Welcome to the Lion Within Us, a podcast serving Christian men who are hungry to be the leaders God intends you to be. I'm your host, Chris Granger. Let's jump in. All right, fellas. Spiritual kickoff time. Let's go. This is probably my favorite time of the week, guys. I'm not even gonna lie. So the scripture that we're gonna look at this today, okay, is 1 Kings 19, two verses, 11 and 12, and just be prepared a little bit longer, but you can't break these verses up, okay? It says, So he said, Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord. And behold, the Lord was passing by, and a great and powerful wind was tearing through the mountains and breaking the rocks into pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And then after the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in an earthquake, and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire, a sound of a gentle blowing. That ver that scripture right there, fellas. I'm telling you what, it just gives me goosebumps. Hopefully you're going to enjoy this. We're going to see how we can simplify and apply this to our life and take this scripture to really walk it out, okay? And to understand it better. And again, spiritual kickoff episodes, guys, we do these Monday through Friday in our community. It's just a fun, cool way that we try to engage and encourage other guys. So if you're interested in seeing this content, we don't put it anywhere else. It's not on YouTube or podcast. No, no, no. It's just live stuff we do. We don't edit it. If I screw up saying stuff, I just screw up with it. We just keep going. But it's all found at the lionwithin.us daily spiritual kickoff. Click on that link, get started today. And the cool part is we do it for free, guys. That's what it's all about. Okay. So uh before we get into this scripture, we need to first know where is the scripture because first kings can be a little bit hard to find, okay? So it's in your old testament, so it's towards the beginning of your of your Bible. Uh, get if you find first and second Samuel, you're getting close, okay? So after 2 Samuel, you'll get to 1 Kings. Now, if you get to 2 Kings, just back up a little bit, okay? So it's really all you got going on there. And we see right here, uh, ultimately, we're gonna be talking about how we can hear God's whisper and this noisy world we live in, fellas. And can I get an amen that this world is full, full, full of distraction and noise and volume, and the last thing the evil one wants us to do is to just sit and be still. And this is a challenge, it's something we have to deal with because as guys, let's just be real. It can be hard to hear from God, okay? Most of us would love for him just to speak crashing to us like the you know, uh the wind or the earthquake or the fire, right? Just just screaming through a through a uh uh microphone at us, just will you please listen? But within this passage right here, what we see is Elijah. So this is this is by the way, this is talking about Elijah. Uh Elijah discovers the truth. Okay, God's presence didn't come to him in the chaos, but in the whisper. Think about that for a second. I mean, the the the chaos was just that, it was chaotic. But when things got quiet, that's when he heard them. And that's a tough, tough, tough challenge for us because stillness, let's just be real, feels um unnatural. Okay, it feels awkward. Just just to just try this, like try seeing how long you can be silent in a conversation with uh with one of your kids or coworker. It's just it's this awkward feeling, right? Because culture, the world's gonna tell us what more, more, more hustle, noise, activity, like task, like how busy is your calendar? Because if you tell me how busy you are on your calendar, that's gonna tell me if you're a driven person or if you're lazy, right? And that's wrong. Because here's the real reality, fellas. You can't hear a whisper at a concert, right? Right, you can't do it. I just went to a concert with my daughter and my wife, right? It was extremely loud, like too loud. Couldn't hear anything. And here's the same thing we can't catch God's gentle voice if our life is full of noise and distractions. It's never gonna happen. And here's the crazy part if you start thinking about this, this is strategic from the evil one. The evil one knows this, right? He doesn't want to destroy, he's not trying right here to destroy your faith outright. He all he wants to do is just drown out the voice of God. Because if he can drown out the voice of God, guess what? You're gonna do what he does, what he wants you to do, right? And here's how he drowns it out, fellas, doom scrolling. How many of you guys do that? Be real, it happens. Because that when you do that doom scrolling, you're just cluttering your mind with noise. Or maybe, maybe you're not a doom scroller. Chris, I don't do that. All right, bro, tell me about your calendar. Is your calendar so packed from sun up to bedtime that you're sprinting, you're running, you're hustling, you're bustling, and you have no margin for stillness? Because both examples, the end result's the