Speaker 1: 0:01

It's time now to get the hell out of your life. A weekly broadcast with real people sharing real struggles and offering real hope. Today's show will encourage, inspire and empower you to face life's challenges with a bold confidence and renewed hope. Now let's join our host, ron Myers. The promoter.

Ron Meyers: 0:22

Hello, my friends, I am so excited about today's show. I tell you all the time about conversations with Jesus. I'm going to go a little deeper with that today. Basically, prayer communication with God through his son, Jesus. Friends, when you can really discover the power in prayer, the power in just that direct line of communication, it is a game changer. It really is. You're going to hear a lot about that from my guest, Mike, and then I'll go into more detail in the monologue. But my guest today, Mike, well, he is a man after God's heart. He loves to pray for people. That's the call on his life, Mike. How did we meet? I know it was a few years ago over the telephone.

Mike Holliday: 1:04

Yeah, I listened to your show, I was a fan, and I listened to you interview people every week and I said, well, ron, what about you?

Ron Meyers: 1:12

What's your background, and that's how we got started Well and it's been a great friendship, and I have followed you and you are a man that loves Jesus.

Mike Holliday: 1:21

Yes, I do, yes, I do, and it all started when I got saved and my dad accepted Jesus, back in Miami in like the early 70s. So what happened? Well, my early memories in life is my mom and dad fighting, physically fighting. I was five years old and my sister was 12. And they're not yelling, screaming, cussing, they're actually going at each other physically and my 12-year-old daughter, my 12-year-old sister, is between the two and dad leaves the house, mom packs her bag I'm five years old, the youngest of five and she goes outside. There's a taxi and I'm crying, said I want to stay with mom and mom go no, you got to stay with Yvonne, your older sister. I go no, mom, I want to go with you.

Mike Holliday: 2:08

Well, we were not Christians. So what happened is my mom and dad got a divorce and my mom was having an affair with an older man. My mom was young, attractive, this guy was older, had his own business, and the plan was they both were going to leave their spouse. My mom was going to leave her husband, which she did. He was supposed to leave his wife, which he didn't, and mom moved two blocks away and we were raised by my dad in the early 70s and he took you to a church or had an encounter with Jesus himself.

Ron Meyers: 2:40

What brought you to Jesus?

Mike Holliday: 2:41

Well, you know, my dad was always a very angry man and I remember my mom when dad were married, we would look out the door and see my dad coming home. We go, mom, did we do anything wrong today? Because my dad was a sharecropper from Mississippi, a hardworking man, but we were raised in an era where children should be seen and not heard, and so we would run and hide, and if dad was in a good mood it was safe to come out. If not, then we just stayed hidden. So my dad raised us and fast forward to age 15.

Mike Holliday: 3:15

I'm sitting there talking to my dad and my dad he looks different, he sounds different. We have a wonderful conversation, we're laughing and talking, which that never really happened. And I said, dad, what happened to you? He said I accepted Jesus and we were heathens. We didn't go to church. I didn't know what accepting Jesus meant, but I knew that Jesus was powerful because he changed my dad from being Dark Vader to like being a normal human being and we never went to church and from that point on, after Dad accepted Jesus, we went to church every Sunday.

Ron Meyers: 3:45

Hallelujah.

Mike Holliday: 3:45

Yes.

Ron Meyers: 3:46

And then didn't you go military, were you military? Yes, sir.

Mike Holliday: 3:50

I joined the military, did 24 years in the Air Force, retired at a Keesler Air Force base.

Ron Meyers: 3:55

And you stayed here.

Mike Holliday: 3:56

And I stayed here after retirement.

Ron Meyers: 3:59

And well, the coast is blessed to have someone like you here, and you have a passion now. Your passion is you like to pray, exactly.

