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 spiritual kickoff of the week. I’m excited to have you here. I hope you’re ready to get going. Let’s dive right in.

We’re gonna be looking in the book of Isaiah. Okay. Isaiah chapter 41 verse 10. Just one verse this week, guys. So do not fear for I am with you. Do not be dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Boom. Right there, guys. That shit get you going.

All right. So first of all, where is Isaiah? So it’s about midway point of your Bible. Usually if you flip it open about Midway, you’re gonna be really close. Go past Psalms and, and Proverbs. Then you have Ecclesiastes, then you have Song with Solomon. Then right after that, boom, you’re there. You’re at Isaiah.

Okay. Now he’s often thought of the As as the evangelical prophet. Okay? Because he talks often about the the coming Messiah. It’s a fun. Just book of the Bible to read first and foremost. And it’s something that I think we need to spend more time with, definitely in our Old Testament. Just to know some of these things and have to, to understand the references cuz Jesus spent a lot of time talk and I reading Isaiah as well.

So we know this is a very important scroll. We know there’s a lot to learn and let’s see what it looks like, what we can learn from this one verse for us moving forward this week. Alright, now, now if you look at this right here, This was all written about 740 to 680 BC so it’s long time ago, right? Long, long, long time ago.

And how often do you guys feel right now, fear or anxiousness? You know, I know about you, but for, even for yours, Tru, truly, this is a, a consistent theme. It happens all the time. So even that far back, seven 40 to six 80 BC to present. This is still very applicable guys. This is very, this is something that should resonate with all of us, okay?

Because if you look around, it seems like everyone, I don’t know if you’re asking me, it’s just like everyone is losing their minds. It’s just, it’s crazy. Go look at, at Facebook, go look at Instagram or, or TikTok if you dare, and just see what’s being pushed down our throats and the some, the stuff that’s just being pushed towards Christian leaders and against Christian leaders.

This is unreal. And it’s in those moments. Well, when you’re getting that pushback, that, and your back’s against a wall, you’re going need some, some verses some. It is written like this to cl to you’re going to need some. It is written in your life, boys. That’s part of it. Been studying a lot here lately with my discipleship group.

We’ve been going through, uh, pastor Jovi and talking a lot about guys different things in regards to, to, to how Jesus always, always, when he had, when he was up against it, what did he. He went back to scripture. It is written. It is written. Do you have any? It is written in your life because if you don’t, this needs to be one of ’em.

So let’s just break this down piece by piece. I love just doing this, just, just unpacking these scriptures with you guys. Let’s look at the very first part of the scripture here. So do not fear for I am with you. I am with. You guys not talk about it all the time, that you gotta have your own lines then amend, right?

That you can call on any time. I, I totally get that. That’s important. Our community at the line with innocent, that’s what we’re about. And that is important. But how about having someone who’s there? Always, always, that’s who we have with God. So do not miss this guys. Don’t miss this. When you, when you’re in the middle of the battle, okay, and you’re up.

Your hope can rest assured that you are not alone. You are not alone. It may feel that way, but you are not. Now, conversely, let’s say you’re crushing it. I mean, business deals are cracking things with your wife are wonderful. Your kids aren’t killing each other. You’re all getting along. Things are just, just, just going well.

Your finances are great. Well, guess what? He’s with you then too. . He’s with you then too. But I was just gonna tell you one thing. If things are going that well get. Get ready cuz the thing is you got trials, you got three kinds either in one, coming outta one or getting ready to go into one. That’s the three.

So you need to understand, no matter where you’re at in that season of trials and things like that, he is with you. He is with you, okay? So, I mean, we just do not, don’t lose that guys. Don’t lose that. Now the second, this also talks about don’t be dismayed. Dismayed. That could be stressed or anxious. You can think of that.

And why, why should we not be dismayed or dismayed or anxious? Cause he is your God. Don’t miss the, your, okay. He, it’s all about relationship. He wants a relationship with you, right? It’s not some hands off acquaintance like the, you know, your fourth cousin twice removed or something like that. Right? Some, some crazy family story, right?

No, it’s your father, your father. And just think about what is his father that we talk about? God, what does he promise? Well, he promises strength and assistance. Just look at what this verse is telling us. He wants us to do his work and he will provide us the strength and support that we need to do his work.

