00:00 Chris Grainger
Welcome to the Lion Within Us, a podcast serving Christian men who are hungry to be the leaders God intends you to be. I’m your host, Chris Granger. Let’s jump in. All right guys. It is your meet episode of the week. I’m excited to have you here. So before we get too far, let’s jump right into our scripture.

So the scripture this week was First Peter one, Peter chapter three, only one verse verse 15. But in your hearts, revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. Guys. Really spend a lot of time unpacking that scripture and our spiritual kickoff.

So if you missed it, go back. Check that out. There’s a lot of truth in this verse right here. And ultimately, guys, we have to always be ready to give that account and we do. You be able to speak to that with gentleness and respect. I also like to think of it just speaking it and with grace and truth, right?

So for this conversation today, I’m excited. This is one I have been had circled on my calendar. We brought in Bruce Miller. So he’s just a, a phenomenal pastor. He’s a consultant and an author, and he ba basically, he puts together consulting in courses and books that result from his passion for helping people grow, develop, and be the leader that they’re intended to be, right?

And he’s out there also empowering churches. So he does consultation, he creates resources, and he talk. He really fosters personal growth and development and he gives a lot of really fresh insights, guys, into how we can live more productive, joy, build lives that make a difference, not just now, but for eternity.

And Bruce, he digs into the hard stuff. So this one we’re gonna be uncovering today is a book that he wrote called The Seven Big Questions, searching For God Truth and Purpose. And Bruce, he hits it head on. So this is a powerful conversation. We talk a lot about, you know, what does faith look like? How do we, how can we live as Christian men?

We, we spend a lot of time talking about pain and suffering. Why is there pain? Why is there suffering? What about the Christian way? Why is it too narrow? Why, why do people say that as too narrow? And then we, we, we kind of get to the point where we talk a lot about the Bible and the reliability of it, and how the, it is the inherent word of God.

And when people say that it isn’t, what do you do? What do you do when you get hit with that? So guys, it’s a powerful conversation with Bruce. He’s just a laid back guy. Love, loves his energy, but he is full of. And there’s gonna be a lot of, of links in the show notes as well for you guys that you go check those links out for his sermons, his resources.

So I hope you enjoyed this conversation. We’re going be digging into some, some deeper truths today that prayerfully will help you grow to be that Christian leader that I know you want to be guys. So just dig in. This may be one you want to get a pen and a pad, get some, get ready to write some notes because he just lays, he absolutely lays it down.

So I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Bruce Miller.

So Bruce Miller, welcome to the line within Us. How you

03:10 Bruce Miller
doing today, sir? Man, I’m doing awesome, Chris. Thanks for inviting me. I’m just honored to be on the line within us and I love that image of the lion. Love the picture behind you just kind of inspires me, fills me with some fresh courage for today.

03:23 Chris Grainger
We need that courage in the world we live in, don’t we man?

It’s it’s tough out here. Well, I’m excited to have this conversation with you, Bruce. I mean, thank you first and foremost for sending me your book. This was an amazing read, the big, the seven big Questions. We’re really looking forward to unpacking that. Before we get into any of the, the, the, the heavy stuff, you know, I’d love to just know what’s a, what’s a fun fact about you that maybe a few

03:44 Bruce Miller
people know

Well, I, uh, I love to run a chainsaw. I’m not very mechanical. I wish I was better gifted at, at, at doing vil fixing stuff around the house. Can’t do that, but I can run a chainsaw and I love, oh, I just, I don’t know what it is. It’s, it’s somehow relaxing to me. And, uh, then I, my wife got me a, uh, a wood splitter a couple years ago, and so I love to chainsaw up some wood and split it up for firewood.

And then I love a wood burning fire, so kinda the whole thing. I’ll chainsaw it, split it, and put it in that fire and have it be burning all day. It’s, it’s, it’s

04:19 Chris Grainger
therapeutic. I really believe that. I’ve had several people now tell me they just really enjoy running chainsaws. And I listen to Unashamed and Jace Roberton talks about how that’s what he does to chill out.

It’s like he just wants to go run chainsaw and, and cuts and split some wood. I’m just like, they’re, I, I enjoy myself that I don’t have enough trees around in my little property to cut.

04:41 Bruce Miller
You got something going on? You bought me a, uh, a still chainsaw for my birthday a couple years ago and man, it. That thing is powerful

04:48 Chris Grainger
It is. That’s what I have a steel too. I have a steel chainsaw. Steel weed or steel and a steel, uh, uh, blower and I’ll never, I’ll never

04:56 Bruce Miller
own anything else. I mean, we’re, we’re the same team, man on Steel Team .

05:00 Chris Grainger
If I need to reach out to Steel, see, they’ll be a sponsor of the show. But yeah, I mean, this is crazy.

05:05 Bruce Miller
They, they need to sponsor at least this episode anyway.

05:08 Chris Grainger
That’s right. That’s right. There you go. Brought to you by Steel . There you go. Well, I, I know you, you’re a wonderful author. I, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your books, but thanks. I’m curious, Bruce, what, what, what led you to writing this particular one?

The seven big questions was, was it, was there something that was been working on you to kind of led you to writing this one?

05:28 Bruce Miller
You know, I realized that, that, uh, a lot of Christians have these questions and, and I wasn’t thinking that, but I don’t know, you reading the paper these days about people deconstructing their.

Or, you know, we just run into folks who, like, they’re raised in church. Maybe you were raised in church as you’re listening or went to Christian school, but these questions are coming to your mind and you’re like, I don’t know. But you’re hesitant, hesitant to ask them in a church. I mean, it doesn’t feel like you’re really being a very good Christian if you say, I don’t know.

Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Or is the Bible really true? But I want to encourage people to ask their questions and, and, uh, be able to really think these things too. So I realize, hey, this isn’t just a, a question that people out there outside churches have, but actually people inside churches have a lot of these kind of questions.

Most of us have, have asked these questions or some of ’em at some point in our life, or maybe a couple times in our lives.

06:23 Chris Grainger
Mm-hmm. , no doubt about it. I, I’m curious, I mean, you have seven power powerful questions here and I think, we’ll, we’ll try to take a chance and look at a couple of these for you, for the listeners, but, I can only imagine you probably had a big whiteboard or a big sheet of paper with all, how did you narrow it down to these seven?

Man, you

06:40 Bruce Miller
know what? Someone who’s more tech savvy than I am did some research on what are the most asked questions on the internet around faith in God and purpose. And these seven are the ones that popped up that are the most commonly asked by people, you know, searching on Google, wherever else. Here’s my question about God and faith and purpose, and these are just perennial questions that humans have asked.

But here, most recently, uh, the, these are questions that are on folks’ minds. They may not always, you know, ask ’em every day, but they’re questions that really haunt people. Yeah, I think kinda late at night, you can’t go to sleep and one of these questions is rolling around your head.

07:22 Chris Grainger
And, and guys, just to give you a brief overview, we’re not gonna go through every question cuz I want you to guys go out and get the book.

But the questions are, you know, does li does life have a purpose? Is there a God? Why does God allow pain and suffering? Is Christianity too narrow? Is Jesus really? God? Is the Bible relatable? Oh, reliable. Sorry. Can I know God personally? I mean, these questions so powerful. So when you, when you look at that list, Bruce, what was the hardest one that you had to address?

