Welcome to the first Blind Jesus Freak Podcast! We’re glad you decided to check us out!

In this podcast we discuss if blindness is an affliction from God or are we blind by design?

You may follow along in your Bibles or read from the show notes.

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God’s Plan
Jeremiah 29:11
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 a future.
Isaiah 25:1
O LORD, You are my God; I will exalt You, I will give thanks to Your name; For You have worked wonders, Plans formed long ago, with perfect faithfulness. ...
Psalm 40:5
You have done many miraculous things, O LORD my God. You
have made many wonderful plans for us. No one compares to you!
Jeremiah 1:12
Then the LORD said to me, “You have seen well, for I am
watching over my word to perform it.” God Made Us Blind]
Isaiah 42:19
Who is blind but my servant, and deaf like the messenger I
send? Who is blind like the one committed to me, blind like the servant
of the LORD?
Exodus 4:11
The LORD said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes
him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I,
the LORD?
Read various translations of this verse.
Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind
John 9:1-3
1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.
2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents,
that he was born blind?”
3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.

File Download (44:24 min / 31 MB)

While a more detailed version of my testimony is available on this site, this one keeps it short and to the point. I do tend to be wordy sometimes so, if you want the short version of what the Lord has done in my life, check this one out. Also featured in this talk is an example using my Guide Dog Hurley.
Enjoy and please remember to post comments and share on your social networks as the Lord leads.

The meeting is located at 415 N. Main Street, Kissimmee, FL 34744. every Friday night at 6:30 p.m. on the 2nd floor in rooms #206/#208.
May the Lord Bless You!

• First Christian Church Celebrate Recovery page :: This is the link to the Kissimmee meeting.
• National Celebrate Recovery Website :: A Christ-centered recovery programLives are changing! Over 700,000 people have gone through the Celebrate Recovery program in more than 17,000 churches worldwide. Celebrate Recovery is a program designed to help those struggling with hurts, hang-ups, and

File Download (15:12 min / 14 MB)

A Friend with Weed is a Friend Indeed?

We Christians love setting the world straight on what Jesus would or would not approve. I don’t think it hurts to remind others of the word of God, but sometimes I wonder if we’re doing this effectively or if it’s even our place to judge. If we are going to render condemnation, we should at least aim for the right target.

I’ve suffered from sleep deprivation for many years now. I’ve seen a handful of doctors and have tried just as many prescriptions. The medicine either never worked or worked in such a way as to leave me groggy, disconnected, and who wants to be addicted to that state of mind? So, I stumbled upon an old habit that, just like Goldilocks, hit the spot just right, or so I thought.

Accepting Jesus into my life chased away many demons more than 15 years ago. It was enough for me to let Him take the wheel and let Him do as He saw fit with my life. One evening, however, I was hanging out with an old friend, and in one of those casual innocent moments, he suggested we go out back and ssmoke a dooby, you know, just for old times’ sake. I’ve never been prone to peer pressure, but I didn’t make much of it and went along. That night I slept like a baby. Wow! What a great thing! It’s natural! And it’s not addictive? After a while I even felt that God was making it okay by providing me options to have it prescribed by a doctor. Wow what a blessing! NOT!!!

The devil’s trickery is like a pendulum. In one swing I felt good. I felt justified in my use of the herb to help me get some rest. Where’s the harm in using a little, quietly, before bedtime if I’m not harming anyone else? But when the ball swung the other way, I would feel like a loser. I felt weak and ineffective against this latest attack on my spiritual walk! In these moments of guilt, I knew better than to believe that evening had been a casual encounter. But, I continued. After a while I found myself justifying and even stretching the boundaries of truth by saying that it was prescribed so “it was okay if I used for something besides what I originally returned to it for.” After all “god understands. Right?”

