if you do not, advocate, if we do not continue to like say, hey, wait a minute, this is this. What are you doing? Why are you trying to make me question everything? I came in here for this. And then they prescribed her all this stuff and she said, I just didn't feel good about it. So she went to a second doctor and that doctor said, I don't know why they said any of those things to you. None of it was true. Wow. And they were going to put her on all this boatload of antibiotics and all this other stuff that would've exasperated the problem rather than fixed it. And so we've had that now for a while. And you know, the lady actually said to her, oh, you know, she like almost in her conversation with my daughter-in-law cursed her reproductive health. And so when she called me, I was like, I said, I come against that word and we bless your reproductive health. You know, and even right now, you know, so many, young women are wrestling with miscarriage or they can't get pregnant. And, and, and yes, there's all the science behind it, but it is a spiritual attack against the children. And so what I'm trying to say is there is a God who supersedes what is in the water supply. There is a God who supersedes. We are, we are not part of Egypt. We are part of Goshen. And there is a promise of God. And, you know, everywhere Jesus went, He actually did good, healed the sick, and cast out demons everywhere. He didn't say, now, if you're a Christian, I'll pray for you. Now, he did do that with the Jewish, like, hey, you're not, you're not a, you're a Gentile, you're a dog. I'm not. But, but even when the people pressed in with faith, he responded with miraculous healing and the daughter was delivered. So I believe that you don't have to be perfect to do spiritual warfare. I believe you have to be in Christ because we also have this representation where they said, we're casting out demons in the name of the person.

Josh

That's right.

Lisa Bevere

That Paul said. And the demon said, Paul, I know Jesus. I know. Who are you? So we have to be under authority to have authority in the spirit. And yet it isn't about, you know, I don't believe— I've seen incredible demonic stuff in the Philippines. I've seen incredible demonic stuff in Indonesia. I've seen dark, dark stuff in Africa and other nations. The demonic forces here are much more subtle, but they're just as deadly.

Josh

Yeah. Wow. Well, walk us through. I mean, I think, I think you and I shared some things with this, but I'd love for you to get super practical. Yeah. If we have a woman right now who their menopausal symptoms are just crashing them, you've got a man who's got terrible depression, you've got a woman who's struggling with infertility, What does it look like for them to, uh, go to God and act correctly in this spiritual warfare that you're talking about? Like, give us almost a step-by-step, or like what it should look like, what they should do.

Lisa Bevere

Well, I mean, first off, I, I feel like we have this example in the Bible of a woman with an issue of blood for 12 years. 12 years she can— she said she'd spent everything and got no better. Yeah. And I feel like we have a culture right now where so many people, not just women, have spent everything.

Josh

Yeah.

Lisa Bevere

Their time, their energy, their relationships, their family. They have disconnected or whatever it is. It has separated them from the things that bring community and health and life and love. And so this woman, she got to the place where she got restless. And I think you have to almost get to the place where you're like, enough. Is enough. Yeah, um, it's, it's this crazy promise even that we see to Esau when, when we see that, you know, all right, everything got given to Jacob, but his father says, Isaac says, but when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke off your shoulders. And I think sometimes people, they, they are not frustrated enough. So when this woman was like, enough, it said she pressed through a crowd, and she said to herself, "If I can just but touch the hem of his garment, I'll be made whole." And there's too many people that are like, "If I could just try another medication, if I just—" He's the Great Physician. He's the one who made us. Yeah. And that was something that was so connected. Like, we can go from this thing to this thing, but ultimately we go to another creature. Let's go to our Creator. Let's go to the one who made us, the one that actually can realign everything in our life. Let's press through and let's believe that if we touch him through faith, because we know that without faith it is impossible to please God. And you think, well, what is faith? Is that name it and claim it? No, faith is the substance of things hoped for. It actually, it's this intangible that brings everything into the tangible realm. When I say, God, I believe, I believe, I don't, I've wrestled for all this time, but I believe, then God's like, I respond. And so like, we just have to set it up where we are making this exchange. I've struggled, I've wrestled with this. And then we pray, we just say, God, I thank you that you are my healer. Forgive me for going to unfaithful streams Forgive me for looking to man when you are the one. Do you remember there was kings, there were kings that instead of sending for the prophet, they would send for somebody else. And then God would say, if you would've sent. And then do what God tells you. You know, we've got this Samaritan that comes, is it Samaritan? I think it's Samaritan comes, that has not just Samaritan, but he has leprosy. He's from somewhere. Okay, anyway, he has leprosy. He has a servant girl who is a Hebrew, and she said, "There is a prophet, and if you go to the prophet, he can maybe heal your leprosy." And so he goes, and the prophet doesn't even come out to see him. And he's like, "I thought he was gonna come out. I thought he was gonna wave something. I thought he was gonna do something dramatic. He tells me to dip in the river 7 times. That's ridiculous. We've got cleaner rivers at home." And the person's like, "Was it gonna hurt?" What's it gonna hurt?