07:51 Bruce Miller
You know, I think probably the hardest one or, and actually the one that gets asked the most of the seven is about pain and suffering. It just touches right to our hearts, right to our souls. Yeah. And, um, it, it, there’s so much pain right around that question, heartbreak, confusion. That, um, that is, that’s the question that I think is, well, I, I know it’s the question that’s asked the most of all the seven.

Yeah. Maybe

08:21 Chris Grainger
we can unpack that a little bit cuz I hear that too, Bruce, all the time. Sure. You know, you, you hear it say, said so often, why do good things happen to bad, bad things happen to good people. Right. And right. You know, then the theological answer was, there’s no such thing as good people. You know, but that doesn’t comfort people when they’re going through, you know, the pain cuz the pain is real.

So, I mean, I’d love to get your take on, on and just maybe share with our listeners here. You bet when you get asked that question, where, where do you go? How do you help ’em?

08:47 Bruce Miller
Yeah. You know, one of the things is that, um, just to start off with Chris, man, it, those of you guys who are listening, if you’re going through something painful right now, I’m, I’m just want you to know I’m sorry for that.

And I want you to know God cares. You lost your job. You got that bad diagnosis of, of colon cancer. Maybe your wife says I’m leaving. Uh, that, that is hard and incredibly painful and you’re not alone. You’ve got this community. The, the lion within you community that can support you, but you’ve got God with you and he cares about you personally.

And so, uh, that’s just right is outta my heart as a pastor of care and concern for hurting people, which you may be right now, a really hurting person. So what I realize is, cuz you kind of gotta separate out the why is this going on right now in my life that is really kicking my butt. And then kind of more intellectually, well, why do bad things happen as sort of generically to people mm-hmm.

because, um, it can feel cold and not full of compassion or love to be talking sort of in the abstract intellectually about why bad things happen when you got somebody bleeding right there in front of you. Right. So, you know, as you’re listening, I just wanna just make that distinction. But then when you think about this question, I, I go right back to the scripture.

and right to the beginning of the Bible that God gave us free choice or gave us the opportunity to make decisions that have consequences. Mm-hmm. and Adam and Eve could have chose to eat or not eat from the, the fruit. And so God didn’t make us robots. He didn’t make us puppets on a string. And I think about that.

I, I, I’ve got, uh, a granddaughter and if I told my granddaughter, you have to hug me, or I had some computer program that, you know, forced her to, to say, I love you, that wouldn’t really mean that much to me. Mm-hmm. . But when she runs up to me and throws her arms around me, her name is Bell. When Bell throws her arms around me and says, I love you, granddaddy.

I mean, that melts my heart. Yeah. Cause she chose to do that. Right. So the opportunity for good that God created us with, he gave us the responsibility, the ability, the authority to make decisions that matter. Therefore there can be good and evil. And so for instance, you, you know, good and well, when you have a friendship or you get married, you’re gonna get hurt.

I mean mm-hmm. , that’s just part of it. But what you know is there’s greater joy to be had and so it’s worth it. And so God created us knowing we could choose poorly, and we did. But that, that gave the opportunity for genuine love, genuine relationship with him and with each other. Right.

11:43 Chris Grainger
Right. Absolutely.

Love that, Bruce. I mean, and when you think about the, when the bad things happen, I, I’ve tried to, to tell myself too, cuz I’ve gone through some significant trials in my life as well and I know they’re gonna be, I always tell guys like you, there’s three stages of trials. You’re either n one coming, I one or getting ready to go into one.

So it’s going, that’s. You know, we, we, we know that, but James also tells us we gotta consider it pure joy. And I’m still trying to figure out why that’s my life burst. But it is . I’m trying,

12:10 Bruce Miller
trying to figure out that verses I dunno, Chris, but that, that’s tough, man. I’ll

12:13 Chris Grainger
tell you, I don’t know why I let God laid that one on my heart, but you are supposed to consider it joy.

But it’s like, you know, I think about it and somebody told me recently, like, you know what, man, even in the, the, the, the darkest of times, you have to, if you’re a Christian, remember the sovereignty of God and, and that’s right. And all those things, the sovereignty matters. And what, what’s your, what’s your take there?

12:34 Bruce Miller
Yeah. I think when you really look at God and how does he look at us when bad things are happening right there in Genesis, just right back to scripture, it said God was grieved over the evil on the earth right before the, the flood. And so, God, God, it hurts God to see you hurting. Mm-hmm. . And he is sad when evil things happen and when we mess up in sin, it grieves God.

And he’s, he’s thrilled when we repent. . So to know that God cares for you personally. Mm-hmm. . And then I hear people say, well, all right, now hold on. You saying God loves me and cares about me, and you said he is all powerful, then why the heck doesn’t he do something about it? I mean, come on. You know, if, if I love somebody and I knew I could prevent them from suffering, if I could stop my kid from breaking their arm or getting a terrible disease, I’d do it right.

So why doesn’t God do something about it? And I mm-hmm. , you know, I get that. Um, I feel that. And here’s the answer. Here’s the story. God did something. He did something so big, so incredible. I don’t think any, I wouldn’t do it. None of, I don’t think any of us would. Mm-hmm. , he’s sin his only son to leave.

Heaven become a human being. And not only that, but the Bible says he took our suffering on himself. Right. He literally, one verse says, he became sin for us. On the cross. He took all the sin, all the suffering, all the evil on himself. Even though he was innocent, he didn’t deserve anything. Mm-hmm. . And he died on that cross and arose from the dead to overcome sin and suffering and evil and death itself.

I mean that is love. That is incredible. So in the middle of your suffering to remember that God loves you so much, he sent his own son to die for you and Right. And, and then he promises that one day it’ll all be over. There’ll be no more suffering, no more tears because of the cross, because of the resurrection that began, the salvation that began the victory.

And it will be completed one day. And so we have the assurance that one day all this suffering’s gonna end. Mm-hmm. , you take some other point of view, you got nothing. Right. You know, you just, life sta sucks. And that’s it. That’s right. .

14:56 Chris Grainger
And that’s a really sad way to live. And unfortunately, so many people Yeah.

And so many people live that way, man. And, and I mean, for me, Bruce, so in November this, this past year, uh, we had a son and I’ve had nothing but daughters dogs. I’ve had, I have three other daughters, but, uh, to have a son now. And I think, and I just, it just hits you more and more when, I don’t know, for some reason when, when holding him and thinking about Christ.

Yeah. And, you know, God’s sending him. And, and for, for me to think that I would sacrifice him for others, it’s just, it’s, it’s unfathomable. Like I can’t even think about that. I couldn’t do that. But like, that’s the, that’s the, the route God chose. Cause he knew that was the only route. And it just, that shows his love force, even in the darkest moments.

He, that love is always there.

15:43 Bruce Miller
And I tell you, take another approach and say, well, I think there’s so much evil in the world, just, you know, when I look at what happened to my friend or my kid, I can’t believe there’s a god. Right. Right. Let’s take that point of view. Yeah. Um, , did that remove any suffering?

Did that remove any evil? No. You’re still stuck with it, okay? Mm-hmm. . So there’s not a God and your kid still suffers. Bad things still happen. There’s still are hurricanes and wars and earthquakes and Turkey. Over 30,000 people killed. Mm-hmm. y All you’re left with now is evil and suffering and pain. And no God who sent his son to die for us.

No God who promises it one day he’s gonna make it all right. You’re just left with hopeless pain and suffering. So, right. You know, it, it’s kind of crazy making to think. You’re gonna say that’s a reason why there’s not a God. And then what’s your answer then? What do you do? You know, you’re left with just, um, no meaning, no purpose, no consolation.