Sin is a funny thing. It’s like the boiling a frog syndrome. Drop a frog into a hot pot of water, and it’ll instinctively hop out, but drop a frog into the same pot with warm water and steadily increase the heat, and the frog will be boiled to death because the warm water lulled it into a false sense of security. For me, what began as the medical response to a neurophysiological issue returned me back to a World where it became a constant crutch. Weed was not just the answer to sleepless nights. It became the key to relieving stress, blowing off steam, and in time it took its place as just one more habit at social functions. By the time I truly became conscious of what had happened, I was already in deeper than I’d ever anticipated.

Marijuana users, like so many other segments of society, are painted in distorted stereotypes. There are a lot of people who conjure up images of the slow talking idiot who just barely has a hang on reality. I’m not saying these people don’t exist, but I was an example of a high functioning pothead who went about the business of running a company, raising a family, and yes even teaching the Bible as if nothing was deteriorating my soul and keeping me spiritually dull. There are Christians who would scoff at my deeds. Am I somehow supposed to be commended for being able to lead a normal life despite my drug issues? Of course not. What I did was wrong. I’ve accepted full responsibility, but the same misconceptions that shape our views about the so-called victims of the evil are the same misconceptions that twist our perception of what the evil really is.

After being on both sides of the fence, I am saddened at our collective wars on social evils. In other words, sin. Take your pick. The war on drugs, the war on pornography and so many other culture wars being waged in today’s landscape are aiming at the wrong target. People who hate guns probably hate the reality that guns don’t kill people, people do, and do you know what? People are equally responsible for all the other afflictions that are tearing the moral fabric of our society. It’s not as if my vaporizer would jump out of my desk and flip into my palm of its own accord. The idea that I could lay blame at the feet of an inanimate object is so astonishing as to be ridiculous. I can just imagine myself on judgment day pointing to a joint and proclaiming my innocence because it, the joint, had made me smoke it.

To be fair, we live in a fickle society. After all, we live in a world where the girl down the street can get an abortion in the morning and more or less walk out a free woman, but the guy next-door might go to jail if he were caught with a $10 bag of pot. Where do we draw the line? We can’t, because morality cannot be legislated. If we want to do something as a Christian community to confront the problem, let’s see the problem for what it is.

The problem is our sin and our attitude about that sin. More specifically, it is our weak and unrenewed mind that surrenders to the battle between flesh and spirit. It’s a heart condition that compels us to justify worldly behavior with worldly explanations, and it is something from which the only escape is full deliverance by committing every aspect of our lives into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, I know there are people who will sneer at my “playing the Jesus card.” They will even say that I am trampling the Blood and putting Christ to open shame by admitting where I have fallen short publicly. Sorry you religious types but, isn’t that what HE died for? As I wrote this piece and shared with friends that I was going to publish my sin for the entire World to read on the Internet, you can’t believe how some of them even suggested that I should keep it quiet because after all I am a public figure and the fact that I am a sinner that fell in to temptation might close doors for me. Well, my Bible tells me that I am forgiven for all sins past present and future. It also says that I am saved by grace and not by my own works. By the way this is the case for any person that accepts Jesus Christ as savior. I am so far from perfect but instead of trying to be perfect I would rather try to be surrendered an submitted. I think it pleases God more for me to admit, that even though I have been walking with HIM for over 15 years, I still need HIM to guide my steps evry minute of every day. Jesus said it best: “without me you can do nothing.” Boy was He right! You see, I needed to learn the lesson that anything that separates me from God, yes is a sin, but more than that it keeps me from hearing his voice in my spirit, allowing HIM to love others through me, and understanding HIS purpose and direction in this new life that HE has given me. A life that, had I continued on the path I was on before Christ, would have ended up not only in physical death but spiritual death as well. Today I do things that I would have never ever dreamed of accomplishing before HE gave me this life. A life where HIS vision has directed my steps to lead our community of the blind out of digital and spiritual darkness. Where I can inspire others with my personal testimony of what HE has done for me. A life with a wonderful family and friends that love me and so much more! The fact that HE knew I was a sinner and forgave me anyway never ceases to amaze me, humble me, and make me feel so loved like never before. I can’t describe in words the emotions I have experienced in the last few weeks as I have been able to reevaluate HIS purpose in my life without the dullness of spirit and overall lethargy that the drugs created in me. You see dear reader, religion says “I will or won’t do this or that and maybe HE will love me!” relationship says “I won’t do this because HE loved me first and still does in spite of my falling away.” In my own humanity I can’t even begin to comprehend such a love. So, I understand when people that haven’t experienced the true love of Christ, personally, seek first to condemn me for my behavior and can’t comprehend of a love so vast!