This mic is hot right now and I’m talking into it cuz the strength he’s given me to do his work and the conviction I have to obey. That’s it. So he’s called you to do something, guys. I guarantee you, you can’t stop the hand of. When it starts to move, you better get out the way and just do whatever he tells you to do, okay?

Because you don’t want to be going against that strength, cuz if you go with it, you’ll have the strength and you’ll have the assistance to get it done. Think about that. Not you, not Chris. Not not who, the guy in the mirror. You have the strength to get it done because of God. He’s going to give you the strength that shit get you so fired up this morning.

Let you, maybe you wanna go hit the gym and just like pound something out, right? Seriously guys? He gives you the. Assistance to get it done. To get it done. Now, his final promise in this verse, we’re gonna unpack it right here, is he’s gonna uphold you. Now again, does he just say uphold them? No. It says, I will uphold you.

I will uphold you. He wants that relationship again, guys, we have to underst. Take God out of the box and realize that he is with us and he’s on our team. Actually, we’re on his team, but either way, we’re all together. He cares about you. He wants the absolute best for you. Right? And, and if, if we can just get that through our heads, guys, and I know it’s so hard sometimes cause we wanna do it on our own, but if we just give him that chance, man, he is going to do so much more for us than we could do on.

Right. And he has to only righteous hand in existence. In existence. And what does he tell us right here? He’s gonna uphold us. Uphold us. With that hand, I mean, where else on the planet Earth can you guys get that type of assurance? Nowhere, because this verse points to the ultimate source of strength that Christians should have and should be excited about right here.

I’m so tired of just hearing and seeing, you know, lukewarm Christians where their spirit animals eor. Right? And they don’t. And, and, and I’m not saying that we all have to be out here TERs and bouncing around, but look man, every now and then, show ’em some emotion. Have pr, praise God of the universe, worship, be brought to emotion.

Understand the reverence of who we’re serving. Think about his sovereignty just for a. Right. Yes. Obviously we wanna talk to him like he’s our friend and, and, and our father. But don’t miss that reverence in the sovereignty. He is the guy at the universe. We better re be respecting him. Cause right here he is with us.

He’s gonna be with us. He’s gonna strengthen us. He’s gonna uphold us by his right hand. That should be held, held high. We were talking about that within our community. One of our brothers, Mitch man, he brought this up and it just drilled it. He was talking about the reverence of God and how we just need to be a little bit more intentional when we go in through that time with him, how important that is to understand who we’re praying to, who, who we’re seeking wisdom from him, from the, this is a God in universe, right?

And while though he is our father, he wants that relationship. Make sure we are treating him with that. And guess what? Once you do, no fear, no anxiousness, strength, help all that you get every day if you surrender and put Jesus as the Lord of our lives. So Mitch, I’m thank thankful for you, brother, for bringing that up.

I think that was so spot on just for that one little point. But guys, this verse right here, this needs to be one of those go-to gotchas. This has gotta be one of your, I uh, it is written that you have in your. Get it there. Write it on a note card, save it to your, to your dashboard or your car or your truck, whatever.

Put it in your bathroom. Whatever you need to do. Get some I It is written. You need some of these guys. Something I’m working on right now, I need to have more. It is written so that I can just naturally pop, pop, pop. Call ’em up, call ’em up, call ’em up. So that’s what I pray these spiritual kickoffs are for you guys.

They’re little pieces of verses. You could take one spiritual kickoff a week cuz usually it’s one verse. Now sometimes we go a couple verse. But you, you think about this, if you hang with the line within us, you go through us, hang with us for a year, and you focus and commit to one scripture a week, committing that you’re going to get this down, you’re going, you going to, you going to get this in your heart.

Maybe you have a little journal, whatever you need to do, but you’re going to get this, this one verse, couple verses memorized. Guess what? Engineer, you just did 52, now you got 52 pieces of battle. Pieces of, of, of, of sword rather ready to go do battle with. Think about that. If you just hang with the line within us for once a week for a spiritual kickoff and you take that one verse and you cement that, you got 52 guys, we’re gonna need ’em.

You’re gonna need a whole lot more. It is written to stand against what is coming at us. You don’t believe me, you just go check out again, check out your social media feeds and all that. It is coming, but you do not have to fear God is with us. You don’t have to be dismayed cuz he’s our God, he’s gonna give us strength, he’s going help us.