Mm-hmm. just suffering. Mm-hmm. . And I

16:43 Chris Grainger
think that’s why so many people are suffering. That’s why you look at your anxiety numbers, your depression numbers is just right. I mean, the, the, the hope if you, if your hope are, is in it, things of this world. I mean, I’m in a pre, I love our studio. We redid this. It’s pretty cool.

But if my hope was in this little studio, how ful and sad would that be? I mean, it’s just .

17:03 Bruce Miller
I mean, I wouldn’t, we wouldn’t hold

17:04 Chris Grainger
it, man. Yeah, bro. We put hopes in cars and houses and boats. We put hope in women and like, no man. Like none of that stuff, none of it is fulfilling. And it’s just, I feel very sad for ’em.

That, and that encourages me to share the good news of the gospel with those. That’s right. Because man, we, that’s the only thing we’re gonna take with us to heaven is people.

17:23 Bruce Miller
Yeah. Here’s the real answer is Christ, right. And in money and pleasure and all the stuff you just said, and man, when your confidence is in your bank account or you find trying to find joy in your boat mm-hmm.

it just, it doesn’t do it. Right. You know, you can catch all the fish in the world and do all the hunting you can and it’s not gonna bring real joy. Buy all the cool toys. No. Doesn’t do it. Yep, that’s right. False flat. That’s right. Hollow and empty.

17:53 Chris Grainger
Hollow and empty. That’s it. Well, Bruce, let’s take a quick break.

We’ll get back. We’ll be right back guys.

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Get a 30 day free trial. Just see what it’s like and you may find what you’ve been looking for. That encouragement, that support, that brotherhood is right here at the click of your finger. I’ll see you inside the den.

So Bruce, I’m curious man, when, cuz I, I, I talk to a lot of people that’s part in line within this, it, it, it does give me that opportunity to talk to a lot of folks. And, uh, one thing you hear all the time when you hear about the Christian worldview and the Christian way of life and, and you, you address it directly in your book, is that, you know, that’s just, that’s just narrow thinking.

You know, as big did like this, there’s no way that, that’s the only way that heaven, like people take the Oprah worldview and I’m just like, give God to have you lost your mind. Like, no, and it, it’s, it is narrow and we to I totally get that. I mean, but it’s hard for some people to accept that or do you find that’s a constant, obviously it’s one of the areas that you focused on, but this, it’s a, it’s a friction rub for so many people that Jesus is the only way.

20:13 Bruce Miller
Yeah, I hear that all the time. Chris, I agree with you that, and I hear it like the Oprah theology or there, there’s many roads, the top of the mountain. Or people say, look, don’t, don’t look. If it works for you, hey, good for you. Like, have your thing. Don’t tell me what to believe and don’t tell other people.

And you mean you’re gonna be so arrogant to say your way is the only way and everybody else is wrong. You know, that’s Sure. Prideful, and, you know, all that kind of thinking. Well, let’s think about that a little bit. Uh, and, and I’d say with that as tolerance, you gotta tolerate everybody. And that’s kind of, it’s weird how we’ve, we flipped the word tolerance upside down.

Mm-hmm. . So tolerance, originally what the word would mean is, I disagree with you, but I’m gonna tolerate you. Mm-hmm. . Now what we wanna do with that word is say it means you gotta agree with me. Right. But that’s didn’t even the meaning of the word. That’s the, that’s the opposite of the word tolerance.

Anyway, back to being narrow. The thing is, it’s uh, uh, I, I agree with you. Christ is the only way, but what’s interesting is that actually Christianity is broad, broader than any other religion out there. Well, lemme tell you what’s narrow is not Christianity, but truth. Mm-hmm. . Let’s just come back to that for a minute.

What’s, what, what’s narrow is truth. So like, let’s talk about, let’s say in an airplane. I was on an airplane two nights ago. I prefer that the pilot land on the runway and the right runway and I’d like him to land in the middle of it. You know, I want him to be narrow. I don’t want him to go, you know what, I just land this plane anywhere I want.

No. Or if you’re going in for surgery, um, you’d like him to work on the correct knee. Right? And you’d like him to do the surgery we all signed up for and you want your surgeon to be pretty narrow. Mm-hmm. or, you know, I just some other kind of, just normal truth of life. If you said to me, you know what, I’m sick of gas prices and I’m sick of putting in this premium gas in my truck and whatever, you know what?

I’m water is a lot cheaper. I’m gonna, I’m gonna run my car on water, so I’m gonna hook up my garden hose and fill up my tank with water. Go right ahead. You’re not gonna go very far , because truth is narrow. I mean, I know this sounds dumb, but I mean, it’s just that, that’s the way truth is. Now, Christianity, um, ironically, uh, although it, there’s the accusation of being narrow.

God said that he so loved the world. The whole world, like everybody in the world, no, no narrowness actually inclusive. Every race, age, ethnicity, you know where ever you’re from. And then Jesus said he died for everybody and he wants everyone to be saved. Well, when you start working that out, Christianity didn’t start in America.

People sometimes kind of think that like it’s a white Western religion Now in starting the Middle East, , it’s a Middle Eastern religion and it is covered the world. , and it’s surprising for some people, Kristin to, uh, realize this. Mm-hmm. Christianity is the most diverse religion in the world. There are more Christians in more countries who speak more languages from more ethnicities than any other religion by a long shot.

And you, you can hardly find a country or, or a language where there aren’t Christians. Right. Villages, jungles, deserts, mountains. It’s, it’s the most diverse religion in the world. It’s open to everyone. Yeah.

23:54 Chris Grainger
And it kind of puts a whole new twist on the d e i you hear about these days. Right. The diversity, equity, inclusion.

It’s like, bro, this is the ultimate d e I plan right here. Yeah.

24:07 Bruce Miller
This is everybody. Nobody’s excluded. It’s for everybody. Right, right. It doesn’t matter what your name is, where you came from, what you look like. You know, if you’re listening and you haven’t gotten in on it, man, God came for you. Jesus Christ died for you.

It doesn’t matter what you’ve done and how you’ve messed up and what you believed and how you were raised, it doesn’t make any difference. Yeah. God died for us. It’s amazing. Bible says, while we were still sinners, we didn’t have to clean up our act or get it all together. Uh, that’s the reason he came is cuz we don’t have it together.

24:37 Chris Grainger
That’s right. That’s right. Too often we think we have to, we have to, uh, to get all our stuff. Well, I gotta get these things right before I do. No, bro, like you, you completely missed, uh, missed it there and, and uh, you know, it’s just, I think too many guys we get lost on, well I lose ’em on the word surrender.

Right. And you know, that is where like, you know, look, I wanna do things. It’s my way. I got this, I’m gonna do it my way back up. I don’t wanna surrender. And I think that’s where Yeah, to your point, yeah. There, Chris is Christianity tuna? No, it’s not surrendering. That’s the hard part.

25:13 Bruce Miller
It is. But the, the goodness of that, uh, kind of a real basic biblical principle is obedience brings blessing and disobedience brings curse.

And we all, we kind of think that, you know, if it was my way, if I could figure if we did it my way, it’d be better. Well, uh, let me compare your way to God’s way. I, I want to use God’s way. I think he might know more than you do. . He’d been around a little bit longer, knows a heck of a lot more. And so the hole right there in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus said, not my will, but yours be done.

Mm-hmm. . And that ultimate surrender of saying, you know what? I’m gonna lay down my agenda, my thoughts, my will for what I want, because I fundamentally believe that God knows more than I did mm-hmm. . And that if I did it his way, it’d come out better. And that’s the truth. And so people think surrender is gonna take him to something not good for them.