same. Okay. You missed the opportunity to hear God whispering to you. I'm just telling you, it happens. And God is powerful enough to shout if he wanted to. So yeah, don't put my guy in the box. No, he is shout, powerful enough to shout if he wants you to, but most often he doesn't. Because he wants us to step away from noise, to quiet quiet our hearts, and to listen for that little gentle breeze from him. Because that takes intentionality on our behalf. I'm choosing to remove myself from this noise to be with him. And his whisper carries more power than any storm or any stinking um notification you're gonna get today, I promise you. Because it's in the whisper where we find direction, it's in the whisper where we find correction, and it's in the whisper where we find comfort. I'm telling you, fellas, you have to do it. You have to be super intentional here, and you have to turn down the noise. You got to clear out some space on your calendar. Like time block it. Seriously, if you need to, just put a time block on your calendar. It's a daily recurring time block, whatever that means, to be to be still. Okay. Put the device away. Literally put it out of your sight in another room if you have to. Step away from that constant hum of distraction and make the choice to be still. And it's not making the choice to like uh not do something else or you're gonna miss out on something. No, what you're missing out on is the opportunity to be with God. His whisper is waiting. And through the whisper, fellas, is where we find the clarity, where we find strength, where where we remember that we're not alone. Because the world is always going to demand your attention. But what does God want? He wants your heart. Don't miss that. Please don't miss that. He's ready to talk to you, he's ready to whisper to you right now. And maybe you're you're listening, and you've been trying to talk to God, you've been trying to understand what this relationship with God looks like for a long time. And and maybe that relationship just doesn't exist right now. And for for you, I just want to say I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you've been going through this season. But the reality is to hear God, we need to have Him as our Lord and Savior of our life. So that means we need to make some decisions as a as a man so far as moving forward and putting God first in our life. And a lot of that starts, well, it all comes down to the personal relationship we have with Jesus as our Lord and Savior, but it starts at the very beginning with understanding who we are and how we are made in his image. So if you go back to your Bible and fellas and you open this thing up, you know, we're in 1 Kings, right? So back up to Genesis, and you'll see in the beginning, right? And all the creation order and how God spoke all these different things into existence. Just speak it, speak it, speak it, speak it, speak it, and these things just happen. These things he he is the creator. And what's interesting is that when it came to man, he didn't chose to speak. He instead chose to form him with his hands. So he says he formed Adam with the dust of the ground. Then he breathed the breath with a rule of life into Adam's nostrils, and then Adam set up and was face to face with his creator. And I just think about how cool that is because think about the personal uh level of touch that it goes on right there, right? Like he could have just spoken, Adam could have just popped up like a genie in a movie, right? But that's not what he chose to do. No, God chose to take that time to form him. And he did the same with you. The Bible tells us we are knit together in our mother's womb. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. So he built you, he created you just the way that he wanted. His perfect design. And when you look in the mirror, you see some you may see some flawed, jacked up stuff, but that is not what God sees. God sees you the way he made you. Fearfully and wonderfully, perfect. And when he did that with Adam, things were great. Just imagine Adam walking around the garden with God. Are you kidding me? How awesome that was? Then he made Eve, so we had the woman there with him as well. And things were going wonderful for like a page and a half in my Bible. And then it went a little bit south, not a little bit south, a whole lot south. Because sin entered the world. Right? The forbidden fruit was eaten. Next thing you know, we were separated from God. So Adam and Eve were put out of the garden, and ever since that moment, that's where we've been. You have a holy and righteous God, and you have us as sinners. And a sin is anything that separates us from God, fellas. So don't let anybody trip you up on that stuff, okay? So we have those sinners, holy and righteous God. There's this huge gap between us. And then what do we do? We try to close the gap on our own. I just need to be coached up, bro. Like just tell me what I need to do to get there, and I'm gonna I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna figure it out, right? So what do you got to do to get there? Well, here's what