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What Happened to Neeza Powers? Full Story & Update | The Jesus People Podcast Episode 71
00:27:55
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- [00:01]
Ryan
This is a hard video for me to make. People have asked me why I haven't spoken about this yet, and it's because I've been speaking with Niza. I've been on the phone with him, I've been pleading with him, I've been begging him. I've been sharing with him the scriptures. And I want to take you guys a little bit into that. I want to take you into some of the backstory, some of the things that weren't public online. I want to take you into some of what you might not have seen and then give a little bit of nuance and share really what has happened as this young man. If you don't know the. The story of Nisa Powers, Nisa Powers exploded on the scene in social media, and it was beautiful, man. Like, just. Just seeing the wonder, seeing the awe, and seeing the discovery of finding Jesus. I think that's what captivated so many people as I've thought about this. Like, why were people so drawn to Niza? And it's because you were watching this man who was so entrenched in sin, find God and find him in the small things. Find him in church, find him in the scriptures, find him in the beauty of creation. And all of us can relate to that. And we all were given the gift of watching this man become a man and become a man of God and fall in love with his Word. And now what we've seen is we've seen Niza go back and say he believes he's a woman, and there's nothing wrong with that Biblically. We're going to look at some of the videos that he's shared again. I have his permission to make this video, and even if I didn't, I'd still make this video because my allegiance is not to Niza. Niza, brother, I know you're watching this. I love you. I really, really love you. I've loved hanging out with you. I've loved watching sports and being on the phone and geeking out. And I've loved talking about Jesus. I've loved FaceTiming with you, Charlotte. I have enjoyed our friendship thoroughly, and I do not believe your story is over. And I certainly hope our friendship isn't over. You can always come. You're always welcome. So let's get into this a little bit, guys. Again, this is. This is a hard video for me to make because it's. It's personal. So forgive if I'm a bit rambly. I just want to speak from the heart here, but this was one of the videos that Niza first posted.
- [02:35]
Niza Powers
Well, here I am. It's been a crazy couple of days, and I just wanted to say thank you to all the love and support that I've been shown, even if it is few and far between. I see it and I am very grateful for it. And I'm really excited that I'm not discouraged to continue seeking God just because a few loud voices out there don't want me to, or at least don't want me to, while loving my own identity. They would rather see me hate myself. And that's just not good for my
- [03:18]
Ryan
journey with God and.
- [03:19]
Niza Powers
And also not good for me.
- [03:22]
Ryan
Okay, I'm going to stop there. So let's talk a bit about his journey with God because Nah said a few things there and I want to take you into some of the conversations I had with Nah the last few days and talk about where his head's at first. I just want to address. There's been so many people online that are saying this is a grift, that he was doing this for money, that we all were suckered, we all were played. All these conspiracies coming out, and none of that's true. Like, literally follow the money. If Niza just wanted to make money, he wouldn't have lost his brand deal with Hallow app over this. He lost a good amount of money from coming back out as a woman. Niza is a man who found Jesus, a man who is confused who. I think that there are some mental health things at play. I think there's spiritual warfare at play. And Niza falling in love with the Lord was real. And we can get into how. I think that he has backslidden in. In a bit here, but anyone coming out and. And slandering him and making up these stories and saying this was all fake, that's just not true. None of that is true. So let's go through the timeline, because I met Niza through social media back in late summer, I would say middle to late summer. And we started just talking, talking on the phone. We started talking about Jesus, we started talking about sports, we started talking about a whole bunch of stuff, and I became kind of the guy he'd go to for questions. Hey, what does this mean in the Bible? What is, you know, this story about? Why does God say this? And so I started answering some of these questions, and eventually I invited him on the Jesus People podcast, and it was a beautiful episode. A lot of people have taken down their episodes with