Welcome & Scripture Of The Week

Chris Grainger 1:43

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 into it, okay? So the scripture of the week this week is in the book of Romans, chapter 12, verse 21. It says, Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Great scripture, guys. Let's see if we can simplify and apply this. How we can uh just take this scripture right here and walk it out today, right here, wherever you find yourself, okay? And here's the cool thing about the spiritual kickoff episodes, guys. If you like them, we do them Monday through Friday in the line within us. It's called the daily spiritual kickoff. It's live, it's not filtered, it's not edited. I mess up a lot. It's okay, right? It's but it's just about reading God's word together and being encouraged and growing. And just growing and how do we simplify and apply it to our life. The cool part about the daily spiritual kickoff, it also gives you access to our prayer request space, which is the most active part of the Lion Within Us, thankfully, that we want that to be the most active part of what we do. So all that is found right there, fellas, at thelionwithin.us. So if you want to go click over to right now, start your free daily spiritual kickoff, go ahead and get that plugged in, get locked and loaded. It's a great way to just be a part of your discipleship journey and come and come alongside you, okay? So as we start this spiritual kickoff, first thing we need to understand is where is the book of Romans? Okay, so the book of Romans, Chloe, please cut those coughs out. So the book of Romans is in the New Testament after Acts. So you go to your gospels, then you get to Acts, uh, and then you get to Romans, okay? If you get to 1 Corinthians, you want a little bit too far. Okay, so that's just where it's from a context of where the Bible from opening your Bible, that's where you find it. And we don't want to take most of you guys know this stuff, but we don't want to take anything for granted. So we want to make sure we share that so that you can get plugged in directly, okay? And this week, we're gonna talk directly about anger, okay? I don't know about you, but lots of guys I talk with, including me, uh, I've had some anger issues. And and and these anger, we have to figure out how we can redirect it and course-direct it. Okay, and and for this particular verse, it's about redeeming it, okay? And and I've come what to realize one thing, fellas. The more birthdays I have, more candles that are on the cake, anger is not bad, right? It's it's not in of itself evil because God put this emotion in us, right? So it must have some potential when we surrender it to Him to be used for good, right? Let's just think about this. And for most of my life, I equate anger with sin. But that assumption caused me to bury it deep inside, or either I feel condemned by it instead of exploring how it could be redeemed. So it took a lot of time reflecting on this, guys, and and quite frankly, good conversations with other men uh and just growing in my spiritual maturity. I'm starting to see that not all anger is destructive, okay? In fact, some of it is deeply righteous, and we need more of it. And when I examine the things that stir anger in me and align them with what grieves the heart of God, I start seeing a pattern, okay? And here's the pat here's some things, guys, think about the sanctity and value of life. Boom. The biblical design for marriage, their pervasive spread of sexual immorality, right? All these things strike at the core of what God created, what God's design is. And when I see the world distorting those sacred things, it frustrates me. There's a discontent there, and that's that lights a fire that if I can channel it right, I can point people to truth. And just the other day, I was in a conversation with a group of guys about this topic of medically assisted suicide, right? And it's that type of deception, bro, that when they package it, they package it as compassion, but it's crept up into the world we live in, in the many nations. And it cultivates a culture of death that directly opposes the heart of the author of life. And as we talked, I was getting I was getting frustrated. I was getting mad, right? I wasn't getting mad at the guys in the room, but I was getting mad at the evil and that caused such distortion. And that anger in that moment, that wasn't bitter or impulsive. It was convicting, and it had a pulse. So we have to ask the question how do we redeem it when it reaches that boiling point? Right? And for for me, at some point we gotta take action. Not against people directly, but against the evil itself. Paul didn't say overcome evil with outrage or sarcasm or even silence, did he? No, he said overcome it with good. That means we gotta speak life. We have to affirm truth, and we have to actively remind others of their worth. So every time that we find ourselves proclaiming that someone is the son or daughter of the king, we're punching a hole in the darkness. Every time that we call out lies that diminish the value of our identity, we're standing right there firm against the evil one. And the more I start thinking about it, the more the realization that comes to me, I've been too spiritually passive. I have. I've been way too spiritually passive in the past. And it's hard to say that out loud. But when I look at scripture, bro, I'm not drawn to stories of just dudes who played it safe. I'm drawn to the ones who stood up, who took action, and let holy fire move them forward, even when it cost them everything. And that's the type of guy I want to be. That's the type of anger I'm I I don't mind carrying that because it's righteous anger, it's redeemed anger, it's redemptive anger. And I don't I want to go