So many people out there say that we Christians just use Jesus as a crutch to solve all our issues. Well, I’ll tell ya, I hope Christians become as hooked on the Word of God and as blindly addicted to their Bible as junkies are hooked to their drugs. Take it from a seasoned but no longer using pothead; Jesus is the one high that never let me down. I will gladly lean on His grace to help me get through my battles, because in my weakness, He is at His strongest.

Part of my reason for confessing the errors of my ways is to be an example to my fellow brothers and sisters who struggle with their own fleshly desires. The scriptures call upon us to confess our sins to one another as part of our repentance, but not as some kind of fulfilling of a ten-step process to get back in God’s good graces. In fact, I don’t believe I ever fell out of His grace. I don’t believe that God slapped HIS head in frustration and said to HIMSELF, “wow! I didn’t expect him to do that!” I certainly don’t believe that my actions were His will for me, but, I know that what the devil wanted to use to harm me, God will use both to bless others and me. We learn from our mistakes, but it is difficult to confess these mistakes in an environment that comes down hard on transgressors.

Is smoking weed a sin? I don’t think God meant for his plants to be rolled up or put in a pipe to be used in the recreational ways we have created to provide a brief escape from reality. That said, who are we to say what God allows for any of our brothers and sisters with terminal illnesses? I have determined for myself that drugs are an area where I need to be extra vigilant, but I would not look down my nose at my fellow man who is still struggling to discover what the vision is God has placed in their heart. The Bible says that the good work HE has begun in us HE will bring to completion in HIS time. So, you see folks it’s all about HIM. Is that hard for you to swallow? That you have so little to do with your own salvation? IF that bothers you then you might just be a little religious.

Is marijuana an evil tool of the enemy? If you buy into the concept of pharmakeia, and I do, that is a subject for an entirely different article. Remember people anything that denies God HIS place first in your life is an idle and is a tool of the devil. While I agree that drugs have a spiritual component, much more than farmakia is at work here. I mean, if we are going to blame pharmakeia and ancient religious rituals for all of our behaviors, you might suggest that the use of forks, spoons and bowls are evil because they were once used in spiritual rituals. Yet, if we follow that logic, we may as well lobby to change the names of the days and months and ban Christmas and Easter because of their dubious origins. We should exercise unconditional love on our fellow man, but let’s not misplace blame here. There is a problem with drugs not because the herbs are grown but rather because the herbs are grown and abused and sold to consumers eager to use them. Man has a problem and it’s called sin. I know that our current society doesn’t like to hear that every single person on the face of this Earth is a sinner. Even so called Christians would rather blame the devil for their inability to confess their behavior to one another and then submit it to the Lord so HE can deliver you from it.

I don’t know what will become of my sleep deprivation now that the so-called remedy has been removed. I trust God will direct me as to how to deal with my current obstacle, but I wanted to share this portion of my testimony to encourage others to have an honest dialogue with the Lord about what ever is challenging you in your walk. Fill in the blank. After all, the root of all sin is not a blunt. It’s us putting anything’s ability to fix a problem including our own rationalizations first instead of God in our lives. In short our issue is idolatry. Whatever the cause of your discomfort, take responsibility for it and take the first step toward making things right. I, and hopefully many others, will respect you no matter where you are and pray alongside you that you may have His spirit to guide you.

