This is the Truth Network, coming to you from an entrenched barricade deep in the heart of Central North Carolina. Masculine Journey After Hours: A time to go deeper and be more transparent on the topic covered on this week's broadcast.
So sit back and join us on this adventure. The Masculine Journey After Hours starts here now. Welcome. There we go. Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours.
We are going to continue our conversation on the good heart, right? And and I know you may go say, "What's that about?" Well, you can go listen to the last show and get caught up. You should, yeah, because there's a lot of truth in it that I don't think we always hear, right? And I don't think it's anyone trying to be deceitful, right? It's just it's a very complex situation.
Right, because people can use their heart to do all sorts of bad things. Right, you know, I'm just going to listen to my heart.
Well, I don't know—is that good or bad? Right, and so there's a lot of confusion over that. But as we talked about, as you're moving and maturing in Christ, that becomes less and less of the norm. Right, that you're making those type of mistakes. You know, Peter said about Paul that some of the things that he writes is hard to understand.
Well, Paul didn't write a lot of what we're talking about, but I would echo that and say, God, a lot of the things that He writes is hard to understand, and so you can't. Hobby horse on any particular verse, not just a verse in context, the entire scripture in context, and so you you have to understand this subject in the context of the life of Christ and the teaching of Christ, as well as Old Testament and and especially Hebrew. Robert, you going to say something? You just adjusting your mic. I was, well, I no, I love the discussion.
I I think, you know, to a great extent, these things were meant to be experienced. Right? You can read about a a jeep and going four wheel driving all you want to read about it. You can even watch a movie with somebody going through a river in a jeep. But until you actually get in that jeep and you start to go down the river, It's it's a different deal, and it's the same thing with so much of the scripture, especially this one.
Yeah, because the idea of a new heart would be foolishness to anybody that hasn't gotten one. That's true. You know, and so you know Jeremiah. You know, I don't know how that all worked out in his particular world. You know when he got a new heart, no doubt he's in heaven.
I mean, I don't question that, but nonetheless, you know there there is that deal, and so that's been going on, actually beautifully, since Christ came, and and for the thief on the cross, he got to experience it like immediately. But fascinatingly, through the generations, they did.
So Charles Dickens wrote a Christmas Carol years ago, and there was a scene in there that, when I redid a Christmas Carol to a Christmas Corolla as the Christian car guy, that I've always delighted in the scene after. Scrooge gets a new heart, right? And all of a sudden he's light as a feather, and he's jumping around, and he's looking for the big turkey, etc. Right? I mean, it's it's unbelievable what he experienced, and again, it's written about generations and generations ago.
So when I wrote this, we all had a very dear friend. If you're a long time listener to Masked and Journey, you know who Vinnie Manino was.
Well, there was no person better person because I wanted to. Cast the ghost of Christmas Future as somebody could talk. It was a radio show, so having a guy that didn't talk was not going to be really helpful. Makes sense.
So I needed to do, and and so I came up with this idea of having the ghost of Back to the Future, right? And he was going to drive a DeLorean, and who better to be the Grim Reaper than Vinnie Manino? You know, and so I cast him in that part. There were two. It was sort of a double thing that there was a character who was going through the whole Scrooge process, but there was also a car part that was Kramer crankshaft, and he was previously pretty cranky, as you might imagine.
And so we had Kramer crankshaft and Eustace, who was a deputy in the thing, are the two characters that are both playing Scrooge. I didn't want to confuse anybody because Guido is going to be talking to both of them, and. It fits along with our message very well because they're getting asked right to step into their actual identity. And so, actually, when you get your new heart, it's fascinating. Is I got to see that actually this week in the Nikita Koloff man camp.
I got to watch some people walk into their true identity, and it's not just the joy and all that that that you see with Scrooge, but you get to actually watch somebody walk into who they really are. And so, here's this clip. That's it. One more stop for you too. And I am sure you guessed it—the bologna.
Climb in. The time is almost up, Spirit. Before you show us that, just answer this one question: Are these the things that will be, or the things that might be if we don't open our present? All right, you asked, so I am going to give it to you straight. God knows, and only God knows, and here.
Is our only hope. Good fruit comes from good branches that are connected to a good root. That's in good soil. That root is Jesus, God's son.
So yous better open up that present. Jesus sacrificed on the cross for your failures, for your sins, for you. Will be planted. It's your choice. It can either be fruit or fertilizer.
Got it? Fruit or fertilizer. Your choice. Here we are at the barnyard. Get a good look at your headstone.
The first one reads, "Deputy Useless is now in his casket. Failed to pay attention to Guido Gasco." The next one says, "Here lies Crankshaft Kramer. His attraction to worms could not be plainer." And your choice. Oh, oh, oh, God! Oh, Father, yes, yes.