Mike Holliday: 4:07

When I joined, when I got out of the military, I was having a rough time in my life. My personal sins, marriage wasn't doing so well and God told me specifically I need accountability partner. So I got accountability partner and it was a little weird because I just went, a guy. I met a Christian assistant pastor, tony Graham. He's now the chaplain at Harrison County Jail and I asked him to be my accountability partner. He agreed to it and for the first time in my Christian life I was able to tell another man about my sins, about my struggles in my life, and I always said, if I ever was open and honest with another person, they'd kick me out of the church, basically. But the opposite happened. There's a scripture that says confess your faults one to another, pray for one another that you might be healed. And that's what happened with me. I got joy, I got peace, I got forgiveness. And then I started meeting with other men as well and I started to pray.

Mike Holliday: 5:04

I'm a member of the 700 Club and I call them all the time and I noticed that when I pray with them I have this peace. It was like instant. You know, you have the storms in your life, you have family problems. You got outlaw problems I mean in-law problems and then you got the jokers on my job problems. They get on my nerve, right, and my kids drive me crazy. That's life, right. But I noticed that when I call and it's calm, peace, I describe it like this when you're on the airplane and the stewardess come out with the soda and peanuts and then all of a sudden it gets a little rocky and she takes the tray back and the pilot says and the pilot says, hey, we're, we're encountering tough weather here. So he says we're going to get above the storm. And that's exactly what happened. So you're sitting there, you're like man, if God get me off this plane, I'm never going to get on another plane again. Like, please help me, jesus, everybody getting religious Right. And then, I was sure enough, the pastor I mean the pastor Paul. It gets above the storm and then the peanuts come out and the soda comes out.

Mike Holliday: 6:07

Well, that's how it was like when I called the 700 Club. I'm like stressed out, I don't want to go to work. I got family problems, I got this problems. But after they pray it's like peace. And so I would ask them. I said, well, what are you guys are doing? They say well, we just, we pray the scriptures, we pray, we just quote the scriptures back to the Lord. Lord, you said if two or three of us are gathered together in my name, then you'll do this. You said ask, you have not because you ask not. So I started to do that with other men and they instantly felt the peace of God as well, and I have testimonies to that end.

Ron Meyers: 6:41

And you have really become popular with that. I know you just spoke at First Baptist Church to a group of men, but there's a hunger out there. You've told me that you can see in men because men don't seem to open up to other people. But God has prepared you for this time to meet men and just start talking, or praying.

Mike Holliday: 6:59

Exactly. God told me to start a men's group and the purpose of a men's group is to break down the denominational walls and the racial walls in the church. And I do that by talking to men from different churches. Once a month we have a men's prayer breakfast and literally I have the guys pray for each other, because a lot of times you go to church, you go to church with your problems, you and your wife are not getting along, kids not getting along, and you go to church you praise the Lord and you come back and nothing's changed. And as we pray with each other, form relationships, god answers prayers. I'll give you one example.

Mike Holliday: 7:32

There's a friend of mine who owned his own business multi-million dollar business, fourth generation business and his dad was suing him because after COVID he was paying his daddy payments for the business and so everything shut down after COVID. So dad's not getting no money. After COVID the money goes down. Dad is upset. His stepmom influenced dad to sue the son and then the son is also being sued simultaneously by a business partner multi-million dollar lawsuits. So his stress level is like level nine on a scale of one to 10.

Mike Holliday: 8:03

So I would pray with him, just like the 700 Club Prayer Counselors pray with me. And we did this over a couple of months and I told him. I said you know what I said. I had problems with my dad because my dad was angry. I had resentment, but I made peace with my dad and I said you need to make peace with your dad. I said you need to write your dad a letter telling your dad how much you love him, that you enjoyed when he took you to the ballpark, took you guys to church. Don't say anything negative about your dad. I said, because what's going to happen is one day you're going to bury your dad and you're going to be standing there, you're going to be stricken with grief and you're going to be in this cocoon of grief and you've been set up by the devil. So he wrote the letter. His wife said you're crazy, you being set up by the devil. So he wrote the letter. His wife said you're crazy, you're going to write your dad a letter because you guys are fighting.