so far as to call it focused anger. Okay, because it's focused anger and it's serving the world, it's not taking away from it. This would be opposite of most way people think about describing anger these days. This is anger and evil and action all together, and not anger at the environment, it's anger at it's anger from the self. So if you're a guy, I'm telling you, and you're wrestling with anger right now, I'm hoping this is gonna help you this week. Because we don't want to ignore the anger, we don't want to suppress the anger either. We gotta start examining it. We gotta start asking why is this, where is this coming from? What's the root? And if you find that it's tied to something that's close to the heart of God, then bro, let it fuel you. Then take the steps of obedience because the right response to righteous anger isn't destruction, it's direction. It's moving closer to the heart of God. So the question we need to think about this week, guys, is how do you typically respond when anger rises up? And what come what is inside is going to come out. It just is, boys. That's just the way it is. So be thinking about that. Now, look, to be driven by the Holy Spirit and truly have righteous anger and conviction from the Spirit means what? We have to have the Holy Spirit within us. That means if you haven't submitted your life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, you're not gonna have that. You're just gonna have worldly anger, and worldly anger is not gonna serve you well. At some point, Israel is probably gonna uh gonna hurt you. So the only way we can have righteous anger is through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, and that comes after we submit our life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. If you've never done that before and you're listening to the lion and you're like, well, I'm not even sure what you're talking about, well, hey, I'm glad you're here. Because recognize at the end of the day, without Jesus as Lord of our life, we are blind, and we're gonna be blind to the tricks and the traps of this world. The only way we're gonna be able to see evil for truly what it is is through a spiritual lens. And the only way we get that spiritual lens is when we've submitted our life to Him. And it starts with simply admitting that you are a sinner, that you're not someone who just makes mistakes, you're not someone who needs to be coached up. No, you are a sinner. And a sin is anything that falls short of the glory of God. That's you. And if that and we need to recognize that that is who we are. We're all sinners in need of a savior, and we're all fall short. And like we're not trying to compare ourselves to our neighbors or trying to compare ourselves to other people. No, because it's easy to feel good about yourself when you start playing a comparison game. You know, we live close to a federal prison. If I compare myself to the guys in the prison, I feel like I'm doing pretty good. But when I compare myself to a holy and righteous God, guess what? I fall short ten times out of ten. Well, 100% of the time I fall short. Because I have this warped mind, this, this, this body who who wants to take care of itself and not others. And that's just the human nature. That's who we are. That's the sin nature that we have within us. So admitting that we're sinners. Step one. Now, what are we gonna do about it? Well, thankfully, we have Jesus. Okay, and not just for to call to go to when things are bad, but we had Jesus who came to us on a rescue mission for our hearts. Think about this. He was in heaven chilling. Things are great. You're in heaven. He said, you know what? I'm gonna go down there. I'm gonna do for these for these people what they can't do for themselves. I'm gonna prove I'm gonna show them the way, the truth, the life. I'm gonna pay the penalty for their sins, and I'm gonna willingly go to the cross. He left heaven knowing he was headed to the cross. That if that doesn't blow your mind, I don't know what will. Like, I'm not just gonna go out on a mission where I know it's gonna end with my death. It's just it doesn't make any sense. It goes against everything of our being, but that's who Jesus was. And he did the he came, he fulfilled all the prophecies, he did all the teachings, he did all the miracles, he showed us, he taught us, and then he paid the penalty for our sin by going to the cross, being pierced for our transgressions. This is what this is what he did, right? He didn't faint on that cross either, or pass out, or go to sleep. He died. He died on the cross, and they laid him in a tomb. And the story, if this story ends right here, then that's just a sad day, bro. It's just a sad day for another guy. But his story doesn't end there because three days later he rose, and that's who we serve. That is the God we worship, a risen Savior. That's the hope we have in Jesus. That's how that's why we're not dressed like we're going to a funeral every Sunday, because we have the hope of a living Savior. But you gotta believe it. If you got you gotta believe in the resurrection. And then once you believe it, confess Him as Lord, bro. Confess Him as Lord of your life. Not just Lord over Sunday for an hour, Lord over your entire life. What Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, every day, every hour, from the early morning hours to midday, to that board meeting that you're in, to that bedroom that you're laying next to your wife with at night, to the dinner table with your kids, wherever you find yourself, the gym, the bathroom, it doesn't matter. Wherever you are, he has to be Lord of it all. That's the decision you have to make. And guess what? You can't coast by on someone else's faith, bro. Like, I don't care if your mom is a