But the ironic thing is your listen is surrender is where you’re gonna find the greatest joy, right? You’re gonna find the biggest blessing because God loves you and he wants the best for you. Mm-hmm.

26:25 Chris Grainger
and too many times, Sue Bruce, I’m sure you run into this as well, when, particularly when we’re dealing with men, and that’s primarily who we, who we serve here at the line within, is when they think of Jesus and surrendering, they think weak.

And they often miss, right? They, they, they cross up the words weak with Meek cuz Jesus was meek, but he was not a weak dude. He was the manless man who ever watched this earth. Let’s just go ahead and call it, it is what it is. Yeah. So I mean maybe clarify that that weakness and versus meekness for our listeners out there, for the guys that are listening that may be like, yeah they associate this weak guy when they think about Christianity.

26:59 Bruce Miller
I mean you talk about strength, um, and power Cuz see guys, we have the power of the Holy Spirit. The power that raised Christ from the dead. And seated him on his throne. That’s the power we have according to Ephesians. Could you imagine the power that no matter what your wife said to you, no matter how nutty things were at your house with your kids, that you were patient, you didn’t, you didn’t get angry, you didn’t fly off the handle, you didn’t raise your voice.

What if you had the power to be incredibly patient, gentle in kind at the office when people were treating you wrong and lying to you, and you still were kind back? How about when someone betrays you, steals your money, stabs you in the back, goes back on the deal? Mm-hmm. , and you return them with kindness.

You turn the other cheek, you walk the other, you walk that second mile. Can you imagine the power to do that? How about the power to forgive somebody who treated you wrong or treated your wife wrong or your kids wrong? That teacher, that principal, that boss client, Can you imagine the power to say father forgive them?

Mm-hmm. , that is incredible power and God gives us that power. It, it’s, it’s a phenomenal to it just to imagine. I mean, it’s hard to it, like, let’s go back to your verse. You know, joy in trials, it, you know, feels like oxymoron or paradoxical and it is. But when you are accessing the power of the Holy Spirit, you can experience joy in the middle of a trial.

Mm-hmm. , that’s power. Now you may not be happy cuz it’s a trial, it’s bad, you know, my heart’s hard, but deeper than the, the surface level. Deeper inside, there’s a level of joy that you can experience by the power of God. When Christ went to the cross, the scripture says it was for the joy set before him.

So yes, he was suffering. It got nails in his hands. Come on. It was painful. But still, he did it for the joy set before him. Mm-hmm. . And for us, there’s times when it’s painful, you should cry. It’s hard, it’s sad. But when you’re living in the power of God, deeper than all the sadness and grief is a joy and a confidence that you can have now that that is strength.

That’s power. That is strength.

29:36 Chris Grainger
I mean, when you were saying that, Bruce, I was, I was thinking, cuz you mentioned happy and I feel so many times that so many guys in particular and, and just people in general would def definitely guys, we chased his happy. We wanna be happy. Right. Well, happys are wrapped up in your circumstances.

Yeah. And when, when your circumstances change, you’re not happy anymore. And, and but the joy that you’re speaking about that’s not circumstantial.

29:57 Bruce Miller
That That’s right. Is deeper. That’s right. Says, give thanks in all circumstances. Mm-hmm. , and that, that verse James applies to all trials. Mm-hmm. in a various trials, all kind of trials first Peter too.

Right, right.

30:11 Chris Grainger
It’s just, it, it’s power there, guys. I mean, if you’re trying to, if you, if you’re chasing happiness and you’re trying to feel like you’re, you know, come on, happy, come on, happy you wake up, you, you’re trying to roll the dice and it lands like, no man, that’s not it. Like, you know, seek, seek after joy.

The fruit, like you’re talking about, Bruce, and I mean, be, I will tell you guys one thing, be careful if you start praying for patience. You will get an opportunity to be patient. So just , make sure you’re careful what you pray for there. I was a great example. I always, I always get tickled when I hear people talk about Pat.

I need more patience. Oh, you sure you wanna ask for that?

Very good. Well, hey, let’s take a quick break guys. We’ll be right back,

guys out, hear all the time how we are isolated. We’re along. We don’t feel like we have anybody we can talk to. And I’m here to tell you we took action. The line within us. We started a community and that thing is awesome. We have events happening all the time, and more importantly, we have guys connecting with each other every day.

And I’m talking about we’re building meaningful relationships, serving each other, accountability, growth, and I know that’s what you’re looking for and it’s done. Guys. We’re all within the community itself. Every week we have lion lunches, we have bible studies, we have, uh, ask me Anything Events. We guys, this is, we have things, resources that we have built to serve you, to help you be the leader God intends you to be.

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Well, Bruce, I am enjoying this, this conversation with you and just, just unpacking some, some of these, these real hard truths. Maybe let’s unpack one more here cuz I hear it all the time around the reliability of the Bible and the scripture and you addressed his head. I think it’s so important because, I mean, I believe this is the inherent word of God.

I believe every word of God breathe. I believe it’s true. I believe, you know, and I, you can’t be a nitpicky Christian either, right. If you believe the beginning, you gotta believe all the way through to the end. So just speak to the reliability there, if you would, and just kind of help for the listeners out there who may be struggling with this, uh, just have some, some, a better grounded truth in it.

32:59 Bruce Miller
You bet. And, and boy Chris, this was actually the longest chapter cuz it’s got a lot of dimensions to it, so we can’t cover all of them. Right. But I did give you one that’s super common. People say to me, you know what? That, how can you trust the Bible? It’s been translated and retranslated and translated, I don’t know, dozens of times mm-hmm.

And it reminds me of the old telephone game, which I, I’m sure is uh Yep. An out of date word. But if you’ve ever heard of it, it’s like you get in a circle and one person tells a story to the person next to ’em, and then they tell it to the person next to him. By the time it gets all the way around the circle, it ain’t anything like it started.

because it’s all distorted. That’s what people say. That’s how the Bible is. It just got distorted over hundreds, thousands of years. Mm-hmm. . Well, here’s the good news. That’s just completely wrong, and most people don’t know that if this is like brand new information, which is that your current English translation, whatever, if you’re using a major English translation, niv, V E S V, Christian Standard Bible, new Living Translation, any of these, um, the, it’s a team of scholars who went to the manuscripts, the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, Hebrew for Old Testament, Greek for New.

There’s a couple that in Aramaic, and they went to the, the, the best manuscripts we have from all over the world. Well, what’s happening is that we’re discovering more of those manuscripts, and so people go into monasteries and, and they have found more and they’re digitizing them and the people have access to them.

So your English Bible today, The scholars have access to more manuscripts and better ones than ever in history. So your current English Bible is the most accurate Bible translation that has ever existed. Oh, power right there. And people just don’t, just don’t know that, just not aware.

34:48 Chris Grainger
Right. They’re not, you know, I think that the, the telephone game, uh, analogy is, is, is, is, I love it.

And the way you debunked that with absolute truth, because I mean, you, you were going through your book, I was just pulling up a few things here about the different areas where you, this is proven out to be true. Like you were just saying, these scrolls are being found. Yeah. And that they’re, they’re

lining

35:09 Bruce Miller
up.

That’s right. That’s right. And they used to be people said, oh, you know, Bible can’t be true. Cuz uh, there’ll be something outta archeology, a history like, well, they didn’t have camels back then. And, and they says they wrote on a camel or a donkey. Well, we’ve since discovered, no, actually, they, they were domesticated at that time.

