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Left Behind After Hours

The Masculine Journey / Sam Main
The Truth Network Radio
October 12, 2024 12:35 pm

Left Behind After Hours

The Masculine Journey / Sam Main

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October 12, 2024 12:35 pm

Welcome fellow adventurers! The discussion on what we leave behind in order to follow Jesus, continues right here on the Masculine Journey After Hours Podcast. The clips are from "The Pilgrim's Progress, and "Rings Of Power." 

There's no advertising or commercials, just men of God, talking and getting to the truth of the matter. The conversation and Journey continues.

Be sure to check out our other podcasts, Masculine Journey and Masculine Journey Joyride for more great content!

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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 to Masculine Journey After Hours. We are in the middle of what is a really good topic. I mean, that may surprise you. I think we have good topics every week. I mean, that shouldn't surprise you because I say that every week, but we are in the middle of a good topic. And Jim, this is your topic.

Do you want to tell us a little bit about it? I figured that'd be a downgrade from the really good topics that you usually have. Well, I like the very unique topics when we have those.

I never heard one of those. I will accept fairly unique, because you're almost unique, but there are two or three others like you, but there aren't. You're unique.

If you're more unique than most, does that make you very unique? That makes you, what was it? I don't know. Alright, so back to the topic at hand. What was the topic? We're talking about what we give up to follow Jesus, and that is something that was inspired by the movie that I'm stalling to remember the name of, The Forge.

I would have thought you would have said the Bible, but that's just me. Well, you know, that's the one thing, but nobody can see that except for our one viewer on the bandicam. Two or three.

Up to two or three, yeah. But it is something that just struck me in that movie as a main theme, and then I got to thinking about what I gave up. It was primarily what I thought was control, which is really an illusion. God's got control whether we think we do or not, though we sometimes can really screw things up by grabbing that control, and he'll let us have it for a bit. That reminds me of some clips that we don't have, so I'll let you go on to someone that does have one now.

Well, Andy, you actually have the first clip in the after hours, so you want to tell us a little bit about it? Well, to Jim's point, I think everything gets back to control. It's a matter of surrender, and I think a lot of the stuff that we're talking about is, some of these things, like Robby was talking about sleep, it's kind of required, but it's something that you can give up to gain God. Plenty of examples in the Bible of that, but you think about a lot of these things that we're talking about, what we give up are idols, and that's kind of what I had in varieties.

Some of them were obvious, but some of them weren't. In this clip, it's from The Pilgrim's Progress, and it's Christian's journey through life. And he's gotten to Vanity Fair, which is a place where you have a lot of pleasures, and these people can't believe that you can't find pleasure in these things, and he's not really tempted by this. It's been a while since I've, I don't even know if I've read all the way through it, but basically these things aren't attracted to him, and it's not necessarily him giving them up, but us rejecting them on down the road is another form of giving them up, because they don't have their hold on you any longer. He's experienced that freedom, and you'll hear that. Let's go ahead and play this clip, though. He's come to, it's like a carnival, and they're offering all these things, and I think a couple of the things they mention are envy and gain glory.

And it's just like, these things, again, they are not appealing to him, and you'll hear that in the clip. Welcome to Vanity Fair! The town hosts a fair that never ends, and in it you will encounter everything that tempts a human heart. You must go. Come now, strangers! Try our spirits! But be warned, do not be overly confident, and heed to this warning. Settle it in your heart what you will do before you enter the town. Many have fallen who walked in with one eye on eternity, and the other on the present. What we wish to obtain, you do not sell here!

That, sir, is impossible! Did you hear what he said? What is going on here? What is the meaning of this disruption? These strange strangers insist that what they need is not available here, and as a result, they have disrupted our fair! Well then, what is the meaning of this? What is this interruption to our fair?

What? These strange strangers, what did they do? Nothing! Nothing? Nothing? Exactly!

They won't take part in anything, they won't buy anything, they are doing nothing! Well, by doing nothing, you have interrupted our fair! There's only one thing to do! Call the jury! Jury! All present.

Right! Do we have the witnesses? Envy and game glory. Do you know these prisoners? Yes.

And what do you hold against them? They said that what they wanted, we did not have! And what could that possibly be? Peace, joy, love! So that's what you feel like you get. There's several other things listed in there that you actually receive when you give these things up. And for me, I mean, it's something as simple as the love of sports, to where I let that dominate my life.

Playing fantasy football and spending the whole day. Again, some of these things are not good, there's nothing wrong with them on their own. But if they dominate your life, and that's what you consume, I mean, there's just much more to life. And God's constantly, it can be food, food can be an idol, you know, a variety of things.

