One80 Podcast Episode 68
Jason Perry: Navy SEAL to God's Warrior
This transcript may have errors that veer from the original audio, found here:
https://one80podcast.com/
Margaret Ereneta: It's so encouraging to hear about our friends who are listening to 180 with their family. And so for that, we want them to know this show contains alcoholism. And abandonment. When you think of Jesus, you may not picture a Navy SEAL. But Jason Perry would want you to think otherwise. Jesus as a mighty warrior with a sheathed sword. That's the Savior he found after growing up in an atheist family, becoming a Navy SEAL, then a fabled SWAT team member, now a pastor. There's so much in our One80 today.
Welcome to Jason's One80.
Ryan Henry:
What's going on, everybody? This is Ryan Henry with One80, and we have Jason Perry, and he is a former Navy SEAL, a cop SWAT guy, and used to be an atheist, but now he's a CEO for an emergency preparedness firm and a pastor of a church. Jason, welcome to the show.
Jason Perry: I'm honored to be here. Thank you.
Ryan Henry: Yeah. How you doing today, man?
Jason Perry: I'm doing great. I'm doing great. I'm blessed.
Ryan Henry: Yeah, great. And you are recording out of Tennessee.
Jason Perry: Northeast Tennessee.
So I'm like right on the border of North Carolina,
Virginia, and Tennessee.
. Okay. So I love to start off with a random question I have one for you. Are you ready for it? Okay. If you could be a candy bar, which one would you be?
Jason Perry: Oh man, it's been so long since I had a candy bar. I would have to go back to my old favorite. Snickers, you know, sweet, salty, you know, with some protein in there, you know.
Ryan Henry: that's awesome. A little sweet, little salty, but you got the stuff you need. That's great, man. Well, let's jump into your story. I'm excited, man. I just love hearing what God is doing in people's lives. so would you talk to our listeners about, growing up? what was life like?
Jason Perry: My story starts actually with my grandfather. we were raised atheists, my grandfather was in an orphanage, a notorious, notorious orphanage in Newfoundland where there was a lot of sexual abuse.
by priests, so that soured him to religion and our whole family and set us down a very dark path of destruction for my family with addiction and suffering. I was the first the break the curse of atheism in my family.
But, um, that was it and you know my mom had me when she was sixteen. My dad was eighteen. God was kind of, you know, I was, I was angry that there, you know, because I was told there wasn't one, I was angry there wasn't one, and if he was there, I thought he was doing a terrible job, and that just set me up for a very dark, dark ride, because, as you know, we're born empty vessels, and either the Holy Spirit's going to fill us, because we're discipled appropriately, or the world is going to fill you, and the world filled me, and it started with the wound, the abandonment wound, and then, you know, from there.
Ryan Henry: Yeah. So talk to me about the abandonment. So you were born to very, very young parents, what was life like growing up in the household?
Jason Perry: so my mom, because she was so young, basically gave me to my grandparents to raise. and then, you know, and then I kind of got passed around the family throughout her multiple marriages and other kids and all that stuff. And when you're a kid, and, well, everyone, but, everybody wants someone to fight for them, right?
Somebody who's gonna show up and fight for them, who, who is going to invest enough to not let them go, right? But you know, when you're a kid, if nobody, lets you know that you're worth fighting for, that they want you in your life every day, You, develop some pretty massive problems,
And that's where the abandonment wound happens, because you're not worth it, right? So then what happens, you put your faith in your first girlfriend, and then when that doesn't work out, for me, I went from the being wounded, crushed to serial wounder and like, okay, now I'm never letting anyone in my heart.
I'm going to lie, cheat and steal to every girl I ever date and you know, and I'm just going to become a, you know, a serial womanizer because there was no one I could trust.
Ryan Henry: Yeah.
your view of God, and you kind of mentioned this, but what would you say that your view of God was?
Jason Perry: My view of God was there, there wasn't one and I went into, like my superpower became anger. And this happens to a lot of people who are atheists. You know, every atheist I ever met is bitter and angry. But my superpower, because, you know, again, I was, you know, exposed to violence at an early age.
I started going down a very dark path. I started listening to music that felt the way that I did. So I went into, heavily into really dark, heavy metal, gangster rap. And became a thug until I was about 20.
And then one day I'm laying in bed after a night of partying. I paid a lot of money, did cocaine, drank, whatever, girls, the whole thing.