Mm-hmm. , uh, new research, new archeology says, no, the Bible was right. And mm-hmm. , those kind of things happen all the time where somebody says, no, this isn’t right. And then sure enough, a little more archeology, a few more fines. We discover some scrolls. You’re like, Nope. That, uh, the Bible actually was exactly right about that.

35:46 Chris Grainger
Yeah. Yeah. How about the guys out there who say it was just written by guys, you know, they, they challenge because I know you, you hit on this all the time, it’s just, it’s just written by, by men. This is not actually God speaking. I mean, I’d love for you, and we don’t have to go too deep here, but I’d love for you to, to just Sure.

When you get that one question, how, how,

36:05 Bruce Miller
where do you go? Sure. So simple, so common for people to say, look, people wrote this thing and, uh, right. Actually, I was talking to one of my kids who is not following Christ, and he asked this exact question, uh, just a couple weeks ago, and he said, um, look, People make mistakes and people sin and kind of like, uh, he didn’t quote this, but to be human is to error is a common quote.

Mm-hmm. , uh, yep. Humans make mistakes. Humans, I mean, you, you to be human is to air to sin. Well, is that really true? Yes. Today all human beings sin. What about Adam and Eve? It, it’s not essential to being human to make a mistake. Let’s go to another. How about Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ was fully human, fully human, and yet he didn’t sin.

And Jesus was human and divine. He is both. Mm-hmm. the scripture, that’s the living word, Jesus is called the living word. The written word. The Bible is human and divine. And it is not essential to humanity, to sin. You can be human like Adam and Eve were before the fall and like Jesus without making an error, without sinning.

So, What God did is he superintendent the process, he, by the Holy Spirit, he watched over the way people wrote it so that it is his word and without error, as you said in Aaron, infallible the inspired word of God. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm . Love it.

37:38 Chris Grainger
Love that answer, Bruce. Well, let’s, let’s, let’s turn a little bit now and, and cuz I guys, if you want to dig much deeper in these questions, you need to pick up the book.

So we’ll make sure there’s links to the, to the book in the, in the show notes here. But I’m curious, and when he, when you have these questions, you think some of these questions, Bruce, are why church attendance is suffering the way it is, particularly

37:58 Bruce Miller
around men? Yeah, I do. I think, guys, you know what, shoot, we take a lot of things seriously.

When I, when I meet some guys and their sports knowledge blows me away. They’re like, well, remember that guy in college in his sophomore year through that pass? And I’m like, are you kidding me? You know, but wow. Uh, their, their knowledge of the NFL is incredible. And I’m like, how well do you know your Bible?

Like if you could know your Bible a 10th as much as you know, football, that would be incredible. And so what happens guys, is covid strikes and church attendance drops because men, our faith was superficial. Too many guys’ faith. Mm-hmm. was shallow. You hadn’t studied the Bible, you hadn’t really an wrestled with these questions.

So then something happens to kind of rattle you like covid, and you just walk away and you just kinda disappear and, uh, live and business and family and sports and hobbies and drift away from God. And part of the reason is you haven’t wrestled with these deep, important, big questions that are really fundamental to what life’s about.

Mm-hmm. .

39:11 Chris Grainger
Mm-hmm. . You’re, you’re so over. I mean, I think

39:16 Bruce Miller
a stronger discipleship and I, you know, those of you guys who are involved in lying within, man, I just wanna commend you and say, man, dig in. You know, do the Bible studies, get involved with other men in learning about God, learning about the Bible? Yeah.

If the Bible is really God’s word, good night. I, that’d be worth more study than any other book you’ve ever read. You might read a book about some other topic that you’re interested in, whether that’s golf or football, or how to succeed in business or invest well for your, with your money. But none of those are as important as God’s word and your soul.

Right. And so we’ve gotta get deeper, stronger faith to withstand all the stuff life throws at us. Right? Yeah. I mean

40:03 Chris Grainger
it’s, I think so many, to back to your point about covid, I think that just expo, that was just a, an an opportunity that God took advantage of. I mean, I get it. When it first started. . But at this point now, you know, I hear some people say, well, you know, I’m not plugged to a church.

I’m just doing all No, man, it, you need to be plugged into a local body. And I even tell people who are within us that’s like, we are a great supplement, but we are not your local church. You know, I think that’s right. We could come alongside and help you grow as a Christian man and, and be maybe be part of your discipleship journey, but you still need to have your local church that you’ve plugged into.

And I get it. It’s hard to find that sometimes, but you know, you, you have to take this as a big, bigger priority than we do. And I just don’t think many guys are. And I just, I’m wondering if some of ’em, because let’s talk about the church for a minute, you know, from, cause from the pulpit. When I look at these questions here, you know, I’m not hearing a lot of preaching directly on these questions that are from, from the, the people leading.

It’s almost like, you know how it is with particularly a lot of these pastors out there these days, we’re just trying to fill seats and make people feel good, warm and fuzzy. And, you know, it, it’s almost like a, a show versus actually worried about the truth. So do you think, I’m curious, why aren’t more pastors hitting these hard questions right here?

Yeah,

41:12 Bruce Miller
I, I’d encourage if you’re a pastor and you’re listening, man, go after those. Or if you’re in a church, ask your pastor to go after hard questions. And if you, if you like video a whole lot more in reading, maybe you’re not a reader or a lot of people aren’t readers. Mm-hmm. , I did do a sermon on each of these questions this last fall.

So if you went to Christ Fellowship okay, uh, dot org, that you could put that in the show notes. Um, it will, anyway, you look up those, look up seven big questions and you’d find that sermon series from the fall of 2022 and, uh, that that’d give you at least a sermon on each of these seven questions. Um, but man, the church is so important.

You guys, people mistake that. They kind of think the church is just another organization. No, it’s the body of Christ, the temple of the spirit, the family of the father. It’s a spiritual entity. And if you’re not in involved, you are losing out for yourself. If you’re married, you’re causing your wife to lose out or make her go without you.

And your kids, if you got kids at home and you’re not, you’re not getting them in church or their, your wife’s trying to drag him to church while you’re sitting at home. What kinda a spiritual leader is that you gotta get your act together and lead your family to church. Right,

42:21 Chris Grainger
right. Amen to that man. We see that happen.

I mean, when we look at just where we serve the, the one, the women to man ratio, it’s just, it’s, it’s not even anywhere close, man. I mean, so many times the, the, the moms are bringing, they’re dragging the kids. And when the mom has to drag a kid and dad’s at home and does a stats show when dad leads the comes to Christ and leads the family, I think it’s like 90% they, they, they will follow.

Versus a mom it drops to 50 and the kids it drops to less than 10. I mean, it’s just unbelievable. So I mean, we also as, but I’m not calling out just guys here. I think churches need to do a better job of engaging them. We’re not singing songs to Jesus like he’s our boyfriend. Like we need to do some things that like really engage men because this is a, this is a manly book that we’re studying.

It’s the word of God. I mean, this is definitely not something for, for

43:09 Bruce Miller
the faint or the weak at heart. That’s right. And I’d say men, gods, if you got some, some leadership ability at all, some initiative. Don’t wait for somebody else. Don’t be passive. Go to your local church and you start a men’s ministry.

Go to a local church and demonstrate leadership. You go be a leader in the children’s ministry. Don’t let that children’s ministry be full of only women so that all the kids see at church and their Sunday school is women. Great to have women involved. We need women involved. But if the ratio is 90% women and 10% men, that’s a problem.