Mike Holliday: 8:46

He wrote his dad a letter and a few months after that I said well, how do you feel now? Your stress level? He says my stress level used to be constantly at a nine, he says now I walk around at a three and all that happened was I prayed with him. I can't fix. I always say this to my guys I can't fix, and it's a simple. But Jesus says one of the reasons why we don't have answer to prayer he says you have not because you ask not. What we do is we complain, we gripe, complain, moan to God and we think that's like praying, that's not prayer.

Ron Meyers: 9:19

You know, one thing I've noticed about you, mike, is you are a constant learner. You are always looking and reading and finding more and more about Jesus, and do you ever just kind of, when you're alone, think, lord, you've really done some good things in helping me in life, haven't you?

Mike Holliday: 9:37

Yes, sir, I do that. But that's amazing, the things that God has done for me. But God is doing it other people, amen. So when I'm praying for other people and I'm watching what he's doing which is amazing I could be an example. Besides the 700 Club prayer counselors, I call another 24-hour prayer line and I got this counselor and she told me this story. We became fast friends, just like you and I, I don't meet strangers, actually, so she told me this story.

Mike Holliday: 10:06

She says her son had prevented her from seeing her grandkids and the reason why he did that. He grew up a Christian, his mom loved the Lord and he became anti-Jesus. He became anti-God. His mom is a conservative Christian. He would beat her up over whatever Trump did or said. And he came to her one day and said mom, you can't see the kids, grandkids no more as long as you talk to them about Jesus. Now, if you agree to not talk to them about Jesus or try to evangelize them, you can see them. Well, the mom said absolutely not, I will never agree to that. So you know, you can threaten with the grandkids. As long as I see them, as long as they're in my life, I'm going to talk to them about Jesus. And I talked to her that day and it had been a week. She keeps the kids three days a week, all day. She loves the grandkids.

Mike Holliday: 10:55

And she was distraught, basically, but prior to that she had felt in her spirit the Lord says there's going to be a war, a battle, in your life, but you must be, you must stand firm, you're going to become victorious. And this thought came to me when she was talking to me. I thought about King David. When King David went out to fight Goliath, saul and all his mighty men were hiding. Goliath came out twice a day to curse God. And so David, the little boy, shepherd boy. He goes out there boldly and steps to Goliath and says that you know, I'm going to take your head off and feed it to the birds.

Mike Holliday: 11:31

And so I told, I said what you and your husband need to do is you need to go over to your son's house and your husband basically need to tell his and you don't need to talk because he goes at his mom. You know, kids fight with their mom, they don't fight with dad so much. And I said you guys just need to be bold, go over there and say hey, whatever's going on between me and you and whatever has nothing to do with the kids. I love you, I love the kids. We need to see the kids. And I said I'm going to be praying about it and I'm going to call the 700 Color Prayer Counselors and we're going to pray about it. Well, fast forward. A few days later, she sent me a text. She go, mike, you're not going to believe what happened. My son texts me. He called me up and he apologized, said mom, forgive me, whatever's going on between you and I has nothing to do with the kids, and I'm bringing the kids over. This happened in less than two days. Wow, the power of prayer.

Ron Meyers: 12:19

You know, mike, I can just see the excitement when you tell that story. Right now. There are people listening that. Maybe they're thinking, yeah, I wish prayer worked that easy for me. There are a lot of people listening with different things in their life. How do they start praying? Some people don't even know how to begin. Do they have to go to church? Do they have to get on their knees? Do they have to dance? What do they have to do?

Mike Holliday: 12:41

Well, they have to be motivated to prayer. Here's the most motivating factor to praying is pain. Pain will make you pray. Think about this. We are going on about our life. How many times we got this text like this Sister so-and-so is in a car accident, she's in ICU, or so-and-so, the pastor's wife has been in a car accident, or somebody has stage four cancer. It's an emergency. What do we do? We pray. Not only do we pray, we start a prayer chain that goes across the country and nine times out of 10, god, he settles it, take care of it, and then we go back to our non-praying life. See, because here's what we believe, god can handle the big things, but I can handle the small things.

