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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, guys, spiritual kickoff time. Let's get right into it, okay? So look, scripture the week this week is in the book of 2 Corinthians, the fifth chapter, and we're looking at verses 14 and 15. For the love of Christ controls us. Having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died. And he died for all, so that those who live would no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose on their behalf. So now we're going to see how we can take these two verses here, guys, unpack them, simplify, and apply them to our life. That's what it's all about. And that's what the spiritual kickoff episodes do. And again, as a reminder, we do this Monday through Friday at the LionWithin.us. We do it for free. It's a fun way that I try to just encourage guys each and every day. We don't post the stuff anywhere else. It stays right there within that platform. And then guess what? It's free and it opens up your prayer request board as well. So if you listen to the lion, if you if you're a longtime listener or just you're casual and you want to just see a little bit more under the hood of what we're doing, head over there to thelionwithin.us and start your daily spiritual kickoff right now. It doesn't cost you anything. It's a great way to engage with us. It would be an honor, okay? All right. So now let's get into this. We got to understand, first of all, where is 2 Corinthians? We're not going to skip by anything. It's New Testament. It's not Old Testament. Okay. We didn't say Chronicles. We said Corinthians. Okay. So we need to understand this where it is. Well, it's after your first Corinthians, of course. There's just kind of a joke there. It's before Galatians, but you're going to find it towards the front of your New Testament, okay? After your gospel. Get by your gospels. Get past Acts and Romans, then you'll get you'll get right there. Okay. So that's where we're going to be at in our Bible. So we're going to be talking today and thinking about how we as guys are hardwired to lead. We just are. I mean, think about from a young age. I remember for me, just how long ago I've been in charge of many situations, and we've been told to stand tall and to take responsibility and stand firm and all this stuff, right? And leadership can feel like it's just like part of our DNA as dudes. It just is. And those instincts aren't wrong. Don't get me wrong. I think God created men to lead for sure. We're supposed to lead in our homes, we're supposed to lead in the church, we're supposed to lead in the world. And the problem we have to be careful of is leadership can be dangerously close to being having a self-centered mindset. Okay. And if we equate leadership with control, that's an indicator. And that's a that's a good indicator to know because that's showing us that our thinking is off. And sometimes the world says, well, to be a strong man, that means we always have to have the answers, or we always have to be the one steering the ship. We always have to get things done on our own strength, right? But that's not necessarily true. Because Paul, what he's sharing with us here, the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5, hits directly at the center of that assumption. Because he's telling us, say, look, to be a full-in disciple of Christ, does not mean we're living for ourselves, or it doesn't also mean we're not clinging to our own authority. It's about being controlled, not by our will, but the love of Christ. Now think about the radical shift that that has right there, particularly for guys who pride themselves on being independent. And I know dudes, I'm that way, and many, many times I've had to surrender that. Because control, let's just be honest and raw for a second. Control feels like what? It's strength.

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If I have control, if I'm in control, I feel like I have the power. But Paul gives us something radical here. Real strength comes through surrender. That's challenging. Because let's just be honest, fellas.

