Don't get down when you're seeing the worst.
Because the last will be the first.
What a day, I'm telling you.
All things will be new.
Living up in a down world.
Yeah, we're living.
Living up in a down world.
Oh.
This is Jimmy, Pastor Jimmy, and Pastor Brian Mendez.
Today we want to welcome you to Living Up in a Down World.
We are on episode number 89.
My goodness.
You're racking them up?
Yeah, moving towards 100.
We're just getting there.
Annette was noticing the other day on her calendar.
She said, all right, we're officially two years as a podcast.
Is it really?
You know what the average length of a podcast, typical podcast is?
I don't know, but I've heard it's very short.
Seven episodes.
And I'll tell you, when people get, I'm not getting any feedback.
Nobody is listening.
We're wasting our time.
I don't know what else to say.
We bought all this equipment.
And that's when most people actually take a step back.
Once you get out of the habit, it is easy to drop the ball on that.
Even Annette, her life is more spun up than mine in some ways.
And I'm super committed to this.
And so sometimes she'll be like, I can't do it or I can't get there.
So I'm definitely the energy.
Consistency is key.
It is.
Consistency is key in a lot of things, right?
Oh, yeah.
So hey, what a couple of weeks, two and a half weeks we've had since the inauguration.
Yeah.
I thought the election was crazy.
The inauguration took it to another level.
Then, since the inauguration, I mean, it is like Trump came in and his whole administration like a wrecking ball.
Oh my gosh.
I haven't seen historically this much of a shift and a pendulum swing in this short a time.
Yeah.
You know, for me, what I see is vision, purpose, motivation, drive, leadership, and the will to get things done for the American people.
It's inspiring, honestly.
I mean, whether or not you like or agree with, you know, all the particulars of every single thing.
One thing I don't think anybody could argue with is you got an administration that's on a mission here.
No doubt.
The thing I do appreciate about Trump, there are things anybody can say the same thing like, I like this, I don't like this.
At the end of the day, he is who he is and he's bold about it and he does what he says he's going to do.
I think that's the thing I appreciate.
The things that are happening, these sweeping reforms, he said this was coming.
Yeah, what you see is what you get.
Exactly. People are losing their mind.
Well, mostly liberals and Democrats are losing their mind.
But also Rinos, you know, the Rinos are, they're a strong group and they're that weird outlier who are Republican in name only.
That's what it stands for.
And you think they're with you, that you think they're on the team.
But even though a lot of those are opposing him right now and it's like, OK, primaries have come up in a couple of years.
And a lot of those guys are going to get and gals are going to get primaried.
And once that happens, they have to go through the whole process of reelection.
It's not an autopilot kind of thing.
And so it's going to be interesting for years for sure.
Well, there's something good for all of society and the American people to have an example set before them of just doing what you say you're going to do, regardless of what that thing is.
Just the principle of, you know, keeping your word.
You know, everybody didn't have to like it.
Everybody didn't have to agree with it.
But that principle is right.
I think we're not used to that.
It's shocking.
It's shocking all only because he's actually doing what he said he was going to do.
I think people knew him coming back and from his first, you know, run understood.
Yeah, this is a guy who's going to do what he says he's going to do.
I just don't think we all thought it would happen in the first two weeks.
Right.
I mean, he's acting like he's got no time.
I mean, amazing.
And I got to say, I'm delighted by it.
I said all this last year, I said, we need disruption in the government.
I'm not like wave the flag of revolution kind of guy.
I'm just I'm not into that or take it to the streets kind of stuff.
None of that.
I think I think the real revolutions that bring lasting change are not through violence.
They're through the inner shifting and changing of hearts and mindsets.
Those are the things that last over the long haul.
Well, you know, what I see is you got a group of people that are coming into positions of authority and leadership who don't accept the premise that, you know, things that have been said to be impossible or could never happen, that that's true.
They're they're questioning everything.
Everything's on the table.
Nothing is impossible in the approach that nothing is sacred.
Nothing is no sacred cows here.
Right. Yeah.
It's not about protecting institutions.
It's about a total reevaluation of like what should we be doing?
How should we be doing this?
What's best for the American people?
And man, it's refreshing.
You know, it's also speaks to long term versus short term.
You know, in the short term.
Well, let me put it this way.
He comes in like a wrecking ball.
He announces, you know, he's going to with all these federal employees up to two million offer these buyouts and whatnot.
And there are good people that are getting caught up in the in the wash of this.
That's what I call it. The wash.
It's like if you've ever been between waves when you're out in the ocean and you're in big surf, like we were in California a few times, you get caught in the wash of that.
And that means you're between waves and it's white water.