Niza. I'm not going to be One of them. I feel like there is a lot to learn. There's a lot of good. There's a lot of beauty that has come from that episode, both episodes that we've done. And my goal with the Jesus People podcast is not to just interview people that are rock stars with Jesus, that are completely dialed and, you know, has crucified all their flesh, and they're just, you know, walking in this discipleship journey with Jesus, man. I will interview atheists on the Jesus People podcast. I will interview people that are in process on the Jesus People Podcast. People like Niza that have questions who. When I first interviewed him, it was day 50 of him being a Christian. Now, you might argue that that's not wise. And I think I have really had to think about that argument quite a bit. Platforming people that aren't ready to be platformed. But at this point, Niza was already platformed, so that argument doesn't really follow with him. I don't think I platformed Niza. Niza was going to be viral regardless. Niza is viral because Niza is just viral. Niza is hilarious. Niza is brilliant. That's why Niza exploded. What happened was, as we developed in this friendship, there would be things where I would start to call Niza out. Inconsistencies, lies. I'd catch him in certain things, and eventually these things made their way to the Internet, starting on TikTok, where people would start to go, huh? I don't think his name's really Niza. If you look at all the documentation, his name's Thomas. I don't really think he's 29. I think he's 36. All these little things started to come out, and people started sending me these videos. And when I brought it to Niza, initially, Niza rejected it, pushed back against it. I started having another influencer buddy reach out to me and saying, hey, dude, I've been doing some digging too. I think a lot of this stuff is lies. So I pressed Niza, and eventually he came forward. And he didn't just come forward with some. He came forward with everything. He came forward with it Bear. He was like, listen, I. I really struggle with lying. I'm working on it. I'm a pathological liar. He's like, ryan, I lie to you about little things that don't even matter. And he's lied about his story in a lot of ways, which caused people to question the broader story of his faith and his conversion. And I just want to say now, you know, regardless of him lying about his age and, you know, him and Charlotte, how they met. He made videos of, you know, him coming to his. His new girl that he's dating and sharing that he used to live as a woman. That was all a lie. They were. They were dating for years that, you know, they were living as a lesbian couple for years. And then Niza truly did find Jesus. The Lord, I believe, truly did reveal himself to Niza. And then he has to deal with a lot of stuff. And I think a lot of times in the Christian world, we are so black and white with this stuff. It's like, either good or bad. And if there's some inconsistency, if there's some sin, if it's not like this nice and neat conversion story, then we start coming up with these conspiracies. The reality is Niza made a decision to follow God, to reject his old identity as a woman and come back to what the scriptures say. He started studying the Word of God. He'd call me with questions. This was all real. This wasn't for show. I mean, these, what you're telling me, these hour, two hour, two hour long conversations were fake with me and Niza. Like, no, we're. We're literally diving into the word of God. We're talking about life, and none of that was fake. And I just want to say that to anyone that feels so discouraged, like, is the whole world fake now? You know, I've seen some of that stuff online. Like, you know, what's the thing? Everyone says they're like, the world is a stage. And I'm like, guys, this is a highly charismatic man who found Jesus and is wrestling and his journey's not over. And we need to have grace for that. And we also need to stand on the truth. We need to recognize that some. That this is not always nice and neat and packaged with a bow. Niza is a pathological liar. That's why he was living as a woman for all those years. That's why he's wrestled with this while still being a Christian, because he's still in the sanctification process. And so I wanted to create the space and the grace for that. Now I would call him out pretty firmly about things like, you need to go to Halo app. You need to tell them what's going on. Because eventually, as things started going on, Niza did come forward and Niza did share with people, hey, I'm struggling. I'm having these temptations and, you know, him and Charlotte. Eventually I got a call from him and Charlotte when I was in Nigeria and freaking out like, I've been caught. You know, they caught us. And what do