He’s gonna uphold us with his righteous right hand. So my question to you guys, where do you find your source of strength? And seriously, where do you find it? Is it self-fulfilling? Is it something that you find with within yourself that you, that you feel like you just, well if I can just, you know, take this pre-workout, that’s my source of strength.

Cause I’m gonna go to the gym, I’m gonna crush it. Or maybe it’s, maybe it’s your wife, right? Maybe she, she strengthens you up. Maybe it’s your kids or your job, or maybe you find a source of strength when you look in that bank account and a certain number’s there. And I feel, you know what, if I got that number there, I got this, I got this.

Be careful. Be careful. Our ultimate source of strength has to come from the Lord. And if you got that, guys, if you got that De Smith, then Isaiah 41. Let that, let that be your social strength. Let that be right there. What you clinging to as you move forward and as you just lead and be out there to be that Christian leader that God intends you to be.

Now we’re talking about all this stuff about, about strength and God, and not fear and, and right hand, and you’re like, what in the world kind of podcast am I listening to? What, what’s going on here? Look, it’s all comes back to Jesus. It’s Jesus. Okay, so first thing you need to understand, if you’ve listened to this and you have never accepted Christ as your savior, today is the day.

Don’t put off tomorrow cuz you’re not guaranteed tomorrow. And I’m not trying to be that guy, but we’re just not. None of us are right. We all we have is the promise of right now. So we better make the most out of it. So if you’ve never accepted Christ as your Savior, you gotta take, take, take action today.

First thing you need to understand that you’re a. You are a sinner and a sin as anything separates us from God, right? So you are a sinner. You fall short of glory of God. When sin entered a world, boom, there’s a, there’s a gap between us and him and there’s nothing we can do to, to fix it. Unfortunately, I would hate to be the bear of bad news, but you can’t nice your way in cause in hell is full of nice guys who never understood salvation and the gospel and put their trust in Christ.

So you need to just first admit, Hey, I’m a sinner. I’m not a mistake and in need of a life coach, I’m a center of need or savior. That is very important, critical piece to understand. Thank you Pastor Jobby for that cuz that really has cemented it in my heart. Now Dan, he, to believe God, believe that Jesus is the son of God.

It’s very simple, very simple to, to, to, for me to say that. But it is hard for a lot of people to get their heads around cuz so many people don’t wanna believe it. They don’t, they don’t wanna believe that he was born or a. The owner believe that he was fully manned, fully God. They don’t wanna believe that he performed all these miracles.

They definitely don’t wanna believe that he died, actually died on a cross, and three days later, rose overcame death, paying the penalty for our sin, and being the ultimate sacrifice that the veil is torn. Now, there is nothing that separates. The only thing that you have to do is believe in him as Lord.

If you do. And you confess him as Lord of your life. And I’m talking about Lord, not teacher, Lord of your life and saying, Lord Jesus, I confess to, I can’t do this. I have, I, I I’ve tried my way. My way is, is not getting it done. I need to go. I’m gonna go your way. I’m choose to follow you. I choose to listen to you.

I choose to be obedient. I choose to the Lord surrender to you and pick up my cross and follow. At that point, the Holy Spirit’s there. You got it. You’re in the club now. I would encourage you to go ahead and you take the next steps and get en engaged with a church, get moved forward with the, the, uh, with baptism and all that stuff.

But at this moment you’re in, you are in. So again, it’s very simple and I pray if you, you, if you just said that prayer, salvation, and you just ask Christ into your. Send me an email support at the lion within us. Again, support at the lion within us. Well, Chris, why should I send an email? Because first of all, I just wanna just give you a fi, a virtual fist bump and say, Hey, welcome to the club.

And then I got a couple things I just wanna send you to help you get started, cuz you are now in the battlefield. You were in it before, you just didn’t know it. Now okay, you, the blinders are off and you gonna be able to see, and Satan is gonna come at. Guess what? You can, you can win, you can overcome, you can be victorious.

Not on your own strength, but the strength through Christ. So we’re gonna give you some resources to help you out, guys. That’s what it’s all about. So I pray, I, I, I so pray for those emails that come in of salvation. Hey, we accepted Christ. Let’s move forward. Let’s do this together. So shoot, shoot me an email.