And it's you can really lose lose your footing, lose your bearings.
It's a large apparatus.
It's hard. It's impossible to not have there be some of that.
And that's what that's where hard conversations come in, where we're everyone's cheering and cheering.
And then suddenly it shows up on your doorstep or better yet or not better yet, but it shows up in your email inbox.
And you're one of those who's now been offered this buyout.
You have four days to make a decision that's going to be life changing for you.
And so while while I'm excited about the reforms, I also want to just make sure that we in our celebration are sensitive to people that are caught in it.
We have a family in our church that that's caught in it.
We have relatives of families in our church that are caught in it.
And and I realize that that got to be sensitive to that because that's hard.
This real life change.
The flip side of that coin is and I do land on the flip side here.
Sometimes short term pain has to be there.
Sacrifice that has to happen for the long term gain.
And if we want to see our nation move in a healthy direction, then whether it comes to your doorstep or not, you've got to be part of the solution.
Well, and we we can't have leaders who will freeze themselves into inaction because they're too nervous about impacting anybody.
And that's what we've seen a lot of.
We've seen this this cultural niceness or this cultural.
And what happens?
So I said this the other day, Joty Garcia is such a great example in Fort Worth, Texas.
Great Mexican food is legendary.
It's so good.
It's my wife's favorite.
Oh, my gosh.
It's brutal.
I mean, it's brutal to eat there.
You waddle out of that place.
You almost need a wheelchair to get out.
But that building started many years ago.
Gosh, their history spans like 50, 60 years.
It started off as a shack in downtown Fort Worth, rough part of town downtown.
There's like nothing down there except for crime.
And they started down there and this little shack and it took off.
And then they were like, we've got to expand.
So they added a building to the first building.
Well, now, fast forward 50, 60 years later, they've never built a one new building.
They've just added pieces tacking on new.
So it's like one shack added to another.
And you can imagine in your mind's eye, if you think about that, it turns into a maze.
So when you walk in there, every room is different.
Oh, yeah.
Every room is like you're stepping into a different.
Somebody beats you there and you're trying to find them.
Good luck.
Oh, man.
You're wandering around because it's a full city block.
The whole thing is huge.
And you can literally get lost going to the bathroom.
That's how bad it is.
Sounds like the federal government.
That's exactly the metaphor there.
And that's what's happened when we're just trying to play nice and placate people
or nefariously have agendas that we want to keep hidden.
We just add on rooms to the machine.
One day, well, years later, we look up like we are now.
And as the Doge, the D-O-G-E is diving in, Elon Musk, they're diving in and unpacking these things.
They're realizing there is so much fluff.
There's so much spending.
Just things that have been hidden, I saw where one guy on Google,
he tracked addresses of all these organizations that are listed that have received millions
and hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions of dollars.
And the majority of them don't even exist.
They're like spots on Google Map and it's like a field or an abandoned building.
Oh, my gosh.
So where is all of that, those trillions of dollars going?
Yeah.
And that's what they're doing. They're uncovering all that.
The things that they're uncovering with USAID, where they're finding out that...
That's what I'm talking about.
Yeah, over 90% of the funds were just going to overhead versus the actual purpose of their existence.
They're maintaining buildings that are not even being used with furniture and electricity and air conditioning.
Just the insanity, again, Joe T. Garcia, as they built on, they built on,
they've had on to where there's no communication between what's happening and it's happened over decades.
Well, and you know how this happens is when we forget what the proper function of government is supposed to be.
There you go. Let's get back to go there.
Yeah. There is jurisdiction, which means a proper extent or sphere of authority that government is supposed to have,
you know, in the same way that there are spheres of authority that we as individuals have,
that we as families are supposed to have, that churches are supposed to have.
And these are things that come from God and come from the Word of God.
And these are the principles on which our country was established and founded.
Our founding fathers understood this and carefully crafted and constructed the limits of government
so that government would be there to support, protect, and defend the people
and defend the rights of the people that come from God.
And one of the most important things we have to get back to and understand as Americans
is that our rights, our freedoms, our liberties, they come from God, not from government.
And government in its proper form has no right to dictate, alter, or even weigh in on what those rights and freedoms are.
Their only job is to protect them.
That is so, that was such a good point. By the way, I want to back up about last night.
So you, Pastor Brian, you really led the charge on what we call WWJDJ, the old W, What Would Jesus Do?
We just sort of stole that and added something to it where now it is Walking With Jesus Discipleship Journey.
And that is something that has been such a thing on our heart is to develop a comprehensive,
but will probably be an ever expanding program of, I use the word program in a good way,
just a core class that people can take and really dig into Scripture, really dig in.