Josh

Just, you know.

Lisa Bevere

Exactly. Yeah. What's it gonna hurt to address things spiritually in your household? What's it going to hurt to pray? What's it going to hurt to say, God, your word says in Psalm 139, bless the Lord, all my soul. Bless the Lord at all my inmost being. Bless his holy name who forgives all my sins. We believe that.

Josh

And heals all our diseases. And heals.

Lisa Bevere

It's not work. It's not our, and then it says redeems my life from destruction, renews my youth like the eagle. So he goes through all this thing and every promise of God for healing, for regeneration is in Psalm 139. I mean, I, I don't even know if you know this, this is gonna be crazy. So I wrote a book years and years and years ago, 'cause I've been doing this for a long time. And I was really frustrated because I thought, hey, this particular radio show will have me on and it'll be really good. It'll promote the book. And they're like, no, we're not going to have her. And I was like, God, I feel like I was a perfect fit for that. And I was like pouting on my back porch. And I hear the Holy Spirit say, what will you let me do in your meetings? I said, well, you can do whatever you want in my meetings. And he said, I want to start healing women that have STIs. Of course, back then, He said STDs. And I was like, wait, wait, what would that look like? What would that, what would that look like? I need everybody with herpes over here. Come up. Okay. People with HIV. I was like, I can't be calling out STDs, STIs, like in, from a, from a church platform. And he was like, no, don't do that. Send my word into their body and have them say, be it unto me according to your word. And I was like, okay. So I read Psalm 139. I said, I'm gonna say something here. I said, none of us get what we deserve. We all deserve judgment and we get mercy. So there's like, people will pray for people that have cancer, but why are we not praying for people that have sexually transmitted diseases? Yeah. STI. Why are we not? Of course it's an infection now. It's not a disease. But anyway, they call 'em STI. It's like, this is something that comes after the next generation. This is what makes people barren. I said, I'm gonna believe God that I'm gonna pray over you Psalm 139, and you are going to say, 'Be it unto me according to your word,' and you'll be healed. And Dr. Axe, all of a sudden I started getting letters of women saying, I had an outbreak of herpes every single month before my menstrual cycle. I'm 100% healed. And then what would happen? People would say, I was believing that if Lisa came into my church and prayed for some, prayed for this, I would be healed. I'm healed. I was raped by my, my uncle and I got herpes and now I'm healed. I mean, it was just— wow. And so if we preach Jesus as healer, he's healer. If we just preach him as good teacher, that's all he is.