You've made enough. I want the protector. You, you, that you've made me to be. I want to be the driver. You made me to be.
I'm not the man I was. I'm not the cranky shaft I was. New man. I'm not the man I was. I'm not the cranky shaft.
So, a lot of fun. You know, I played that for years every Christmas. If you want to hear it, it's on the Christian Car Guy Show. But I had such an experience that I just want to share it at this man camp. Again, Nikita Koloff, you can go to Koloff for Christ and find out and list if you want.
Anyway, it was on staff, and unfortunately, some men struggled a lot, as sometimes people do in ministry. And it upset me so badly that I would, and I had a lot of ministry obligations, and I was really struggling. In order to minister to the other men, because this situation that had happened had me so upset, and so as you guys know well, I get up. Like three in the morning, and I'm praying because I got a the only a lot of times I have to wait until I can get with God to just try to sort through what what's going on with my heart. And so you know, praise God, I I got in touch with him that morning, and I'm like, help me, like man, I I am I am running in circles.
I don't know where I'm going. This has me all upset. And he's he says. Yeah, and he shows me this vision, and this vision is a mountain, and on that mountain is sort of a, it looks like a path or maybe a road, and I said, "What's that?" And he said, "Oh, that's a rock slide." I said, "A rock slide." He said, "Yeah." He said, "Robby, for brutally honest, you don't trust me." He says, "You don't think I'm." You know, those guys were, you know, within what I was doing. You you don't really trust me.
And he said, actually, that isn't a path. It's like I said, it's a rock slide because it was a little piece of the rock of your heart that was breaking off, and it had to come down the mountain. And he says, interesting how that gravel becomes good soil in the valley. That you dig into in order to grow up to be who you are supposed to be, because you know you've got this heart of flesh, and it was it was remarkable because I knew so much. He was going to remove this heart of flesh, I mean stone, and give you a heart of flesh, but I thought it was a one time deal and done.
Well, you know, I didn't realize there might be some still places in my heart that are rock hard, but fascinatingly. You know whose heart I didn't think was good. God's heart. That was that was the part of my heart that was breaking off. Was I actually didn't trust God's heart, which you know just kind of wowed me.
Well, fascinatingly, is I you know processed all weekend, got tired, a lot of stuff happened. Monday I was praying again and had. Another phenomenal encounter with God, and I'd been practicing giving, surrendering things like here, take this, take this. God, I can't, you know. Here, let me give you this, give you that.
And there's this idea of total surrender, and all of a sudden Jesus said, "You know, if you give me your heart." I'll give you mine, and there was actually like this exchange. I can't want to put it like I said. Oh yeah, man! I mean, who would who would turn down that deal? And the invitation is fantastic when you think about it, and it really is the invitation that Vinnie was describing to Kramer, and is that if you give him your heart.
He'll give you his, and his is good and soft, and in other words, it is it is noble, and it is true. And as we always say, it you know, if you want to look up the definition of a man, if you want to see what that looks like, it it looks like Jesus. And so, if we had his heart, like kaching, you know, how could it be? More available than that, and so I think this subject is is so gigantic, it's unbelievable. With one last side note, you know, at Man Camp, I talked to somebody.
I was talking about how amazing it was this goodness, and they're like, "Well, good's not that big a deal." I'm like, oh my gosh! You don't understand biblical goodness, like you know, in in David's twenty third psalm, surely goodness and mercy will follow me. Good to God, like on. In Genesis one, right? It was very good.
In other words, the the goodness of good. We don't even we don't even scratch the surface of in our mind.
So to have a good heart is like oh my gosh, it's it's it's so much. You know, we just throw the word good around like you know that's pretty good candy bar.
Well, yeah. Good point. Yeah, goody goody. I'm done. Oh, that was good.
Oh, sorry. I mean, I really, I really genuinely mean that. I wasn't just being sarcastic that time. But yeah, one of the questions I had asked you guys to consider was how does the realization that you have a good heart. How's that impact you, and how have you done living it out?
Right, and we've answered some of that in a roundabout way, but just be pondering that. I'm gonna play another clip here first. I just want to throw the question out there so you can think about it. Right? Well, I did throw it out.
Now we get to the good clips. Yeah.
Now we now we get the ones that just make sense. The are they good? They're great. Oh yeah. They're Tony the Tiger, baby.
They this one I didn't wasn't sure he's gonna use. It was actually the first clip that I thought of. When I thought about this topic, and it's from the movie Radio. If you've never seen it, it's a great movie. You know, you'll think it's about football.