Ron Meyers: 13:23

You know I talk about my conversations or coffee with Jesus every day and I tell people that you aren't really familiar if they aren't familiar with church, that prayers have a conversation with Jesus. Just open your heart, be honest, be transparent, and you'll be surprised what you'll start feeling in your spirit, because this God that you and I love, he loves the whole world and he wants his kids to come back to him. He's the father that a lot of his kids have just kind of strayed away, but he's saying hey, the door's open, the front door's unlocked, the porch light's on, come on home.

Mike Holliday: 13:59

Yes, I would recommend this to help them to pray. I'm retired, so I'm an old guy and I know I need to go back to the gym and work out. But I'm inconsistent like most people. So I got a personal trainer. So I got this personal trainer and I told him. I said, look, I want to. I don't want to get firm, you know, I'm sort of vain. I want to be jacked, right, I want to be a jacked grandpa. And so he says OK, and so he's pushing me. And what surprised me was the amount of strength that I had. When I go into the gym by myself, nothing happens. I'm not consistent, I'm not intense, but with him it's almost like I had flashbacks, like when I had Afro and I had like a four pack. I could never get a six pack anyway, but by him being there with me, because he's into fitness and he's a fit guy, it pushed me to levels that I never would have even imagined, right, I grew in size, bigger muscles grew, I became stronger. I look forward to it.

Mike Holliday: 14:56

So what I would say is find someone who believes in prayer, someone who prays more than you, someone who's serious about prayer, and basically, you know, when we were growing up. What did our parents tell us about this? In a negative way. I don't want you hanging around that kid because that kid is bad, that kid ain't no good, his parents no good. And we say, oh, that's my friend. Well, here's what mom know. You hang around a kid, you're going to become like that kid, it don't matter what you believe, how good you are. Well, guess what? The same thing in prayer.

Ron Meyers: 15:21

If you start hanging around people who pray listening right now they say I want that guy in the air. I want to get in touch with Mike. You pray with people, don't you? Yes, sir, I sure do. I mean, how can they get in touch with you? Well, they can call me at 228-209-5178. That's your calling in life, mike. I can tell you're going to be in a big prayer movement on this coast somehow, somewhere, someday. I am just blessed to have you in the studios and I know we're about out of time. But before we go, one thing I always like to ask my guest, mike. The title of this show is Get the Hell Out of your Life. So how do you get the hell out of your life?

Mike Holliday: 16:04

Well, you call Jesus up on the prayer line and say Jesus, please get the hell out of my life.

Ron Meyers: 16:10

Mike, will you pray for my listeners?

Mike Holliday: 16:13

Lord. We just thank you and praise you, father, for all the listeners. Every listener who's married has spouse problems. Every listener that has kids have kid problems and everybody have a job have the jokers on my job problems and what we do? We go to church, we wear a mask at church and we pretend like everybody's happy and everybody's got a great family and a great marriage. Well, that's not true. The truth of the matter is we have problems and, jesus, you said we have not because we ask not. So we ask right now, father, that the people hearing in sound of my voice, the people in pain, that they will call the 700 Club prayer line. They call just Google 24 hour prayer. You can get the number and call and talk to a counselor.

Mike Holliday: 16:54

The beautiful thing about calling a prayer line. They don't know your husband, they don't know you, they don't know your pastor, neither do they care. That's not important. What's important is that these people connect you to Jesus. It's a vertical, it's like a cross. They pray with you to take you to Jesus and then they connect with you here on earth in the horizontal, and once you start to do that, you're going to start to feel a peace. Before God answered a prayer, because prayer is a relationship, and that's what you're doing. You're developing a relationship with your Heavenly Father, and you're also developing a relationship with everybody here on earth. So we just ask, father, that these people take the initiative, call the prayer line and be blessed and become addicted to prayer, just like me. Call the prayer line and be blessed and become addicted to prayer, just like me when I return.

