00:00 Chris
Welcome to the Lion Within Us, a podcast, serving Christian men who are hungry to be the leaders they’re predestined to be. I’m your host, Chris Granger. So let’s jump in. All right guys, this week we’ve been talking about self and the pursuit of victory. Remember the verse of the week, Romans 8
37, but in all of these things, we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved.

So, how did I pick the pursuit of victory as a title for this week? Well, it happened to be a title of, of a, of a amazing book that I got. I’m so excited to have me with me today, Mr. Clarence Haynes, Jr. He’s the author of this book. We actually, I found Clarence by looking at a blog article to when I was studying for the lion of Judah and his name popped up. I reached out to him, God connected the dots in, and here we are. So how are you doing.

00:47 Clarence Haynes
I am doing fantastic. And I’m really excited to be here and just to talk to you and talk to your audience. So I’m really looking forward to,

00:55 Chris
oh, I am too. I am too. And you were, you were so gracious, you know, miss Mr. Haynes sent me a, a copy of the book. Uh, I immediately put in, went to the top of my pile and I’ll tell you what guys, this is one you just, you just read through, may start to start to cover, read through it. I’ve read it probably three times preparing for this interview. I just think there’s so much great things.

And Mr. Hayes, when you started the book, you broke it down into three areas, you know, the foundation, the preparation and the actions. And I just thought maybe we could walk through a high level each one of those areas. Cause you know, these guys that are listening, they, they want, they they’re pursuing victory every day.

So maybe from that foundation standpoint, you know what, where’s the right way to start there, the right mind set.

01:39 Clarence Haynes
Well again, if you’re going to tackle anything or if you’re going to win, um, the, the first thing you have to do is kind of lay the right foundation. It’s like, if you’re building any house or business or family or ministry, doesn’t matter what it is.

If you don’t have the right, uh, foundational principles, establish. Then you’re building, uh, you’re, you’re, you’re living on a shaky foundation and chances are it, it may sprout up, but it’s probably not going to last. And so, um, I started there specifically to lay out a foundation so that you can establish an identify who you are, because understanding who you are, especially who you are in Christ that is critical.

To you living a successful life, because if you don’t know who you are, and you’re always asking that question, then clearly that’s a foundation that’s going to trip you up and most likely caused you to fall in your life. Um,

02:42 Chris
no doubt. I may have that foundation, like the man who built the house on the sand.

Right? Exactly.

02:49 Clarence Haynes
Exactly. Because life is going to hit you. It’s going to hit you from, um, all different directions. It’s not a matter of if it’s just a matter of when. And if you’re prepared, right? If you have the right foundation, if you have the right stuff that’s in you, then when those things come, number one, you won’t be surprised cause you’ll be expecting it.

But more importantly, you’ll have the, the ability to withstand it. And that’s really where wanted to start is just understanding some foundational principles that sometimes I think even as Christians, we don’t have. Pay attention to a recognize. Um, and so that’s why I wanted to really start there to give people the right perspective and, and the, the foundation of, of who they are.

Um, and that’s going to help propel them and prepare them for victory.

03:39 Chris
Yeah, no kidding. So the principles that you don’t, that you say, Christians don’t even recognize what jumps out.

03:45 Clarence Haynes
Well, I’ll, I’ll go back to one of the first things I talk about is, um, is the fact that you’re in a fight. Uh, you know, and, and I, and I highlight that in the book and I start there on purpose because.

You know, I don’t think we realize what happens when we actually get saved. Right. You know, we, we, we focus on the euphoria of the moment, which we should, and we focus on the fact that man I’ve, I’ve crossed from death to life. And, and, um, my name is now written in the Lamb’s book of life and all my sins are forgiven and, and those are fantastic things.

And I want you to celebrate that because you should, but yet at the same time, in that very instance, We step right into the middle of a spiritual battle. Um, and it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been saved. The very moment you give your life to Christ. You walk into a fight. Um, and so we’ve, we’ve got to understand that.

Uh, and, and again, I got saved when I was pretty young and no one ever told me that, uh, kind of figure that out later on, but imagine if we could understand that right away, how much more prepared. We can be and less shocked when things start happening. It’s like, wait a second. I, I thought I, I just gave my life to Christ.

Everything’s supposed to be smooth and easy and, and, you know, no, you just walked into the middle of a spiritual battle. And so we’ve got to understand that and the better, and the more you understand that, then the better you can prepare yourself, um, to withstand it and endure in the middle of the.

05:26 Chris
Absolutely because it’s not all cupcakes and rainbows, that’s for

05:30 Clarence Haynes
sure. Not miss life.

05:35 Chris
I love, I love do love how your book, you call out, you know, know your enemy. And he made that very clear. I love the word enemy because it is it he’s Emissary. So when you speak at that, you actually spoke about, you know, two enemies.

So maybe I’ll unpack that for the listener.

05:52 Clarence Haynes
Yeah. You know, it’s, I use the freeze, we have an internal enemy and an external one. Um, and if you look at scripture, um, there’s really two wars that we fight in, in, in scripture. The Bible says in Ephesians six that we don’t wrestle with less flesh and blood.

Right. So wrestling is a, is a, is a, um, act of engagement and, you know, um, Uh, I’ll use the word warfare if you want. Um, but we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities. So, so we have a spiritual, external enemy. We define him as Satan. And if you want to add all of his minions to that, uh, demonic activity and principalities, that’s an external enemy.

And that’s part of the fight that we enter into when we get saved, because we just literally went from. It’s almost like a trade has happened. I was now playing on one team right now, right in the middle of the game. I get switched to the other team. Um, and so now those who are for me are now again, Um, you know, Satan’s not happy when you get saved.