I’d love to hear from you guys. Prayerfully, this served you well. This Isaiah 41 10. You should be pretty jacked up right now, right? Your blood pressure should be up a couple points. In a good way. In a good way to get going. Because we gotta do the work. We gotta do the work, right? We’re no one’s gonna do it for us, right?

He’s telling us, don’t be dismayed, but he is telling us to go. You got to go and you have to understand that he is with. Right. He’s going to uphold us. So I know backs against the wall. It feels tough. Guys, lean in, do the work. That’s what it’s all about. Now, if you want support, if you want help doing the work, if you want help, just with that confidence in growing in your walk of Christ, I highly encourage you to connect with us and our lion within us community Guys, we went outside of Facebook, we went outside of all these, these other platforms, and we’ve built something on our.

To give us a safe place where we can go in, share truth, challenge each other, be the iron that sharpens iron, bring in some amazing events, and have guests and things like that to come in and to just speak into our lives, to make us all stronger. Men, the only way you’re gonna be able to get this though, guys, is you gotta be part of our community.

In our community. I’m so blessed that you listened to the podcast. It blows us away the, the, the, the reception that you guys are giving us on the podcast and, and how many people are listening. Thank you. Thank you. Thank. For the guys that are listening that wanna take the next step, hop in the community guys, we give you a 30 day free trial.

Just see what it’s like, check it out and see if it doesn’t serve you fine. But I guarantee you, one thing you will grow in that 30 days you will, we’re gonna challenge you. We’re going give you ideas, we’re going to, we’re gonna find out where you are at the things that you are struggling with and we’re gonna wrap that around a bunch of brothers who actually care and surround everything with truth.

Cuz everything we talk about goes. To God’s word. It’s not a bunch of just opinions. We’re gonna proof test it against God’s word, and if it stands, then we can move forward. So go to the lion within us. That’s the lion within.us. Starts your 30 day free trial. Now if you just wanna listen to the podcast, thank you.

Give us a rating. Write a review that makes a tremendous impact. Okay? Share. Share this episode with people. You can hit the share button, share episode. That’s a huge way. Maybe you share this with your, with your local men’s group at church. Okay. Do that. Maybe you wanna start a men’s group and you wanna have some material.

We have a Bible study that’s designed just for that. Again, send me an email support at the line within us. We’ll hook you up with some resources there to get your men’s group started as well. So check all these resources out. Guys, we are building these things to help you grow because that’s what it’s all about.

Growing together in Christ, doing the work that he’s called us to do, being at leaders that we know, he intends us to be. And I know it’s not easy. I know you can’t do it alone. That’s why we built this community. So I pray, I just, I really pray that this served you well. Come back on Wednesday. We’re gonna have a really good conversation that’s gonna help help you guys grow again in your welcome Christ, that we have an an another author that’s gonna be sharing with us some wonderful things that he’s gonna unpack.

Guys, I’m excited for that one for you guys. But at the end of the day, I just wanna say thank you. You know, we’re blown away. Blown away by the reception that you guys are giving us every week by listening to the show, by sharing the. By your comments. It means the world, it, it tells us that the work we’re doing matters and we’re trying to really do the best we can to serve and constantly keep serving.

Cause the whole point of the show, the whole point of all this is to glorify God. That’s it. We just wanna glorify him. We want to help these guys be the leaders that he wants us to be. And we know we have a job to do and it, it’s not easy week in and week out, but we want to glorify. And the last way you may want to think about supporting the show, if you really like us and you’re not ready to make the commitment on the the membership, I totally get it.

You know, sometimes it’s just timing’s not right. Maybe consider just being a donor supporting us. You know, we have a lot of monthly donors that just support the show. That really helps. Just, there’s just a lot. There’s a lot that goes to putting a podcast out, guys, a community thinks that we’re doing to try to build, to serve you.

But if, if you would consider supporting show, that would be awesome. Again, at the line within us, you can click on the donate button right there. We’d love to have your support, so get after it. Don’t forget, no anxiousness, no fear. Strength and help is on our is is with us by his right hand. So get that.

Isaiah 41, 10. Get that. It is. In your heart, guys, get after it. Come back on Wednesday. We’ll see you next time. Unleash the lion with them.

Let me ask you a real personal question. Who are your five closest friends? Aren’t they pulling you closer to God or further away? I know some of 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 with Innocence, we started a.

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. 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 he had previous guests come in and share their e. 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. 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.