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Letting go and surrendering control is one of the hardest things we'll ever be asked to do. And though it is for me, I don't want to give up control. Why? Because it feels like I'm being weak, like I failed. And the world we live in says, you know what? Control is is equates with success. If I see a guy in control, he's successful. Like he's dominating the boardroom, or he's he's he runs that playbook with precision, or he manages his home like a general, and not his kids step out of line. He's the one that society will celebrate. Like, that guy's got it together. But Christ, man, is showing us like, wait a minute now, this really strength is the one that lays down his control in order to be led by the Holy Spirit, surrendering my control to follow what the Holy Spirit tells me. And that's hard because it goes against one thing that, guys, we all struggle with. I know I do. Maybe I'm in a long ranger here, but pride. We want to be masters of our own fate, captains of our own destiny, right? And Paul's like, uh-uh-uh, he died for us and we die with him. That means the whole person is that craved power, control, and all the autonomy in the world that we want, right? That dude doesn't have any authority anymore. Because we belong to Christ. We're not living for ourselves. We're living for him. See the difference there? This is not a weakness. This is, it should be liberating for us, right? Imagine the freedom of not having to constantly prove yourself, not constantly having to carry the weight of performance that can be crushing. Not trying to feel like you're holding your whole world together by willpower. I'm telling you, fellas, once we should figure out to be controlled by Christ's love means to rest in the truth that he's already done the heavy lifting. I mean, he's done it. Our job is simply to follow, just got to follow him along. And if we want to lead well, we have to learn how to follow. There's a paradox here, right? But Jesus showed us this directly. He had all the authority. Yet he surrendered to the will of the Father. I mean, and he surrendered to the point of the will of the Father where he went to death. His greatness did not come through domination, but through obedience. Do you do you see that? So for us today, this really looks like daily submission to the Spirit. Well, I'm talking about to the Spirit. It means starting each day with Him. Maybe it's in the Word and with prayer, with praise, and asking God to lead before we attempt to do any take any of the reins our own. It mean it looks like admitting weaknesses to fellow brothers in Christ. Instead of trying to behind to hide behind like a facade of being tough, right? It means listening particularly to our wives and our kids, instead of just trying to come in always with a heavy hand and forcing our agenda. I'm telling you, this is a big deal. Letting go is a big deal. And that's terrifying for so many guys. But it's a key to true to absolutely true strength. Because the dude that has surrendered to Christ's control, man, he ain't sweet. The ego don't bother him no more. Fear doesn't bother him no more. Insecurity, no. Because he's anchored himself in something greater. The love of Christ. And that has to, and Paul, this is what he's telling us right here. One died for all, therefore all died. That's at the center right here. That tells us the cross is at the center of everything that we have. Jesus gave his life for us, so we don't have to live for ourselves. And we're not talking just theology here. This is practical marching orders for how we can live a daily life. Each day the gospel calls us to die to ourselves again. That selfless ambition is gone. Pride gone. Comfort gone. And through that, we live. Not for ourselves, but for him who rose again. See, once we get this cemented in our hearts, guys, it's going to be our default that we go to. Okay? It will be our default. And as we start thinking about this, if that's our default, that's going to push us to live our faith out boldly. And I'm telling you, too, there's the big thing I'm seeing right now is spiritual passivity and this dudes that are half you know, just lukewarm, just kind of one toe in, one toe out, not really taking discipleship seriously. But here's the deal. When God, when we truly surrender, it's going to produce a courage inside of you, the lion within, that you just can't, you can't just leave it. You have to do something with it, right? And bold faith means speaking truth in the culture that probably is going to mock you. Standing firm at the workplace, right? Raising kids to love Christ instead of a world that that in a world that actually hates him, right? Standing against the sexual revolution, the LGBTQ plus IOQ, whatever agenda, right? Fighting for the unborn, the things that get you in trouble from a worldly standpoint. Because that's being bold. Bold faith is not bravado. It's not about holding your chest and posturing. No. Bold faith means you have a resolve, a resolute strength that comes from knowing that Christ is in control. And we have our anchor firmly planted on him. And then we're empowered by the Spirit. And I'm telling you, fellas, it whatever comes across your plate, well, there's you know, good stuff, bad stuff, tragedy, uh, hostility, everything rests on us trusting in him. Because we don't need more leaders out there, guys, that are just clinging to control. That's the last thing we need. We need more leaders that have surrendered it to the only work person who is worthy of it. And and our communities, our families, our churches, everywhere we engage with, they're counting on this. They don't need us to be heroes. They need us to be obedient to Christ. So I mean, you gotta think about it. Are you willing to let it go? Are you willing to let the Spirit guide you? That's that's up to you. Are you willing to surrender your pride, your fear, or your need of control? And this is not easy, guys. I'm not saying this is an easy button one here. It's a daily battle. But it's the pathway to the type of leadership that can transform lives. And Paul is hitting us with some absolute truth here. Christ died and rose again, so that we will no longer live for ourselves, but for him. That's the ultimate calling, and that's not just Chris's opinion. This is God's word. This is what we got to stand on.

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So, where are you clinging to control instead of surrendering? You know, we've talked about the power of the gospel as well, and there's so much power in that.

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And I'm not naive enough to think that if you're listening to the land within us, that you're automatically a Christian. We got lots of guys who are probably listening who are just curious, who just, you know, finding it, find the Christian faith interesting. Maybe they you just someone shared this episode with you or something, and you're like, yeah, but you've never really had that moment where you fully submitted your life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. If you're here, I want you to know that there's no better time to do that than right now, today. And understand that you are made in the image of God. Like someone, if you're close to a mirror, please look in it right now. Look in a mirror. You know, pull your phone up, and since you I know you got your phone because you're listening to me, and hit the camera, flipping around, and look at yourself. And then tell me what do you see? You know, so depending on who you are and what your ego's like, the answer will vary. You either will like what you see or you don't like what you see, or you see this little flaw, or maybe you got a pimple or something like that.