It's not. It's about a football coach and how there's a guy in his community that is a little slow at picking stuff up, and he's constantly teased and picked on, and he just sees it, and something wells up in him that he has to do something about it. And all he does is really just love on this person very, very well, and treat him with kindness, and show him God's love, right? And it changes everything in that guy's world and a lot of other people's world. And so, I want you to think about these little acts that may not seem like a big deal are a huge deal when they're coming from your good heart.
Right, God's going to produce good fruit with that. You know, we may not know what how that ever plays out down the road, but we can trust that that's going to happen. And so, what we have here is you have Coach Jones talking to his wife. It's a little bit hard to hear at the beginning, but there's a guy named Frank who's the banker in town, and he's just causing a fit. You know, he's going to.
Do a lot of things to disrupt everybody, unless he gets his way, and that radio can't be a part of the the team anymore. You know, to help the team, and so they're talking about that, and you hear Coach Jones saying something along the lines, "Maybe this was a mistake," and so we just pick it up from there. Oh, just a big mistake. Radio probably wouldn't better off. We just giving him some help.
Help, and what you've been giving him has been. That couldn't have been easy on you, Mary Helen. You spent all this time with Radio the past few months. Harold, wait. You can't believe that's been a mistake.
You being with Radio. You, you've been so great for each other. Yeah, well, look where it's got us. Where it got you was a school full of kids that love him, and Mary Helen feels the same way. And anything that Frank can do or say, that's not going to change anything.
It's never a mistake to care for someone. That's always a good thing, right? Not really sure where her accent was going, and yeah, just came out of nowhere. It was it was kind of all over the place, but no, the impact of just falling. The inclination of your good heart, that the spirit's laying on you, and the impact that it makes down the road.
And if you watch that movie, one of the cool things about it, it's based on a true story from Coach Jones and the guy that they called Radio. I can't remember his name. I heard it in the movie, but real real people down in South Carolina. You know, and this was such an amazing story. But along the way, there was a thing that happened in Coach Jones's childhood.
That he regretted, a wounding time where he saw somebody in need, and didn't do anything with it, right? And that haunted him, with the constant: "You're not a good man. You have an evil heart." And God orchestrates this where He brings in this guy, radio, and He heals them both. In the midst of them, just falling after him, you know, such a good story. My wife had never seen it before, so we watched it together the other night, and I had forgot how good that story was, and and how good movies used to be about twenty years ago.
They don't tend to be as good these days as they were back then. But back to the question, I had. Anyone have a response to that? Yeah, I had a experience over past few months. As a matter of fact.
Michelle had a friend at that work. She's a teacher that was going to get married, and they wanted to do some some premarital counseling or whatever. And they didn't need anybody to do the ceremony. And Michelle said, "Well, Danny does stuff like that." So I started meeting with this couple. Didn't know either one of them prior to us meeting for the first time.
I think I had met.
Well, I had met the teacher once, you know, but didn't know. And so we met several sessions, went through this book that I've been using, and everything. But just sat down together, and you know, talked to them and got to know them, and and everything. And went through the book, and and and originally it was going to be because of the venue they were using up in the mountains, and everything. It was very small.
wasn't going to be able to go to wedding or the reception because the venues, and which was fine. I was like, you know what, this is what you want. You we'll do this. And so you know we were interacting and getting to know each other, and so it works out where some people canceled or whatever. And they said, "Look, we want you at least at the reception," and then they invited me to do the grace over the food, and they wanted me to be a part of it.
And they told me when I was there, they said, "It was amazing to us in the short period of time we've known you the impact you've made on us." And just you know, if you know me, I mean that just floored me. That you know, because for years, you know, I thought I lived out of that evil heart, and you know that that shame and all that regret and all that stuff. But you know, in in recent years, you know, God has said, "No, you're my son, and I've given you a good heart. You know, live out of it." And you know, when you begin to do that a little bit. Man, the world opens up into amazing places, and just you know, not just with people, but just you know, me and Jesus were out in the woods and missing deer on on Saturday.
You know, and people say, "What do you mean, you and Jesus are out there?" You know, what I've had to learn about a good heart is that he gets excited about the things I get excited about, and and you know, he wants to experience things with me. And that's that's part of that good heart, I think so. Thank you, Danny. Yeah, I had a.
Well, I do have a ministry called the Jesus Labor Love. We help single moms, widows, and recently, I guess you could say we went viral because Chat GPT picked it up. And man, everybody in the world was calling me because Chat GPT was actually giving out my cell phone number. And I was just getting overwhelmed with phone calls. And I was praying, like, God, what do I do with this?
Because you know, when you're getting twenty, thirty phone calls a day, plus all the other ministry opportunities, where there's a process, they were supposed To go by and fill out an application and all this stuff, then we would call them. You know, I had volunteers to do all that.