I mean, we've talked about anger, that was one for me. And what's cool about these things are, is when God asks you to give them up, or you see the need to give them up and you do, they lose their hold on you. And then the next thing that comes up and says, well shoot, I've got some more to surrender. You've got some victories in surrendering some stuff. So, just some of the things that I've given up though.

I've made a struggle with porn for a big part of my life off and on. And those are things that took peace, that took the ability to walk out who I was as a man of God. And now that I've given up, I've been positioned to live out this life in a way that I bring strength to situations.

And not weakness or fear or, you know, just a feeling of not being able to be fulfilled in God himself. And so, you know, when you're talking about giving these things up, I used to love this quote, I was big in the missions. And there was a man, Jim Elliott, who was a missionary to the Indians in Ecuador. And he said, this quote kind of drove his life, he was all in. I mean, he was every bit in and he said, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. And that's what we're talking about here, I think, is whenever you give something up, you're going to receive something back from God tenfold.

As your clip played, obviously I heard it in the pre-show, but as it played this time, the crowd is really just the voice of the world. Right, the world doesn't understand when you have to, quote unquote, give something up. Because the whole mindset is, I want more, I need more, I should have more, I deserve more. Those types of things, and it's foreign, you know, the concept of giving something up. And I think it's pretty key that in that Pilgrim's Progress clip that you had, the things that they were striving for, they couldn't find. They weren't, like they said, they weren't offering the peace, the love, the hope.

There was no market for them. The joy, no. And that was something that hit me, I never thought about before, but the Vanity Fair that was, what, 500 years ago? I mean, that's been, maybe not that long, but it's three or four hundred, I should remember. You got the first edition. Harold's our resident historian, right?

He is. But the fact that you've got a big corporation selling the world that is called Vanity Fair, and I had not really thought of that until I heard it in the clip again. I used to work for them, by the way.

Well, a little plug for your old employer there. Yeah, that's right. Well, I actually, I have the next clip, and if this clip sounds familiar, it's because you heard it last week. But it's a slightly different point this week, and so I'll talk about the clip, and then I'll talk about why I chose it this time. And it's around the same reason, but in this clip, what you have going on, it's from Rings of Power, and you have King Durran, who has had an argument with his son, which is Prince Durran, and they just say the word Durran, and they're talking about the son in here, but it's King Durran. And they haven't talked in quite some time.

It was a pretty bad argument. And so what happens is the king has an audience come to him, and they're presenting him with some stuff, and one of the people in the audience is his daughter-in-law, his son's wife. Her name's Disa. And he asks her to stick around, and they start having a conversation, and initially, you know, he's trying to get information from her, and she's just not kind of playing the game. And then she gives him a little bit to think about.

And so I want to play this, and then I'll come back and talk about why I chose it again for this week. And so here we go. Well, maybe. Is it the start, or is it the end?

Oh, it's at the end? Might be. I don't know. No. There we go. Disa. A moment. Are you really going to make me ask? Do you mean your grandchildren?

They're well. They miss tugging your beard, of course, but... You needn't make this harder than it already is. Funny. I keep saying the same thing to him. Surely Durin knows I spoke in anger. If that's an apology I hear, King, try saying it to my husband.

Why should it be me who apologizes? It was he who caused offense. I tell you, he is... Stubborn as a root-bound parsnip.

One more quality the two of you have in common. What you call stubbornness. Some draw of skull strength. Oh, I imagine it does take strength. To carry a grudge so heavy.

To keep your wounded heart so tightly bound it can barely beat. Aye, it does. It does.

It truly does. No wonder we can't hear the mountain. Its king is deaf to the sorrow of his own son. Still your axe, Disa! You want to show true strength. Summon your son to you.

He'll answer. But leave it to him, and the peaks of Zeraxagil will thaw before this feud of yours will. So, as I talked about last week, you know, one of the things that God really worked on me for a long time, and he doesn't have to work on me on it much anymore, thankfully, is holding on to things and being stubborn and not giving forgiveness.

What God's really helped me to learn is I can have one of two choices. I can stay justified in my feelings in my own mind, right, that I have a justification for being angry. I have a justification for being hurt. Because the things that happened did hurt, right?

They were wrong. And I'm justified in feeling that, but I can't be justified and have freedom. And that becomes the choice. Do I want to feel justified, or do I want to have freedom from those holding me captive? And when you don't let go, just as the king said, and that clip I really love when he talks about, you know, some people call it strength. And then she really pushes back and says, you know, to keep that wounded heart bound up.