I remember staring at the ceiling fan at ten in the morning, saying I paid a lot of money to feel this way. What happened to my life? I wanted to be something. and now, unemployed. I dropped out of high school, you know, because I was, you know, I was a big kid.
And, um, so I started hanging out with older dudes. The next thing, you know, I'm bouncing in an iClub at 16, with 24 year old women. And, you know, and I'm like, well, done with these high school kids. tried to grow up way too soon. But God protected me because I was great and doing crimes and everything and I have a clean record.
And then at 20, like I said, I had that moment and I'm like, I'm a piece of garbage. I need to change this, change this around. And I didn't have faith to turn into.
So I said, what do I believe in? Well, at that point, I still believe in my country.
So I'm like, okay, I'm going to redeem myself by serving my country. So I wanted to be the most hardcore thing I could be. So I you know, signed up to become a Navy SEAL. Actually became one.
And, you know, and I thought, Okay, all these people who have failed me my entire life, I want to go with dudes who are never going to fail me. And where else am I going to find that other than the SEAL teams? and here's the thing, all men betray, all men have, have issues, right?
That's just part of it, you know, but I, I went in for that tried pouring again that hole, right? I tried filling it with camaraderie and adrenaline, doing high octane stuff in the SEAL teams, and I still couldn't fill it.
Right? It still was there.
And that superpower anger that I had just became a permanent partner with me. I was angry at God, which I didn't believe in. I would You know, I would find Christians all the time and make them defend the Bible,
And I shook a lot of people's faith by going to the Bible and saying, okay, let's go to Jonah. Let's go here.
Let's go there. And none of them ever could defend their faith because no one had ever discipled them on how to handle the least bit of scrutiny.
but God did during this time and my Seal Teams are 16 years. I did there. Um, he did place people throughout my life. I call them breadcrumbs. they're these things that lead you home. So these Breadcrumbs that God put there are just Men of God in my life. That disrupted me or that I took notice and I noticed that they all have one thing in common They all had an incredible piece about them.
So the rest of us were raging and thrashing and dealing in a high octane, profession, , you have to decompress somehow. Now the only effective way I've seen people handle that without damaging themselves was Christians. Everyone else, we went to the bar and went to women and went to other things.
They went to the Lord and they were the only ones who handled it. They were the most resilient people I've ever seen.
and so, With my, my superpower anger, if I could just burn hot enough, that's how I got through SEAL training, you know, being afraid of, of heights and a lot of other things, you know, just get angry
The problem is, is anger is a fuel source. Burns both ways, right? You know, it burns you as it burns, as it helps you burn through your problem. So I went to Iraq, I went to Southeast Asia, I went to Kosovo, I went to South America, did all kinds of stuff. But, when I was doing my last deployment, I lost my little brother to heroin.
And I came home for his, funeral and I'm like, "Where is everyone?" And I'm like naming all these names and every name I named they were like dead, lost to heroin, dead, heroin, And this was the kickoff to the opioid epidemic in the Northeast
Jason Perry: So I, that's when I walked away at 16 years, It was always about the mission for me. It was always about redemption. It was about the brotherhood. It was about doing this. But when I saw, my, country completely gutted from the drug war, the war on drugs.
I'm like, okay, I'm going to stop making third world countries safer, and I'm going to start making my own. So I walked away and joined the Boston Police Department, got on the SWAT team. But before that, I'm still an atheist and I'm 37 at this point, and I had a cancer scare also on my last deployment.
So they put me in shore duty in Panama city, Florida. I went down there and I just, I'm like, I'm not going out like a hundred pounds shriveled up thing. I'm going to party like a rock star down there. And you know, marriage is blowing up the whole thing. So I'll go down there and turns out I don't have cancer after a year of thinking I'm dying.
So here I am. I'm like getting ready to go to the police academy. A book made its way in my life called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Frank Turek and Norman Geisler. And it is the rational case. for creationism in the first third of it,
I've been indoctrinated since the day one of my public school saying, "Hey, if you believe in, a guy up in the sky with a beard who created everything, you might, you're crazy. You might as well believe in leprechauns, right?"
So here was somebody coming at me logically and giving the case for creationism. he destroyed every one of my arguments.
in the first chapter.
Now I'm rocked. So within the first third of that book, I went from atheist to agnostic.
And then the last two thirds of that book, are the case for Christ, that he did live, that the Bible is authoritative, that it is, the most documented, most accurate book we have in, you know, ever.