So I prayed and prayed, like God, what do I do with this? And He said, you need to put a message on your phone, and you just need to quit answering your phone so that people get this message. And man, I spent. Hours praying about what to put in that message because I didn't want anybody to think that I didn't care. I didn't want anybody to think that we weren't available.
But by the same token, I can't handle everything personally, and so I just prayed through the message and and eventually recorded it. And it's a fairly long message.
Well, last Saturday. If if I hadn't lived this, I wouldn't believe it. I had to play it for my wife so she could hear it. This lady called in, and she was talking about how she had really been through a bunch of struggles, this, that, and the other, and she really thought that Jesus had turned his back on her, etc. That she really felt dejected, and she said, "But then I I heard that this Jesus labor love existed, and I said, 'Well, that that's a Christian ministry.
Let me call them.'" And she said, "I called that number that ChatGPT gave her, and she said it was if Jesus answered the phone. She said it was a message; it was like an answering machine. But that voice and that demeanor, and he said that he knew how hard it was to call and ask for help. Which I always put that in." Anytime I talk to somebody that's like that, and she said it was as if Jesus answered the phone. She said that, and of itself, changed the game, right?
And it just talk about affirmation. Jesus was the one that hugged her. There was no doubt in my mind. But how cool that you could be any part of that, and clearly happened out of just my heart that I didn't want anybody to want help and feel rejected because they were getting a message, right? And then eventually she got through the ministry, and we were able to help her some.
But the really cool thing was, like, man, you talk about affirmation. And she she didn't spend a minute on it. She spent probably three or four minutes describing the experience of getting that message. She didn't say, "This sounds like your voice." What was funny is she actually thought it was Paul. And she didn't get it that it was me because I never even say my name, and she didn't even know what my name was.
And I said, "No, actually, that's my message." And you know, she got it. Do you new thoughts on it?
So, how how does it make me live knowing that I have a good heart? Robby mentioned it earlier. It doesn't just apply to you. It it applies if this is true of me. Theologically, because God said so, then it's also applicable to Danny and to Sam and to Robby and Harold and Art and Jim and all the Grant and all the people that hang out with us.
Andy, well, not so much Andy. No, definitely Andy. Then. I have to keep that at the forefront. That no matter what.
Someone does to me, and it's usually not you guys. Honestly, it's it's somebody else, you know, that I know as a Christian, a church, a whatever. The way people do things, right? That just irritates me.
Well, yeah, but they have a good heart, and and hopefully, they were pursuing whatever it was that was irritating me out of that good heart, and so credit them that just like. Like Jesus credits me His righteousness in place of my sin, and God credits me with His righteousness, which is huge. And so, I have to pass that on to others. I have to believe that they have a good heart as well, and that no matter how unsanctified. I may be, or they may be, at the time that that's a process, and God is working towards it.
And rather than getting upset with the lack of sanctification, which becomes judgment really quickly, to to be able to say no. You know what? I'm not in their shoes. I I I don't know everything that's going on in their life, but what I do know is this one thing, and that is that Jesus loves them as much as He loves me, and that He is pursuing their sanctification just as much as He's pursuing mine. And I guess the the final caveat to that is then I have to.
I've just gotten into the habit of saying, "Well, have I ever done that to somebody?" And inevitably, I have. I mean, it almost doesn't matter what it is, right? Because we are broken people who make mistakes, and so I love that. I love being able to to hold others in a higher esteem, as Jesus tells us to, and in. Philippians two, that we hold each other in a higher esteem than we would otherwise, because we know what Jesus is after in them.
Right, so I think it helps me keep my perspective right, or at least better than it would be. Thank you, Art, Mr. Art.
Well, I have something that I don't have a clip because this just came to me later on, as probably as I was on the way over here. I'm not sure it's kind of a different angle from what y'all have been so serious and and and. Intellectual tonight with this. I thought he was going to say eloquent. Yeah, yeah, I was going to say you.
You know, Sam. Sam. He doesn't talk about it on the radio, but he's told us that you know when he got married that he he a cat came along with the package and he he became a cat herder. Oh yeah. Now yeah yeah a cat herder is uh uh it's almost bad as a sheep herder maybe not.
But but I wanted to say that because I have cats and I wanted to bring Sammy into that with me too. But I had a cat die since I was here two weeks ago, and I had a cat die. He he he got old and had some problems, and he left. And we talked about losing pets before, and I said then that you know I had to cry a little bit, and I did again. And the thing is, I don't really even care about These cats so much now that I got to go bye.
Yeah, yeah.
Sorry about that. Are we going to have to go? But let God love on you and focus on this topic of a good heart this week. We'll talk to you next week.