we do? Because we don't want people to think this whole thing was a sham because we lied about how we met. That's such a small part of our journey. And I agree with him. I agreed with him on some senses and I disagreed with him. I said, buddy, this is a small part of your story. In the grand scheme of how beautiful this conversion is. Yes. How you guys met is a smaller thing. It's still a lie, though. And the currency you have with people is trust. And so Niza and. And Charlotte came forward and they explained, hey, listen, we were not forthcoming about this. Good for them. But here's what continued to happen. There continued to be a slippery slope down towards sin n started dressing as a woman in public. And I mean, he was already dressing as a woman at home a lot of the time. And he was honest about that. He started dressing as a woman in public and people and consistently doing it. And people would come up and see Charlotte in the store and they'd recognize her from social media. And then he would walk in, Niza as a woman, and you would just see their faces drop. And so he again is calling me. And the thing that changed, and this is what I want to get to, I want to get to some of these other videos, but I want to talk about what changed. What changed is Nieza's tone. Nieces language with me went from, hey, what should I do? This posture of like, hey, how. How can you help me step into a more Jesus like life? To Ryan, tell me what I should do on social media, but don't tell me to repent. That was the line Niza would use is just don't tell me to repent. And that's when I said, okay, this has now gone into a different relationship. And this is what we've started to see is we've seen Niza start to slip back into his flesh. I'm going to pull up another video Nisa made here. This is one of the first ones. I think this was the first one. Okay. If you look at the description there, it says, he told me last summer, I want her. So this is where things got dicey with me and Niza. The last couple days I had conversations with Niza where I would share my heart and I would beg Niza, Niza, please just push pause on this man. Like, you don't have to come out public and get away from social media. Just get off entirely. Like, this is social media. Is a weird place, guys. The pressure. I can't even imagine the pressure Niza's been under to, first of all, transition from being a woman to being a man, and then an atheist to a Christian and then doing it all publicly. Like, that's hard to see the comments, to get the hate all to millions of people. I mean, Niza went crazy viral, guys. You know, this crazy viral to. To have that happen to you when you've never experienced that before, that wrecks people. I've had people come on the Jesus People podcast that weren't. That didn't have a platform before, and. And 99 of the comments were great. It was that one comment that wrecked them emotionally wrecked them. This is a hard world operating, guys. To be a public Christian comes with a lot of weirdness. But Nysa in this video is claiming that God spoke to him and said, I want her. And this is where things got dicey with me. And Na, when I talked to him about that, I said, buddy, you have not been open to the full gamut of spiritual disciplines, to the full gamut of spiritual correction, to the full gamut of becoming a fully formed Jesus follower as we see it in the Gospels. Because you have rejected getting deliverance. And this might seem woo woo to some Christians out there, but it's not to me. Who has seen this. I was with a young man the other day who started manifesting demons with me on FaceTime. This isn't a show, this isn't for social media. This is a private conversation. And he begins manifesting demons. This is also a young man who is coming out of the transgender community, starts manifesting demons and begins throwing up blood after the demons get delivered. Multiple demons over the course of an hour and a half, to the point where he couldn't do it anymore because he was so physically exhausted. That's not performative. This is a real thing, guys. This isn't a game. There is a agenda from the demonic to attack people's identities. And when I bring that to Niza and I say, if you just read the Gospels, you see Jesus and his disciples constantly casting out demons. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing us he doesn't exist and that a third of the angels still haven't fallen and are still not tempting you through your thought life and mainly through your identity. And I believe Niza needs deliverance full stop. Nyse has not been open to that. And so when he's hearing things like I want her, where do you think that's coming from? Because God will never Violate his Word. God. The only thing God has to submit to, self imposed from the Lord himself to himself, is his Word, and he will never violate that. And God has created Niza. He has fearfully and wonderfully created Niza. He has knit Niza together as he has you in his mother's womb and created him a certain way. So Niza isn't fighting for identity. He's fighting for authority over his identity. He will not find his identity by looking inward. He will find his identity by looking up. And the one thing that keeps coming to mind for me is this quote where it says God is the creator of this universe and he has a certain way of doing things. Now, you may think you have a better way, but you don't have a universe. And I think each one of us, before we throw stones at Niza, before we point out the speck in his eye, we need to look in our own eyes, in the plank, in our own eyes. Because all of us have ways that we have not been submitting everything to Jesus. All of us have been operating in identities based off the way we grew up, based off the sin issues we've entertained, based off a number of things that are not God's core identity for us. And this is where the rubber meets. The road for Niza is he is hearing voices saying, I want her from the enemy camp. Because he has not fully surrendered himself to the process to become a fully formed Christian follower. And that's hard for me to say. I'm sure that's hard for you to hear, buddy, but it's the reality that all of us are in a spiritual war right now. And the spiritual war is raging over identity. And God will never speak something to you that he didn't already speak in his Word. He will never violate his word. And Niza right now has rejected the word of God flat out. He said it. I believe in the resurrection. I don't believe in a lot of the Bible. So at that point, what the Bible says is, if your brother is in sin, go to him. If he does not listen, take him to the church. Both of those have happened. If he still doesn't listen, treat him as an unbeliever. And that's what we need to do with Niza. That might be hard to hear, but my conversations with Niza the last few days have been, nope, I don't buy into it. I don't believe it. I don't believe that God would want me to change. Well, that is an identity that has been created by the self, that has Been submitted and surrendered to the self. The de. The devil doesn't just want you to worship him. He wants you to worship you, and he wants you to craft a truth after your own self. That's why the world is broken, because we have people worshiping self. And Niza has now rejected the word of God for the time being. Again, I do not believe his story is over, but for the time being, he's rejected the word of God, and so biblically, we treat him accordingly. And that doesn't look like just slamming him online and being like, he's not a Christian anymore. What that means is what the father did with the prodigal who had the love enough to let him go when he said, screw you, dad, I want your money. I don't want you give me my inheritance now and then goes off to the distant land. And what did it take? It took him squandering the money, living in sin, finding himself in the mud and going, how many of my father tired servants have more than enough to eat? And I'm sitting here starving. And so he goes back to his father and notice what the father does. The father did not chase after him initially, but when he saw his son returning home, which I believe will happen for Niza, he ran after his son and he put a ring on his finger, which had the family emblem. You were once gone and out of the family. Now you're back in the family. He put a robe on him signifying royalty, and he put shoes on his feet because only slaves were barefoot. He restored his dignity. He restored his identity. And he waited. He didn't slander. He didn't go to all the neighbors and say, did you hear what happened to Niza? No, no, no, no. He just prayed, lord, bring home my son. And this is the father's heart. The father is the one who gives you your identity. You will not find your identity on your own. And when you do, you will find yourself in a mud pie. You will find yourself in a pit with pigs. That's the biblical framework for what happens when you try to do it on your own. And you get to the point where you realize, I had everything I ever needed with my father. The rich young ruler came to Jesus. Jesus said, sell everything you have and give it to the poor. He couldn't do it. And so Jesus let him go on his way. We need to do that with Niza lovingly. The most loving thing we can do is let Niza go to the distant land. I had a second conversation or a third conversation with Niza a couple days ago and I want to bring you into this because I think this is where it gets scary for me. NYSA posted a video. We can play the video right now with another LGBTQ influencer. I'll just play it right now.