Josh

Yeah. If you want practical, science-backed guidance for living a healthier, longer, more vibrant life, you need to check out the Biohack It podcast. It is hosted by my good friend Aman Hassan, and it brings a thoughtful, compassionate perspective to wellness that so many women have been looking for. Every week, Aman breaks down the latest research in longevity, hormones, and metabolic health in a way that's clear and easy to understand, leads to important conversations around women's health, fertility, and the steps women can take to protect their energy, balance their hormones and support long-term well-being. She talks with top doctors, scientists, and health experts about natural healing, nutrition, lifestyle choices that make a real difference, and sits down with entrepreneurs and thought leaders to explore how they stay strong, grounded, and resilient in their personal lives and their work. If you want a show that speaks directly to health challenges women are navigating today while offering hope, clarity, and real solutions, Tune in to Biohack It every Thursday wherever you listen to podcasts. It is one of the most educational and uplifting shows in the wellness space, and I think you're going to love it. You know, one of the, one of the reasons why, uh, I'm so grateful for you and John is when I was going through the biggest health battle of my life personally, you guys were praying for me constantly, your whole staff and team. Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, I had to operate with a mind of with faith of knowing God is going to heal me. In fact, not just because the thing I had this lie creeping in my head, well, you can get maybe 50% better, but never 100%. And, and I had to take every thought captive and say, that doesn't align with the word of God. Right. And you know, if any moment where I was focusing on, well, what did the doctor say? Or what does it say when I read online in the medical journals, my outcome likely is any of those things. It was all bad. And the only time I was filled with the right spirit was when I was focused on God, the Great Physician, the Miracle Worker who can do anything. The only time. And I remember too, when I was at my lowest points, God would send these signs. Like, I had 3 times where I was like feeling just sort of down and I looked up and saw a rainbow. 3 times. Once was I was in my back being— I was about to be flown to Florida because my— I couldn't walk. All this was happening. I remember that. And there's this little thing in the ambulance, like a little ceiling, and there was a rainbow there. And so I saw that 3 times. The other thing, I was reading a book by Viktor Frankl. Yeah. And there's a woman who, this is in a, in a Holocaust camp, in a concentration camp. Mm-hmm. And he said, there was this woman there who, she was probably gonna die any day, and she had the most positive uplifting spirit I've ever seen. And, and he said, what are you looking at? And she said this, this, what, like he, like, he's like, everything is barren, it's winter, but there's one flower going, growing on a tree. And she said, that flower is saying to me, like, I am life, I'm eternal life. And the craziest thing was, or there's, he said, there's like one or two flowers on this tree. And then the next day, I'm getting like, I'm doing pool therapy outside. And there were, there's a flower, one flower growing on this bush. And it was such an encouragement to me. But if I wasn't looking, if I wasn't acting with faith, those things wouldn't have lifted my spirit in the way they did. It was so incredibly powerful. And I think for a lot of us, we're not trained to, or we're just not even conscious of looking for the thing we talk about, the spiritual awareness. It's just so, so important. How do people cultivate a greater level of spiritual awareness and hear this still small voice of God?

Lisa Bevere

Well, first and foremost, they put their phones down. I mean, I'm 100% serious on that. Yeah, of course. You know, John and I are— I'm 65, John's 66. There was a day when we were 24 and 25 where we went out to breakfast with a man who was always talking about casting out demons. And I remember he said, John, I want you to bring your— I'd never met him. He was like, I want your— I want you and your wife to go to breakfast with me tomorrow. And I was working at that time where I'd fly out Monday, come home on Friday. And I thought, oh, he's mad because I travel so much. We didn't have any children. And I thought, or he thinks I have a demon. This is going to be awful. This is going to be a terrible breakfast. I did not want to go. I was like, John, let's pray. Any demons I have, let's just take care of them right now. I don't want to do it at the And so we show up and this man was so terrifying, but I mean, like a gruff, so tender. He looked at John and I back then, we were doing nothing. We were involved in our local church, but that's it. He said, "I see the hand of God on the two of you." So he said, "I'm gonna tell you some things I've seen in the future." The year was 1984. And he said, "I see a day coming where people's lives will be controlled by a box the box they hold in their hands. And at the time we thought he was senile. We're like, a box? Wow. Thank you. Yes. He said about 7 or 8 things and all of them have come true. But then he said, after that, after that, he said, a revival is gonna break out in this nation one more time. And I mean, it was everything he said. I was kind of like, I hope I die before this. I mean, it was like, so some of it was bad. Yeah. Happened. And in 1984— I don't even know if he lived to 1990, I don't, I don't know when— but he told us that. And John and I looked at each other in 2020 and we both said, do you remember what he said to us? And we were like, this is happening. People are in isolation and their lives are being controlled by a box they hold in their hands, and they've, they've lost the ability to have this They're just looking at this. And it's, they're actually, their posture, you know, people's posture is changing because of how much head-down time they spend on phones, on laptops, on iPads, and instead of lifting up their eyes. And so there's something you and I both know of just putting down the phone and walking out into creation that connects us with the Creator. I mean, anytime God did something, okay, Abraham, get out of the tent, walk outside, count the stars, you know, and there's always this moment where God's like, I'm going to have to reconnect you with creation. And that's not a New Age concept. That is God's concept. We are woven by God to have relationship with His creation. He gave us dominion, which we lost, and now we've got it back in the name of Jesus. And so many people, they're, they're living in a small world, taking in all the wrong information. Yeah, all the wrong imagery. And like we were talking about earlier, the algorithm that only feeds insecurity or, you know, your narrative that you've already decided, but it's not kingdom. Yeah, it's not kingdom. And so, you know, people, number one, They need to put down their phone and they need to make margin for the Holy Spirit. You know, I do believe that God wants to start speaking to people again in dreams and visions at night. But when you have put so much information into your brain through entertainment or through your phone or your laptop or whatever it is, that's your distractor. Your body, your brain is processing everything you put in while you're sleeping. Instead of God's Spirit being able to speak to you in the night watches. My son Addison's been doing a lot of study that when you first wake up in the morning, one of the most powerful things you can do is just to say, "I'm here, God, I'm here," because there's something that happens as you're falling asleep and as you're waking up. It's kind of that time between times where you have a pause, and the worst thing you can do is pick up your phone. You have to, Holy Spirit, what are you saying? You know, you might have a sense to pray for somebody. You might hear a worship song, you might hear a scripture, and that is the Spirit of God. So the more you give attention to the things of the Spirit, the more attuned you will be to the things of the Spirit. People are aware of intense, intense evil, but they're not aware of the just not right. And we know the Word of God helps us rightly divide between what is good and what is evil. And there is good and evil. There is never a mix. And so you have to know what is God here in this mix. Where, where have I— so if we can actually make room for the Holy Spirit, make room for worship, you know, part of the reason— I mean, I, I love my boys. I, I look back at my parenting and I am in awe that my children turned out as good as— because it just feels like a blur to me. And I do feel like I did a lot of times yelling, You know, just yelling, apologizing, threatening, and not doing. I mean, just all this stuff. My husband was traveling.

