Ted DiBiase - 'God's Game Plan'

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TED DIBIASE: The Million Dollar Ministry

I’m not sure why I was so surprised to discover so many wrestlers in ministry.  After all, you don’t have to go very far into the first book of the Bible, Genesis 32:24, to find mention of the first biblical wrestling match, pitting Jacob against an angel.

I first spoke to Ted DiBiase, professional wrestling’s “Million Dollar Man,” in 2001 after my friend Jim Leickly told me about Ted’s ministry.  Ted truly loves sharing his testimony and it’s one that a lot of people can relate to because, as he’ll tell you, like most of us he’s far from perfect.

Ted was born January 18, 1954 in Miami, to Helen and Ted Wills.  Ted Wills was Helen Nevins’ second husband.  Her first was Al Galento, a professional wrestler she married in 1943 when she was 16.  That marriage was short lived, ending within a year.  Her marriage (IN WHAT YEAR?) to Wills, a singer, didn’t last long either.  They divorced soon after Ted’s birth.

By 1956, little Ted and Helen were living in the little town of Willcox, Arizona, with Helen’s mom, Verda Marie Nevins, who kept an eye on Ted while Helen went out on the road to earn a living.  At first Helen was a dancer, but then she found a niche as a lady professional wrestler.  It was during her wrestling career that she met, fell in love with and married another wrestler, “Iron” Mike DiBiase, who adopted Ted and became his role model.

Although the family moved frequently during Ted’s youth, the church played a major role in his life no matter where the family was living.  Ted was raised as a Catholic and early on entertained thoughts of becoming a priest.

But his dreams of priesthood were eventually eclipsed by his dreams of becoming a professional athlete.  At first, he wanted to play big-time college football and then go onto the NFL.  He received a scholarship to play for West Texas State University.    His NFL dreams never materialized.  Injuries suffered in football, a marriage in 1973 to Jaynet Foreman and his first forrays into professional wrestling began leading him in a different direction. 

In 1977, his first son, Michael was born.  By then, Ted’s wrestling scheduled prevented him from spending much time with Jaynet and Michael.  By 1978, Ted’s reputation as a wrestler was growing and he was given an opportunity by the National Wrestling Alliance for a title match in St. Louis against long-time family friend and NWA heavyweight champion, Harley Race.  The match ended in a draw, with Harley Race retaining his belt.  But Ted had caught the attention of Vince McMahon, Sr. who was about to launch his World Wrestling Federation (WWF) into the big time.

As Ted’s wrestling career began to come together, his marriage was falling apart.  In early 1980, he and Jaynet split up.

Early the next year, a mutual friend introduced him to Melanie Kennedy.  Ted was in love at first sight and on December 31, 1981, he and Melanie were married.

Ted’s wrestling career continued to arc throughout the 1980s and he returned to the WWF as its popularity exploded  In 1987, Ted took on the ring personna, “The Million Dollar Man,” and became one of the WWF’s most popular villians.

But worldwide fame brought with it a worldly way of life that was far from Ted’s altar-boy upbringing.  He fell victim to the temptations that come with fame, money and constant travel.  It came to a climax in the spring of 1992 when he was in Chicago.  During a phone call home to Melanie, she confronted him about his drug and alcohol abuse and about his infidelity. 

The phone call devastated and scared him.  He was afraid he was about to lose his life with Melanie and their two sons.  Knowing that he had to make big and immediate changes in his life in order to keep his family together, he phoned an old friend, Pastor Hal Santos.  As Ted’s wrestling career had grown, he had often used Hal as a spiritual sounding board. 

Ted explained what had happened.  Without hesitation, Hal said he would fly from St. Louis, where he lived,  to Chicago to help.  Once in Chicago, he listened to Ted’s story and then contacted Melanie.  Then he arranged a reconciliation meeting between the couple, which included a trip to the Ascension Convention, a youth revival being held just outside Chicago.  It was during this event that Ted answered the invitation to come up and accept Jesus Christ.

Ted continued to wrestle, manage and serve as a commentator for WWF, but also began sharing his testimony wherever he went.  In 1996, he left WWF for World Championship Wrestling, and he stayed with WCW until 1999.  That was the year that he founded his Heart of David Ministry and became a full-time evangelist.