believer and your dad's a believer and you think you can get to heaven on their coattails. It don't work that way. This is an individual relationship and decision that you have to make. If you've never made it before, and these words you're finally hearing the gospel very clearly today, it could be because God's trying to put to draw you in. He's waiting for you to make that most important decision to call on him as Lord and Savior. And it's my job here at The Lion just to share that truth with you each and every week. That's why every spiritual kickoff episode, we do this. We share the gospel. I know 99% of the guys listening are believers. You guys are saved. For you guys, this is just should just be reps, more reps for you, so that when you get the opportunity to share the gospel, maybe there's some things that I say that you can just just parrot that. That's fine. That's perfectly fine. But for the 1%, the one dude who's listening right now, and you haven't surrendered your life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and you've been living on your own, and you're trying to do it your way, and things haven't been working out, and you listen to this podcast called Align within us for some reason, but there's something that that about the way in which I'm sharing this good news to you, you know I'm speaking to you. And that's because the Spirit is tugging at you. And if that's you, guy, what are you waiting on? You don't have to clean yourself up, you don't have to go put on some good clothes, you don't have to go sit in the church pew. You can come and fall on your knees right now and come and confess Jesus as your Lord and Savior. And I'm gonna pray with you. I'm gonna pray with you right now. So if that's you, no more excuses. Call on Jesus to be your Lord and Savior. So, Father, that one listener, I know he's out there, God, and he's listening, he's trying to do it for his way for so long. He admits that he's a sinner, he believes that you are the Messiah, and he is calling on you, confessing you as Lord over his life. I pray you be with this man right now. He recognizes that uh, Lord, there's nothing he's done that's take that's gone too far to where you're not there. There's no amount of sin that can separate you from him. So I pray he recognizes that, and he believes that with all his heart. And I pray, God, you put some people in his life that are gonna come alongside as he starts this most important discipleship journey. We love you, Lord. We're so thankful for you. We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, fellas. Look, you just accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Touchdown, let's go first and foremost. But hit me up with an email, shoot me a note, Chris at the lionwithin.us, okay. That's my email address. Got some free resources I'd love to send your way. And also just want to give you a high five and a touchdown, bro. Hey, let's go. Just want to come alongside and just give you some encouragement. All right. So look, guys, give us a rating and review. Come on Wednesday, we're gonna keep unpacking this idea of anger. What are we supposed to do with it as guys? And how can we shift it from potentially taking us out to being something that's gonna glorify God, okay? So look, thelionwithin.us, where you find all our resources. Everything's found there. The Bible app as well. Search for I'm just a guy, or search for the lion within us on the Bible app. Follow us on the Bible app, and then you'll see all our plans, everything that's out, fellas. It's so much out there. We're getting so much great feedback from the Bible app folks. So we're just leaning in harder and harder into that. Of course, we have our live events, we have our mastermind groups, guys. You guys hear every Friday we talk our member spotlights. Those are guys that are in our masterminds. Like we're not making this stuff up. We legit have these guys that are just leaning in, and we'd love to have you be part of that as well. We've built a system that's gonna be encouraging. You guys, all that's found at thelionwithin.us. All right. So get after, have a great day. We'll see you next time, guys. Thank you so much for all the support, and just remember to keep unleashing the lion within. It's time to stop battling pornography, lust, and temptation alone. We're done sitting on the sidelines, seeing shame win, and hearing from guys that are fighting private wars with no backup. So we decided it's time to fight back. We have our sexual integrity support group, which is a confidential space inside the lion's den for men who are ready to step into the light and pursue real freedom. This isn't just for guys in crisis, by the way. It's for any man who's tired of the cycle, who's tired of living in secret, who's tired of saying this is gonna be the last time. Look, most guys don't need another app or some rules. They need some brothers to come alongside them to say you're not the only one. This doesn't define you. And freedom is possible. So look, inside our group, you're gonna find a confidential, judgment-free forum to engage and ask questions. You'll have honest conversations without condemnation, and you'll also have a monthly call with the trusted guide. So, look, this isn't just about stopping pornography, it's about becoming a man of integrity, a man aligned, a man who lives in freedom, not secrecy. And you don't have to clean your stuff up first to come, you just have to step in. So, our sexual integrity support group is found inside the lion's den. And you can start that today with a 30 day free trial. So if you're ready to stop fighting alone and need that extra support, start your 30 day free trial right now at thelionwithin.us. That's thelionwithin.us, and step inside the Lion's Den.