He now you heard his adversary more importantly, you become a threat to him. Um, because now you can be salt and light, which can push back the kingdom of darkness. Right. And so he becomes your enemy. He be, he he’s out to get you, he’s out to take you down, he’s out to, to hinder your effectiveness or to destroy your, your witness or destroy your testimonies out to do all of those things.

All right. So that’s your adversary, but that’s the external. You, you flip that over and now we have an internal one. Uh, the Bible in Galatians five talks about how the, the flesh, our, our fleshly nature, that we don’t, we, that we still walk around with wars against the spirit. It desires things that are contrary to the very person of the holy spirit, that God that comes to dwell within us.

The moment we give our lives to Christ, and now we’re stuck in the middle of this kind of. Yeah. And the Bible says that these two, the flesh and the spirit, they war against each. Right so that you do not do what you want to do. There are constantly in conflict. They will never agree. They’re not going to get on the same page as never going to happen.

And so this fight and battle this external one with say our enemy Satan and this internal one with our. These are the two greatest wars that we’re fighting in this Christian life.

08:27 Chris
Absolutely. And guys, it gets better. I know some of the guys like, man, this is tough, but it does get better. So, you know, you do call out an area that you say, you know, which one is easier to feed.

So I I’m curious how you went on. Unpack that.

08:46 Clarence Haynes
Well, here’s, here’s one thing that I’ve discovered is a lot of times in our Christian life, Um, we, we give a lot of power to Satan and, and its right to respect your enemy or respect your opponent. You know, if you, if you’ve ever played sports, um, they always tell you, you know, you don’t overlook your opponent.

You always give a measure of respect to your opponent is there’s nothing wrong with that. And Satan does have power and that’s true. However, he doesn’t have more power than you do. Um, and that’s something we have to recognize. And here’s a simple fact, the spirit of God, when you were saved Wells within you, right?

It’s not just a spirit. It’s the spirit of God, which means that you are in dwelled by the holy spirit, which means that God himself, if you think about this, God himself comes and takes up residence in your heart. Okay. Last time I checked. He was the only one. Who’s all powerful. Almighty. Every knee will bow.

Every tongue will confess he’s alpha. He’s omega he’s beginning he’s and he’s creator he’s before all things. And after all things, right, he that’s who he is. And he says, I’m going to come dwell in your heart. So what does that mean? That means now that we have power over the enemy. And yes, he’s powerful, but he’s not stronger than the God that lives inside of you.

Right? And so, because of that, right, because we, we have ability to, to overcome him, then that means that he becomes the easier enemy to defeat. And here’s why, and I’ll go over the second part. Just a moment there. If there’s, there’s so many places in scripture where, uh, think about what Jesus did whenever Jesus encountered a demonic activity.

He spoke the word, he cast them out, done, gone. Okay. We can do that. Will Satan. We have authority in that realm. However, when you look at scripture and you look at our other enemy, that internal one there, nowhere in scripture where it says cast out your flesh and it’s gone and you don’t have to worry about it.

Right. It doesn’t happen like that. It doesn’t happen. I jokingly, I think I referenced this in a book. I like to say that your flesh has resurrection power. Here’s why when you crucify today and you go to sleep proud, cause you’ve crucified your flesh, praise the Lord. You’ve done that. But guess what happens when you wake up the next morning?

It rises up with you. It has resurrection power. And so we are going to be in this rest wrestle as long as we live in this body. And there’s never a moment where the flesh won’t be present. It doesn’t mean it has to be a, we can’t overcome it. I’m not saying that, but it’s always present. We can resist the devil and he will flee there’s nowhere in scripture says resist the flesh and they will.

Um, and so, so we have to be aware of that. And that’s why Satan becomes the easier opponent to defeat as a post to our flesh, because it’s always there and it’s constantly we’re war it’s warring against the, the spirit. There’s nowhere in the Bible where it says that our flesh disappears. As long as we live in his life, where our friends never have to wrestle with it.

He knows no one scripture that says that. And so we have to be aware of that.

12:23 Chris
Gas don’t think about, you know, you think you get saved and you have those spirit, but . It’s a daily

12:29 Clarence Haynes
fight. It’s a daily fight. And that’s why we have to do the things on a daily basis that gives us that positions us to win. Um, you know, and that’s why it’s a, it’s an everyday process. It’s not like you just, that’s why he can’t just go to church on Sunday and think, and think that’s all you need to do.

And you’re good for the rest of the week. That’s a recipe for disaster, right? You’re not going to see any victory in your life. If the only time you open your Bible, the only time you pray, only time you worship is when you get together in church. For those 90 minutes to two hours on this. You’re in trouble, you’re in trouble.

You know, you’re not going to have a whole lot of strength and you’re not going to have a whole lot of ability to defeat either one of the enemies. Cause you’re going to find that you’re going to be overpowered because you’re going to realize that you are simply weak, you know, the old expression, seven days without pre.

Makes one weak, w E a K w E K. So, so it’s, it’s recognizing that this is a daily walk, a daily fight, a daily, um, a struggle sometimes. Meaning there’s the sh the fight between the flesh and the spirit. No doubt.

13:41 Chris
I mean, I, I, I tell all our listeners all the time, you know, that Monday through Saturday, That man needs to be the same man, as on Sunday, you know, you can’t, it’s not just a Sunday thing.

It’s

13:51 Clarence Haynes
not a Sunday thing.

13:53 Chris
So you’re hearing it right here. So

13:55 Clarence Haynes
it’s not a Sunday. In fact, I would, I would even say that what you do between Monday and Saturday is more important than what you do on Sunday, right? Sunday is just simply the icing on the cake. It’s. Um, but what you do, how you live between Monday and Saturday, I’ll even take it a step further.