Today, Ted and Melanie remain happily married.  They live near Jackson, Mississippi with their sons, Ted Jr. and Brett, both of whom have gone into the family business of professional wrestling.  Ted has also reunited with his son Michael, from his marriage to Jaynet.

Jackson is also the homebase of Heart of David Ministry, which takes Ted to churches, schools, prisons and other venues all over the United States, inspiring more men to take active roles of leadership in the church.  And, as “The Million Dollar Man,” he still makes an occasional appearance at wrestling events.

In this excerpt, Ted talks about his Heart of David Ministry and the advice he gives others who think they may be called by God.

HEART OF DAVID MINISTRY

Heart of David Ministry was born in 1999.  I probably could have just called it Ted DiBiase Ministries, because I am Heart of David.  It’s evangelism.  It’s my ministry.  It’s me going and speaking wherever God leads me.  Whether it’s a church or a prison or a halfway house or a schoolyard or a street corner.  I go and proclaim the Gospel. 

Why I chose the name Heart of David was in studying the Bible, I remember when I was in this infancy in terms of my relationship with God and my knowledge of the Bible, I was led to the 40^th Psalm.  It’s basically David’s cry for help after he had sinned with Bathsheba and had been confronted by God.  I can remember going and reading it, even before I knew a lot of the psalms were written by David.  I would read that psalm every day.  It was my comfort.  When I realized it was written by David and I started studying about him, I found that his major sin, the flaw that caused his fall was the same as mine.  It was adultery.  Again, in studying the word and our relationship with God, when a man understands that he’s flawed from the moment that he starts breathing, that his body is selfish, that it’s our instinct to take care of number one first, all the time, that’s the battle.  We don’t need the devil’s help.  I tell people, “The devil made you do it?  The devil didn’t make you do squat!”  Here’s when the devil had influence.  When we get to a place in our lives where we can’t do this alone.  When we get to a place where we keep trying to do things our way and our way keeps bringing us to the same dead end.  There’s a proverb that says, “As a dog returns to its vomit, so the fool to his folly.”  People will continue to go back to what they were doing and the only thing that’s going to fill the void is Jesus Christ.  I’ve seen it time and time and time again.  Now, when you finally cry out to God and say, “Okay Lord, I realize that I can’t do this on my own.”  That’s when you’ll realize that’s why God sent Jesus.  Because he knew that none of us could to this on our own!

He gave us the Ten Commandments to show us that we couldn’t live up to them in our humanity.  When you say, “Lord Jesus, come into my life.  I accept the Father’s gift.  I accept your death on the cross and your sacrifice as the atonement for my sins.  Lord, you come into my life and you begin to lead my life and I’m going to follow you.  You come on board my ship and take the helm.  You take the ship where you want it to go and I’ll follow you.”  When you make that decision, when you realize that you can’t do it without Jesus, now that’s when you’ve got the devil’s attention.  That’s when he’s going to come in and that’s when he’s going to tempt you.  And he’s going to tempt you where you’re the weakest, where you’re the most vulnerable because he’s the greatest liar of all time.

That’s what I tell people in my testimony.  That is exactly what happened to me.  I had made a walk down the aisle in the church that I attended, Morrison Heights Baptist Church.  It was the second time I’d walked down the aisle and said the Sinner’s Prayer, asking God to forgive me and I got baptized again.  The pastor told me, get into the Word, read the Bible daily, get a daily devotional.  And get into a men’s fellowship – you need accountability.  Get to church as often as you can.  All that says one thing.  Dive into this relationship with Jesus!  I say this over and over and over that the difference between every other world religion and genuine Christianity, is that genuine Christianity is not a religion.  It’s a relationship with Jesus Christ.  If you don’t have that relationship, if you’re not speaking to him on a daily basis, if you’re not in the Word as often as you can be, if there’s no conviction in your life, then you don’t have it.  I’ve held the Bible out in front of churches and said that if the only time you crack this book is on Sunday, then Jesus Christ isn’t Lord of your life.  You can’t have a relationship with somebody you only speak to five minutes a week or two minutes a day.  Jesus said, “Clothe the naked.  Feed the hungry.  Take care of the widows and orphans.  Visit the prisoners in prison.  When you do this for the least of my brethren, you do this for me.” 