So right now we are on a section that is about the formations of a biblical worldview.
Correct.
And as it applies to various things.
And so to culture, and now we are talking about to government.
How do you reconcile having a biblical worldview of government?
And so we are actually taking two parts and both parts are loaded.
Last night, brother, you were fire, first of all, fuego.
I mean, I wore myself out.
But you did 90 straight minutes of nonstop energy, nonstop content.
But your passion conveyed the truth.
God used that last night and I prayed.
I was actually praying for you for your anointing to do that and to be on fire
and to bring it because sometimes people, I think it's more okay to talk about it now than it has been.
You know what I mean?
If we had done this three years ago, it would have been a dull yawn four years ago.
Or even longer back then that.
Pre-COVID, I think people weren't paying attention hardly.
It's the right thing at the right time now.
Exactly. But a lot of this material, I mean, about 70% of what we are doing
was written long before COVID, long before, I mean, 20, 30 years ago.
And we're digging up this treasure.
You've been updating the information and bringing it into today.
So we have this amazing class on seeing government through a biblical worldview, biblical lens.
We were talking about how we'd gone through a lot of this 20 years ago and loved it and appreciated it.
But it's taken on all new meaning.
It's really come into focus as it's truly extremely relevant
and exactly what we're experiencing right now in the nation.
Exactly. I think about how it dovetails with biblical citizenship, which we did through the Patriot Academy.
We got the deluxe version of it because Rick Green goes to our church and his whole family and his interns.
Go check that out. Go check out PatriotAcademy.com and biblical citizenship. It's available.
Fantastic organization led by Rick and Kara Green, who have become dear friends of ours and brothers and sisters in Christ.
And he was out of town because he'd been on a writing tour and then he's also speaking at umpteen places while he's gone.
When he goes out to do something, he's go big or go home.
So he's doing a lot of things right now. They're doing some video, some filming and whatnot.
But he texted me last night and said, I'm so sorry I'm missing.
I actually shot a picture of one of our pages and sent it back and I said, Pastor Brian's on fire.
He's Fuego tonight. He's wrote back, boom, and he's so sorry to miss.
But this material is so powerful and so good.
And what we're doing, we're educating people. We're discipling people.
Not just with some random content, you know, just to have a Bible study.
This isn't just to have a Bible study. This is literally to raise up disciples that are going to be difference makers, culture shapers, world changers.
That's our mission. Absolutely.
And I said at the end, you brought me up and I was just bubbling over, didn't even know where to start.
But I was reminded of how important it is that if you're going to run an engine at a higher speed, as we're making disciples, as you begin to grow and mature and develop,
it's like running an engine at higher RPMs, which naturally, physically, it takes more fuel. It takes more gas.
Yeah, it's a great picture. It takes more maintenance as well. You got to maintain that engine because it's running harder.
And you know, you see it on the racetrack where they have pit stops to come in. They got to do maintenance in the middle of a race.
Or you may need to use premium fuel. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. You got nitrous oxide. You got to get up up your game there.
But what it's a reminder of me too is even in my own personal disciplines, so let's bring it down to where we live.
In our own personal disciplines, in our morning times or our devotional times, we've got to up our game there too.
It's not just working for something. It's just wisdom. This is grandma's common sense.
Even while you were talking last night, I leaned over to Annette because she said, this is so good.
And I leaned over to Annette and I said, this is grandma's common sense. It really is. It is.
I mean, the whole issue about boundaries, the whole issue about culture, the issue about government, and the Bible literally is common sense.
Yeah. Uncommon sense, apparently. Well, yeah, apparently.
What we're seeing, and just I'll segue back into our conversation, but literally it's like we're seeing a resurgence or a wave of common sense.
Yeah. The last four years were insanity.
Well, and as common sense in leadership is taking root, it's like it's giving permission to people to re-embrace common sense in their own personal lives and in other areas of society.
And it's leadership begets leadership. Common sense begets more common sense.
It's like a snowball rolling down a hill is what it feels like. And I feel like people are getting permission and being unleashed around the nation right now to return to things that they've always known are right.
But maybe they felt like either it had gone out of style or it had so fallen out of favor that you couldn't think those things anymore.
And these were norms and traditional values that we've grown up as true things, biblical things.
For example, it wasn't that long ago that Riley Gaines was speaking on a college campus, and she was saying there's two genders.
There's man and woman. She was talking about transgender athletes coming in and dominating women's sports.
And she was chased. Her and her team were chased, and they had the security to take her into a room and lock the door.
And barricade the door to keep them from coming in because people were so angry. That's when you realize common sense is gone.
What was true a few months ago or a few years ago is suddenly flipped on its end. And now you can't even speak the truth.