So I said, "okay, he was right about this. I'm going to give Christianity a shot." I did. I gave my life to Christ and I became Christian light. Right, so, but my sanctification began immediately. So, you know, here I was, you know, I could bench 500 pounds at the time. and I go to the gym, and my playlist is the most vile, evil playlist you'll ever find.
Like, my favorite song when I wanted to bench 500 pounds was by a band called Slayer, and the name of the song was "God Hates Us All." I put it on there, and I would just start throwing around weight. Well, I get in there, and that song starts, and I'm horrified by it.
And I don't want that to be the case, right?
I'm sitting there for the next 15 minutes. I'm hitting skip, skip, skip, skip, not because Jason decided it was against God. but I was repulsed by it unwillingly,Meaning my sanctification happened immediately.
That's not glorifying to God. This, it's not, this isn't the right thing for you to listen. The Holy Spirit's already in me working at this point. Right. But I'm still a liar, a cheat. And I just figured, okay, I just got to clean off.
I got to repent before I die. And then I'm good. so that, that's the way I was. So, uh, you know, I went to Boston, me and my ex were going to go separate places, right? I was going to go to Boston. She was going to go to Charlottesville where family was. I'm up in Boston. I, I go through the police academy.
I get on the SWAT team. I'm on the motorcycle team. I'm a rock star in Boston, life's really good. My wife at that time said, "Hey, you know, I want to come up there and give it another shot." And I'm like, "I really don't want to. Okay. Fine."
Comes up, we ended up having a kid. my son has autism and for my baby Christian legs to have a child with autism, it gutted me, took everything out of me, I'm a great communicator. And here's a kid who. Everything just bounces off him, he still struggles verbally, and, you know, I'm watching all my other friends have kids play hockey games, this, that, and the other, and I'm like, that's not going to be my experience.
We decided for the sake of my son to leave Boston Police Department and to go down south to Virginia where the Virginia Institute of Autism was, family and friends, all that other stuff.
But during this time, my marriage falls apart.
and you know, one of my friends there was, like Jason you really need to go to this, place called ORW, Operation Restored Warrior. And I looked at him like this is for suicidal veterans. I'm the most selfish person on the planet. The last thing I want to do is, is get out of here early. I want to suck all there is out of life before I die. And he's like, trust me, you need to go.
Ryan Henry: At this point, would you call yourself a Christian?
Jason Perry: I would call myself a cultural Christian, right? I would call myself extremely Christian light meaning that are a carnal Christian I need to do I can do pretty much whatever I want as long as I repent of it in the end, you know.
I would call myself a culture Christian. So I believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins. I believe he was raised from the dead. But I didn't read the Bible to know what he wanted me to do.
Ryan Henry: Yeah. When you first kind of made that decision to come to to, I don't know if you would call it coming to Christ or coming to Christianity, what was that like? You know, that kind of first, like, okay, I'll give this a try.
Jason Perry: Well, to me it was because it was true.
After reading the book, it just was true. It was the right thing to do.
Right. Because it was the truth. So I couldn't unsee that, but I didn't understand. Like, again, to me, it was like, okay, if I can just repent, you know, I'm good, right? Because I hadn't been properly discipled,
Ryan Henry: Yeah. So not going to church at that point?
Jason Perry: I went church shopping, but I went to all the concert churches
with the big light shows and the great bands and all that stuff. And they're all about on ramping. It's not dealing with your own sin. They're pushing the Savior. They're not pushing the Lord part. Right? And the Lord part is the first part.
He has to be your Lord and Savior. So anyways, making a long story short, I go to ORW, they talk me into going. I get healing, I identify my wound, my abandonment wound, I didn't even know about it.
Identify that, I get true healing, I get introduced to the true Jesus Christ. He wasn't this beta mush male I just had all the deceptions of the enemy blown away. And from that moment I became truly filled with the Holy Spirit and I've served Him every day since then.
Ryan Henry: How did that go down?
Jason Perry: it's a week long program. You go there and you get a team of guys praying around you and they take you through all your, you know, all your wounds, all your past, pray over everything. And then the whole time they're, they're discipling you. It's a week long program on discipling on what Jesus is, what it means to be a Christian.