And that's really what I was doing in those situations. You know, through betrayal in relationships, whether that be in a man-woman relationship or in friendship relationships, you know, we've all faced betrayal. We've all faced things that's been done wrong to us.

We've been wronged. But what happens on top of that is if you hold on to that, it just festers. Right? And you can forgive somebody and not have to have a relationship with them. Just because you forgive them doesn't mean you have to move back into relationship. God may call you to forgive, but not have a relationship.

Right? Because that forgiveness is for your heart. Yes, you are releasing that other person, but in the midst, you get released as well. And so it's really been key for me to not hold on.

And when Jim first talked about the topic, I misunderstood it. And I thought, you know, what are the things you've given up that you sometimes miss? And that's why I picked this because sometimes I do miss feeling justified. Right? Because the other thing the world will tell you if you don't stay in that place of justification, that place of feeling right, then you're just walked on. You're just a pushover. You're just a stepping stone.

Right? Because the world has one little monologue they give you, and Christ has the truth that he's trying to give you. And so which one do you want to listen to?

Do you want to listen to the logic of the world that's going to lead you to more entrapment, more bondage? His message on forgiveness was radical. Yeah. It wasn't partial. It wasn't, I mean, it was like, you've got to really forgive them. You've got to let it go. Obviously, I wasn't the only one to struggle with that because it's 70 times 7 and all that came from, you know. Absolutely.

Right? Which was not a math equation. It was just a thing to say, look, as many times as it takes.

One of the things that really got me in the clip this time, and I'm going to dance close to the flame. I've been burned in before in discussing gender. But she is, and wisdom in Greek, I'm pretty sure it's Sophia, and it's a female noun. And her wisdom in this really does ultimately win over King Dorian because he says, you know, I, it does take strength to be stubborn.

And he's worn out at that point. But her, I mean, she's my favorite character in the series because she is. She's powerful, but she wields it carefully and for the good of others. And she's trying to mend this rift between father and son, which ultimately does take a major sacrifice to heal, but I won't ruin it. No, no, it's too good of a word.

And wisdom in Hebrew is feminine, too. Yeah. I just looked it up. It's chakma. Bless you.

Can you wipe off your mic over there, please? It's chakma. Yes. Sorry, that's a good response to wisdom. Yeah. I'm sitting right next to him. That's true, that's true.

Somebody bring Harold a towel. The reason that this is still sometimes a struggle for me, and it doesn't last long, is, you know, life keeps happening to you. You still get wronged throughout life because broken people, hurt people hurt people, right? And that's going to happen, and it's going to be the story of your life. You're going to get let down and things are going to happen, and God's going to be there for you, but there are times I really just want to hold on to it. I want to be mad just a little longer, you know, and then God will go, really? Do you? Or if it's the same person that keeps doing it, or if it's different people, it's like, why do I always have to be the one? You know, we always, we seem to ask that question quite regularly. He looks a little like Charlie Brown, too. He does, he does.

We'll get you the orange shirt instead of me. But I mean, you do get some of that in that it does seem like it's not fair at times, and it's really not. I mean, there are times when it's just saying, okay, I know, I know that I'm justified in this, but I can't go there. I just believe the peace that you get and the satisfaction that you're doing the right thing.

But there are times, like you said, it's very comfortable to bring those things back. Yeah, I really was right there, you know. God just gave me a memory of a guy back in Indiana that I worked for a company there that got hired in, and I don't know what I did to him or whatever, but he had told some other people, I found out later, he was going to do what it took to get me fired. And he would embellish things and stretch the truth beyond it should be stretched and make all sorts of things. And man, I have a very, very bad temper when I was younger.

It's gotten better. But, you know, my first reaction is to fight back and retaliate. You know, and I remember clearly God saying, do not respond. And I felt so frustrated.

I felt like, God, why are you asking me to take this? And eventually the guy overplayed his hand and they realized everything he was doing and he was let go. You know, but had I pushed back into it, had I done anything with it, it would have, A, given validity maybe, thinking that I was trying to hide something.

You know, and sometimes it's always better to just listen to God, but I'm saying sometimes it is better just to say, okay, God, I'm going to trust and let you run with this and then I'm just going to follow. He could have ended up worse than a certain mouse I'm familiar with. The computer kind of thing. Yeah, I know, I didn't want to, or a stapler. There's a list of things, but they're usually office tools.

They're not, there is a break people. Yeah, we had to bump up our office budget. You're not a kickboxer. I don't know whether I've told this story or not, but several years ago I had a mentor who needed some money and I borrowed the money for a couple thousand dollars. And he said, you know, a few months I'll have this coming in or whatever, and I'll pay you back. Well, one thing led to another and he didn't pay me back. Then when he got to the point where he was going to pay me back, he had a heart attack. And just one thing, it just kept spiraling.