- [20:39]
Niza Powers
Hi, my name is Maddie Mae Modal and I need your help. If you are a queer Christian or a Christian who believes and loves queer people, I need you to listen right now. This is my friend, Neeza Powers. Her presence online has been sharing her journey as a new Christian and because of that, her content has gained traction among conservative and fundamental Christians. When she became a Christian, she detransitioned because she felt like it was her only option. But now she is out and ready to be the woman that God created her to be. She is dealing with unfathomable hate and vitriol. Because of this choice, I have had the incredible opportunity to have personal conversations with Niza. She is beautiful, she is amazing and she loves Jesus. She is my friend and I am really proud of her and the decision that she's made. So this is why I'm asking for your help. If you are a Christian, a Christ like Christian who believes in loving and celebrating queer people, please go follow her. Please go show your support. Over my past year of creating content, I have been blessed with such an
- [21:40]
Ryan
so this is where it gets scary for me. The Bible is very clear that there are different standards for those who are in leadership. For those who preach the gospel, we need to divide the word of God correctly and we need to have a fear of the Lord over proclaiming his word in a righteous manner. Jesus says, if anyone causes one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better if he had a millstone tied around his neck and to be thrown into the depths of the sea. Those are really serious words and they apply to people who proclaim a message that is Antichrist, that is anti Bible, that confuses people. And if Niza is going to enter into the territory of being a thought leader for the LGBTQ affirming church, that is a scary place to be. That is scary for me as a friend who loves Niza deeply, deeply loves. Niza has become one of my best friends in the last year. And I'm begging you, buddy, take some time. Pray, talk to wise counsel. I know you think you've already done that. I know you think this is who you are, but you can be deceived by your own mind and your own feelings and your own thoughts. We should not follow our feelings or our thoughts. We need to Take them captive and make them obedient to Christ and his word. You are a man, Niza. You are my brother, buddy. And I'm begging you to come home. And you can know that you are always welcome here. You are always welcome back with your father. And I have two calls to action for both you, Neesa, and everyone listening. And it is number one. It is the kindness of the Lord that leads you to repentance, yes. But it is also the fear of the Lord that leads you to holiness. It says in Exodus 20, the fear of him makes it so you may not sin when you understand what it means to fear the Lord. That word is yairah. It means to stand in awe. It's like John, who stood before God in heaven, and Isaiah, who stood before God in heaven, and they said, woe is me. I'm a dead man. I'm a man of unclean lips, and I come from a people of unclean lips. And I can only imagine that at that point, Jesus picked up their face like he did the woman caught in adultery and had the same response of like that she did. Like, how. How do you still love me with all I've done? I'm so dirty in your sight of. I've messed up my. My thought life, my. My words, my actions. They're all unclean. And you are perfect, Lord, how can I stand in your presence? And then you recognize that that same God was whipped, beaten, tortured, and died on a cross for your sins. And you go, lord, I gave you my whole life because of that. How did you do that, Lord? I. I just will. I'll surrender everything to you. That's the call to the Christian, is to fear the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and it will lead you on the right path. My second encouragement is that we all need to have the heart of the Father when it comes to our brother Niza, not the older brother. We need to have the heart of the Father that sits and waits. This will be my last video talking about this, but it won't be my last call to Niza. We need to sit, and we need to pray, and we need to wait. And we need to anticipate our brother coming home. And when he does, we need to welcome him. We need to lavish him with love. Because guess what? There are a few voices out there that are awful right now that are saying things to Niza that are terrible that you wouldn't want said to you. You wouldn't want said to your children. And they're representing Christ Online. And it's not Christ. We need to let him go to the distant land, and we need to wait, and we need to welcome him when he comes back. And we need to stand firm on the word of God. We cannot punt on what God's word says. I will lose every friendship. I will lose every relationship, which I really hope I don't. Lose your friendship after this, Niza, if it means continuing to surrender to God's word. I will always submit to the word of God. I will always submit to God's laws, because I know that that's what actually gives me my life, life and life abundantly, life to the fullest. And the last thing I'll say is, you can't put a timeline on someone's change. You can't put a timeline on someone's change. You can't put a timeline on the distant land on how long it will take squandering the money, living in sin, finding yourself in the mud pies with the pigs. To get to the point where you say I should just go back to my father. You can't do that. And to do that is to play God. We can encourage, we can pray, we can love, we can move forward. And so I want to end this with just praying. Would you just pray with me, Lord? Would you have mercy? Would you reveal yourself further to Niza? Would you show him that you are better, that your ways are better, that life and life to the fullest comes from obedience? Obedience is your love language, Lord. And we surrender our entire lives to you. Would you convict Niza to get to that point where he lays it all on the altar, Lord, falls on his knees, says, jesus, take everything. We love you, Lord Jesus name, Amen.