• Great article about Marijuana and pharmakeia ::
• Should Christians Smoke Medical Marijuana? :: From Christianity Today (June 2011):
• ::

Well, it’s official! My flight has been canceled but have no fear! The Lord has open a door for me and given me favor by providing an alternate flight that will take 27 instead of 22 hours but, will actually land me in Uganda at exactly the same time if I would have gone through New York. I will be flying through Seattle. Please pray for Jacksan and me as we fly starting at 8:20AM. I’ll keep everyone posted as we progress. Stay tuned here for audio maybe even video as we embark on a new adventure with the Lord!

I have been invited to the 16th Annual Prayer and Transformation Camp: AfriCamp’11. AfriCamp is a place where those who are thirsty can come and drink of the rivers of Living Water and seek the face of God. It is 10 days of seeking and teachings, and concludes with several days of prayer and fasting at Prayer Mountain for All Nations.

held January 12-21, 2011. The meetings will be held partly at Hotel Africana, Kampala, Uganda, situated in the heart of the city, and partly at the Prayer Mountain for All Nations, Seguku, Uganda (Entebbe Road).

I have never requested financial support of any kind for a mission or teaching trip however, this one is going to be kinda costly and the Lord has required me to step out in faith to raise funds. . I am believing the Lord to provide the approximately $3000 it will take for me to experience this encounter. Will you partner with me?

For 16 years, AfriCamp has gathered Christians from all nations who desire more than to just hear about God and revival; they are passionately committed to seek it and live it! It is a gathering of those passionate for God who thirst for Transforming Revival. The goal of AfriCamp’11 is to equip an army of people to carry revival wherever they go.

though personal revival is crucial, it is not enough to transform our nations. Revival comes when the manifestations of the powers of darkness are broken or weakened and the Holy Spirit is allowed to gain control over territories and people, bringing a greater manifestation of the Kingdom of God.

At AfriCamp’11, delegates will be exposed to the dynamics of revival and then be practically led to apply them so they become a reality in their lives, families, communities, churches, governments, businesses, media, and other spheres of influence in our lives.

No revival can come without the breaking or weakening of the powers of darkness over an area. Therefore, during the conference, the manifestations of the powers of darkness in our nations will be exposed so that we will be able to break them efficiently and irrevocably. We will see in parallel the life and mission of Christ, and how to allow the Holy Spirit to gain control over us and to be set apart for Him in order to become an Army of the Lord.

I invite you to stand with me and pray for the Lord’s guidance as I seek His purpose and support for this trip. While I will ask all of you to pray, I know that times are tight and it’s the holiday season. Please do not feel obligated but prayerfully consider how you can support the ministry the Lord has birthed in my family and me. As of this writing I have purchased my ticket and I am awaiting on raising funds for hotel and meals. God has continued to confirm, through various methods, that He is sending me and that this will be a life changing event for my family and me.

The email address for prayer requests or to send Paypal donations is mike@mikecalvo.com. You can read about Africamp at
http://www.worldtrumpet.com/missions/africamp-11-infokit.html and if the Lord leads you, join me on this life changing trip.

Blessings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and I look forward to your response.
—In His Service
Pastor Mike Calvo
Yesterday Today and Forever Ministries

The Mid Atlantic Regional ACB Convention 2010 was held in Baltimore November 5-7, 2010. I was honored to be chosen as this year’s keynote speaker for the banquet. I hope you like it. Please feel free to post comments and hey, if you want the rantings of a blind man at your event, drop me a line.
Enjoy!

File Download (52:03 min / 48 MB)

Be sure to check out the recording that is a part of this post. Feel free to share it with those you believe will be blessed by it!

“And Jesus answered and said, What would you have me do for you? The blind man said, Lord, that I might receive my sight. And Jesus said to him, Go your way; your faith has made you whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus.”
Mark|10:51-52

Have you ever wondered what happened to the people after Jesus cured them? Let me share my story. It is the story of a blind man who had his eyes opened—not the eyes that look out on the world, but the eyes that look inward at my soul.

