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. Scripture kickoff time. Let's get right into it. Okay. So the scripture of the week this week is in the book of Proverbs. It's the fourth chapter, the 23rd verse. Okay. It says, or the fourth Proverb, rather. It's not a chapter. Proverbs 4, verse 23. It says, watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life. All right, fellas. So we're going to take some time to see how we can simplify and apply that scripture to our life. And also as a reminder, we do this Monday through Friday in the line within us. We call it the daily spiritual kickoff or daily SKO, is what we'll call it on the website. So look, it's free. It also gives you access to our um, I can't think today. Gives us access to our prayer request guide. There it goes. So we have our prayer request section of it. You have a wonderful orientation as part of it. We do a weekly prayer huddle at the Lion Within Us, and you have access to that as well. So, guys, all that's free, just what our way to serve you, to help walk with you in your discipleship journey. So thhelionwithin.us is where you find all that. Okay, guys. All right. So let's get into the scripture here and start thinking about this Proverbs watching over our heart. What does it actually mean? Uh bottom line is, fellas, we better watch our heart like it matters because it doggone it does. Okay. So these verses are in scripture uh that that kind of kind of feel like a little bit of a whisper. Then you get you get this right here in 423 that grabs us, right? I mean, this just grabs us hard and it says, all right, pay attention, okay? Because whether we realize it or not, everything that happens in our lives is being shaped from the inside out. Okay. So this proverb is kind of like a warning, and it's a charge for us as well. It's a wake-up call for us if if we've getting too comfortable or if we've slipped, and it's a call for us a couple things, fellas. Stop drifting, stop pretending, and put our guards up. Okay. And it's and notice what it doesn't say. It doesn't say try your best to stay calm. Okay. No, it doesn't say it doesn't say manage your emotion when life gets hard. It goes deeper. It says, watch over your heart. Okay. Because there's right there, what's going on on the inside is going to flow out. And we don't just have bad days, fellas. That's that's that's something we need to think about. We reveal what's been living in us in those moments. So when the pressure hits, guess what? Your heart's gonna speak to it. When someone says the right thing and you snap, right? And can I get an amen to that one? That didn't come from nowhere. No, that came from within us. When your wife, all right, for you guys that are married, when your wife says something and it immediately sends you into attack mode, right? That reaction is not created in the moment, it was exposed, right? You ever wonder about why? Again, we for you guys that are married, by the way, we have a husband support group now within the line within us. I just want to throw that out. Look, if you're if you feel like, you know what, this verse right here, I have a hard time with, check it out, okay? But so much of this comes down that the area of our heart that has been exposed just wasn't being guarded. And that's when the lid came off. And that's when everything's spilled out, right? And then you see this word in this verse, diligence, okay? Because it says, watch over your heart with all diligence. And that word matters, okay, because diligence, if we just look at the core definition, it means careful, persistent effort. It means active attention, it means intentional focus, it means a steady, disciplined watchfulness, okay? So diligence, one thing we can recognize right here, fellas, diligence is not accidental. You don't just stumble into being diligent, right? You don't accidentally just wake up and you're protecting your heart, right? No, it requires awareness, it requires attention, and it requires action. In other words, guys, we have to choose it. We have to choose it. There's an analogy that may be able to be helpful for you here. Just think about this. Imagine there's a bottle of water. You got it. And that bottle is filled with water. And you open it up, you pour it out, guess what's going to come out? You're gonna, only thing that's coming out of that doggone bottle is water. Period. I got my water dug right here. I took the lid off, pour it on the table, and nothing's gonna come out but water. That's obvious. It's not our heart works, too. What's inside is gonna come out. So if what's inside of you is peace, uh humility, self-control, guess what? That's gonna come out. But what's it but what if it's inside you, you have bitterness or you have lust, you have anger or pride, guess what? That's coming out too. That's why this scripture points us and redirects us, because it says the heart is the source, the springs right here. This is it. This is it, this is life. So your behavior down your behavior, think about this, it's downstream from your heart. And think about this, guys. So many of us, I know me, I get triggered just like that. I mean, so fast at times. And it could be a disrespectful comment, a look, a challenge. It could be my wife's tone, it could be when my kid ain't listening, or you got you and your coworker in a disagreement. I don't know what it is for you, but there's probably, it feels like a switch has been flipped, right? You can go from calm to furious, right? You can go from this steady dude to defensive in a second, and you can go from super patient to harsh in the in a blink of an eye. And we and then what do we, when that happens, what do we typically do? We say, Well, I'm just tired or I've had a bad day, or maybe they just don't understand what's got going on. But this this proverb, this proverb, guys, gives us some insight into something deeper. That that overflow of emotion isn't because we had a bad day, it's because something's been living inside our heart. And that moment, what it did, it exposed it. So think of like triggers as like a flashlight. They reveal what we've been allowing to collect in