If you want to identify who you really are. Don’t look at what you do on Sunday morning. Look at what happens in your life between Monday and Saturday. That will give you a real picture of who you are, where you are, where your strengths and weaknesses a lie. Um, you know, I, I put this on my website. It.

Anybody can be a Christian on Sunday morning. Yeah. That’s easy. That’s the easy part. I’m surrounded by other believers. They all, we all fellowship. We all love God. We’re all singing the same songs. We’re all worshiping and that’s easy. What happens Monday when you’re in the office and now you’re around.

The, the, the person that doesn’t believe the same way you do or is totally against everything you believe or has different lifestyle than you live. All these other factors. That’s where we begin to identify who we really are, um, and where our strengths and our weaknesses are. And that’s the old expression.

That’s where the rubber meets the road. Um, not on Sunday. It’s Monday through Saturday.

15:21 Chris
It really is. I often say to, you know, if you want to see a priorities for a man, you look at his checkbook and his calendar, you know, you can see does your calendar a lot of it, God. I mean, we’ve got, be happy with what things that you’re packing your calendar with family devotion.

A part of it is spending time in the word. So that’s a couple areas to really have to consider there

15:41 Clarence Haynes
for sure. You know, as Jesus said, where your heart is, that your treasure will be so. Wherever you spending your money. That’s, what’s important to you. That’s what matters to you and the same way, where, where you spending your time.

It’s what what’s important to you. That’s right.

15:56 Chris
That’s right. What is the foundation? Uh, low. How w how you covered a book guys? Like this is, this is an area we got to get, right? So we’ll take a quick break and come back and we’re going to jump into the preparation.

Today is a great day to start your own podcast. Whether you’re looking for a new marketing channel, have a message you want to share with the world, or just think it’d be cool to have your own talk show. Podcasting is an easy, inexpensive, and fun way to expand your reach. Online Buzzsprout is hands down the easiest and best way to launch, promote and track your podcast.

Your show can be. And listed in all the major podcast directories like apple, Spotify, Google, and more within minutes of finishing your recording podcasts. Isn’t hard when you have the right partners and the team at Busch sprout is passionate about helping you succeed. Join over a hundred thousand podcasts already using Buzzsprout to get their messages out to the world.

Let’s create something great. Together, visit the line within.us/buzz to let Buzzsprout know we sent you and you’ll get a $20 Amazon gift card. If you sign up for a paid plan, that’s the line within.us/buzz.

All right guys, back here. We’re Mr. Hayes and he’s unpacking the wonderful book of the pursuit of victory. So we’re getting to the preparation area and that’s understanding who we are in Christ. So, so why is it so hard to forgive ourselves here?

17:29 Clarence Haynes
Oh my gosh. Um, you know, I just did a whole teaching on this, literally just a little while ago, talking about.

Dealing with and letting go of yesterday. Um, one of the hardest things for us to do is to, to let go of our past and to let go of especially, and it actually affects us in two ways. Um, it’s hard to let go of our past mistakes and failures, and sometimes it’s hard to let go of our past successes and Victor.

And, and, and we don’t often think about the other side of that, but sometimes we hold on to the ideal, for example, of the good old days. And we never realized that that was right for that moment, but there’s more victory ahead, right? The victory is not designed just to be in your past. Victory is designed to be in your present and into your future.

And sometimes we get stuck just looking back at past victory, not realizing that there’s more ahead. But on the flip side of that, we have a much more difficult time sometimes I think in letting go of our past failures and our past mistakes. And I think it’s because of one reason is because we don’t understand what happens when God forgives us.

Um, you know, and I think we, you know, first on, for example, first John one nine says if we confess our sins, God is faithful. And just to forgive us of our sin. And cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so we hear that, but we don’t know how to interpret that. And the truth of the matter is when God forgives our sin, the thing that he does, and this is the part that we struggle with understanding is that he doesn’t just forgive sin, but he cleanses.

And the cleansing part of that is, is the act of washing it away so that there’s no stain left over. There’s no evidence of it even remaining. So when God forgives and God cleanses, he looks at you. And what does he see? He sees a brand new clean. The problem is we don’t think of ourselves in that way. And we hold on to the sins of our past.

I’m struggling with amen. Why did I do that? Why did I do that? Why did I do that? And we, and that cripples us and prevents us from moving forward because we’re always looking back at the mistakes of yesterday. Right, right. In Romans eight one, it says that there is therefore, or therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

Jesus. And so let me ask you this question. If you’re listening to this, are you in Christ? Jesus? And if the answer to that question is yes. Then that means there’s no condemnation. So it leads me to ask another question. What exactly is condemnation? Well, let me break it down for you. When someone is condemned, that means a condemnation is a verdict that is rendered in a situation, right?

If a person’s on trial and they are condemned, that means they’ve stood trial. The verdict has been rendered and has been judged and the judgment is against. They’re going to pay the penalty for whatever crime or, or sin that they committed. Right. Well, Romans tells us there is no condemnation. So what does that mean?

That means you have stood trial. That means a verdict has been rendered. And that means that in your particular situation, there is no evidence to convict you. Right? So not guilty. And so we in Christ, that’s who you are. You are not guilty now. You’re not guilty because you didn’t commit the sin. Yes, you did.

But you’re not guilty because the judgment for your sin has already been put on Christ. So the penalty for it has already been paid. And so when you are in Christ and God looks at you, you are covered because he looks and sees that the penalty has already been paid. Right. So that means you don’t have to carry the guilt around.