Josh

Yeah.

Lisa Bevere

So I, I am more aware of my failures. But one of the things I did do is I had worship music going on in our house. Mm-hmm. I constantly, my boys saw me praying a lot. We had worship music. We honored God. There was an atmosphere that honored the Holy Spirit.

Josh

Chelsea and I talked about this about a week or two ago, and we said, Hey, when have— what times in your life, what are the patterns of when you feel like you are the most spiritually connected to God in, in growth mode, essentially? And we both said there were two big things. One, we woke up in the morning and the first thing we did is woke up, you know, spent time with God. Yeah. And the second thing was the music we were listening to constantly. Yeah. The two biggest, I mean, two biggest things.

Lisa Bevere

Absolutely. And those are not hard and those are available to everyone right now. I mean, if you're like, oh, I don't like, I don't like to read. You've got audio Bibles. I mean, there's absolutely no excuse in the United States of America for not having some kind of connection with the word of God on a daily basis. There's no excuse. I mean, John, my husband, like we're making dinner, we're listening to scripture, or we're listening to a podcast about, you know, something that is, like there's so much available. And then we're talking about it over the dinner table, We have conversations about the Word of God because guess what? It's alive. So it's never boring. It's alive. And you and I both have been Christians for a long time. I can read a passage that I maybe have read for 10 years and it's— I see it different. Yeah, it's because it's alive, because I'm in a different place. So it speaks to me different because I'm different.

Josh

You know, there's been something that's happened the last quite a few years of sort of groups of people that have said women should be doing this, women should be doing this, women should be doing this. And at church on Sunday, uh, uh, Darren Whitehead was, uh, what, what went through Proverbs 31 and read the whole thing, went through the whole thing. And it was so good because it's like, well, here's the answer right here. It's like, what, you know? And, and the reason I wanted to bring this up is one of the things you've done such a great job of, especially in the books you've written, is helping foster a correct identity in women. I think that there's I think, listen, I think men are just as confused. Maybe we'll talk about that next. But I think for women in general, there's a real sort of confusion about why do I matter? What am I supposed to do? What will actually make me happy?

Lisa Bevere

Yeah. Well, I think acting like a man doesn't make women happy though, for sure. I mean, I, I feel, I feel like there's been a degrading and a diminishing of the value of the things that women actually bring. So I love wisdom. She opens her mouth with wisdom. She looks well to the ways of her household. People are like, oh my gosh, that's just being a slave. No. And she actually delegates. She buys a field and she plants it and she has a vineyard and she has a business. So anything— and sometimes she just can't do it all at the same season, but anything that God puts in her hand, she can do. But I will say the feminists started to tell women that they were prisoners of their husbands. They were subjected. There was a— and again, feminism would not have gained so much traction if the church had actually given women their value that God gives them. You know, like, we have to, we have to realize that evil doesn't slip in unless we have let some open open areas. And so feminism came in and said, if you want to be a powerful woman, you need to act like a man. You need to sexually behave like a man. You need to get a career. You need to do this thing. You need to not have children. I mean, all of this kind of stuff. And then women, they were like, yes, you know, okay. Just last night, and this, I almost burst into tears listening to her. This woman said, I believe the lie. That I could do it all, have it all, postpone everything. And by the time I ended up getting married, I was not able to have children. Mm. Yeah. That's hard. And, and yeah. And she was like, I'm heartbroken. I would do anything to be able to go back. And what happens is we forget that there are some areas of life that are time tests. You, you, you only have that 10 years. Maybe 20 years to have children, but you have your whole rest of your life to do career.