Ron Meyers: 17:38

I want to share five ideas to help you develop an outstanding prayer life with Jesus.

Speaker 1: 17:45

You're listening to Get the Hell Out of your Life with your host, ron Myers.

Speaker 4: 17:53

Real stories real struggles and real hope. You know it may be difficult for some to believe, but God is for us and not against us. He's always watching over us and always listening for us to come to Him with our requests. My name is Mark and this is the Journey. I want to encourage you today that if you acknowledge God's existence, his ear is always turned towards you. That if you acknowledge God's existence, his ear is always turned towards you. 1 Peter, chapter 3, tells us that His eyes are upon us and His ears are open to our prayers.

Speaker 4: 18:21

Unfortunately, many of us get lazy when it comes to prayer, so we just don't bother. Maybe we have prayed for something in the past and it never came to fruition and we just gave up. But that's actually the wrong attitude. Jesus told the disciples you have not because you ask, not encouraging us to let our requests be known to God in prayer. In Matthew, chapter 21, jesus tells us whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive if you have faith. Now that doesn't mean if you pray for a million dollars, you're going to get it. You'll need to check your motives behind that one. In fact, that's an important point Always check your motives when you're asking God to do something for you.

Speaker 4: 19:01

There are more than 100 verses in the Bible that deal directly with prayer, and the reality is that you can pray anywhere, anytime. Philippians, chapter 4,. The Apostle Paul reminds us not to be anxious about anything. Philippians, chapter 4, the Apostle Paul reminds us not to be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. A thankful and grateful attitude, praying in accordance with God's will and seeking first the kingdom of heaven. A great starting point for seeing your prayers being answered.

Speaker 5: 19:39

Here's a refreshing word today from Ephesians 5, 17 and 18. Therefore, do not be unwise but understand what the will of the Lord is, and do not be drunk with wine in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit to start living right. Get the hell out of your life. Get the hell out of your life.

Ron Meyers: 20:25

Welcome back listeners. Before the break I told you that I want to help you develop a communication line with Jesus. That is just powerful. Now, when I grew up, I was never taught how to pray. We followed prayers. I was in a Catholic church and we were told to do the Our Father, the Hail Mary, or we did the rosary, but it meant nothing to me, I just followed them. I didn't feel anything. When I was done, I just said, oh, I'm supposed to say these, I'm going to say these and God will bless me. Well, I don't think anything like that happened. And I didn't realize that until I got older, because one day I was beginning to just loosen up, chill out with this Christianity stuff and I just wanted Jesus in my life. So I began a direct dialogue with Jesus, just talking to him like I would talk to you, like I'm talking to you now. I shared my heart's desires, my concerns, things I was scared about. I just shared my heart and friends. Something absolutely amazing happened. There was a connection and you've heard me talk a lot on this show about conversations with Jesus Friends. It is absolutely liberating. Now, at first you might kind of feel you know out of place, but don't. He created you. He knows already what you need in your life. He knows everything about you. So he wants now to bring you into the family and have those dad to son to daughter talks and help you discover who he created you to be. So I want to share five things that I think will really help you. They helped me tremendously in developing that awesome communication line with God.

Ron Meyers: 21:53

Number one you've got to recognize your union with Christ. You have to know that you are in perfect union with God through Jesus. That's right. When Jesus came into your heart, he took residence there. This means now you have an open line of communication with God through Jesus, so you can approach God with confidence, knowing that whatever you communicate with him is not going on deaf ears. Number two you have to embrace the freedom in prayer. Now there's no specific formula or a set time required for prayer. You can talk to God anytime, anywhere, sharing your thoughts, concerns and gratitude with him. Sharing your thoughts, concerns and gratitude with him. Friends, sometimes I get in this crazy mode of thinking and just bouncing things off my head and I just go to Jesus. I might be in the gym or mowing. I become so dependent on that still quiet voice and he's never led me wrong.