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You know what I'm saying? Well, what do you see? What God sees. He sees an image bearer of him. And that's the big difference, is how God sees you.

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And the evil one wants you to see all the imperfections, the insecurities, the flaws. He wants you to see that. And I'm just here to tell you, bro, God sees his image bearer and who he loves. And he loves you so much. And and when we go back to creation, that's that's the type of love he he showed, particularly Adam, when he first formed the first man. And things was this perfect union with God.

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It was a perfect union heart and strength, mind and body, spirit, all there in perfect union.

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And then sin fractured that. Sin came in, separated us from God. And ever since that that fracture, we've been striving back for that perfect union. Okay, and we and what we try to do, what most guys try to do, do it on our own. We want to uh we want to be a better person, we want to do what we can to earn our way. Well, if I'm just good enough, if I could just do XYZ, you know, help little old ladies cross the street, give money to good charitable causes. Maybe I even go to church, you know, a couple times a month. Maybe I go every Sunday, I go to church, and I even go on Wednesday nights. I'm a super Christian. I can do all the things, right? And the problem is with all those, we're trying to earn a right standing with God. And brother, you just can't do that. Now, I wish I could tell you that there was another way that you could earn a right standing with God, but I'm not gonna sit here and lie to you. We can't earn a right standing with Him. So what we need, what we recognize to be true, is if we can't earn our salvation, which we we we know we can't, and we need someone to come in and do for us what we can't do for ourselves. So we need a Savior, right? We don't need a coach, someone to coach us up. We need a savior to step in and do for us what we can't do for ourselves. That's where Jesus comes into the scene, who literally left heaven on a rescue mission for us, was born of a virgin, fulfilled all the prophecies, did all the teachings, did all the miracles, all the things Christ did to show us, to show us his divinity, that he was the Messiah. And then he did the ultimate sacrifice, which we talked about in our verses this week. He willingly gave up his life and went to the cross to be sacrificed for our sins. Because the penalty of sin is death. Since we all fall short, oh glory to God. Hey, we're all sinners, he's like, I'm gonna pay it, I'm gonna cover it. So that same exercise where I asked you to look into a mirror or look into your phone, like on you know selfie mode, now pull it up and look and do the same thing.

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Christ died for the person you're looking at right now, He died for you.

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How incredibly awesome is that? That someone loves you enough to give up their life for you. But that's what Christ did. And guess what? Cool part is he died for you for sure. That's not cool, that's terrible. I mean that he died, but the cool part is he didn't stay dead, he overcame death. And that's the fundamental difference in Christianity and the rest of the religions out there in this world. We have a living Savior. He lives. Because he lives, we can face tomorrow. That's it. And he is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to follow except through him. There is no other name under heaven that's been given among men by which we must be saved. It is Jesus and Jesus alone. So I don't care what anybody's telling you by how do you get to heaven? Jesus is the only way. There are not multiple paths. Oprah is wrong. Sorry, she is. He's wrong a lot of stuff. But anyway, she's wrong. Jesus is the way. Okay? So that leaves us, if we understand that to be true, what do we do with this information?

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Okay. Well, what you have to do, it's very simple. First is just have some self-reflection, bro. And some self-reflection time to say, I'm a sinner. I I definitely am a sinner. And I fall short of God's glory.

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I've been comparing myself to my neighbor, and I should have been comparing myself to God. And because of that, I I've fully recognized that I am a sinner in need of a savior. Once you recognize that to be true, you have that moment of internal awareness, if you will. All right, what are you going to turn to? Well, you better believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that he is the Messiah. Go get your Bible and read through whatever you need to read through in your New Testament just to understand about who Jesus is. But you have to come to your own personal understanding and belief that Jesus is God. He's it. He is the Messiah.

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And once you recognize that to be true, confess him as Lord and Savior of your life.