It's like a spirit of confusion takes root in the midst of atmospheres like that where people who would have never questioned things before all of a sudden get unsure in their mind.
Like, am I wrong? Have I been wrong about this the whole time? Is this actually true?
And there's this mass confusion that takes place. But all it takes is somebody with a little bit of authority on them to call people back to common sense and go, guys, it's male and female.
We've always known this. It hasn't changed. And then all of a sudden everybody's like, oh, yeah, that's right.
That's right. That's true. And then yesterday, Donald Trump, our president, President Trump, signs another ordinance, another order saying that there will be no more transgender athletes.
You can't compete at the collegiate or any level now as transgender. And people cheer and go crazy. I'm going, dad, why do we?
He even made a comment about it said that we even have to have this rule that we've even had to come up with an order on this.
Well, the reporting I saw on it was that even a majority of Democrats are on in line with that.
Yeah, Martina Navratilova, who's gay, she's like, no, we don't need men in women's sports.
I mean, so it's not a one size fits all. And I think the temptation just as a little segue or a little sidebar here, the temptation is to become simplistic in our simplistic in our terminology, our vocabulary.
I have found myself falling into that where I'll just say something blanket. It's a blanket statement as though and then I have to back up and go, wait a minute.
There are things that are much more layered and complex. For sure. And I'm just make I can't you can't oversimplify.
You got to be careful with that because again, there's there's layers to all of these these things.
That's just a little caveat there. But and watch our broad sweeping statements.
And I that's I'm preaching to myself on that one, too, because it is easy when you feel this momentum and there's an excitement and and you're among friends to just sort of fall into lazy speak.
Where you just say, hey, everybody cheers. And then you walk away and go, wait a minute, that that wasn't completely totally honest.
You know, I think one thing that's important for everyone, all of us, myself included to remember as we think on these things is that there is a difference between individual and relational conversations that we have with people in how we navigate the nuances of particular situations.
Versus when we're in a situation where we need to speak speak broadly to an issue of what is right and what is wrong.
Yeah, what is true and what is false? What is what is encapsulated by a biblical worldview and what is not?
You know, it at times requires us to make broad sweeping statements that aren't meant to speak into every specific individual nuance and situation. It's meant to cast the die and say, here's the truth.
You know, here's here's what God says. Here's the reality that we then have to navigate individual situations through the lens of.
There you go. So it is a broad canopy sometimes where it's like a canopy you got to put over something and then that canopy casts that canopy casts a shadow.
Yes. And then within that shadow, there's nuances and things you got to navigate.
And I think that's just wisdom. That's just using wisdom as we as we keep going along. You said something a minute ago. I think I want to I want to step into that a little bit.
You talked about a spirit of you said there's a spirit of what confusion.
One of the things that Eldridge is and their team at Wild at Heart, who have a high regard for those guys, been out to their boot camp, been out to one of their conference to their conferences in Colorado.
And it's been to several as well. So a lot of people in our church.
So they've been they've been a real fountain of information and truth and content for us.
But he was talking on a podcast the other day and he was reminding the listeners that the number of years ago before covid they since some various spiritual attacks that were coming upon the land, I would say upon our nation, but really upon the world.
And one of those was a was a spirit of confusion is a part of that. But it was a spirit of chaos and desolation, desolation, meaning death. And when he when he defined that, he said, I'm not talking about just physical death, although that can be a part of it.
But really, it's bigger than that. It's more the end of things like you've been doing something for a long time.
You've been doing the right to use Eugene Peterson. You've been doing the right thing for a long period of time. And it's been a good thing. Long obedience and in one direction.
And then suddenly just feel like this needs to stop or I'm done or maybe I've run my course. Yeah.
He and Stacey went through a situation where they both woke up one morning. They both kind of had this feeling.
It was an intrusive feeling. They didn't recognize it immediately is what it was. But this intrusive feeling and thought that said, you know, you've worked hard for a long time.
You could retire. This is probably a good time or change directions altogether.
He started entertaining that and just making an agreement with it and go, you know, that's true. I am tired. I look tired.
I mean, he's I'm old before my time. And and he said, I am tired. And he and Stacey are doing some stuff around the house.
And he mentions it and she goes, I've got the same thought. I've been feeling the same way.
And they're like, so when two agree on earth, right, is touching anything you can make a covenant in the positive, but you can make one in the negative as well.
You can make covenants with the enemy. And so so they're going back and forth and they're starting to feel like, man, get some energy about.
Yeah, maybe we're done. Maybe wild at heart had its season and we either need to pass it off or stop it.
You know, this was back in twenty nineteen. So they're talking about it.