There's a lot of tears, there's a lot of stuff that's dealt with and then you're kind of turned out to pasture to go do whatever. That's the place where I recognized his authority. Okay. That's where Jesus became my Lord. Because up until then, I hadn't read the Bible all the way through.
So now I'm on fire. I want, hardcore fire brimstone teaching.
I understand now what I'm supposed to do and I'm still church shopping and I know my primary mission after getting saved is I got to get my wife saved. My wife is still a diehard atheist,
Well, a year later, we were both baptized, She's the most hardcore awesome,woman of god that i've ever met in my life.
So the other thing that happened is neither of us ever wanted children. Like that was part of the things we had in common so I could save and now I want kids and she's horrified We're engaged and she's like, "What am I doing with this?" But the second
she got saved, what do you think happens? She wants kids, So we're church shopping together and it's awful here I am. I'm a guy I got I'm all over me, from, seal, cop, paramedic.
I've just seen a lot a lot of evil. 22 vets a day kill themselves. So, I've lost a lot of friends who have, taken their life. And, I'm going to churches and I'm looking for substance to talk about what's applying to our challenges of today. I know guys who are trying to find reasons not to pull the trigger.
Their life's a mess. and the stuff we're getting at the church is no one's dealing with that. And so we went looking for a long time and then we moved up to Maine, Calvary Chapel Bangor. exposed me to Ken Graves.
Here was a guy who has a voice like Thor. Naturally talented on a lot of different things. Very masculine.
Covered in scars, a very masculine dude who's walking it out. This was the first guy I ever saw that, passed on his identity to Christ to not only just his kids, but he ran a one year discipling program there for addicts where he basically fathered everyone and discipled everyone.
He was incredibly effective. This guy, when the cops caught a kid in trouble, they didn't bring him to jail, they brought him to Ken's house. That's the level of impact he had in the community. That's what it should be.
The church should be solving our problems. Right? They should be solving our problems. Instead, we outsource to government.
Ryan Henry: Yeah.
Jason Perry: Government everything, right?
Margaret Ereneta: Hey thanks for listening to One80, make sure to share today's One80 with your people it may be the best news that the here today Now back to the show.
Jason Perry: So, I see Ken. and I'm like, "Dear Lord Jesus, this is amazing." I've been feeling like a great white shark swimming with a bunch of guppies and here's a guy walking it out.
Now he's not a cop or a first responder or a veteran, but he's still walking out. That means there's a place for me, right? You know, there's a place for me. And here's the thing, right? You know, when I try to tell this to my veteran brothers and to my law enforcement brothers, and law enforcement are the ones who really struggle, right?
It's like, listen, "God loves warriors, Who has a heart after God? David, a warrior,
Right.
Now the shepherd, good shepherd does what? He nurtures his flock. He helps them birth. He raises them. He does that, but he also protects them. He protects them from the wolves and the lions and the thieves, right? He protects them from those who wish to do him harm. And that is what a Christian warrior's job is."
And so that's what I, you know, try to get across to, um, to people who have that in them is that, listen, this is a great honorable role for you in Christianity. And it's to be the good shepherd. It's to be the discipler in chief, the protector in chief, to protect your flock and your family.
Ryan Henry: There's just this picture of this really weak, you know, meek. If you look at it, it's by design. It's so evil. If you look at the definition of meek today in the Webster's Dictionary, the third line down, it's going to say "weak or deficient in spirit." Okay. One of the primary attributes of Jesus is meek. Okay, so is Moses. So you're going to call Jesus weak or deficient in spirit, whereas if you look at the old, if you go to the original 1828 Webster's Dictionary, you're going to find a completely different definition. In fact, it's going to quote the Bible all over it because that's what the old one did.
Jason Perry: Jordan Peterson did a really good job defining what meek is. Meek is a "sheathed sword." It's knowing how to use it, but only using it to protect others. And Jesus could have killed everyone with a word.
With a word. He could have killed everyone with a word.
Ryan Henry: right.
Jason Perry: His job was to die. And then rise from the grave later.
Ryan Henry: When you first got filled with the Holy Spirit, what, spiritual truth All of a sudden, did you like come to know?
Jason Perry: Oh, man.Well, one, I saw Christ in my whole life. one of my brothers had Down Syndrome. My mom, her second marriage fell apart. She gave up my brother with Down Syndrome to adoption.
Kept the youngest brother, and of course sent me to my grandparents, which of course wrecked me again,
But, as they were taking me back through my earliest memories, and I remember, I'm going back, and I'm looking at him, and I'm seeing how Christ saw my, my brother Brandon with Down syndrome.