the corners, right? And this is where we have to be careful because garbage in, garbage out, fellas, right? If you want to believe uh that if you if you seriously think that you can banish the world and still produce godly fruit, you're you're crazy, man. I uh guys thinking that they can look at porn or let their eyes drift at other women or fill our mind with true jokes and or start discussing like crazy or staying glued to anger-filled news, right? And toxic content or or bitterness, or it's the guys who think they can't, they don't need to pray, or they don't need to read scripture every day, and then somehow they want to expect to be patient and pure and peace to just naturally flow out of them. It don't work that way. No, you put the garbage in, and guess what? The garbage is gonna come out, right? What what you consistently allow in becomes what eventually is gonna come out. Period. And that doesn't mean that we have no hope here, guys. It just means we need to wake up and get serious about guarding our heart. And sometimes this requires radical action. Okay, and here's a choice: you can either be radical for the world or blend in, right? Or you can be radical for God, radical for God, and stand out. But being radical for the world doesn't take courage, man. Anybody can do that. Anybody can conform. But being radical for God, that takes a different level of leadership. And that's what this verse is calling us out of, right? And I'm telling you guys, we got to stop living with our head in the sand. We've got to stop acting shocked when anger starts coming out. We got to stop pretending that the inputs don't matter. We gotta we gotta stop leaving our hearts unguarded. Because it's not just a neutral territory here, it's the battlefield. It's the battlefield. If you're not guarding it, someone else is gonna be doing, and the evil one is who that someone else is, is gonna do all he can to influence it. And this is not meant to condemn you. No, it's supposed to waken us up, right? Period. And if you don't like what's coming out of you, like sometimes I don't, don't blame the moment. Trace it back to what you've been allowing in, and then choose diligence because guarded hearts produce steady dudes. I'm telling you, and steady guys become strong leaders. We're not perfect fellas, but we need to be aware. We need to be intentional, and we need to be spirit-led. And men who decide, men, bottom line, when we decide what flows out of us will not is not gonna be wrath and wreckage, but what's gonna flow out of us is gonna be wisdom and life because of what we choose to let in. I mean, the world doesn't need any more passes, brothers. Let's just be honest. No, it needs us guys who are willing to start our hearts and lead from the overflow of the spirit. And that's been again, bottom line, that's what this is all about. So your question we're what's been flowing out when you've been under pressure lately. We all got pressure, we all got things that hit us between the eyes and we have to respond. So when that hit hits us and we have to respond, what flows out? And that is super important to think about and consider. All right, so now guys, think about this. To have that diligent heart, we need that the most important thing is to have the heart aligned to God, what God's calling us to do. Okay, and to have the heart aligned to God, you need to be walking with Him. And that means you have to have a personal relationship with God. That means it has to be your relationship with Him. Okay, you can't you can't uh coast by through life on your wife's relationship with God or your mom's relationship or your dad or anybody else. It has to be yours. It has to be personal, has to be direct, one-on-one, no one else's. So if you don't have that relationship with God right now, maybe you've just been floating by for too long. Look, now is the time to take action. Now is the time to put that diligence guard up of your heart. And it starts by confessing Jesus as Lord and Savior of your life. Okay? Now I get it. So many guys think they gotta clean themselves up before they come to Jesus. Like, man, Chris, I gotta get a few things right. Like I gotta, I gotta do this or do that, man. I just maybe I need to start reading the Bible more. Like, I don't know anything about the Bible, the Bible, bro. Like, there's so many things that like I you don't know my past. And I'm like, here look, look, you're you're you are saying that there is more sin in you than grace in Jesus, and that is just wrong, brother. No, you're just wrong. It starts with fully just admitting that you are a sinner in need of a savior. And that admittance is hard. It can be hard for guys. But once you finally get to that point where you recognize that your way is not the right, is is not the way that's been working, right? And you need that that you need uh someone in your life to be a savior, right? Not just coach you up to make you better, but just to come in and do for you what you can't do for yourself, that's the first step. Then, okay, what are you gonna believe in? Because you can either believe in the things of this world or you can believe in Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God, right? And believe that He fully, fully paid the penalty for your sin. He is He is the ultimate, He is the Messiah, He is alive. You either believe that or you don't. And I can't make you believe it. I can I can point you to it, we can point you to all the evidence that Jesus was the Messiah. We can we can we can show you all the the biblical text and all the you know all the all the everything out there that fully exposes Jesus as Messiah, but you have to believe it for yourself. And for different guys, that's a different journey, man. Like there's some guys, like they can just read a gospel, like, yep, I believe it. Some guys they have to, you know, they have to go to certain places to recognize that to be true. But once you believe, then it comes to the point where you have to do something. Okay, and it's not that we're gonna do some work to earn our our salvation, but it does mean we need to confess Jesus as Lord and Savior of our life