They go to go to the office, they've got their big staff meeting that week. They bring in the whole team and they bring it up a little bit.
And others are going, I've thought the same thing. Well, for a little bit, the whole staff is entertaining.
Maybe we're done. And then one person just popped up and said, wait a minute.
Let's take a step back from what we need to listen to what we're saying, because it did not resonate. And as they unpack that as a team, they all realize that they had succumbed to the spirit of the same suggestion, the same intrusive thought, the suggestion where they were now making agreements in the negative agreements and covenants with the enemy.
I think this is an important principle for people to understand. If you don't understand and believe that the enemy makes coordinated suggestions to groups of people, whether that be families or societies, nations, governments, you're missing what scripture clearly says.
We're not wrestling against flesh and blood here. But there are principalities and powers and dark forces in the heavenly realms that are who we're actually contending with here.
And to the degree that people are not in a place of submission to the Lord is the degree that they are susceptible to suggestions at a higher level.
And even when you do walk with the Lord, you have to be able to discern the spirits of where things are coming from, where your own thoughts are coming from. And so if we have to be careful with that as believers, how much more vulnerable is an unbeliever to those suggestions?
Because they may not have the capacity, they wouldn't have the worldview, the frame, the filter to judge that thought and go, wait a minute.
Where'd that come from?
And here's a test. Anytime, and I teach people this all the time, particularly in conversations when we're talking about stuff. I shared this with somebody yesterday.
And they were talking, we were talking about intrusive thoughts and things that come and a lot of times we just accept them and then we make agreements with them. And that's a contract. When you make an agreement, you're making a contract.
So when you make a bad agreement with something and you're going, yeah, I am ugly. Yeah, these clothes don't fit. Yeah, I need to drive it down. It solidifies the covenant. You're naming the terms of the covenant.
You're agreeing with this power and agreement. And I was sharing with this person yesterday. I said, I've got a little litmus test. It's super simple.
When I get an intrusive thought, I have to pause. I step back and I go, is this true? I love that. Jesus, Holy Spirit, Father, is this true? And it doesn't take but a nanosecond.
You'll get a confirmation quickly. The Lord, he wants you to know if you're being, if there's something false that's come in and it's getting flagged. He's not going to go, well, figure it out on your own, son.
No, he's going to go, okay, I'm glad you asked. I'm just waiting for you to ask. But he does wait for us to ask. He does. He does. He is a teacher to the nth degree.
And so things that are learned, sometimes we learn through missing, we learn through failure, we learn through misstep. I'd rather learn in the positive, but even as a natural, as a person, I had to fall off the monkey bars.
I had to wreck my motorcycle. I had to wreck my car. I had to blow the engine in my cool car. I mean, there's just things, but I didn't do it twice.
Yeah, learn.
I didn't go back and do it again. So sometimes failure, pain, suffering, those things can be great teachers. And so the Holy Spirit, God, the Father, Jesus, the Son, they work with us and they partner with us.
And they allow us to come up to the edge of things and we are allowed to make a misstep. We're allowed to step off the cliff. He'll let us.
He'll help us afterwards when we're crying out to him, but he will let us get there. But he's teaching us to be sensitive to what's false.
Yes.
So you've got truth, but then you've got these lies and these false things, and he's teaching us how to recognize those things.
Yeah, I believe it's in Hebrews chapter six, the Hebrew writer literally talks about how a wise disciple is somebody who will train their spiritual senses to recognize good and evil, true and false.
That there's an exercising process that needs to happen where we refine and hone not just our physical senses, but our spiritual sense of these things.
And those things can be dialed in with use.
Yeah, so I'm going to break the fourth wall here. So for our listeners that are tuned into this, we want to encourage you that you are not left to yourself.
If you know Jesus Christ, you've accepted Christ as your Savior, you are born again and filled with the Spirit, you have a built in tester.
You've got a built in alarm system. There's a reason why sometimes you just get this flag.
You just get this bump in your spirit that's like, I need to pause here or I need to stop or I need to listen or I need to take a step back or I need to ask a question.
Is this true? Yeah. And I want to encourage you to begin to exercise your spiritual muscles in terms of this.
We did all through the election. We were talking about government and all that. Yeah. All this works together. All of this is interconnected.
We had to discern things that were coming down during COVID when it broke out. I mean, I'm in charge of a church full of people.
Yeah. And all these warnings about breakouts and super spreaders. And so, and then are we a central service? Are we not?
And all those, we had to make massive decisions that were huge decisions and impacted a lot of people.
And because of the fear mongering that happened through Fauci and Burks and others, we were told we would be responsible for their deaths.