Because you’re not guilty. So you’re cleansed and you’re not condemned. And when you understand that, that frees you now to begin to walk into the things and becoming the person that God wants you to be. But if you don’t, then you’re always going to be wrestling with this, you know, and this is a trick of the enemy because one of the things he always wants to do is remind you of what you were.

What God is trying to do and convince you of is not what you were, but it’s to remind you or help you understand who you are. God is dealing in the present and the future Satan is living in the past. Right? And so we’ve got to recognize that. And when you understand that, then you can move forward. In fact, what you can do, look at it like this, your path since.

Simply become a marker or, or an acknowledgement of God’s power and grace to transform you because what you were, you are no longer that same person. And so we have to identify that. And when we do, then we can start walking in confidence of who you are, knowing that, wait a second, my sins are forgiven.

I’m cleanse. I am no longer condemned all because I’m in Christ Jesus. And once you have that confidence, Satan can bring up the past. All he wants, it will have no effect or power over you because your past is already been dealt with. Right. Right. And that’s the power. We have to understand that if you have repented of sin, if you have of, of, and ask God to forgive you, then you have dealt with your past and you can leave it there and keep moving forward.

All right.

23:39 Chris
I think that’s the hardest part for a guy. Sometimes he just, you know, just speaking, you know, maybe this is a man’s podcast. It’s hard for us to forgive ourselves. I feel like we’re so hard on ourselves sometimes. And we’ll go back and we just keep re you know, I haven’t even heard gas say, man, you don’t, you don’t know what I’ve done, man.

You know, you don’t know what I’ve done. So, uh, but God does a guy forgive. So it’s such a tough area for guys to get past

24:03 Clarence Haynes
well, here’s, here’s why I love scripture. Um, and, and, and this is why reading the Bible is so important. Look at all the heroes of the. Right. And all the personalities we have in scripture.

Right. Um, God never, when he tells their story, he doesn’t leave the messy parts out. Right. And that’s the beauty of it because we, and take any character, think, think about David. And we think of the heroic, uh, you know, the man after God’s own heart, yet he was, the adults are in murder at the same time.

Right. Chances are for most people. There are some, but chances are you probably haven’t murdered someone. Right? Right. But even if you have, guess what, God’s still called David a man after his own heart. Right. And so we look at the people in scripture, they all had issues. They all had struggles. They all did stuff that could fall under the category of, oh my gosh, you just don’t know what I did.

And yet in the midst of that, God still would call it. Righteous. And we look at them as heroes of the faith and, and men of faith and women of faith. Right. We see that in spite of all of their mistakes and challenges and struggles, and that’s the beauty of this walk. Um, you know, you read fate, you read Hebrews 11, we call that, you know, the, the, the hall of faith is some people refer that to look at all the people listed there.

And look at their life. They didn’t live perfect lives, but they will all redeem. Then it all considered heroes of the faith. And so we’ve got to understand that that’s what you see. That’s what grace is all about. Yeah, it’s not that you have to do it. All right. In order to receive, grace has God gives us grace in spite of the fact that we don’t do it.

All right. That’s right. That’s right. Once. And so, as you learn to receive that and understand that and internalize that and begin to walk that out, then you’re on a path to living a victorious life now, but you’ve got to learn how to forgive yourself.

26:16 Chris
You did the analogy that you made. A dry erase marker versus the Sharpie that, that hit home for me.

Right. So maybe, maybe that could be something we can explore right here right now for the listener versus Sharpie. Cause I feel like so many times the guys that I talk to on a consistent basis, they feel like their whole life is in Sharpie. And I went over so many times and almost went through the paper, you know?

So let me get your take on now on why you picked that

26:44 Clarence Haynes
analogy. Well, we’ll think about it like this, if you’ve ever. Um, and I have a daughter, I have a eight year old daughter and she has a whiteboard. And if you’ve ever written on a whiteboard, you know, you have dry erase markers and then you have Sharpies, Sharpies, or permanent markers that once you write on it, they’re designed to not be erased.

They’re designed to leave a permanent mark or dry erase. You, you can write off. And you can see it there and then we can erase it and you can clean the board. And the board is totally clean. Like nothing was ever there before. So often in our life we live. And we think that God looks at us and write stuff down with the.

So you send there, are you lusted there? Or let’s write down less than all right. You committed this in there. So let’s write that one down. You cheated there, you lied the area, yelled at this person. You curse this one out, you did all of these things and we think God is keeping score with a Sharpie on the board.

That’s not how it works. God is God marks. Right. Cause, cause he doesn’t excuse the sin, so he marks it, but he works it in dry erase. And here’s the reason why we go back to first John one nine, the moment you come and repent of sin, right? If you confess your sin, then God cleanses it. And just like the dry erase board, he takes the dry.

He wipes, it wipes it clean and all of a sudden the board is clean. Again. Now the dry erase marker that he uses is the blood of Jesus. And, and, and, and I mean, there’s, I could go on and on there’s irony in that, that blood using to cleanse. It’s kind of a, uh, interesting irony, but we won’t go there today, but God cleanses us and he looks at the board just like the fresh, dry erase board.

And there’s nothing. Okay. So you come before God and say, oh God, I did it again. And God is saying, what did you do again? Because the board is empty. And we’ve got to understand that the problem is we think in Sharpie and we don’t think in dry erase. Now this is not an excuse or not to sin, or I’m not talking about the person who wants to willfully go out and live in sin and think, or I can just come back and ask God for I’m not talking to you.