because we're looking for that newness of heart, that new heart to come and dwell within us. And that starts by surrendering to him, confessing him as Lord and Savior. That means Lord and Savior over everything, not just on Sunday, not just on Wednesday night, but like every day, every moment, from the boardroom to the bedroom to the bathroom, it doesn't matter. Wherever we are, he has to be Lord and Savior from our finances to our relationships, he's Lord over it all. That's the most important. But when you when you confess it, then the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit's gonna come. You'll have a new heart, right? You'll be walking with him, you have a newness of life, you'll have spiritual-filled eyes. Now, look, at that moment, you are a baby, you're a baby Christian, you're gonna need some help. But there's all sorts of resources out there for you. Hey, you're plugged into one right here to lying within us. We're we we love walking with guys and helping them in their discipleship journey. But it starts with that confession as Jesus as Lord and Savior. And that's where we're at right now. So again, if you've never confessed Jesus as Lord and Savior of your life, that's the perfect time to do that. So we're gonna just go into a time of prayer. And if this is you feel like the tug, there's a tug on you right now, and you're just ready to surrender your life to him, and let's pray together. So, Father, whoever's listening, and they feel that that pull from you to surrender. They tried it their way for far too long. I pray, God, you just give them the peace that passes all understanding. Just put a just a comfort in their heart right now as they confess you as Lord and Savior. They know that they're sinners. They know that they need a savior, they know they can't do it on their own. And Lord, they are turning to you. They're surrendering their life to you right now. I just pray you just comfort them, guide them, and direct them in Jesus' name. Amen. So look, if you just surrender your life to the Lord Ship of Jesus Christ, hallelujah. First of all, the praise of the Lord, I'd love to hear from you. You can always send me an email, Chris, that's C-H-R-I-S at the LionWithin.us. Reason is we have several resources that I just want to give you, things that I've created over the years that have been helpful in my discipleship journey. I want to give them to you as well, just to help get you started. And also, there's questions lots of times on what to look for, like how to find a good church, like being a good church. How do you know that it is a good church? How do you know it's a bad church? Like, what what do you need to be doing on your own discipleship journey? Love to have that conversation with you and just be a support system for you, okay? So feel free to send me an email. Let me know which episodes you listen to, and then we'll connect and we'll go from there. All right. So look, guys, you know, great conversation coming up on Wednesday. You're gonna really love this. This is a guest who's been on the show before, had to have him back, just a wonderful guest. Uh again, what the time of this podcast is coming out, you got about a month and a half before our big men's retreat. Okay, so go got if you're a guy, if you have a son or a nephew or something like that, fiving up, guys, we're gonna have a wonderful time. I'd love to see you. So delightwithin.us slash events is where you can find all the information on that. And then connect with us on the Bible app. We're huge on the Bible app, and we're trying to do all we can to serve on the Bible app uh to give the folks over there just more and more resources on a consistent basis, and it's impacting people all over the world. It's but God stuff, though, okay? So all that, so all that stuff, all those resources, the daily scripture kickoff, the community, uh, applications for our leadership mastermind, all that fellas can be found at thelionwithin.us. And again, we're starting to do speaking this year. So if you want to connect with me and have me come to your men's event or come to one of your, it could be a work event or things like that. If you found like the messages that we're providing at the Lion Within Us are providing you value and you'd like to have more of the Lion Within Us uh involved, hit us up. Okay. Uh head over to thelion within.us, find all our resources right there. We'd love to connect with you and see how we can serve. All right. Guys, have a great day. Get after it. Thank you so much for hanging out today. We'll see you next time. Give us the rating and review. That would be awesome if you would do that. And other than that, just keep on reaching the lion with them. If there's one habit that can change a home, it's this when a husband prays with his wife. Not because it's a magic formula, but because it recenters your marriage under God's authority and care. And let's be honest, a lot of guys want to do it. But most don't know how to start without it feeling awkward. Maybe you've tried it before and it felt forced, or maybe you've never tried it because you don't even know what to say. Or maybe you're thinking, man, I'm not a pastor, I'm just a guy. And that's why we created this guide. It's our how to pray with your wife. Simple guide. It's biblical, it's practical, and it's designed to help you start praying with your wife in a way that actually feels natural. So it's a five-section guide and it gives you a simple framework to get started. Okay, it makes sure everything is grounded in scripture and it also has a powerful PDF that you can pull up whenever you need, especially when things get off, because they're gonna get off. That's normal. So this is all about reclaiming your marriage and reclaiming the spiritual leadership reigns of your home. Because praying with your wife is one of the strongest ways to fight for unity, to build trust, and to write the ship when life starts to pull you off a course. So if you're ready, get access today at thelionwithin.us slash guides. That's thelionwithin.us slash guides. And start unleashing the lion within at home by leading your marriage through prayer.