And all I could hear him say was, "beautiful."
Ryan Henry: Hmm.
Jason Perry: And, that wrecked me. Wrecked me.
Peace is the number one thing. I'm still a rule breaker at that point. Um, I guess I wasn't supposed to call my wife at that point, but I called her and she said, by day two, my voice completely changed. Like a peace had settled on me. That was like completely different.
The anger was gone from me. Now that created a big challenge for me. Right? So here's my superpower. It's anger.
It's now ripped from me. What is my fuel source? And that has been a battle that I've been fighting to this day to go to now God is my fuel source, right?
Gratitude is the replacement fuel source, right? Gratitude and blessing but after 40 something years of just going to anger. It's hard to swap over right away, right?
It takes a lot of time and And a lot of effort to be able to, and then being able to tap into righteous anger. Uh, which is a completely different emotion
Ryan Henry: Yeah,
Jason Perry: Anger. Which is, you know, the hatred of your own sin. And the hatred of sin in itself. So again, having that anger ripped out of me and, you know, I burnt like, hardcore Christian music to work out to. I'm in there and I can't find any music. I mean, you can't, you need something that sounds a little aggressive
Ryan Henry: ha ha.
Jason Perry: weights, or you need something with some good rhythm when you're hitting the heavy bag or any of that stuff.
And so I'm sitting there and I'm just slacking. I just, I'm like going 10 percent through my workout and you know, and I'm, I'm trying to hit, you know, I'm trying to get back to a 400 pound bench and I'm like, what am I going to do?
I threw on NWA straight out of Compton and all of that. power came back in a second. And I swear to you, it wasn't like I heard a voice, but I had the thought
Jason Perry: I went over and turned that off and said, no, I can't give into that because it felt like I felt like the Hulk again in a second and it was right there where that sin was waiting for me right there to roll back into it.
Ryan Henry: That's so crazy.
Jason Perry: It's like an alcoholic. You just drink one drink right now and you'll be fine.
Ryan Henry: a lie,
Jason Perry: Right? And it's such a lie from the enemy and it was spiritual warfare 101 that would have started and then I would have went down that path, give it in and then it would have been just would have been, I would have been going down and I'm so glad that, you know, he saved me from that and just you know, the whole experience, just like I acquired enough discipline to be like, recognize that, right.
And to recognize what was going on and hit "no" "off." I'll just do this silent.
Ryan Henry: Yep.
Jason Perry: Working through it. So, channeling the righteous anger, rolling into that protector role and thinking about that when I'm doing it.
Ryan Henry: So talk to us a little bit about what you are doing now and you know pastoring and all that. It's a, it's, It's an amazing turn around.
Jason Perry: Yeah, so I pastor a church called Christian Warrior Mission. Uh, we focus on, veterans, first responders, I mean, anyone can come, right? But I just, I speak
Ryan Henry: Yeah.
Jason Perry: to people who are looking to embrace that protector role.
That's the ministry. So I have a 44 acre farm in Tennessee where we have, seven, 800 pound hogs, big giant bulls and cows and chickens and turkeys and all that stuff. And that's the discipling ground.
So that's all part of everything we do. When I first started this, I thought it was just going to be for men. You know, I had my first forging weekend. It's where people come for, you know, a weekend here to, they come for the cool stuff. the seal stuff, but they leave talking about God because it's all based upon discipleship,
And they leave. learning how to disciple their families, more people get to heaven.
Ryan Henry: man. It's like you the guy that you were looking to see,
Jason Perry: that's exactly what it is. And that's, you know, I do a podcast, um, Monday through Thursday, 9 p. m. to 10 p. m. And, and that whole thing is, I had to build what I needed.
It's an accountability show. It's a discipling show. But if I sit there and I deliberately pursue Christ. Sowe fight to get a humble and grateful heart aligned onto the Lord.
We deliberately pursue the Lord by studying one chapter of the Bible at a time,
If I'm doing this, I'm like, there's a ton of other guys out there that need this. I had half women sign up.
We showed what biblical, you know, what I call them shield maidens. You know, my wife is the biggest, best warrior I've ever seen for Christ out there. And when I go down, she's over me with her, with her, her, her shield of faith. she'll fight, back the forces of darkness until I can get my feet.