Ron Meyers: 22:50

Period Number three focus on relationship, not ritual. Prayer is not about fulfilling an obligation or following a ritual. I talked about that a little bit ago. No, it is an open, honest relationship with your heavenly father. Let your communication, your prayers flow naturally from your heart, just as you would speak to a close friend, and he is your friend.

Ron Meyers: 23:15

Number four be honest and open. You know God knows your heart, so be honest and open in your prayer. Share your joys, your struggles and desires with him, and also share your hurts, your fears, your worries, trusting in his unconditional love and wisdom. And number five the Holy Spirit is within you, guiding and helping you in your prayer life, in your communication with Jesus. Trust in his presence and allow him to lead you in your conversations with God. Remember prayer is a personal and dynamic conversation with God. I mean, if you really think about that, that we get to do what they could never do in the Old Testament. We have that intimacy with God through his son Jesus. So this week, enjoy the freedom and intimacy that comes from being in Christ. Share your heart, get some direction, get those questions answered, because you have places to go, people to see and things to do.

Speaker 6: 24:15

Just about everybody prays to God. Sometimes there's no crime in that I'm trying to cut down myself, but most people admit it seems they have a hard time getting answers to prayers. That's because we often ignore God until we get into a crunch Excuse me, sir, I've got an emergency and after God bails us out, we once again go back to ignoring Him. You got your show and I got mine, and our prayers aren't specific enough. Somehow my TV blew up, so I'd appreciate you putting in a new one.

Speaker 6: 24:38

And eventually our prayer life is pretty weak. Bless you, bless her, bless him, hallelujah. But God wants to have a real daily relationship with you. First you need to get right with God. I thought, after a lifetime of hedonism, it was time to rededicate my life.

Speaker 5: 24:52

Call sin exactly what it is it's wrong wrong, wrong, wrong.

Speaker 6: 24:54

Then begin reading the Bible every day and don't approach God like he doesn't like you. I'm so sick of this whining from you. After a week of regular prayer, you'll realize God is not far away. He'll be real in your life. Wow, man, this is so unbelievable. I can't believe you're here, man, prayer, it works, amen.

Speaker 4: 25:15

Ron, we'll be back in a moment to wrap up today's conversation. We want to encourage you today with God's promise to you. It comes from the book of Jeremiah, chapter 29, verse 11. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and the future. That's God's promise to you when you choose to commit your plans and future to him. Now back to Ron.

Ron Meyers: 25:48

Well, friends, my time is up and I want to remind you prayer is a game changer. It changes your life, it changes your stress level, it changes your destiny. I do have that number to the 700 Club Prayer Line 24-7 Prayer 1-800-700-7000. Well, friends, I'll be back next week with another great episode and I'm going to be praying for you In the meantime. Remember this that I'm going to be praying for you. In the meantime, remember this that I love you, jesus loves you, and when you give Jesus your heart, you not only get the hell out of your life, you open up the line of communication with the God of the universe. Get the hell out. Get the hell out of your life.

Speaker 1: 26:37

Today's show is proudly underwritten by the Christmas City Gift Show. Mark your calendars for November 7th through the 9th and experience the magic inside the Christmas City Gift Show inside the Mississippi Coast Convention Center located on the beach in Biloxi, mississippi. For more information, visit ChristmasCascitygiftshowcom. If you would like to be a guest and share your story of God's amazing grace, visit our website thepromoterorg and click the share your story tab button. Thanks for listening and if you would like to listen to previous episodes, click on the podcast tab at thepromoterorg. Join us next week for another edition of Get the Hell Out of your Life Real stories, real struggles and real hope.

Speaker 5: 27:23

Hi, I'm Dr Andrew Farley, host of the Grace Message. Got a Bible question, Struggling with a personal issue, Wondering about a tricky verse. At BibleQuestionscom, you'll get clear, grace-based answers in 10 seconds or less. No fluff, no confusion, just practical biblical truth. Ask anything anytime and experience the power of God's love. Visit BibleQuestionscom. That's BibleQuestionscom your go-to for biblical clarity.