ADVICE FOR OTHERS

I say this from the pulpit all the time that we’re living in a day and a time when I see Christianity floundering.  I see religion floundering in the world.  When you read the Bible, there’s always a remnant.  Some people say, “How does God speak to you?”  A lot of people go to church on Sunday.  They show up and they put in their hour.  Some of them for the most part try to live a pretty good life.  Some think they’ve got their ticket punched and they’re in.  Well, I’ve got news for them.  Jesus, in Matthew 7:21 said, “Just because you say to me ‘Lord, Lord’ doesn’t mean you’ll enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father in Heaven.  Many will come in that day” – and he’s speaking of Judgement Day – “many will come in that day to me, ‘Lord, did we not prophesy your name and in your name drive out many demons and do many miracles?’  And then I will tell them plainly, ‘Depart from me for I never knew you.’”  So I ask them, “Who was he talking to?”  He’s talking to people who’ve done miracles in his name, driven out demons.  I mean, big miracles!  And they’ve done them in the name of Jesus.  And he’s going to say, “I never knew you”?  Who’s he talking to?  Well, he’s certainly not talking to a murderer or a rapist or a drug dealer.  I said, “People, he’s talking to people who go to church every week.  He’s talking to people who just punch the ticket.  Because what God looks intently into is the heart of man.” 

There are three things I tell them they have to have.  Number one is an understanding that if you’re really a Christian, then you have to have a relationship with Jesus.  They say, “What does that require?”  I say, “What does that require with anybody?  You have to spend time with him.  Think about your closest friends.  Think about the person you call at two in the morning when you break down on the side of the road and you’ve got one bar left on your cell phone?  Think about who you’re going to call.”  Well, I’m going to call that one person who no matter what the situation, I know they’re coming.  They’re not going to let me down, they’re not going to make an excuse because of the intimacy of the relationship.  The greatest relationship of a Christian’s life is not supposed to be with their wife or with their kids.  It’s with Jesus.  It comes absolutely first.  And when it does, everything else will fall into place.  I have lived a life that proves that.

And if you ask me, “How do you hear God speak to you?”  Well, if  you’re in that relationship with Jesus, then he’s got to be able to speak to you daily.  “Well, how do you do that?”  You read the Bible, the Old and the New Testaments.  And you read it daily.  Now, that doesn’t mean you have to read 25 chapters a day.  I do a daily devotional.  Sometimes I read one verse and I meditate on that verse.  Sometimes it’s just a random verse.  You can go online and there’s different Bible-reading plans, if you will. But reading the Bible educates you to the history.

GOD’S GAME PLAN

We live in the flesh and the flesh is weak and the flesh is self-serving and self-centered.

The first thing people hear from me is called “Following God’s Game Plan.”  God has a plan for everybody’s life.  Ephesians 2:8-10 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith.  This not of yourself.  It is the gift of God.  Not by works so that no man can boast.  For you are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for you to do.”  That Scripture says several things.  Number one it says you can’t earn salvation.  You can’t work hard enough.  You can’t light enough candles and go to enough masses and say enough Hail Marys to earn Heaven.  You can’t earn it.  If you could earn it, Jesus wouldn’t have had to come.  But because it’s impossible for us to earn it, we needed a way and God provided a way through Jesus.  We’re saved by God’s grace, by his mercy through the sacrifice of his son.  When we accept the sacrifice of Jesus as our atonement, what we’re saying is Lord, you gave all of yourself for me.  Now I am your bondservant.  I’m going to do whatever you want me to do.  I’m going to try to transform my life.  Dr. Ed Cole said this, “Genuine manhood is synonymous with Christ’s likeness.”  And he’s right.  The more Christ-like your character is, the more of a man you are.  And that’s what you try to attain.

Another Scripture says, “God’s gifts and his calling are irrevocable.”  I tell men this all the time, “We’re not unique.  We’re all the same and we’re all equal in the eyes of God. But we are all uniquely called.  We all have unique gifts and we all have unique talents and what God wants of us is to take whatever gift he’s given us and whatever sphere of influence he’s given us and be number one.  That’s okay!  Be ambitious.  Some people will tell you it’s not important to live a significant life.  That it’s prideful.  That ain’t it.  God wants you to live a significant life.  The difference is, and this is why it took so long for Ted to find out, it’s too the glory of God.  Not to the glory of self.  Seek first the kingdom and its righteousness and then everything will else will be added to you.