I will remember that moment forever. It was a Thanksgiving day. I was sharing Thanksgiving with the woman and children who had once been my family. My wife and I were divorcing. I had hurt her and my children in so many different ways. We were at the home of our minister. He had invited the entire flock to join him in Thanksgiving and, though we came in separate cars, from separate houses, I was sharing Thanksgiving with my family for the first time in quite a while. It was during that celebration that I was touched. The Lord reached out and touched me and in a flash I saw my entire life up until that moment – all the hurt I had caused. The people I had led astray. The anger I had let control my life. The many times Jesus had reached out to me and I had turned my back. I saw it all and I felt the Lord’s message that this was the last time. I could open my eyes and see or forever be blind to God’s love.

Like the blind man in the gospel, I received my inner-sight and followed Jesus. I stopped living the life I had been living – a life in the fast lane, with drugs, money and power (mostly it was about power). I made peace with my family. My wife and I struggled to make it work and finally divorced, but not in anger and I built a bond with my children. I found a new purpose. A vision of how I could put the talents God gave me to use so that perhaps, just perhaps, I could help some kid like me, faced with the same choices I was faced with as a blind teenager, banging hard against an establishment that said, “Brother, if you want to be equal, you have to be three times as good.” I could do something so that teenager might be more inclined to make better choices than I made because he didn’t have to be three times as good. He just had to be as good as he or she could be.

When I called my vision, “SAMNet (formerly Freedombox),” I had that moment in mind. Because that was the moment I was suddenly free. God had set me free from a prison of my own making and He had given me the opportunity to set others free.

The vision has two parts. One part, System Access Mobile or SAToGo for short, is a barrier buster in the form of a screenreader that can be delivered to any Windows computer anywhere in the World via the World Wide Web absolutely free. When I was in high school I was at the mercy of other people: counselors, special education people, teachers and administrators to get me the things everyone else had. I mean simple things like books. Books in Braille had to be ordered a full year in advance. When those people failed (and they often failed), I failed. And their message was, “That’s just the way it is. You blind people have to work three times as hard because the world isn’t made for you. It’s made for people with eyes.” Serotek’s products remove those kind of barriers using the power of what I believe is the most important communication medium man has yet devised – the Worldwide Web. SAToGo makes it possible for any person, blind or low vision, , computer genius or new users, to access the PC on an equal basis. Where once there was a barrier of isolation – a high curb, now there is a “curb cut” with a gentle slope. SAToGo says, “We got you there just as easily as the next guy. Now you make good use of this freedom.”

The technology is not complex. Yet it took God’s touch to let me see the path and the Lord’s guidance to find the people; people like Matt Campbell our “beast in the basement” who set aside any need for immediate financial rewards and dedicated himself to making this vision a reality. That was a lesson too. Where before I carried the ball myself on every play, the Lord gave me the patience and the trust to hand off the ball to a great team of people that make up Serotek today who could do many things better than I could do them. It was humbling yet richly rewarding because SAMNet is not just mine, it is “ours.” And that was a new word for me. But it’s a word I’ve come to love.

The second part of the vision was to look at the why’s of discrimination. Oddly enough, some of my inspiration came from the dark side I lived all those years. There are just a few “cultures” where a blind man is treated as an equal. One is the music culture. Another is the drug culture. In both cultures you are just another supplier or another consumer. You either got it or you don’t. I could function as an equal in the drug culture because I could deliver as good or better than the next punk. I could function as an equal in the music culture because I could deliver an audio product that people wanted. Nobody had to make special allowances for me. And they weren’t likely to. If you were a drag on the party they’d just terminate the relationship, one way or another.

But what I saw there was the simple economic facts of life. If you represent a viable market, people will go out of their way to do business with you. You can see it in my home town of Miami with the Cuban culture. It was not so long ago Cubans were just immigrants, consigned to slums, given only the most menial jobs and largely ignored by politicians, merchants, and government bureaucrats. Today we people of Cuban descent are one of the most powerful political forces in the state. We shape elections. Businesses go out of their way to court our patronage. The barrio is a market.