That’s a whole nother category. That’s a whole different show. But for the person who is, who was wrestling and recognizes their sin and realize, oh my gosh, I messed up. Oh God, come, I, I seek your forgiveness. And there’s genuine repentance for that person. God uses the dry erase board. And so we’ve got to get into the habit and the, uh, not the habit, but the understanding that when we repent of sin, God, whites, the sleep.

Yeah. Every single time, because if he didn’t think about this, we just read in, in, uh, we just remarked early in Romans eight one. There is no condemnation for those in Christ. Jesus. If he didn’t wipe the board clean, guess what? We will be experiencing condemnation. Right, right. That verse cannot be true if God is remembering all of our sins and holding them against us.

That’s right. Then Romans eight one is not true. Right, but we know it’s true. And because that’s true, we can be comfortable and confident in knowing that when we come to God and sincere repentance and sincerely asking for forgiveness that not only does he forgive us, but he wipes the slate clean and he no longer holds that against us.

Right.

30:18 Chris
But I just thought it was beautiful. I mean, for me as a, as a, as a man reading the book when I got there, that was just a visualization that I hadn’t considered. It really it’s something I think will resonate with a lot of people. So hats off to you. I mean, it definitely spirit led all that writing right there, but

30:35 Clarence Haynes
he meant to that.

What

30:37 Chris
will I say? Well, we’ll take a quick break and then we’ll jump into what you guys, I know what you’re after. All right. What are some actions I can take? So after our break, we’ll jump in and we’ll talk about some actions.

At the line within us, we discuss wealth a lot. And our sponsor ed investing for beginners provides a great resources for those wanting to take their knowledge of investing to the next level. Their monthly research e-letter is the best way to learn about the market and apply insight to begin growing your wealth.

The newsletter tracks, the founder’s journey of managing a portfolio and shares how the decisions are made for the beginning of that. This could be a great way to learn how to get started with investing from a company that is putting their money where their mouth is. I’ve been subscribing to their e-letter for quite some time.

And it’s something I look forward to every month and I’ve learned a ton. They’re a conservative group with an emphasis on a margin of safety. The lion within us listeners can receive 15% off the monthly e-letter by visiting the line with. Dot us slash IFB. That’s investing for beginners and using the promo code lion at checkout.

That’s the line within.us/ifb and use promo code lion to receive 15% off your monthly research. E-letter.

I guess we’re back here or Mr. Haynes, we’re unpacking the pursuit of victory and we’re getting to the action part. So I know you’re, you’re ready. You got your note pad and okay. You want to know what to do. So you start off Mr. Haynes, we’ll talk about stolen hedges. So curious, why why’d you go there?

32:13 Clarence Haynes
Well, the, the first thing I talked about was kind of building, building a hedge.

Um, you know, you’ve probably heard the term, a hedge of protection.

32:25 Chris
Absolutely. I pray that over my daughters every morning when we drive to school, I actually pray. I actually say those words. I pray a hedge of protection.

32:33 Clarence Haynes
Amen. And so when we often think about a hedge of protection, there, there, there are two ways of thinking about it.

Th the first way is when you’re praying that, for example, over your daughters, what you’re really praying is God keep anything that’s bad or that could hurt or damage them, keep it away from them. Right. Right. That’s the hedge of protection and, and that’s good. And we need those types of hedges because they protect us in the sense that the goal is to keep things that can trip us.

Keep those things away from us. And so it’s wise for us as men to create hedges. So for example, there are certain places you should not go period. Right. And you know where those places, I don’t have to tell you, but you know, there are certain inclinations that our fleshly nature has. And there are certain places that you should not go.

And so how do you, what do you do? You need to build a hedge to know? Okay. I can’t go there. There are certain things I can’t listen to. You know, um, recently I was watching a show and I watched the show and then after I watched it, my heart. Spirit. Everything just felt dirty. And it was because of all the themes and everything that was taking place in the show.

And I realized that I can’t watch that. So I need to build a hedge to protect myself. And here’s the simple hedge don’t watch that. Right. So there are certain things you’ve got to protect yourself. Certain people, certain activities, certain places, certain things, you watch, certain things you listen to.

You’ve got to protect yourself from those things. But a hedge also does something else. It doesn’t just keep stuff out, but a hedge gives you some freedom so you can know where and how you can move. In other words, it’s not just a defensive tool. It’s also, um, it’s not just a, a tool that keeps you trapped.

It’s a tool that actually sets you free, right? Because now, you know, within this boundary I can live and move and do everything I need to do. If you think about it, think about what God did in, in the garden. He gave them a hedge. He said, Adam, eat from any tree. You. That’s the hedge, but here’s except for this one.

So he gave him a freedom of movement within the garden where he couldn’t literally eat whatever he wanted. He just couldn’t eat from that one tree. That’s right. That folks is a hedge God will say, and everyone is different. There are certain things that some men can do that you might not be able to.

Right. And that’s why the spirit of God has to help you in building and creating your own hedge. Now, obviously there’s certain things that are pretty obvious, but there are certain things we, we, you know, those gray or areas that, that, you know what, for example, it might be okay for someone to, to listen to secular music, but for the other person, it’s.

That’s okay. God has to work with you. He understands what’s in your heart and what’s best for you. So you work with the, you come into agreement with the spirit of God, of what needs to be in that hedge, but the hedge is going to protect you. And it’s going to give you freedom to move around. And that’s why it’s so wise to build them.

36:08 Chris
Definitely, definitely. I’ll tell you one thing too, for, for us, as, as men, we need to be intentional about, you know, leading our families of putting those hedges in place. You mentioned. That jumped right out to me too. Cause we were watching actually it wasn’t a knock on thing to show, but it was on Disney plus, you know, when you feel like you maybe as a Christian man, I’m okay with my family.