Josh

You know, one thing I think that's very different about men and women is that— and you, you said this to a degree— is that I think men, it's like, even when you have kids, there's, there's a lot of the same. Like, like, my wife comes, we joke around sometimes, she's like, you can eat the same meal every day for 3 months and be fine with it. I'm like, yeah. Like, she wants to do a different meal, like, different thing every different night, every whatever the week. But, but I— my point with that is I think that, like, to your point, women are trying to do everything all at once when women, even hormonally, there's a cycle, there's seasons. I mean, there's so much more like this than men naturally, hormonally. And the same is true in their lives. I think— I mean, that's a challenge because we have changing all the time. That's tough.

Lisa Bevere

But yeah, women are wired for— punctuated by seasons than men. Yeah, because men can keep reproducing. And women can't. Yeah. So the right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing for a woman. And so we have to know our seasons of our life and not resent the season that we're in, thinking about the next season. So, you know, again, I think too many people put pressure to perform on certain things. And again, we've got so much confusion where men have been told that, masculinity is toxic, and then we've got femininity is weakness. I mean, just all of the different lies where I think we need to all recalibrate ourselves according to the scripture. And I don't believe the answer is women having no voice. I believe the answer is women having their voice. I don't believe the answer is for, you know, men to act like women and be more sensitive or whatever. I think men need to be valued for doing. Somebody was telling me this difference. They said it's interesting on Mother's Day, it's like, yay, mothers, you're heroes. And on Father's Day, it's do better. Yeah, it's, it's a little bit of do better.

Josh

I either feel like it's do better or it's, it does, it's actually not even really a holiday. Like, it doesn't even really exist. Yeah.

Lisa Bevere

You know, when I was working on the book The Fight for a Female, I was, um, I was taken I was taken back by this whole concept of patriarch, patriarch, patriarchy, you know, white patriarchy, American patriarchy. They kept using that word. And so I looked up the word patriarch in the Merriam-Webster dictionary when I started writing. It said a man worthy of honor, an elder. Okay. When I went to double-check it at the end of the manuscript, they had changed the meaning of the word. They stripped it of all nobility. All honor, it just became the oldest person. It was shocking to me because if you can control the language, you control everything, you know? And so they're changing the language and, you know, so masculinity being toxic. No, it's not toxic. Are they toxic men? Yeah, but there's toxic women. So it's not that masculinity or femininity are inherently toxic. It's that people outside of God, you know, we can be toxic.

Josh

Well, you know, this is important. So in this, some of this came from my view of understanding these ancient forms of medicine, Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic, Greek medicine, all these ancient forms of medicine. One of the things that they talk about and look at, and by the way, this is for Christians out there, just don't get hurt. Hold on. Listen to me for a second. So, so Chinese medicine would use words like yin and yang. I remember growing up, like, my mom was like, anything from China is from— is the devil. But, but honestly, it really, it's really just a different language. As I started digging in, and yang's the masculine, yin's the feminine. My point is this, is that there are a lot of medical conditions that people will start to have because they're operating outside of the way they're supposed to operate, the way they were created, the way that God created and designed them. And an example of this is Like, we'll see women get certain issues because their dad was so structured and so hard on them and maybe treated them like a boy that then they've sort of lost part of their femininity, and that puts them at risk for certain hormonal issues. You know, um, there's a lot of examples like this. I mean, they actually believe that if you get breast cancer, it's caused from one of two. One, you're overnurturing, and you're— and, and so this comes from the idea of like the breasts are seen as two things. For nurturing a child, for sexual arousal. And so on one side it's the yin and the other is the yang. And so one side is if you are constantly giving of yourself and you never get filled yourself, you deplete. That causes breast cancer in one. And the other is if you're not in touch with your feminine side, if you don't feel pursued and beautiful and protected. And that's the other. But my point is like this has been talked about for thousands of years. That if you're not operating within God's design, you're going to be sick. And I don't think people realize how, to your point, everything's spiritual. Yeah, I believe that the single biggest reason why people are sick today is related to spiritual issues and connected to— we call it stress today, but most of the time stress is worry, anxiousness. Yeah, exactly.