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And when you make that confession, the Holy Spirit comes in and dwells. And at that moment, the the union, the fraction is been restored. We have the Holy Spirit within us. And then that's when we can go to verses like we looked at today, where we can surrender that control. And that Holy Spirit will be guiding the ship, guiding and directing us. And it's only possible when you confess Him as Lord and Savior. So if you've never done that in your life, you've never made a public profession of faith, if you've never walked through the waters of baptism, you've never had that true moment where you surrendered your life to the Lordship of Christ, let's do it right now. Well, Chris, this is a podcast. There's no way I can do that. Why not, bro? Like putting God in a box. You ain't got to be sitting on the pew to be accept Christ as your Lord and Savior. You can do it right here, right now. And I want to pray with you. So if you're there and you're tired of doing life your way, and you keep getting kicked, you keep getting pushed down, and you're ready to just, you know what? There's got to be a better way. I'm just telling you, there is. It's through a relationship with Christ. Now, this is not some genie in the bottle. Things are not going to magically get better for you. They're not. I mean, or easier rather. I tell you what, they will be better because you'll have Christ with you.

unknown: 21:13

Right?

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So we're not looking, we're not trying to pave a path easy. What we're trying to do is ride, jump on with Christ, and let him guide and direct us. So I want to pray with you right now. You're ready to surrender to him. So, Father, for that one listener who's ready to listen to surrender their life to you and to your Lordship, I pray you just hear, I know you hear their prayer, but I pray you give them some comfort, some peace, some give them some acknowledgement to know that you hear them. And just put your your your um peace that passes all understanding around them so that they can just uh have more assurance, confidence. The evil one's gonna attack like crazy now because the you know they they've now left his side and they're officially united with you. And so the attacks may come, the discouragement may come. This may cost them something if they relationships or even with their family. So I just pray, Lord, that you just give them strength, resolve, and just uh they're now they're now ready to fight the battle, Lord. So be with them and just thank you so much for what you did for us on the cross. We pray all this according to your will in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so check this out. If you just accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, touchdown first and foremost, send me an email because I'd love to send you some resources to get you started on your discipleship journey. There's lots of things we've created, so I just want to share a couple of them with you. Uh so you can email me at Chris at the lionwithin.us. That's Chris, that's C-H-R-I-S, by the way. So you can send me the send an email there. We'd love to connect, love to hear your testimony. I'd love to pray for you. Uh and if you want to jump on a call and pray together or just have a chance to chat, I I I love those types of engagements and conversations. So please reach out, okay? And and other than that, just the more that you can guys can share what we're doing uh with fellow buddies, with your men's groups, you know, using our resources for your men's groups, topics and conversations, like literally hop on the Bible app, all this stuff's free, and go search for the line within us and go through some of the I'm the guy, I'm just a guy series stuff. That gets a lot of uh engagement, and you may find the resources there um enjoyable to work through as a small group. And we have always put reflection questions on those studies and things like that. So, you know, it gives you some reading, gives you some scripture, gives you some reflection. We do all the hard work. We're just setting you up to have a really fun engagement with someone else. So hopefully you guys take a chance to check that out. Again, everything we do can be found at the lionwithin.us. Uh, all the stuff from a daily spiritual kickoff to our community to our leadership masterminds, everything we've we've built is found there. Uh love to connect with you. If you give us a rating and review, that would be awesome as well. And other than that, just please, please, please reach out if we can serve, if we can help in any way. Uh, we're really out here to try to just build disciples and help you just keep growing in your faith and be the leader that God intends you to be. So if there's something that you think that we can support you with, it'd be an honor to talk, okay? So come on back on Wednesday, fellas. We're gonna have a great episode and absolutely uh thoroughly enjoy the conversation with the with our guests. I think you're gonna like it too. And uh, other than that, appreciate all you do. Thelionwithin.us is where you find us. Have a great day, great Monday, get after it, and you know it's coming. Just keep unleashing the lion within. If you've ever opened the Bible and had the thought, where do I even start? Brother, you're not alone. I've had those moments all too often. And I found that having a guide was helpful. That's why we created the I'm just a guy series on the Bible app. They're short, they're honest, and they help you read scripture and walk it out. And these plans speak to the real stuff that we're wrestling with as men, like marriage, anxiety, loneliness, shame, pornography, and so much more. Now do this all without pretending or piling on a bunch of self-help nonsense. And lots of guys are using them in their small groups, and they're helping to spark honest conversations and take simple next steps in their discipleship journey. So if that sounds helpful, check them out at thelinewithin.us slash uversions. That's y-o-d-e-s-i-o-n. Or just open up your Bible app and search for the Lion Within Us. And it's my hope that these reflections will encourage you in just a few minutes and help you walk with him all day long.