Welcome to the Line Within Us, a podcast serving Christian man 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. This is your spiritual kickoff for the week. I’m excited. I hope you’re excited. Let’s get going and get this thing rolling. So we’re gonna be in the book of John, okay.

Book of John chapter three verses 19 through 21. So 19 through 21. I thought you, I know you guys were thinking, oh, he’s getting ready to say three 16. Nope, nope, nope. 19 through 21. This is the. Light has come into the world, but people love darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.

But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so it makes be seen plainly. What they have done has not been done in the sight of God. All right guys, let’s unpack this one. This is a great s. Again, we’re gonna really try to, to get some, a good understanding of this. Let’s see how we can simplify and apply this to our lives and make this really impactful for us.

Okay? First of all, I need to understand where is John. Need to know where his stuff is. Guys, this is, this is stuff we gotta talk about every week, but you got Matthew Martin, Luke and John. Okay? So it’s the the fourth gospel. Okay? So just go straight to your new, And it becomes, uh, and you’ll find John, and you’ll find this verse right after, again, I kinda alluded to it earlier after the, probably one of the most, you know, quoted verses of all time with John three 16, right?

We where, you know, for God so love the world, he gave his one son who, who believe him should not perished to have eternal life. So you got that verse, you know, see the signs at the, at the, at the baseball games or whatever. People use that verse all the time. I totally get it. So what, here’s what’s going on here.

Just to give you a little context, Jesus is actually talking to Nicodemus. Okay? So Nicodemus is a Pharisee. He’s, he’s definitely a, and he’s kinda like a ruler of the Jews. Like, I mean, Nicodemus was one of the top dogs back in the day, right? So this is a big deal that Nicodemus was here, okay? And Nicodemus, he thought Jesus was a.

I mean, he, he addresses him, rabbi, or teacher. Right? And, and, and this is a, a very important item to remember. Okay, let’s think about this as a Pharisee. He was set apart. He was set apart. He was one of Holies people. At his times, he was supposed to be able to see when the Messiah came, Nick Nemus could smell the breath of Christ.

Still missed it in this moment, right? You still missed. Just look how Jesus, so Jesus goes through that, you know, uh, where Nicodemus is asking, how can you be born again? And Jesus just walks through this whole truth here. Like, look bro, you can’t be, you don’t, don’t crawl back into your mom. That’s just weird.

Like, no bro, this is what it’s about. Then he gets to this part about the darkness and the light. Okay? And, and ultimately he is the light of the world, okay? Cuz Jesus starts off with what in this verse, what did he start off with? With a verdict. So when you think about a verdict, I think about like a judgment, like, like into, in a courtroom, right?

You have a, some of you guys may be, I know we have a, some lawyers that listen to us. You guys are out there. You got your, your judge, you, you’re presenting your case in front of the judge, and you wait for the verdict, right? The judgment to be laid out. So, hey, this is what Jesus says right at the beginning.

This is the verdict here. Light has come into the. Okay, so there, there it is. Right there. And we understand that he is the light of the world. Go John. A 12. Jesus. He makes that declaration. Don’t you think about that for a second Light. You know, it, it, it, it comes in handy, right? ? I mean, have you ever stumped your tone in the middle of the night?

You’re trying to, trying to, to, to maybe get to the kitchen and get something to eat or something to drink, or maybe you stay in a ho. This is the worst place to do. Like if you stay in a hotel room or a motel, something like that, somewhere, um, for me or a new person’s house, like you spending the night somewhere, you don’t really wanna turn on all the lights.

You kind of think you know the way next you’re gonna know, boom, you stump your toe and that makes you say stuff that you shouldn’t say. Right? It just happens. It happens. So, I mean, darkness prohibits us from seeing the dangers that lie ahead. Think about that cuz nobody. Nobody wakes up one day and just says, you know what?

Today’s the day I’m gonna ruin my marriage. Yep, yep. No, today’s the day I’m just gonna destroy my finances. No, it doesn’t happen. The darkness surrounds us. It does. And then those attacks come of the evil one, and before we know it, we’re walking in it. We’re walking in it. Right. And we’re messaging that girl, we shouldn’t be messaging, Hey, we’re going, we’re taking her out to lunch.

Right. Because hey, it’s just lunch. What’s the big deal or spending money on those things we don’t need? Look, I, we can f we can figure out how to pay for it. We just need to get this right now. Don’t worry about how, you know, the, the long term ramifications. We need this because it’s instant gratification.

That’s it. Right? Or maybe we had that, uh, that extra cocktail we shouldn’t have, you know? Well, it’s okay to have a little bit of alcohol. The next thing you. Maybe you fixed one or two more extra ones and you shouldn’t be doing that, you know? And you just leads down a path. Look, it all starts small, little pinhole, little pinholes.

And we have to be careful here. We have to be careful here. Cause for the moment, those things really do feel good. I get it. They feel good, right? But Jesus calls us out. He tells us that we love our darkness. And I get it. It can be fun, it can be exciting, it can make you feel good. But the, the truth is cuz these momentary feelings, guys, they’re costing us eternity.