lots of guys try to do: be a good person, be have good morals, have good ethics, help, you know, uh give money to charities, uh, go to church and volunteer and serve and all these things, right? And you do all these things because you're trying to earn a good favor or a good standing with God. And here's the deal um, like there's nothing that you can do that's good enough because you there there's one penalty for for sin, and that is death. That's it. So there's nothing we can do to work it to work it on our own to a right standing with God. That's cause work that is called works-based righteousness, and it's just a false dichotomy that's out there, fellas. It doesn't exist. So there's nothing we can do for ourselves to to overcome this, right? We need somebody to do for us what we can't do for ourselves. We need a savior, okay? And again, the whole good thing um trips up a lot of guys because lots of times we compare ourselves to uh our neighbors or people in prison or in a community, whatever it may be, and we're feeling pretty good about that. The problem is that we just we just have the wrong standard, right? The standard that we should be comparing ourselves to is God. When we do that, we all fall short of his glory. Let's just be honest. So, again, we can't coach ourselves up. We need someone to do for us what we can't do for ourselves. We need a savior. That's where Jesus comes into play. Okay, so Jesus literally left heaven on a rescue mission for us, was born of the Virgin Mary, right? Performed all the miracles, all the teachings, did all the signs, had everything that that pointed toward the Messiah, Jesus fulfilled them all. All the prophecies. That's it, right? So Jesus, he lived this perfect life, absolutely perfect life. No one else has, no one else ever will. We all gonna fall short. You guys, every day we fall short, not Jesus. He lived a perfect life, okay. And here's the crazy part he gave himself up for us. I mean, he just gave himself up willingly, went to the cross to be crucified, nails through the wrist, through the feet, a crown of thorns, hung on a cross, and basically was just tortured beyond anything we can imagine, our Savior hanging on a cross. And it got to the point where his his body gave up. He died, he didn't pass out, he didn't go to sleep, he didn't faint. Jesus died on the cross. And if you're standing there at the cross that day he died, and you're like, wait a minute now, you're supposed to be my savior. Like, what what is this? Like, like I'm I'm not understanding. This is where most people were in that moment. This is where most of them were, and they laid took his body down, they laid him in a tomb. And here's the thing remember I said the penalty of sin is death? Well, something had to die, and Jesus chose to be that sacrifice for us. But here's the second thing death couldn't hold him. Death couldn't hold him. So, yeah, they laid him in a tomb because he was dead, but three days later, he rose. And that right there, fellas, the resurrection of Christ is what we put our hope in, we put our trust in. We believe it. Why do we believe it? Because there were so many witnesses, there were so many testimonies, and there were so many people who were killed because of their faith in Christ, because they were eyewitnesses, and they would not vary at all from what they saw. And I don't know about you, but I'm not gonna die for a lie. Ain't gonna do it. But for the truth, that's a different story. I'm willing to stand for the truth. This is what they did. This is how we can know it to be true, right? The resurrection is true. And then Jesus, after he was resurrected, he told us, Look, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Like he is it. There is no name under heaven that has been given among men, guys, by which we must be saved. It is Jesus and Jesus alone. Then he ascended to heaven, and that's where he's at, right hand in the Father, right now, fellas. So that it all comes down to this. Is Jesus your personal Lord and Savior? And if you can't answer that with a resounding yes, then we need to take care of that today. And I'm telling you, don't put it off. Don't put it off because that's that's what the evil one wants. The evil one wants you to say, Don't listen to that dude on that podcast. You got more important stuff. Matter of fact, why don't you just listen to the next podcast now? You've heard enough of this guy. And just to stay distracted, right? He wants you to just fill yourself with more noise. Now, what I'm encouraging you to do is stop filling yourself with noise. And if God is tugging on your heart right now, if you hear that small whisper that Elijah heard, don't ignore it anymore. Today could be the day that you set your heart right with God and you get to experience true peace that only comes through relationship with Christ. But you have to do something. We have to take action and accountability as men. We have to admit that we're sinners, fellas. We have to just fully embrace that, right? And just that recognition of the guy I'm looking back in the mirror, that guy's a sinner. Then you