Lisa Bevere

Yeah. Carrying something you weren't created to carry. Yeah, exactly. Not letting every single day be the new beginning of his mercy being new every morning, carrying everything forward. And that's the thing is everybody, you know, I've just got to keep hustling, I just got to keep pressing, I just— yeah, and they're, they're caving. I mean, you and I read the scripture and it says in the last days men's hearts— and that would even say women's hearts now— yeah, will fail them because of what? Fear. Yeah. And anytime there is a promise of God, you pretty much see What stands in between that answer and the person is a spirit of fear. You know, and God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of love, power, and a sound mind. And so we need to walk in his authority, and we need to walk in his love and his soundness of mind, which means I have to renew my mind. I'm telling you, when I was going through menopause, I had some kind of evil woman in my head saying, "Walk over and punch your husband in the face." I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, who said that? You know, like, I cannot do that. I'm not, I'm gonna have to renew my mind. Because I understand that my hormones are not what they used to be and my body is in the process. It's like a transitional labor. I wanted to leave during my first transitional labor. I'm like, let's go home. This baby just— I was being induced. Baby doesn't want to come. And the nurse was like, I think you're in transition. And that is that time period, the in-between, which is the most awkward time period where people say, no, I'm going to cave and remain a prisoner. Instead of becoming a warrior, because that in-between is hard.

Josh

How do people build a strong identity? I mean, again, I think people are really yearning for— they want to feel seen. They want to know that I matter, I'm significant. I think that's one of the biggest issues in all of identity is that people just feel their self-value, their self-worth is just at the bottom.

Lisa Bevere

Well, that's because comparing it constantly. But okay, so I went— John and I went to South Korea, and we flew home. It was crazy. We did like, you know, carry-on, carry-on only, really quick turnaround. John does jet lag well, I not so much. And I was trying to finish a manuscript, and I fell asleep at my laptop. I woke up 8 pages later to the letter T. I mean, I just— I had to say depressed, and I was like, oh my gosh, you know, I'm just gonna lay down. So I went to lay down and As I was falling asleep, Dr. Axe, that in-between time, I heard, "I do not love my children equally." And I was like, "Whoa, whoa, wait. God, you have to love us all the same." And I heard, "Same means that one of you is replaceable. Equal means my love can be measured. I don't love my children equally. I love them uniquely." And I was like, "What?" And so I jump up and I look up the word unique. And it means without rival. Now this is the thing. We have a God who is without rival. He's the God Most High, which would mean his children should not be rivals with one another. I, God loving you doesn't take it away from me. Me being a woman doesn't mean that God loves me less than he loves a man. So like we've gotten this whole world rivals And rival means to actually stand on opposite sides of the river. And the first rivalry we ever seen is Satan saying, "I will be like the Most High. I will ascend." So there was a rivalry 'cause he went from worship to admiration to familiarity with the things of God. And he began to imagine he could be his own god. So here's the thing. That's the thing about that. We have a God who is without rival, who loves us. He doesn't love us equally. He loves us uniquely. And yet we are trying to conform and not be the real us. And another thing I think is people think identity is performance. Well, you have children. You love those children. You would've defended them, fought for them before they did anything.

Josh

Yeah. Before they did anything.

Lisa Bevere

No matter what. Yeah. Never is attached to work or single or married, or God never attaches identity to anything that can be taken from us. Identity is who I am to God. And so I discover who I am to God, which is daughter in his presence. When I pray, I never hear wife of John Bevere, author, New York Times bestselling author. I never hear any of that. I never hear I hear, "Daughter." I hear, "Daughter, Lisa." He calls me by name. It is not like, oh. So any of my value is not attached to whether I'm married, whether I'm in the ministry, whether I'm liked by my friends, whatever it is, whether I'm popular or unpopular. He loves me because he loves me. And that is the anchor that each of us have to have. Because when we tie it to, popularity, when we tie it to success, when we tie it to money, all those things, we can lose it.

Josh

You know, this, this ties into— I just want to mention, because obviously I talk a lot about natural medicine on the show and nutrition and whatnot. But, you know, when I have somebody, uh, really every patient I've ever cared for, I create a very specific customized plan for them that's unique to them. I've never had a patient that's come in with the exact same blood work or the exact same situation for me to give my best love to them It takes something— it takes me creating something very specific and unique in the way that I'm going to serve them. And God's the very same way in that, like, and here's the other thing, you know, I don't think people fully understand and grasp this, like, like you and I have been blessed to. And that is God loves you. He's constantly pursuing you. He's going after you. He wants nothing more than you to pursue him, to spend time with him. He wants you to be healed. He's trying to work everything out for your good right now.