The momentary feelings are costing us eternity. Okay? And it, Dr it drives us to the point where, uh, to, to, to where, where we hate what is good and we’re gonna do everything we can to. Right. And that’s when we start making excuses and rationalizing stuff, guys. And if you making excuses and try Right. And trying to rationalize.

Just remember when you try to rationalize something, you’re trying to make rationalize and that never doggone works. Right, right. Because, and, and guys, I get it, you may not want everything you’ve done exposed, right? I’m tell you right now, if you did, you would have to deal with it like a man. That’s what we hear.

That’s why you guys are. Because it’s easy. It’s easy to stamp darkness. It’s hard. I totally get it to step out of the darkness and step into the light. It’s scary, but it’s needed more than ever. And Jesus doesn’t just tell us to do it. He tells us how to do it. Okay. To live by truth. Now I read that like, well, how the heck you supposed to live our church?

How are you supposed to, how are you supposed to know that? I can hear you guys asking that question right now. I totally. Well, it’s the same way guys get trained to, to recognize counterfeit bill, uh, counterfeit currency. So to me, trained to recognize a hundred dollars bill. Like to be able to see that this is a fake $100 bill.

You know how they do it? They know what a true $100 bill looks like, and if you know the truth, you’ll be able to spot the fake the lie instantly. You’ll be able to see. But you can’t see a fake if you don’t know what the truth looks like. It says that simple. It’s that simple. You have to be able to, to be grounded in the truth.

Okay? And this means, guys, we gotta have a whole lot of it is written in our hearts. And what did Jesus do on him? Satan start to combat him in the desert. It is written, it is written, it is written. The guys I totally get memorizing scripture is, Yeah, I, I, it’s so much easier to memorize your favorite song.

I totally get that. But we need these writtens to be able to combat the evil one. So we gotta start reading God’s word every day. You need to start praying. You need to start worshiping. You need to start coming to church. If you’re not, you need to start serving. How about join a small group? And then most importantly, I really think guys, right now, they’ll state of the world we’re in, you need to have alliance, then you need to have some man that can just grow, grow you closer to God.

Now, I’m not saying it has to be the line within us, but you need a group of guys. That gonna help pull you closer to God, okay? And if and if they’re pulling you away, then you better find you gonna new den. Okay? Because I’m gonna tell you right now, guys, you are net result of that core group. You’re hanging out with those influences that speaking into your life.

You need to make sure they’re right. Now, honestly, I’d love for you to, to check out the line with innocent our den. What we got going is, this is what we’re doing all the time. Because at the end of the day, the light that Jesus is speaking about, okay, it doesn’t have a. Doesn’t have a switch. You can’t turn that thing down, right?

That light is always on. That’s it. It’s always on. Are you behaving like that? Light is always on. Start thinking about that or do you enjoy some time in the darkness? And I totally get it, man. I totally get it. We’re sinful nature. I enjoy time in darkness too, and I had to repent from it, turn away from it, get out of it.

My time in the darkness oftentimes is, is gluttony where I, I want to go, uh, eat the stuff I shouldn’t be. Right. And I have to pull myself out of it. Nope. This is not, this is not taking care of my body as a temple, right? God sees what you do either way, so the lights on or lights off for you. It don’t matter.

God, I can see it. So if he, if we know that, and he wants you to do what’s, to do what’s right and to walk his way, hey, walk in the light. And if you do it, guess what? You’re not gonna stump your. You’re not gonna have to say those words cuz you’re gonna see plainly. He gives us the light so we can see, so he can hold your head high so you can walk forth so you can be on that constant pursuit of him.

But you gotta walk into it, you know, we don’t want to, the darkness is where all the bad stuff happens, guys. You’ll go to watch any scary movie on the planet. Nothing bad happens during the daytime. It’s always at night, right? It just, it dark darkness has that allure of sneakiness, right? You’re sneaking around.

You don’t wanna be found. You don’t wanna be caught. Why do you make so many affairs and sexual immorality happen at night? Cause you’re trying to sneak around guys. If you find yourself in that trap, it’s not too late. Step into the light. Again, step into it. He tells us right there he goes, you, what you do will be exposing.

You’re gonna have to answer for it. Guys, you’re not gonna have to answer to me. You’re not gonna have to answer to your wife or anything. You have to answer to him. Okay? And the light is here. Instead of loving that darkness. Ma’am, why don’t you just embrace the light? It’s so much better. Ha. Have you ever just stood in the sunshine just, and just felt that light?

Just, just warming your body? You can have that all the. When you let Christ come in and actually get grounded in your heart, guys, that’s what I pray you do, cuz that’s how you unleashed the line within them. So the question I want you to think about this week, do you know how to get out, out of that darkness and into the light?

You know, do you know how to get out of it? Because you, it can feel like it’s pulling you down, but you can get out of it if you need help getting out of it. That is what we are here for, guys. So guys, I really pray that you take this message that you think about, that you pray over this message, that you go to this word.