And that's what we all need to be able to do.
Ryan Henry: Yeah. That's so beautiful, man. so cool to hear about, where you've been and how, how God has turned that around. And now you get to be the person you were looking for and other people who are like you, you know, cause I understand this. That's the first time I've heard that, you know, where, where some guys, you know, they're kind of stay away from the faith cause they just feel like it's like this effeminate like thing you know, like how do I connect with this?
And the reality is is we have Jesus, the ultimate warrior, you know, as our example. And he calls us to do the same.
Jason Perry: 100%.
Yeah, if you go to churches across America, you're going to see one thing lacking. You're going to see men lacking. It's filled with women, filled with women. It's lacking with men because most people have been denied the true identity of Jesus Christ, which is what you said, the ultimate warrior, the ultimate protector.
Ryan Henry: Wow. That's so cool. You have a very important message for right now, man. It's amazing.
Jason Perry: Talk to us a little bit about Trident Shield.
Ryan Henry: Yeah.
Jason Perry:
TridentShield is a training, consulting, and emergency preparedness company that seeks to help churches, schools, Christian organizations, become their good shepherd.
So we do it for organizations, but we do it for individuals as well.
Ryan Henry: That's awesome.
Jason Perry: it's been, awesome having you Jason on the show and we usually like to ask just like one more question. Sure.
Ryan Henry: and so I would like to ask you if you could go back to the Jason who, gets moved to your grandfather's house.
And if you could just share something with him, what would you say?
Jason Perry: Jesus is real.
Jesus is the truth. if you do that, you can, you can effectively change. I mean, you know, we talk about vaccines, we talk the, the vaccine against suffering and sin and a destruction is discipling on Jesus Christ. If you can disciple your child, pass on your Christian identity as early as possible, they can handle burying you.
They can handle the worst days of their life. They can handle anything.
Ryan Henry: Wow.
Jason Perry: That's so good. And I can't agree even any more than this is awesome.
Ryan Henry: But, uh, Jason, it has been awesome having you on the show. Thank you so much for giving your time
Jason Perry: oh, it's been my honor to be here. Thank you so much, brother.
Ryan Henry: Yeah, God bless you, your family, and your ministry.
Jason Perry: Thank you.
Ryan Henry:
Margaret Ereneta: This is Margaret. Thank you so much for listening today. I was sharing courage to hear Jason's story. To send us off. We have a prayer cast video for veterans, join us and 3 million people monthly who pray for our nation and for our world through prayer cast. And if you want to join prayer cast and get. Videos sent to your inbox every day or a week.
You can look at our show notes.
Prayercast: Abba Father, the Father of heavens and earth, we praise you for your goodness to our nation, giving us blessings far beyond what we deserve. Yet we know all is not right with America and the world in general. We deeply need a moral and spiritual renewal to help us meet the many problems we face. We pray that the hearts of all peoples, and their rulers, that by the power of your Holy Spirit, we Peace may be established among the nations on the foundation of justice, righteousness, and truth.
Our nation and the nations of the world need to turn to you, Lord. May this be a new era for America and for the world as we humble ourselves and acknowledge that you alone are our Savior and Lord. We call for peace and justice throughout the world. We'd like to pray now for The Innocent and the Guilty, and a revelation for the world to seek the Lord's face for cleansing, repentance, and healing.
To humble themselves and to ask forgiveness.
Continue to lift up the families of those who have, uh, offered up their children, their wives, their brothers, their husbands, in service to our country and to the nations of the world that seek democracy and freedom and peace. Pray for the veterans that are injured and despondent, Lord, over what they have seen and what they have endured.
We just pray that you will strengthen these soldiers as they come home, that are coming home emotionally damaged, physically damaged. And we thank you that there has been a response like no other time to the issues that are coming home.
We also pray, Father, that you will be glorified in the nations, that there will be healing. We pray that, uh, people will respond to the Great Commission. Those that are believers will go out into the world, Lord, and continue to bring the gospel and bring the light to a world that is very dark. There's much hatred in the world, and we pray that it will be replaced by love and compassion and understanding.
We pray that people will recognize that Jesus Christ is the true peace and light of the world. Through all those who are serving and honoring you, Lord, we just pray that your light will grow and that people will walk away from evil, walk away from tyranny, and seek to do what is right. We thank you for the cross of Christ, the power of the resurrection, and the blood.
We call upon your name right now.