So pastors all around me were shutting their churches down right and left. And I'm in this quandary of should we?
And we did it first. We only stayed down for 11 weeks. But even then I look back and go, I wish I would have taken a bigger pause and taken a risk.
Wow. You know, because you have to ask the question. When you say take a bigger pause, you mean take a bigger pause to evaluate?
I should have stopped and took a bigger step back immediately. And because looking back on it, because I'm trying to learn from the past, right?
I should have took a step back the moment I was watching these, those daily briefings that were coming out with President Trump at the time and Burks,
Fauci and others, and they were given these briefings and they were just full of fear and people are dying all over the place and from this cold.
You know, I mean, but but I wish I would have stepped back early on and said, is this true? Yeah.
But I think I got swept up in the in the hysteria in the news. And so I wasn't listening to the flags in me because there were flags.
I look back on go there were you can see it. I was pinging on the inside going something's not right here.
Yeah. And I didn't listen to that. Why? Because fear overruled truth. And we got to be careful about that.
So that's just a that's a very blatant example. Now, once I begin to wake up, I begin to go, wait a minute.
This is there's no way a little cotton homemade cotton mask is going to protect me from this deadly virus. Right.
There there's things being and then we saw the emergency order come in the lockdowns.
It was like at that point, I begin to realize this is this is control. This is dangerous.
This is this is an area that we're talking about that my wife is particularly strong in.
And I'm thankful to the Lord to have her because she's helped me many times to remember to to draw back and to seek the Lord rather than to just evaluate what's in front of my face.
And I remember her early, early, early, early on, like as soon as they started talking about vaccines.
I mean, her immediate response was she's saying, I can't explain it yet, but something's not right about that.
Yeah. Something's not right. Truth meter was pinging. Yeah. You know, it's going off.
You know, and I I kind of blew her off at the time, you know, because I'm like, you know, well, look at this evidence and look at that and look at this.
And she said, I know, I know, but I'm telling you, something's not right.
You know, and, you know, I think as we learn to really trust the Holy Spirit to speak to us and to show it to to lead us and guide us into all truth, like the scripture says, he actually does.
You know, and you may not have the ability to explain it in great detail to somebody else, but you'll know.
You'll know what to do. Yeah. And it may cause you to have to go against the grain.
And God, I think, does that on purpose to see, you know, will you go against the grain with only a little bit of information of me prompting you say, no, don't go there.
Yeah. This is important because when we're talking about all this government and all this, these are all very interconnected because it happens on the big scale on the, you know, just the massive scale.
It also happens in your daily life. You go through a given day having to make a lot of decisions. It may just be while you're driving.
Should I cut over in that lane? I'm kind of cutting that guy off. Should I? I mean, even down to those kinds of decisions, am I going to be a jerk or should I just let them merge?
I mean, it comes down to everything we do because everything we do matters ultimately because it's the sum of all these things that we do, these actions. When they're not under the biblical worldview, then we can compromise here and compromise there.
And what does it matter if I get mad at that guy driving and pull up on his, you know, show him? I'll show him who's boss and how I'll show him he made a mistake.
And all that's coming out of our flesh instead of being under the spirit. Well, if you don't have a biblical worldview, you don't even have the capacity to function in the spirit.
Because it's all fed by God's Word. And so, the more you're in the Word, the more you're feeding your spirit, the more sensitive you are to spiritual attack.
And you'll actually know what to do. The Holy Spirit will lead you through how to deal with things. You'll know things aren't right.
There will be something that goes up, a flare or whatever where you're like, something's off here.
So, the more you feed on God's Word and continue to feed that engine as I was using that earlier, to feed that engine, it can run at a higher RPM.
It'll run better. It'll run smoother. And it'll be more efficient. And it'll get you there quicker.
And so, that's kind of what we're talking about when it comes to the discipleship is developing ourselves to be sensitive to God, sensitive to His presence and His Spirit in the dailies, the everyday stuff.
You said something at the end last night that I thought was really good. You talked about how as Christians in modern society, we've drifted so far from what used to be normal.
A couple hundred years ago, let's say, in terms of what the average believer expected was possible in their walk with God, whether that be the transformation in their own personal life or freedom from strongholds to their ability to influence and lead in society and to drive change and to bring the Spirit of God into places that they go.
In all of those ways, what used to be normal has changed so much now that even to get back to baseline or to get back to zero is a feat from where we are because we're not at zero.
We're at negative 10, I think is the way you put it. And so, even getting back to baseline looks radical.
Who has time to spend an hour or two in God's Word? Come on. Hey, bring it up into the real world. And I appreciate you version Bible and all that.