Don’t just stop at John three 16. Keep reading cuz you need to understand the truth, the truth of the gospel. The light is here. Step into the light. And if you don’t even know what this gospel thing is, this is this Chris, we’re, what the heck are you talking about? This gospel thing we have Jesus. Jesus the good news of of Jesus Christ, you need to first understand, hey, if you’re listening to this, you’ve never accepted Christ.

You need to understand one thing. You are a sinner. You’re it. You’re a sinner. You are a sinner in need of a savior. You’re not a mistake or in need of a life coach. You are a sinner in need of a savior. There’s nothing you can do to overcome your sin. I wish I was, could tell you a different way, but there isn’t.

There’s no other way. The only way is Christ. So you need to admit that you’re a sinner. You need to believe that Christ is the son of God. Jesus came from heaven. He, he descended to us. He put on one of these flesh suits, walked around fully. God fully man, taught us so many things, showed us all these miracles, and then paid the ultimate price for our sin on that cross in Calvary.

But he didn’t stop there. Three days later, he rose. He overcame death. Now he sit at her right hand and her father, and no one gets there except through. You got to believe this guys. And you gotta understand that Jesus, Jesus, he’s not just a teacher, he’s Lord. And then you confess him as Lord. When you confess him as Lord, the Holy Spirits will come into your heart.

I, I like to call that we got that line within us at that point, and we won’t do it. He’s going, what? Whatever he tells us to do. And at that point, we’re walking in the light. And when you walk in the light and you’ve confessed crisis as, as, as, as, as lore of your life, whenever you get into the darkness.

You know what? That conviction’s going to come and he gonna get back out of it. He’s going to convict you. So if you’ve just accepted Christ and you want to move forward with this, I want you to email us support at the line within us. And I wanna give you some resources for free just to help you along with your journey and encourage you, try to help you get plugged into some church, to a local church and just be there and put down lo around you to go get ready for the battle that you’re gonna face.

Now you enjoy the spiritual kickoffs. I know a lot of you guys are. We do a version of this every day at the line within us every day within our community in the mornings, um, Monday through Friday. Good Lord willing. I go live and we, when I share God, God’s word, we just read God’s word and we see what the Holy Spirit tells us.

And I. With, with what the spirit’s telling me. And guys, it’s been very well received. So if you enjoy the, the spiritual kickoffs, you could get one every morning. And we post these things too. So if you can’t make the live, hey, it’s in our community. You can watch it at any point throughout the day, right?

This is a great way to stay plugged into the word I I. If you don’t have time to read and here’s, you do a lot of driving, let me read it for you. You can literally pop on our, in our community. I’m reading the word to you, give you a, give you a message, give you a luck. That little spiritual pump that you need to get going for your day.

And there you go. So I pray you consider that guys, I pray you sh you, you encourage sharing this with others. That’s how the lion within us grows. It’s not any of this crazy stuff that I try to do. It all happens down to when hope, when believers are obedient and they. So if this convict, if this has helped you in any way shared a message, right, leave us a rating review, that stuff does help.

But just share the message and then definitely check out our community. Guys, I know you hear me talk about it all the time, and I’m telling you the community’s where it’s at. You need man around you, surrounding you, helping you grow to be that leader. You can’t do this alone. Too many times, churches are letting us down.

The men’s group are really suffering. So if you find that that’s happening, guys. Come to us, check us out. We have a 30 day free trial. I want you to check it out. I don’t want you to try anything that you’re not gonna have a chance to see if you like. So try it for a month. Come to a Ask Me Anything event where we have a a, a guest from a preview from the show.

Come to our line lunches, come to our Bible study, come to our dad camp. Guys. We have stuff going on. Join one of our mastermind groups all the time. There’s stuff’s happening inside the community, all the. Drop your prayer request. I’m telling you, it is a phenomenal way. Our challenges, we have challenges happening all the time.

Every month we have a challenge going. Usually it’s something around spiritual or something physical, but it’s getting us accountable and that’s what it’s about. And it’s helping us all grow, guys. So this is so important that, that, that you check that out. Again, the lion within us to check that out, even do still do coaching.

You wanna do some coaching that just helps you grow guys. It’s all about serving. It’s about serving you. So I pray to see you there, come back on Wednesday, have a great conversation with a guest that I’m looking forward to sharing with you guys. I know you’re gonna like this one. Uh, it’s actually a return guest.

Uh, so I’m looking forward to having him come back on the show. So, so, so blessed and honoring, and thankful for him to be coming on, and hopefully you guys enjoy that. So good. Get after it. Have some fun. Go back, make sure you get this, John, uh, just. Uh, route it into your hearts, guys and just ground it and just being able to walk in that light as you go forth this week.

So get after it. Have a great day, and unleash the lion within.

Let me ask you a real personal question. Who are your five closest friends? Are they pulling you closer to God or further? 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 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.

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, uh, ask me anything events where we had 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. God, 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. I look forward to seeing you inside the den..