If they’re watching something Disney it’s okay. But I will tell you what they were themes in there that did not align with the Bible. And I had to tell my daughters they’re nine and 11 years old girls. We can’t watch the same that the show got to a point they were touching on areas that this do not allow the Bible.

And at that point I made a decision that spiritual leader to have. And they, they, they get it. They were a little bummed out, but we found an old show. Right. But we’ve made that line and I put that head. So I just, I appreciate that you went there with what, you know, speaking to the importance of,

37:00 Clarence Haynes
let me, can I give you another example?

Um, in my, in my line of work, I have the ability to travel. Um, most, most of the time when I’m traveling, um, every now and then my family comes, but most of the time it’s just me traveling alone. Um, and as you know, for many men, that can be a potential problem, you know, because they’re far away from home, they’re possibly in a place.

No one knows them. Accountability is low. So now you are ripe for temptation. Right? And so I said, okay, if, if, if this is the possibility, how do I protect myself and build ahead? And so here’s what I’ve done. And again, this, this is just me. I’m not saying every man has to do this, but this is just me. Um, if I’m traveling for work, two things I do, for example, like I don’t have, I don’t go out to dinner with another female coworker, unless it’s a group dinner.

Right. But for me, one-on-one, now I’m not saying that anything is going to happen and there’s a possibility and realistically it’s probably not. Yeah, but why even open the door

38:16 Chris
right there.

38:18 Clarence Haynes
But here’s another reason why I think of it from this perspective. I’m a married man. And what if someone sees me eating dinner with another woman after be completely.

But the perception, um, and, and in this social media space, we live in all of a sudden that can become a potential hindrance to my testimony. That’s all right. And so I watch those things. I make it a point to. You know, let my wife know where I’m at and you know, and she can always call me at any point. And I always answer the phone unless I’m like fast asleep or something like that, you know?

And so whatever walk of life you are in, you have to recognize what are potential pitfalls and what are hedges. You can build around them. So you won’t fall in.

39:04 Chris
That’s a great point. So glad you went there because I mean, so many of our guys out there listening, I’m sure they do travel and that’s something you need to keep in mind, fellas.

That’s really great advice. Now, the secondary to stop back from action. This is something we actually went back in the early episode of the line with Dennis. We were talking. Uh, the, the guests was talking about building a foxhole of men around, you know, basically your team of, of brothers that you can lean on.

So you went there and you’re booked. So you talk about who should be on your team. So maybe speak to that, give some advice to an actual, we should start taking their,

39:35 Clarence Haynes
so I want you to think about this from a, and I’ll just throw this one piece of it out there, who are the people in your life that you can be 100% transparent.

Uh, and let me phrase it even differently. Is there someone in your life that you can be 100% transparent with? If that person does not exist, then you need to pray that God would bring that person into your life. Right? I think part of the biggest reason why so many men struggle and fall. It’s because they don’t have outlets where they can let everything down and be real and not be judged in the process.

Right. Because the truth of the matter is everybody. We all got issues. Let’s let’s, let’s keep it real. We all got issues. Everybody got issues. So who can you talk to and share your issue with? That’s not going to say. But I thought you were a Christian, what kind of Christian are you? Or I thought you were a man of God and that’s what the enemy does.

That’s what the world does. Right? We’ve got to have people in our life that we can be completely upfront, completely honest. And not only that, not only that we can be honest with them, but that they would speak truth to us and tell us the truth and tell us when we’re wrong and tell them. You know what brother, I love you, but you are wrong.

We need people that are willing to speak that way into our life. And if you don’t have those people, then you need to find them. Right. Um, and I’ll give you a very practical example and this is what I’ve done in my own life. And, and I’m happy to share this. I have a team of, um, myself and is for other people.

And we connect usually every once a month on zoom. And, and these are men that I’ve known, um, for, I think the shortest one is maybe, uh, 10 years actually, probably 12. So these are men that I’ve known a long time, and these are men that we talk. We can share a truth. We can share our heart, we can just lay everything bare and we’re there to not condemn.

To correct? Yes. To rebuke. If, if required to reprove, if, if needed to encourage, to pray for each other, to lift each other up, you need that kind of, those kinds of people in your life. They will keep you accountable to not only to just living. Right. But we keep each other accountable to the things that God has called us to.

And they’re not all in ministry or anything like that. One guy is a, is a, is a GM, a general manager. One person has his own business. One is a pastor, one works for utility firm. Right. But, but they’re all men of God and we’re all holding each other accountable. So you need to ask yourself who is on my team.

Are there people in my life that I can be completely honest and transparent? And trust them with your stuff because you can’t trust everybody with your stuff, but is there people like that? And if you don’t have those types of people, you need to ask God to bring them into your life because that’s going to not only create, that’s going to create accountability for how you live for the things that God has called you to do.

And for the person that God has called you to be.

43:05 Chris
Absolutely. So it’s such an important area. And I think so many guys, they don’t take. Uh, serious enough, you know, and I think this the way to lean into and really take hold of it and be intentional about finding those mandates you can be vulnerable with and be real with.

And, uh, the iron sharpens iron, it sounds like you have a great group of men that are there helping you grow. So,

43:27 Clarence Haynes
and trust me, these are men that will tell me the truth. That’s one, one in particular. I remember I was struggling with, with, I was dealing with a situation of unforgiveness in my life. And I shared my story with my friend when, and he’s one of my core and he looked at me straight and he said, Clarence, I hear what you’re saying, but you are dead wrong.