And then he recovered from the heart attack, but he still didn't make any effort. So by this point, I'm struggling because I'm having to pay for this because I borrowed the money. And this was a guy I trusted, he was, you know, up until this point. And I just really was at odds. I sat down and talked to him a few minutes ago. Well, you need to hold him accountable and, you know, work out a payment plan, you need to do all this kind of stuff.

Well, I could not find any peace in any of this stuff. And I can remember just really being impressed by God to say, forgive his debt. I thought, but God, I still got to pay it. And he said, yeah, but just forgive his debt. So what I did was I took him out to dinner and forgave his debt. And what came on the backside of that was the freedom from, I had wrote this off. And I figured, God, you're going to take care of this somewhere. Well, fast forward a few years, you know, got the debt paid off or whatever. Well, we were in need of a vehicle and a man totally unrelated to the story I just told you gave me a pickup truck. All I had to do was just sign the title, which would have equated a little bit above what I had lost. And, you know, so, I mean, the scripture for lots of different reasons has come to mind.

The scripture promises that God says, I will restore the years that the locusts have eaten. And God, that's been so true in my life in so many different ways. You know, I'm watching it now. This, the whole thing, but you're right. When you decide to let go, it really isn't about you. It's about the freedom that comes with. I'm no longer bound to that person because most of the time the things I get angry about, they ain't even thought about. They have no clue. So it's me that is burdened.

It's the cancer in my own soul that I'm letting go of. That's a good point. I had a somewhat similar situation with a friend that needed to borrow some money. And I made him the loan on the condition there would be no interest and I was not going to keep track of it.

And he ended up paying it all back. But I had complete freedom in that because I had considered it a gift at the outset. And so sometimes, like you said, you get back what you give away. And usually I did some. And ultimately it's God's that you're giving away. It's not yours, which makes it better. I came to the same conclusion that when, and nobody listened to this, Jim doesn't have any more money to give out.

And that's not entirely true, but I made the same decision. Can I have some? Yeah, let's talk after the show.

We will, I'm sure. But if I loan money to people that I would give them, then don't worry about the debt. And I've been housing some folks that have been struggling for quite a while and I realized the other day if I had their back rent, the property would be paid for. But I knew going into it that it was a ministry and God was going to reward it. And somewhere in 10 or 15, 20 years, whenever I do go, my wife will be in pretty good shape because it's appreciated considerably in the value of the property. But it's lost from $5,000 to $10,000 every year I've owned it. Long term investment.

Yes. As you guys were talking, you guys reminded me of my word of the year, which was generosity. And I laughed when he gave it to me because I like to be generous, but I always have to say, okay, do I have enough money to be generous? Because being a single parent, one income household kind of thing, my kids are all kind of out of the house for the most part.

But a one income household, if money runs short, there's no more coming in. It's just what it is. And so this year when God said, be generous, I'm like, okay, that's what we do. It's been a great year. He's called me just to do some things that in the past I would have really struggled over. And I've learned really just to try to follow when he says, hey, I want you to do it, just to do it because I know, okay, it's going to be all right.

Okay, maybe I'll be short of money next week, but it'll be all right eventually. But he's going to have something in return and it's been just a great year of being able to love on people in a way previously I've not really done as well. And so it's been really kind of cool to let some of that go because one of the things he's calling me to let go of control is finances. And I've done a lot more in that area over the last few years, but I've done with not spending. Now he's saying it's more than that.

I want you to invest in my people that I'm calling you to invest in. And so it's been a really cool transition as he's helped me let go of some things. You know, Andy had said earlier that you do get the strength from previous times, but the challenges get harder. You know, he doesn't usually give you your hardest thing to give up first, right? He gives you something that's easier and they get harder as they go along.

I think it helps build on victories there. Yeah, you don't start off with the hardest thing usually. Maybe you would sometimes if that's something that's really binding you. But yeah, most of the time you have an opportunity to get victories as you go. Sure, if you have an addiction or something like that, obviously he's going to probably start there. That's a good place to start. But it's those things that you hold closer to you that are harder to give up. And the more you walk with him, the longer he says, I'm just going to keep chipping away at those until you trust me and let me walk through it with you. Go to masculinejourney.org and register for the upcoming bootcamp. We will talk with you next week. This is the Truth Network.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-10-12 15:09:18 / 2024-10-12 15:19:54 / 11

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