Get involved in your student ministry so those teenagers see a male, a man following Jesus Christ. Be agree to be an usher. Sing on the stage. We don’t need to have all women singing on the platform. If you got an ability to sing, get up there and sing. Play an instrument, you know, I mean, get involved.

That’s it,

44:00 Chris Grainger
man. Quit being a pew sitter. I mean, that’s the biggest thing. Quit being a pew sitter. I mean, if we, if you look at the children and the youth ministries at our church particular is pretty strong. And I think traditionally this is a, churches are doing well there, but if you have nothing but women leading these, these ministries, h how are they?

They can’t teach a young man, a young boy to be a man. You know? They’re not gonna be able to do that. And they need that masculinity in there. There, there’s something very empower, powerful about that. And if you’re wondering, to your point, Bruce, to how to start it, how about take a book like this guys, make it super simple and just work through these seven questions.

And you can g I guarantee you a discipleship group if you just wanna start one. You just start off with number one, does life have a purpose that’s going to take you about a month? , you just,

44:44 Bruce Miller
you know, you invite a couple guys and we, we’ve got questions with these chapters you can go through together and, um, that’s on a website.

But, um, Yeah, get a, get a invite, two or three guys and just say, Hey, let’s, let’s read this together and talk about it, you know? Right, right.

45:00 Chris Grainger
I’m, I’m curious, Bruce. Man, you got me thinking now. So like, I, I see it in church a lot. People are very, so I teach Sunday school too. Okay,

45:08 Bruce Miller
great. Awesome.

45:08 Chris Grainger
Way to go, Chris.

Yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s just, there’s not enough on the plate, so I might as well keep it extra full. Right. . But I enjoy the Sunday school and for, for our Sunday school class, I’ve noticed people are very hesitant and this is churches across the board to ask questions. Yeah. And I’m trying to understand why is that natural hesitation there to ask?

Cuz I’m naturally inquisitive. Maybe cuz it’s my podcast hosting. I don’t mind looking dumb. Like, I’m just gonna ask questions, you know, just, it’s okay, I’ve, that’s how, that’s how I learn. Just talking some of this stuff out. But there, there definitely is a hesitation. So maybe what would you say to someone out there who’s dealing with those thoughts of, if I ask this, I’m gonna look stupid, or I should, I shouldn’t be asking this because it, it doesn’t tie in like, what, what are you, what are you telling that person?

45:52 Bruce Miller
I, I encourage you to ask the questions. Don’t suppress ’em or try to push ’em away. I find that people kind of try to dodge these questions cuz they’re, they’re scared. You’re a little bit nervous that, you know, what if I ask, is there a God and ends up there’s not one? Or is the Bible reliable? And it ends up, it’s not, you know, it’s a little scary.

Well, let me just encourage you, that’s not where it ends up. Like, you ask these questions, if the Bible’s true, if God’s true, it’s all gonna be solid. Mm-hmm. . So you’re mm-hmm. , it’s gonna be good to wrestle with it. And I’d encourage you, man, get someone else who, who you can be open with, who can wrestle with it, where you feel comfortable and that, you know, two or 3, 4, 5, 6 of you guys wrestle through it together.

Most pastors are comfortable talking about these topics. You know, I get it in a sunny school class or somewhere. It’s gonna feel too uncomfortable if you raise your hand and Right. Say, I’m not sure there’s a God, you know, or that Jesus really rose in the dead. If people are gonna look at you like, what I thought you were a Christian, or thought you were a good church person, or whatever.

I get that, but they’re safe spaces. And even on your own man, get the book and read it and pray it through with God and wrestle it through yourself. Talk to somebody safe, some guy, some pastor, somebody who’s a maybe ahead of you in their Christian walk that you feel safe talking to and ask the questions.

Fill out. Yep. This is where I tell

47:09 Chris Grainger
guys, if you need, you need to find your paw, find your barn. Let’s find your Timothy. Right. This will be a good time to, to go to that Paul in your life and have the questions, you know, ask the questions then, and then listen to the truth. So

47:21 Bruce Miller
scream I’m your, your, your community here with the lion within us that, you know, you can ask these questions.

Absolutely. Nobody’s going to think bad about you. You just, and ask ’em as hard as you want. You know, I don’t run from your doubts. Run to your doubts and wrestle.

47:36 Chris Grainger
That’s good, Bruce. That’s, that’s, that’s coffee, coffee cup material right there. That needs to be on a mug. . Wait, let’s take our last break guys and we’ll be right.

We’ll be right back.

Let me ask you a real personal question. Who are your five closest friends? Are they pulling you closer to God or further away? I know some many guys that said, man, I ain’t got five friends. You know? Okay, I get it, man. It’s hard. It’s hard to make those true connections. So what we did at the line within us is we started a community.

That community is where brotherhood happens. It’s where guys come together. So guys, if you, if you’re struggling right now, if you feel a little bit isolated or alone, you need to hop in the community. You’re gonna find brothers there that are gonna come alongside you, that want to help you. Wherever you’re at, wherever you’re at.

Guys don’t think you have to be some theologian to join. No. We’re all just regular men who want to deepen our relationship with Jesus Christ to ultimately be the leader God intends us to be. That’s what it’s about. So hop over to the community guys. We have a lot of live events as well. So you can hop in, you can kind of just sit there and watch.

You don’t have to really jump in. If that’s not who you are right now, hop in on a lion lunch. Maybe go to one of our Bible studies that we have going on. Maybe check out some of our courses that we have available. Or ask me anything events where we have previous guests come in and share their expertise.

All this is available within the community that is part of the membership. So if it sounds like there’s something you wanna start, guys, 30 day free trial, just jump in, see if it serves you, and if it does, guys, we would love to have you in our community. As we’re growing, we’re serving, we’re helping others be the leader that God intends them to be, and I know we can help you be the leader God wants you to be as well.

So again, hop over to the line within.us. Click on join for that 30 day free trial so you can get started today. I look forward to seeing you inside the den. So, Bruce, I’m curious with you here. So, you know, I have, I have kids, I have four children. I know a lot of our guys out there, you know, listen to their, their dads as well.

What age do you think we should start having conversations around these types of questions with our children? And maybe even if we don’t have kids, maybe we’re volunteering with youth or children departments. Where do, where do you see these starting to plug in the most? And

50:03 Bruce Miller
I start as young as you can.

I’m a dad of five kids, four boys and a girl. And I, uh, it feels crazy to me now cuz I think I’m way too young, but I have nine grandkids and I started talking to ’em about these questions when young as they can be, even though I’ve got a, a one-year-old, right. A lesson than one. And I’m saying, look, God loves you.

Yeah. And I’m just, I’m just telling ’em the truth before I know it. They can even understand it. Jesus died for you. And then, uh, I wanna set a pattern for them as a granddad. And so I play a little game when I see ’em cuz what gets repeated, they remember. I say, what book does granddaddy read every day?

The Bible. I say, yeah. And I’m happy for them to be sing song about it and roll their eyes like you’ve asked me this a hundred times. Yeah. Cuz I want to ingrain it in you that I read the Bible every day and I hope you read the Bible every day. So I’d encourage you to talk about it with your kids as young as they are.

Just start telling ’em what they can understand. Read, get those, you know, illustrated Bible book Bibles for Kids. There’s Bibles for young, young kids. Little kids, you know, just pictures. And, um, get whatever Bible is appropriate for your age, kid or grandkid. And you buy it for ’em and you read it with them.