And I do appreciate a man who's put the Bible into millions of people's palm that they didn't have before.
There's a flip side to that coin, I think. So much is designed to be quick and to the point and get you a little nugget.
Yeah, to where you begin to train yourself. It's almost like X, Twitter, slash Twitter, 144 characters.
And there's a lot of things that have factored into where now we want quick, we want convenient, and it's got to be good.
It's got to be top notch because I'm going to try to feed on this the rest of the day.
Well, if you treated your body that way, we'd all be emaciated and sick.
I mean, we would not eat enough food. We'd not ingest enough calories.
The things we need, the healthy things that we need to live, the healthy protein, and we would literally starve ourselves to death.
But what's happening spiritually is the more lazy we get, the more lethargic we get, the more convenience that we want,
we end up becoming emaciated spiritually because we're not spending time.
You cannot microwave this book. I mean, there's no way.
Well, the effect of that that you see in Scripture is a dullness.
And so your ability to hear from the Lord gets dull. Your ability to understand true wisdom is dull.
Your clarity becomes not so clear.
It's just everything gets a layer of film over it to where it's more confusing, it's less clear.
And we need clarity. No doubt.
I was talking to a young man last night. You ended up visiting with him as well.
Wonderful young man. Came to the Lord late this last year on fire.
I mean, he would. He did like a walk to Emmaus and then just randomly walked into our church, right?
Literally, yes. And then he was lit up after that.
And then, and I warned him because when I meet someone young like that,
it's just on fire and they're just gorging themselves.
I give them little warnings, just a little shot over the bow, not to pour water on their fire,
but to just give them a heads up that you may wake up one morning and not have this adrenaline pump.
You may not be as excited as you are. Don't let that worry you.
That means you're actually graduating in your growth. You're maturing.
So here he was on fire and he disappears for a month.
I mean, I'm like, where is he? I don't see him. He's not sitting on the front row anymore. He's gone.
And then he showed up in the last two weeks. And he even said, hey, I kind of fell off.
And I said, do you remember me telling you this might happen?
He's paused. He goes, yeah, I do.
And I said, listen, what came so easy for you in those first few weeks and months is going to be harder now.
Why? Because God's training you in righteousness. He's training you to grow.
You've moved from adrenaline to discipline. It's a different stage.
So now you're in a new place, but it's no less exciting. It's just different.
So you may actually feel like you're having to work. You have to be intentional.
You have to do things on purpose. You may have to plan something.
And I said, in your morning time, what was so amazing is he walks away and then he comes back.
Remember? We were the last ones there. We're ready to go home. We're all tired.
And he stands there and he goes, what do you mean by morning thing? What's a devotion?
What's a devotional? Wow. Don't you love those kind of questions?
I thought it was such a pure question of like, honest. Just wants to know.
Honest. And it's so easy for us because we live in this world to make assumptions, even for our listeners today to make assumptions.
A lot of what we're saying, we're kind of assuming things.
But the truth is, if you're a listener today, we know this walk with Jesus is not easy.
The Bible says, Yoke is easy as burden is light. And he's referring to a context.
But at the end of the day, it takes discipline. It takes intentionality. It takes work.
It's like your marriage doesn't get better without work. We call it doing the work.
In therapy, if you've been in therapeutics, you've got to do the work.
But I'm going to say as a believer, as a follower of Jesus, if you want to grow, mature, and become impervious and storm proof, you've got to do the work.
His yoke is easy in his burden's light, but he also said you will have trouble.
That's right.
That trouble is not from him, but you'll have it.
That's right. It comes with the territory. I used to say, hey, I can tell I'm close to something because I'm over the target.
I've quit saying that. I now say I'm not over the target. I am the target right now.
I am the target. I'm getting shot at. So that's just a part of it.
It comes part and parcel with what we do. And I want to encourage our listeners that it is so worth it.
It is worth it to go to another level. It's so worth it to grow in your faith.
But just know there will be stages. And in those stages and phases, just like in your natural growth,
when you're moving from an infant to childhood, early, middle, late childhood, then you move into early adolescence,
all those stages come with excitement and with great challenges.
100%.
Because that's a part of the growth process. The Bible talks about sanctification,
which means we're growing in training and righteousness. And that's just something that is the rest of your life.
And it's good and it's exciting. And I was telling that young man, I said,
I'm 40 plus years in the Lord now and I'm more on fire than I've ever been in my life.
So I want you to know it does get better, but you will go through some hard stages.
And I didn't go over there with the valley, the shadow of death or any of the desert seasons.
But we will in due time as he grows. But it is true.
I mean, if you stay the course, there starts to be this amazing ROI, return on interest,
that comes where now I don't have to feel pumped up to be on fire for God.