Lisa Bevere

Right, right. And he wants to talk to you more than you want to hear from him. Mm-hmm. You know, John always talks about it in, in the terms of a radio broadcast. Like, if you don't turn your radio on, it doesn't mean the radio's not broadcasting. Mm-hmm. If, if you are in between channels, it doesn't mean a signal's not going out. It means you're not tuned in. And too many of us are tuned into things that actually demean us and disconnected from the one who wants to actually redeem, restore, rescue. You know, I had a moment last night in a conversation where I had this beautiful young girl. I want to say she was like early 30s. And she said to me, "You are my hope picture." And I said, "Why?" And she said, "Well, your dad was an alcoholic. My dad was an alcoholic. Your parents were divorced and remarried. My parents were divorced and remarried and then divorced again." She said, "My mom," Your mom had borderline personality disorder. Your mom had, and she said, but something happened where you have been able to be married, stay married. I've been married 43 years. Love my husband, enjoy, enjoy my husband, enjoy him, enjoy, not just survive him, enjoy him more now than ever before. And, and, and have sons who are doing parenting and marriage better and have grandkids that want to be with us, sons that do life with us. She said, I watch you. And she said, I want to thank you for fighting for that. But again, it was because I fought in the spirit. I remember, I remember going way back now before I had kids, before I, you know, ever got pregnant or anything. I could see there was curses and patterns on our lives. And I don't know if this is going to freak your audience out, so you can edit if it does. But I'd had a recurring nightmare for decades. And it went from like once a year to once a month to once a week to multiple times every single night. And in my dream, I would go from a place of safety and warmth, I would turn a corner, I was always like going, leaving my home, going somewhere. And I would enter a shadow zone. And I could see the sunlight. And I could see the shadow. And I'd be trapped in the shadow and in the In the distance, I would see darkness, and in the darkness, 3 figures would emerge, and they would come walking towards me. One was a skeleton, one was partially decayed, and one was newly dead. And I would turn, and even in my dream, I'd be like, I hate this dream. And I would go to run, and they would just steadily walk, and somehow they would catch up to me. And in my dream, I would say, in the name of Jesus, stop! And they And they would still keep coming. And I'd say, "You're dead, you can't hurt me." I would say all this stuff and it just kept coming. And in my dream I would grab something, like a rock or something, and throw it at 'em. And as soon as I crossed that barrier of trying to fight something in the spirit, in the natural, in my dream they would do something like stab me or something. I would freak out. I'd like, "Ooh," like that. My husband, I'd be like, "Pray for me, pray." I mean, it was terrible. And a man sent me, this cassette tape about the sins of the fathers and the patterns and all this kind of stuff. And at the time, John didn't believe in any of that. He was like, oh, you get born again, it's all done. I'm like, maybe for you because you didn't come from crazy people. Maybe some of us need some deeper work. And I was like, I have a grandfather that was a serial adulterer, was on the Manhattan Project, was a 32nd degree Mason. I was like, we have yucky stuff. We have my dad's side of the family, Gambino crime family. I'm like, there is stuff in my background. You had nice parents that stayed married forever, you know, that was, and then died. That was it. So I remember I just said, okay, I'm going to consecrate some time because I realized the choice I was making in that moment was moving not just my life, but every life that would pass through me. And even having the potential, I never knew I'd be in the ministry doing what I do. But in that moment, I think I was 22 years of age. I was 22, maybe almost 23. And I went through and I renounced not only my sins, but the sins of my forefathers for all the attachments with astrology, with Ouija boards, with, you know, all of the different demonic things that, Knowing or unknowing that we did. And I said, I'm going to be the beginning of a new generation, of a thousand generations who love God and keep his commandment. Instead of living the legacy of a past, an inheritance of sin and adultery and alcoholism, I'm gonna move forward into a future that is God-honoring. You know, people, I always ask people, why did God choose Abraham? He was— his wife was barren. He had no— why pick Abraham? And in Genesis 18:19, it said that God settled on Abraham because he knew Abraham would teach his children God's ways. Oh, wow. So God is always thinking generationally. Wow. What can I get through Josh? And so with somebody out there that's like, I just— you don't understand. You have a power with your choice to honor God, to actually see God-honoring generations come through you. And we can be gatekeepers in the spirit in our family. You know, we can say, I'm gonna cry out for my family. I'm gonna cry out for our nation. I'm gonna cry out for our city. You know, so often Christians get so caught up, and again, I'm not against politics, I'm not against voting or anything like that, but they get so caught up in trying to turn the wicked from their wicked ways that they forget to turn from their own wicked ways. And you know, God says, if we will humble ourselves, if we will pray and turn from our own wicked ways, then he will hear from heaven and he will heal our land. And we need this land to be healed. And it starts with families.