Mm.

51:22 Chris Grainger
Absolutely. I mean, you, you, you really can’t go wrong, guys. I just think we gotta invite the Holy Spirit into our kids’ lives. Yeah. At an earlier age than and, and too often we think that, well, we need to wait. We need to wait. No man, don’t wait. Just go ahead and start. You’d be surprised what these kids are gonna soak up and what they’re gonna learn, what they’re gonna remember and when, if you leave in church.

And one thing I love to do with our church when I leave, it’s the trivia. What do you remember? What’d you learn today? That’s right. And then like, just have the conversations. That’s right. And you can fill in the gaps. You may not know yourself. There’s been times where they study stuff that I haven’t really spent a lot of time studying.

I’m like, well, let’s get home and let’s, let’s look at that. And it just leads to that

51:58 Bruce Miller
opportunity to grow. Yeah. Model for them researching the Bible and studying on their own.

52:05 Chris Grainger
Amen, man. Amen. Well, how about a couple more things then. We’ll, I definitely wanna respect your time too. But when I think about books like this, I automatically start thinking about evangelism and how we can be going out and having conversations with people to love on ’em.

But I’m just, I’m struggled with traditional evangelism the way it is right now. And, you know, just going out with tracks. Cause I’m more of a relationship guy. I want to go have, you know, form a relationship and then from there, you know, let the Holy Spirit guide me with, with the conversation. So how do you think we could use something, a, a resource like this, Bruce, to, to kind of be more proactive in our evangelism efforts as we share

52:41 Bruce Miller
the gospel?

Yeah, I, I, I’m in favor of relational, conversational approach, which involves a lot of listening on our part as opposed to, here’s this, here’s the right story, you know, boom, boom, 1, 2, 3. See I’m right, you’re wrong. But to say, Hey look, I don’t have all the answers, but I’m figuring it out. And so I was asking somebody about reading the Bible with me who’s not following Christ, and they said, well, what if we just read your book instead?

What if we just read a chapter and got together and talked about it? So that’s what I’m starting to do, uh, with somebody in my life. They just said, let’s say, Hey, let’s read a chapter and talk about it. And that’s really appealing. And they’re like, oh, this chapter is really important to me. And we read a chapter like, ah, that’s not really my question.

I’m okay, fine. And we talked a little about that, but then one question led to another to another. And sure enough, we’re having this really meaningful conversation, uh, that just kind of got sparked by the book. So yeah, you can do that in person, you can do that online and kind of a, if you have a few friends, kind of a soft way to do it is, Hey, let’s do a book club.

You know, people are not intimidated by a book club. Let’s read a book together and, you know, might be a group that’s used to reading business books or some other kind of book together. Be go, Hey, why don’t we throw this in there and do this one? And that’s, that’s working. Yeah. We’ll do, we’ll call it a book club and let’s just read and talk about it.

I love it.

53:58 Chris Grainger
Love it. Great stuff. Well, the last question on the book I wanna talk about then we have a little lightning round I wanna play with you, but you know, Jerry, you bet. I love how, I love how you have the word purpose in your title here. Because I so often we think about searching for God and truth and we, and the purpose is so important.

But what does purpose look like for you?

54:20 Bruce Miller
Yeah. To me, my purpose is uh, right outta Philippians chapter one when Paul said, for me to live his Christ and to die is gain. And he said, look, it’s gonna be better to be in heaven, but I’m gonna live for Christ. And so years ago I decided that’s my purpose. My only reason to live is to live for Jesus.

And he goes on to say, I’m gonna live for your progress and joy and the faith. So for me, I wanna live for others to help them find and follow Jesus and all the joy Jesus calls it, the abundant life, all the joy he has. So my purpose is to live for Christ, for others progress and joy in the faith. I love it.

You

55:01 Chris Grainger
talking about that John 10 10 life right there. Live life and laugh it abundantly. That’s it. Yeah. Well, well, let’s, let’s, Bruce, let’s jump into our lightning round if you want, if you’re willing to play. We call it feeding time on the, on the line within us, so, all right. Very good. Very good. Well, let’s, let’s, I start off with some fun ones.

So what, what’s a hobby that you have, Bruce?

55:23 Bruce Miller
I love playing racquetball. So I play racquetball about three times a week at an LA fitness in our area.

55:31 Chris Grainger
Okay. So how, how long you been doing that?

55:35 Bruce Miller
I’ve been playing racquetball for like 40 years. .

55:41 Chris Grainger
Okay. So you definitely know, know your way around the racquetball court.

I got you. I got you. All right. So let’s say you can have the same meal every day and you only get to have this meal. What are you eating? What, what, what do you, if you can only have one thing to eat, what are you

55:54 Bruce Miller
going with? I’m going with steak and I . I, I love a good medium. Uh, I would say I like, uh, I don’t like.

Well done. I’m a medium rare kind of guy, uh, for my steak.

56:13 Chris Grainger
There you go. The way God intended it, right?

56:18 Bruce Miller
and ribeye. Hey Bruce, just say, if you wanna buy me a steak, buy me

56:21 Chris Grainger
a ribeye. There you go. Well, there you go. Next time you come to North Carolina, I’m buying you a ribeye for sure. Okay, next question. Bruce, I’m curious for, for someone like you who’s definitely spent so much time in the word, what is your favorite thing about

56:35 Bruce Miller
God?

Wow. I think, I think really his love, um, is just overwhelming to me. That God loves me with all my mess, all my junk that God loves me is, it’s just astounding. So, uh, Ephesians talks about praying to know the width and length and height and depth, the love of crisis surpasses knowledge. Like, man, I, I’d love to know God’s love more and more and more, cuz I realize it’s endless.

Yeah.

57:04 Chris Grainger
Yeah. Absolutely true. Now. Now I’m gonna flip it 180 on you. Bruce, what’s your least favorite thing about Satan

57:14 Bruce Miller
Um, man, I just hate the way he gets Christians divided against each other. He loves to create division mm-hmm. and get us fussing and fighting with each other. And then it destroys our unity and then that undermines our witness to the world. Right. And I just hate seeing Christians fighting each other.

Yeah. Whereas where is a marriage getting divided or a family or a church or Christian groups? It’s just really the, the enemy is behind that. We’re not, we’re not enemies to each other, but the, the devil gets us thinking that. Yeah.

57:49 Chris Grainger
Amen. And the next question, Bruce, I ask this, this question cuz I like the guys to know.

Sometimes when you listen to a podcast, you listen to two successful people like yourself. You paint this picture that everything’s is cupcakes and rainbows, but I like to speak true. So what’s something maybe you’re struggling with right now?

58:08 Bruce Miller
Yeah. You know, I’m a pretty confident guy, but I realize there’s a strain in me of, of, uh, some fear and some insecurity about some dimensions of ministry and life that I realized I was kind of talking myself down.

And I feel like God’s really challenged me to say no. Um, in your weakness. I’m strong back to strength and weakness and to embrace the divine authority and power that we’ve been given. Christ said, all authority and power on heaven, earth been given to me. Therefore, go make disciples and Acts one, eight, wait for the power that will come on you, the Holy Spirit.

And I feel like I need to, to freshly embrace the authority and power of God. He’s given to every believer to serve others boldly and not hold back in some way. Amen.

58:58 Chris Grainger
Amen. Well, last two questions for you, Bruce. So what’s a, what’s a new habit, maybe something you’ve created recently or something that you hope to create

59:06 Bruce Miller
moving forward?