The second part of my vision was to do for blind people and others with disabilities what the Americans with Disabilities Act can never do. Our award winning online community System Access mobile Network or SAMNet for short (formerly the Freedombox Network) is about helping this community to become a powerful economic force by making them “accessible.” Today, if you want to sell something to blind people you are hard pressed to find a way to reach enough of them to support a business. But SAMNet brings people together as a community where merchants can reach them and sell them goods and services. And interestingly enough, as we Cubans found out here in Miami, when businesses see you as a viable market they start to treat you with respect. Suddenly you don’t have to work three times as hard to be equal. You start out equal. Then, when you work three times as hard, well perhaps you reap the extra rewards of that extra work.

For me the rewards are already far greater than I could have hoped. They aren’t huge financial rewards. Those may come someday or they may not. It doesn’t matter that much. But because the Lord saw fit to lift away the scales from my inner eyes and let me see the true depths of my soul, I have the reward of inner peace. I have come to understand forgiveness – a forgiveness so large that Jesus could forgive not just me and my puny arrogance, but those who killed Him. How could I hold anger in my heart against the people who had acted against me, many out of ignorance rather than malice, when Jesus could forgive his assassins? And when you let go of anger and forgive, you discover peace.

I have the reward of a new wife and loving family. I have the sure knowledge that the work I am doing is good work. It is work in service of the Lord that will hopefully lead others to the lord.

We blind folks appear any number of times in the Gospels and in the Old Testament as well. One of my favorites is Matthew 15, verse 14.

“And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”

My father, bless him, used to always believe that others led me into evil. But the truth is, I was the leader. As it says in Matthew, I was the “physically” blind leading the “morally” blind and I was truly leading those who followed me not just into a ditch but into the abyss. I like to think that now, with the vision God has given me, I am still leading. But now I am leading people to a place in the light. A place where they can be free to make their own choices. Where they won’t have to work three times as hard to hear the Lord’s message and hopefully find the same gift of inner sight he given me.

And there is this message from the Gospel of John.
“And as he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?
Jesus answered, Neither did this man sin, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be revealed in him.”
John|9:1 -3
I sometimes think blindness, itself is a mission – a gift from God, not a curse. Isn’t that a strange thought? But in my entire life I have never cursed my blindness. Blindness has never made me feel less than equal. Other people have tried hard to make me feel less than equal and there was a time in my life when I raged against them for their ignorance. But the blindness is simply there. It is what I am. And it could be that it frees me from visual distractions and allows me to better focus on the work God has for me. I hope that people will not pray for me to see as they do, but rather pray for me to see as God wants me to see, in the spirit. Pray that the works of God might be revealed in me not by suddenly giving me eyes that work, but by helping me understand, live, and share the vision. The Serotek vision that both gives people access and makes them accessible.

• Serotek Corporation :: My company that provides adaptive technologies for the blind and visually impaired
• SA To Go :: Powerful Fre online screenreader! Get full access to Microsoft Windows 7, Vista and XP operating systems, and use all your favorite Windows applications for productivity, entertainment, and much more.
• System Access Mobile Network :: includes audio tracks of described movies, thousands of Internet radio stations, personalized news, podcasts, books, music, voice chat, blogging, your own web site, forums, email,Use with System Access or any other screen reader you prefer.
• The SeroTalk Blog and Podcast :: A podcast and interactive blog on the accessible digital lifestyle, produced by Serotek, the Accessibility Anywhere people
• My Twitter Page :: Follow me on Twitter!

File Download (36:54 min / 17 MB)

Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired are four situations in our lives where we need to be very aware that the enemy is out to use this area against us.

• H.A.L.T. :: These are the Scripture notes for this teaching. To print them simply use the print feature in your browser.

File Download (46:39 min / 21 MB)

Well as I continue on my crazy summer of travel for work, here is a Bible study we just did on the storm. This is perfect as it is thundering outside here in Orlando Florida where I live. Some really cool Revelation in this one. I hope it’s a blessing to you.

File Download (55:07 min / 25 MB)

• The Believer’s Covenant, Identity, and Authority in Christ :: These are the Scripture notes for this teaching. To print them simply use the print feature in your browser.

File Download (49:11 min / 23 MB)