You're steady. You're stable.
Yeah. Stable makes you able. Right?
You say that. And so I just want to encourage you wherever you are on the journey in your faith right now,
stay the course. Don't give up. It will get better.
There will be a day where you'll feel things you don't right now.
And there'll be a day you may not feel things you feel right now. That's part of the process.
Well, in 1 Peter, it talks about how those things build endurance in us, character and endurance,
which is just staying power. It's the ability to make it to the end,
to cross the finish line and not just start with a whiz bang.
And God's more concerned with how we finish than how we start.
Man, wouldn't it just be fun if it's just like you could download the stuff, like just have a literal download, man.
The Matrix.
Yeah. Not going to happen.
I know Kung Fu.
That is not the way this works. And man, we so wish it did.
I'm looking for a particular passage and I don't know if I can find it.
There it is. Okay. So in the book of James, listen to this. He says,
My brethren, count it all joy. This is James chapter 1 verse 2.
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.
Whoa, wait, right there. I mean, you need to camp there for a moment.
I won't, but count it all joy. Not count it some.
Count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.
But now this starts this, it's like a domino effect.
But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
If any of you lacks wisdom, and it goes on and on and on.
And it's talking about this cascade of growth, this cascade of things that happen in your life
that is just part and parcel with the journey.
So I don't want you to get discouraged. I want you to feel like,
man, I was so excited last year, Pastor Jimmy, when I found your podcast and you and Annette,
and man, just all in and now I don't feel that way. It's okay that you don't feel that way.
Yeah, I mean, according to that passage, you can look at that and go, man, I'm right on schedule.
This is exactly what God told me the process looks like, and I am in the middle of it.
You're on the journey. You're on the journey.
And it has many highs and lows and valleys and mountains and twists and turns.
You're going to have seasons of great victory, but you're also going to have moments of defeat.
And the thing is, is that you don't quit. Stay the course.
Things will change. This too shall surely pass. And it does.
And you and I have walked with the Lord, Pastor Brian, long enough that we know these cycles.
We sense where we are in a given cycle. I'm at a point now where I kind of know where I'm at on the curve.
I'm going, okay, good days are coming. I'm just in the middle of that.
But what's interesting is that it happens very quickly now,
whereas years ago I would feel like I was stuck there for a long time because maybe I didn't know what to do.
I didn't know where to go. I didn't know I need to feed my spirit.
I didn't know if I feed my flesh, it dominates. If I feed my spirit, it dominates.
I didn't know those things. So I was figuring it out.
But at this point in the game, it's like those hard seasons and those hard moments or lulls in the action,
doldrums you might call them, they're just very short lived now because there's just too much to be happy about.
That's encouragement for people that this does get easier.
It does. It does. I can now read that scripture, my yoke is easy, my bird's light.
Now I can go, yeah, but it took a long time to get to that place.
And I can wake up tomorrow morning and feel terrible.
I mean, I'm just so rested in it and I accept the seasons and the cycles to where that doesn't shake me anymore.
None of that moves me because God's faithful and he's good. And that's all I need to know.
That's good. Brother, we could go for four hours.
Yeah, this is deep stuff here. Adam Curry and John Devorak, you know, with no agenda, three and a half hours,
three to three and a half hours, two times a week. The thing about it is once you start these conversations,
you can see how that can happen. And I can go on day with you, brother, but we got an appointment coming up.
We got something fun to do. So any last parting words of encouragement and then I'll land the plane.
You know, my takeaway from our discussion here this morning is to just take time to take a step back in everything,
whether you're watching the news and trying to interpret it, you know, how should I feel about this?
What's going on? You know, is this good or bad? Take a moment.
Pull back and ignore the headlines for a second and ask the Lord, is this true? Is this good? Is this bad?
How should I feel about this? You'll find that you're getting promptings.
If you know Jesus, if you're if you are full of the Holy Spirit, you're walking with God, he wants to speak to you.
He wants to show you truth and lead you in it. And we need that because otherwise it's very confusing out there.
And it's hard to know what to think and what to believe.
Well, that's a good word. I think we should just stand on that. That's spot on, brother.
Hey, it's always a joy to iron sharpens. Thanks for having me.
Every time we do this, I leave pumped up. I leave excited and encouraged.
And I hope our listeners do too. And so for you listening, we want you to live up in a down world.
We want you to know it's possible. It doesn't mean it's always going to be sunshiney and, you know, beautiful days outside.
We've got rain falls on the just the adjust like but just know better days will always be around the corner.
And there'll be these amazing cycles. You'll live out. God bless you.
Keep living up and down. Great week.