And he confronted me with the thing that I was, I was trying to push the blame somewhere else. And he says, he looked at me. He said, you are dead wrong. And as I look back, I appreciated that because that put me on the road. To correction and healing and forgiveness. Um, and so that was just a further encouragement in that, in that process.

So build your team, folks, build your team. You’ve got to have the right team around you.

44:19 Chris
Absolutely. And then once you build your team, you know, you got a line of priorities and that’s kind of where you went next, because we talked about God family career ministry. So many times we get those out of order.

Particularly as guys, we may put that career in front of. Uh, so w w why is that such an important area where we need to get right.

44:37 Clarence Haynes
It’s, it’s really simple. Um, if you, if you look at the way life works, um, and this is the way life is supposed to work, it starts in our fountain. We go back to foundation, right?

God needs to be the foundation of our life, and everything needs to flow out of that. Right. And if, and, um, I was listening to a pastor who was talking about, I am, is greater than. You know, the great I am, right. His beard than I am. He’s doing a series, but he’s tall. He was talking about the heart and how, as a man, we only have one seat of the throne of our heart.

And the question is, who’s going to sit on that throne, right? And it could be, God, it could be your family. It could be a career, could be your ministry, but if it’s going to function properly, then God needs to sit on that throne and everything else needs to flow out. Um, now where we sometimes get confused and sometimes we miss the other priorities, right?

So sometimes we get God. Right. All right, God, I’m going to put you first and that’s great. But then we miss the other stuff, right? So we need to recognize that. For example, as men, our priority, our first ministry is to our family, not to our job or our career. Those, those things are important, but it’s to our fans.

First, because those are the ones that God has given us to take care of and be responsible for. Um, and so if there’s something interfering with that, then the problem is not the family. The problem is the other thing. And a lot of times we mix that up. Um, we think the job is in the way or the ministries in the.

No. If you have a family and by family, I’m talking about really immediate family. I’m talking about if you have a wife or even if you’re a single dad and you just have kids that you’re responsible for. That’s what I’m talking about as family. I’m not so much your, you know, your, your, your fourth cousin or your, your brother.

No. I’m talking about those that you are directly responsible for the ones you claim on your tax returns. That’s right. That’s right. That’s what I’m talking about. We got to make sure that we put them in the right perspective. Now we don’t worship family, but we gotta recognize if, if job or ministry is getting in the way and interfering with your ability to be there and be present and care for your family.

Then we got to start thinking and asking hard questions. Maybe it’s is this the right job? Or is, is, is, am I serving if the right way in ministry? And you know, those are the harder questions when you start thinking about priorities, but that’s why it’s so important to align them in the right way. And if they’re aligned in the right way, this all, again, this all goes back to foundation.

If you start laying the right foundation, Then your decisions and choices become a lot easier because you have a kind of a blueprint of how you go about prioritizing your life. That’s right. And that’s why it’s so important to, to prioritize properly. And I share some more thoughts on that in the book, but it’s so important to prioritize properly.

47:47 Chris
You know, and guys, you can get off track, full disclosure. I got off track, you know, want to start the line within us, that ministry, all of a sudden went to the top and I was spending so much time and. Just focused on getting the business, going and lining up podcast guests and things like that. You know, you’re spending every night, you know, working at my 11 year old called me out on it.

She’s like, I know that you you’re doing great things, but I need you, you know exactly that cut to the heart. Like I got it. Okay. So that was, and then I read your book. I’m like, okay. So yeah, I hear you, Lord. I get to get those parties in once you get them right though, for me, it just makes it a very clear filter of how.

And make decisions too, you know,

48:27 Clarence Haynes
and I’ll, I’ll throw this out there. If you look at the way, when, when God created the earth, right? He created the earth in six days. And on the seventh day he rested, he didn’t rest because he was tired. He rested because he was finished. And I think sometimes we have this thing.

There’s there’s this principle in, in business is called the law of diminishing returns. And there comes a point by doing extra time does not give you greater results. That’s right. And the results start getting less and less and times the more and more hours you put into it. And so we’ve got to learn in this society how to shut things off.

And prioritize things, you know? And so I do a lot of, and again, I’ll just use a practical example. Um, I do a lot of writing and, and I have both a secular job and I also am building a ministry of my wife. Right. We have a ministry that we do. Um, and I have two kids. I have a son with special needs and have a very active eight year old daughter, plus we’re involved in ministry in a church.

And so you start adding all of these things. Well, here’s the reality. There’s always something that you could be doing. Doesn’t that? I mean, there’s always, but there comes a point where you have to be intentional about saying, you know what, though? There was something I could be doing today. I’m choosing to shut it all down.

And that gives you a body time to rest. That gives your emotions time to rest. That gives you a brain time to rest. It’s okay to do nothing, uh, every once in a while, or do something simple and fun, or get the family together and watch a movie. You know me, it’s, I’m a big sports fan, so it’s okay to stop and say, you know what?

I’m going to watch the game today and not think about work or ministry or anything like that, or we’re just going to go outside. Let’s go ride the bikes around the neighborhood. All those things are healthy, which keeps us balanced, which keeps us progressing on this path to victory. I

50:25 Chris
love it. Well, I’d say you also mentioned you made a, an acronym and funding thoroughly, you call it self.

And that self is an area that we’ve focused on to align within us. But yourself, you’re talking about with sand excuses, laziness, beer. These are areas that we need to watch out for because it can derail us. So, you know, how’d you come up with those, maybe give a gas of ideas of some weapons they could use to, to fight off those, those areas.

50:51 Clarence Haynes
Um, I’ll talk for a minute about, uh, Excuses and just, just, just for a moment, um, because we don’t, we often don’t talk about excuses a lot. We talk about St a lot. We talked about failure a lot. We don’t talk about excuses a lot. Um, the, the truth of the matter, if you really think about it is that so often if something doesn’t happen, there is a reason why.