Well, while I play racquetball, I’ve fallen down on the cardio and the lifting weights part of it. And I really want to get that back going because I love climbing mountains and I want to climb mountains with my grandkids, but I’m gonna need to stay in some shape to do that in the years to come. There

59:24 Chris Grainger
you go.

There you go. Well, hope, hopefully you’ll hit, hit that gem. Picking up heavyweights is something we talk about a lot at the line with end, so good luck with that, buddy. So the, the last question for you here in our lightning round, what’s one thing you hope that the listeners out there that for this episode?

Remember from our

59:40 Bruce Miller
conversation today, I hope you remember to run to your doubt, run to your questions, ask those questions, dig into ’em, and find a faith that is rock solid. Amen.

59:54 Chris Grainger
Amen. Well, Bruce, let’s take a chance here at towards the end. Let’s share with others where should they go to learn more about you, to connect with you, to find your resources, your books, things like that.

Where, where do you wanna point

1:00:05 Bruce Miller
people? Sure. Go to, uh, my website is bruce b miller.com. Bruce b miller.com. That’s best place to go to. I’ve written about 10 other books. You know, if you, if you like any of that, some of ’em you can use in different kind of bible studies, uh, different books of the Bible and other, other topics that might be of interest might be of help to somebody listening.

Be glad to help in any way I can. Alright,

1:00:28 Chris Grainger
well, we’ll make sure we, we put that link in the show notes for you listeners out there. That’s also be on our main page for Bruce’s book. Uh, episodes to go check it out, the main page there. If you want any of those resources, we make sure we’re pointing all that to you to the right place for you guys.

So, Bruce, this has been, I’ve this a lo I I’ve been, look, had this one circled on my counter for a while. I was really looking forward to this conversation with you, particularly after reading the book. But guys, go get a copy of the seven Big Questions, searching for God, truth and Purpose by Bruce Miller.

We’ll have links there for you. And Bruce, I again, thank you so much, sir, just for sharing the truth that you did today. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you. Be Chris

1:01:02 Bruce Miller
delight to be here. I’m honored that you would invite me to be on and man, just excited to see what you’re doing and what this community’s doing.

And I pray that really the line within you, Christ, within you would be the one who lives that you say. It’s not I but Christ who lives the lion who lives in me and through me.

1:01:19 Chris Grainger
Amen, sir. Well, you have a wonderful day.

1:01:21 Bruce Miller
Thanks Chris. Appreciate it, brother.

1:01:26 Chris Grainger
How many of you guys can recite all the lines of sweet Home, Alabama without breathing hard? But when it comes to recalling God’s word, you get stuck. Help you out. We identify 10 scriptures you need to fight like a lion and a plan to help you get them cemented in your heart. So grab this free resource and I’m gonna come alongside of you in a series of personal and engaging messages.

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Guys told you. Did I tell you? I warned you this was a good one. So Bruce, he really brought it. What? Just a fun guy. But I mean so far is run into your doubt. You just run to your doubt. You know it’s okay to have the doubts run to it. And when you do search, and I guarantee if you pull up the the word of God and you dig in, I mean, you really dig in.

You might have to drop the plow here, boys, but get, dig in and do your research. I guarantee you, the Holy Spirit will move. He will guide, he will direct, he will point you to the ultimate truth. I like how he said obedience is a blessing and disobedience is a curse. And just think about that. So many times, we, we, we, we head down the the curse road because we disobey.

We wanna do it our way guys. We need to lean in on God’s way. That’s what it’s all about. I pray you take these questions. Just to recap the questions. Does life have a purpose? Is there a God? Why does God allow pain and suffering? Is Christianity too narrow? Is Jesus really God? Is the Bible reliable? Can I know God personally?

You’ve ever wrestled with one of those questions. There’s a lot of truth here and, and bruised. The way he unpacks it, he goes straight to scripture, but he gives some real world applications and also there’s some questions that will help you grow and develop as well. Go check that out. Go back and listen to this episode again.

I guarantee we had, we, we touched on things that you may need to go back and, and, and replay, and replay Judi, just so that you can give you that time for it to soak in. I know for me, sometimes I have to listen to sermons two or three times because I missed things on that initial pass through. So if it’s important, spend the time there.

But ultimately, guys, what I want you to think about this week is where are you finding your source of hope? Where are you finding that source of hope at guys? Cuz if you’re putting it for in, in to the things of this world, the things that you can see, the things you can buy, that’s you totally missing it.

I get it. I’m not against stuff. Stuff is cool. But the problem is when stuff, uh, owns us, and many times that’s the case. The stuff owns us. It owns the way we respond. It owns our thoughts and our minds. It becomes idols. We can’t have that. We have to eliminate that stuff from our lives, guys. So I pray to serve you Will, I’m gonna encourage you to share this with, with with fellow brothers out there.

Seriously, hit the share button. Send a text message. Take this book, this book here, and make it a Bible study. A where you get together with your discipleship group and lean in and have actual conversations with guys about this. That’s a great action you can take right now. Give us a rating and write a review.

That stuff’s big. We definitely want that kind of stuff, guys, and that makes all the big difference in the world. But I’m gonna tell you out of everything, if you’re struggling with questions like this, and I know many of us are, you got, you gotta have a group of men that you can wrestle these with together.

Don’t just do this alone. So go to the line within us, join our community. Seriously, this is where we’re going. This is where the, the true growth happens. The iron sharpen iron moments happens when you’re in a community of fellow believers. Many churches out there are struggling in this area, particularly for men.

Lean in guys every week. It’s, I was telling someone the other day, it’s literally everything. Every day of the week, we have something activity happening to help serve you guys. I mean, we even have, there’s a Bible study on Saturdays. I mean, I think there, there’s, there’s, we have our Masterminds. So if you wanna be part of a mastermind, it’s within the line.

Within us, we have our, our, our group, our, uh, Bible study. We have our courses, we have our lion lunches, we have our, our dad bootcamp that we have going. Guys, there’s all sorts of ways for you to grow, to be that Christian leader that we know you want to be, but you just need that help getting there. So let us lean in, let us help you, let us come alongside of you.

Let us pray with you. Just be that source of prayer. Guys. I’m telling you, there is so much power within the line, within this community, and it’s nothing. We’re doing. The Holy Spirit’s doing the work. We’re just being obedient and giving you the place to come in. Listen, learn, grow. That’s it. That’s it. And we do that by sharing with, with each other and pouring in each other.

So again, check out the line with them, us to connect with us. 30 day free guys, we’re gonna give you to you for a month. Check it out. Pray that you would get in there. We’ll have some conversation. You can talk with me directly. I’m in a lot of these meetings. Try to get in with these guys and just serve ’em the best way that I possibly can.

So come back on Friday. I have some good tips. I think you’re gonna enjoy these tips. Looking forward to the fun Friday episode, for sure. Hopefully that will serve you guys. We’ll get you ready for the weekend. And again, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You guys are listening to the line Within us.

You take the time to let us, to let us be part of your life. Just that’s an honor. We don’t take that lightly. We pray over each and every one of these episodes before the mics go hot, because the last thing I wanna do is make this anything about me. It’s all about glorifying God and prayerfully. It’s bringing you closer to him.

So get after fellas. Have a great day. Make sure you get that first piece of three 15. There will be a quiz, but seriously, get after it. Use that verse. Be ready always to, to, to give that reason for the hope that you have in Jesus Christ. That fellas is how you unleash the line within them.