have to believe that Jesus is the Messiah. He is it. He's not some fancy prophet or just a nice guy who did some cool stuff. No, Jesus is God. Then you have to confess him as Lord and Savior of your life. So that means actually taking action to confess Jesus as your Lord and Savior. So if you're ready to do that and you've never done that before, I'm gonna pray with you right now. I'm willing to pray with you right now to accept Christ as your Savior. You may like, Chris, man, I'm driving or I'm on the treadmill or I'm in the gender. There's no way I can do this right now. Bro, you're putting God in a box again. You're putting him in a box. Wherever you are, if God is tugging on your heart, answer the call right now. So let's just pray, Lord, just thank you so much for today, just for this opportunity to share the gospel with others and for that one listener right now, Father, who didn't have a relationship with you, but now they have heard the gospel and they're hearing it clearer than ever. Not because I'm an eloquent speaker, but because obviously the Holy Spirit is trying to move in their life. So I pray that they stop being disobedient to that call and right now confess you as Lord and Savior. And when they do, they feel the peace that passes over understanding, that the Holy Spirit comes, that you just put some people in their life as well, felt Father, that's going to guide and direct and just counsel them on this new discipleship journey. And I just pray peace over them right now, God. It's in your name we pray. Amen. So look, if you just accepted Christ, touch down, let's go. Okay. I want to hear from you because I want to hook you up with some free resources to help you with your journey. We got some scriptures that can help you learn and Bible study resources and just some things like that. Also, just want to find out if you're in a church. And if you're if you're not in a church, just give you some things to encourage you, hopefully, to look for uh to find that good church that you that can help you get planted and grow. So again, Chris at thelionwithin.us is how you can connect with me. Should me an email. I'd love to hear from you. Uh, and then again, if you want to jump on a call or just share testimony or just be encouraged, it would be an honor. Okay. So, guys, thank you for listening, for hanging out. Uh, the question of the week this week is again, what noise in your life most drowned at most drowns out God's whisper? We all got the noise. So we're figuring out what it is, that identification is key, so that we can do course correction, right? That's what it's all about. Okay. So hopefully you'll share this stuff out with others, guys. That's how we grow the lion. I mean, just one guy shares it with another guy. That's it. Uh, thelionwithin.us is where you can find all our resources from our daily spiritual kickoff to our community to our leadership mastermind. That's the primary ways. Please consider getting a copy of our book. Okay, you can find that at the lionwithin.us slash book. Love for you to get a copy of that. And then if you're on the Bible app, highly encourage you to open the Bible app up and just search for The Lion Within us. Find our page there. We have tons and tons and tons of studies on the Bible app. I write them on a consistent basis just because uh I don't know. I feel uh encouraged and a nudge from God to keep get delivering these, and guys seem to keep downloading them, and uh that's enough for me. That's enough affirmation for me to just keep doing it. So hopefully you enjoy those, fellas. So, again, all those resources I mentioned can be found at thelionwithin.us, okay. So hopefully you'll check that out there. All right. Well, guys, thank you so much. I hope you have a wonderful day. Uh and and uh and looking forward to seeing here on our next episode. You're gonna love the guests. Love, love, I'm telling you, it's just a fun conversation, and uh, hopefully you can get a lot of of encouragement from it, okay? All right, fellas, give us a rating and review if you don't mind. That would be super helpful. And other than that, have a good one, get after it, stay strong, and keep unleashing the lion within. If you're like me, you don't need another book just sitting around collecting dust. What I enjoy is something to help guide me when my feet hit the ground in the mornings. And that is why we put together Unleashing the Lion Within. It has honest stories, scripture you can apply, and simple steps to help you lead at home, at work, and everywhere in between. So if you've been feeling stuck or scattered lately, you may find this resource encouraging. Read a few pages, take one step and watch what God does with your obedience. Hey, and if reading's tough for you right now, no problem. The book is also available in Audible version so you can listen on the go. So if this sounds interesting, check out thelion within.us slash book or search for unleashing the lion within directly on Amazon. So there's no pressure here, just a resource that many guys are finding helpful. So grab the format that fits and take your next step.