And a lot of times what we like to do. It’s not take ownership. If the reason is us, you know, and this is not unusual. This is not uncommon. I mean, we, we have a pattern here because it started with Adam and Eve in the garden. Right. Adam said, um, God, you know, God looked at Adam, did you eat from the tree?

Which is a yes or no question. And what did he do? He said, it’s the woman you gave. That’s an excuse. And in reality, what he was actually saying, he was saying, God, it’s not my fault that I ate from the tree. It’s your fault. Cause you gave me this woman. I didn’t ask for her. You just, you said you need a woman.

So you gave me this woman. So it’s your fault that I ate from the tree and that’s not taking ownership. If we’re going to be real men. Then we need to take real ownership of the decisions and the choices that we make, you know, back in the day, um, the old comedian flip Wilson, this is going back years and years.

If you’re younger, you probably don’t even know what I’m talking about. But, uh, he was going to be, I think in the seventies, he was a lot more popular, but he used to say, you know, the devil made me do it. It’s not true. It ain’t true. And if we’re going to be. Stand up men, then we’ve got to take ownership for our decisions and ownership for our choices.

And the reason why that’s important is because if you don’t take ownership, then you can never have change or transformation, right. Because it’s always somebody else’s fault. Um, you know, and we have to be willing to say, and I’m not saying it’s always easy because it’s easy to make an excuse because then that takes the blame off of us.

It’s harder to own up to it. But when we do. Then at that point, we are ready for change and transformation. If you keep making excuses, you’re going to keep staying in the same places and repeating the same things over and over again. And that’s not what God wants. God wants us to change and transform.

But we can’t do that until we come to the reality that, you know what, I’m the one that made the bad choice or I’m the one that made the bad decision. I’ve got to figure out a way of making better choices and better decisions in these situations so that I don’t make the same mistakes over and over again.

And that goes back to the things we talked about earlier about foundation and building hedges and setting priorities. All of these things are going to be helpful in, in helping you so you don’t get to that place. Of making excuses because you’re making better choices.

53:58 Chris
Absolutely. It’s all about ownership for me to step in and all that.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I’ll tell you what my training is. This has been a wonderful conversation. The book is, is, is just jam packed with wisdom and insight. You know, guys, check out the show notes. We’ll make sure we get links to that. So you can go directly and connect with that book, add that to your library.

So, but Mr. Haney’s, where should they go to connect with you and to learn more about your ministry, things that you’re doing with.

54:24 Clarence Haynes
Sure. So, uh, there’s, there’s two things and I’ll share a little bit about my ministry. About four years ago, my wife and I, we started a ministry called the Bible study clubs. So this is a weekly Bible study that we do online, uh, via YouTube.

So if you go, if you go to YouTube, just type in VA Bible study club, and you’ll see many of our videos there and our studies that we’ve. And the reason we started the ministry is it’s really a discipleship ministry. The goal of the ministry is really simple. We talk a lot about earlier that Monday through Saturday live.

Right, right. And that’s really the heart of our ministry. How do we live out this Christian life? Not on Sunday morning for Monday. Through Saturday. Right? Um, and so every Thursday at 8:00 PM Eastern, we do a Bible study on the Bible study club. Um, so if you want to learn more about that, uh, one of the best places to go, just go to my website, which is Clarence hanes.com.

And you can learn about me or ministry, other resources that are available, and we’re always adding new resources. And every week we’re adding a new Bible study and, um, our desire is simply to help move people along. In their walk with God by teaching them, how do we live out this life? This faith from Monday to Saturday, that’s for me, that’s where the heartbeat of our ministry is.

Um, because we do Sundays pretty good. So we don’t have to worry about, you know, we have a pretty good handle on Sunday and the church. I’m not worried about Sunday. I’m worried about Monday through Saturday. Because that’s where it all falls apart for so many people. So if you’re looking for real practical, uh, teaching, that’s what I do.

Um, we also have a mechanism where people can ask questions because one of the things we recognize a lot of times in church now, especially in these days, the way services are run, we come to church, we sit down, people preach, we receive it, we get up, we leave, we go home, right? No engagement. There’s no engagement.

And there’s no opportunity. To ask questions, our ministry, we, people are sending me questions all the time and I absolutely love it because if you’re asking questions, that means you want to learn. That means you want to grow. That means you’re willing to say, Hey, I don’t understand something. That’s all good.

And so that’s another thing we provide. So, um, we’re available to again, help people move their journey along, teaching them about living life Monday through Saturday. Well guys,

56:58 Chris
check out the show notes. We’ll have a link to the YouTube channel. We’ll have a link to his website. You connect with him bright.

They’re also highly encouraging you guys to do that. The question I want you to guess to think about this week, you know, what does victory look like for you? So pick up a copy of the pursuit of victory and let that soak into so much scripture. Mr. Hayes. This has been wonderful. Thank you so much, sir, for everything you provided

57:22 Clarence Haynes
today, welfare, thank you for having me.

And I absolutely enjoyed this. I pray. This is a, just a real blessing and encouragement to your listeners.

57:29 Chris
Absolutely. So guys, you’re liking it. Share shared line within us with others. You know, go out there, send this to a brother, you know, as he, as Mr. Hangs talked earlier, you know, we need to have a team.

So maybe if you don’t have a team start building a team. So Senator. You know, give us a, like a review that really does help five star rating, all that fun stuff, you know, go to the line within data, us to connect with us. So guys, thank you again for taking the time, once a day, go out on a leash, the lion within .