Josh

Yeah, you know, I think that Something I used to hear more when I was younger, probably because I was in a Baptist church when I was very much younger. So I, I heard a lot more, you're a sinner, repent. And, and I don't hear that as much today. But my point is this, I think I, there was definitely more of a, in order for me to heal, in order for me to be my best, in order for me to be a righteous person, um, I need to repent regularly.

Lisa Bevere

That means that you turn 180.

Josh

Exactly, you go the other way.

Lisa Bevere

And it doesn't mean you have a constant sin consciousness. It means that you're like, hey, I've been thinking of this wrong. I've been looking at it wrong. I've been living wrong. I see Christ leading me in a different way, and I'm going to follow him. Yeah. It don't have to be guilt and shame and I'm a sinner and get saved every single Sunday because that can work against it.

Josh

Of course. Yeah, no doubt about it. This has been amazing. You're the best. You know, I think for so many people that they're dealing with things like childhood trauma, uh, dealing with spiritual warfare, dealing with a major health battle and concern. And, um, and so these have been incredibly helpful for people just being able to, um, just being people to heal, experience breakthroughs. And, you know, one thing that's happened over the past, you know, this actually, this would go back to when we separated church and state, we also separated spirituality from science, all kinds of things. But there's been this separation of, hey, spiritual stuff's over here, health, physical, that this stuff's over here. But in reality, they're, they're, they're completely interwoven and intertwined. And our spiritual health has such a big impact, as you shared, on our physical health. And so if you are dealing with a physical health problem, uh, maybe it's type 2 diabetes, maybe it's heart disease, maybe it's cancer, Maybe it's a hormone issue. Turn to Jesus first. Repent. Go through a process of having the elders of the— having, having people that are spiritually mature lay their hands on, pray for you, reframe your identity and who you are in Christ, and then pray with faith and believe that you're going to be made well, and you will be made well. And so we want to encourage you to do that today. I also want to encourage you to check out Lysa's books. She's written— how many books have you written, by the way? I think 14. 14 books. Uh, one of her newer books here is The Fight for Female, and it's a great book. So you can get this book. I know my wife loves, uh, Girls with Swords. You got so many great books.

Lisa Bevere

They're all pretty violent, but yes, because I know we're in a war.

Josh

Yes, it's so good. So I want to encourage you, you can go to amazon.com, bookstores nationwide, just look Lisa Bevere, check out one of her books and, and, uh, and read them. They'll bring such great value to your life. They've brought value to my life and Chelsea's life. And, and so we're so grateful for you and John.

Lisa Bevere

We love that we're doing life with you guys.

Josh

I also want to let people know Lisa's got an amazing podcast. Make sure to check out her podcast as well. And then is there a specific site or—

Lisa Bevere

I know you're all over social media. I mean, LisaBourgeois.org or Messenger International. They, if they put in my name, they should be able to find me.

Josh

Amazing. Yeah. Everybody, thanks so much for tuning in here. Remember, each and every week we're diving deep into the science and principles behind how you can heal physically, mentally, spiritually, and take your health and your life to the next level. Also, don't forget to subscribe. It's the number one thing you can do to support the show. This is how I bring on incredibly— unless you're asking for favors too— but incredibly high-profile people like Lisa and so many others we've had on the show. And we talk about, you know, some stuff that YouTube doesn't always love— cancer, uh, spiritual warfare. And so if you're not subscribed, it won't always show up on your feed. So make sure to subscribe so you miss a single episode. Also, thanks so much for sharing this. There are millions of people that could benefit of knowing how do we practice spiritual warfare, how do we fight for what we want and God wants in the spirit realm. Um, people need to know those truths as well. So thanks so much for Lisa coming on today. Thanks so much for tuning in, and we'll see you on the next episode.

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