E863 | Grounded - Part 1

Okay, friends, this is not your usual intro. So Alan and Blaine and I were supposed to have had a couple of guests in the studio this week. But one of them got sick and since it was a group conversation, we're going to have to punt that down the field. And instead of like scrambling and getting our ducks in a row and coming in here looking like nothing happened, I thought, no, wait, no, wait, let's let's let people into our real life and how we would navigate this, which we're about to do. Like we don't have a plan. And we're not going to scramble. Instead, we're going to invite you into what we normally do. But before we go there, we would love to take a pause. And we're going to invite you to take a pause with us. Our weekly practice here, one of the simplest spiritual disciplines you can adopt, which I know from so many of you sending in little notes, just saying, thank you so much for the pause every week. So let's do that right now. Father, Jesus Holy Spirit. Just settle into that. Friends, we're not in a hurry here. There's no rush. As I turn my attention to you right now, I need to give everyone and everything to you. Just breathe deeply, friends. Let go of the tension. Let go of the kind of the underlying anxieties. And begin to release your world to the God who loves you, who can handle it for you, who is meant to carry the world. Just begin to release people, projects, your future. And we'll give you a little space to do that. I had a friend tell me last night that I never give enough time for this. So if you need more time, just pause, hit pause and keep releasing. But we're going to transition into your presence. God, we're going to transition into union and communion. Would you breathe into us again the breath of life? Would you ground us in you and in your love? And talk to us this week. Amen. So we're going to have a really great conversation with some young men. And we're actually going to do a little bit of a series about young men and what they're facing in the world right now and the crises, but also some of the really beautiful things God is up to in the lives of young men later. But here we are. Our guests are sick. Yes. And what I want to model for our listeners is how we would handle something like this, right? Because our MO is not scramble. Our MO is pause. Talk about it. Listen, pray. See where God is leading us. Right. Like when the email came in last night, about 830, my first inclination was curiosity. It wasn't panic or frustration. It was, huh, God, okay, what are you up to? Because my sense was we would do something this morning. Yeah. And what will it be? And so that's I think a posture that helps me a lot is in those moments curiosity for what's going on and what God has rather than feeling like things are derailed. This is something to panic about or scramble like you said for. Well, that's beautiful, buddy. Way to go. But that's from decades of not doing that, right? So it would still that that's where you go most most of the time now is curiosity. Huh. Well, wonder what God's up to here. Right. Beautiful. That's so good. I feel curious. I would like to know what we're going to talk about today. I have some hunches. Yes. But how would you guys like to sift the possibilities that are on? Well, each of our minds. I want I want to first ask about hunches because when you know the deck is cleared, you go, oh, really? We've got a blank slate. What starts presenting itself? What came up for you both? And then I'll share mine. Well, so you and I started texting last night, right? And so we I think we were both texting back and forth at the same time, rather than yes. What did you say? What did I say? Yeah. And my first sense was we had had a team staff prayer time that morning and the the morning that we got that right yesterday morning. And one of the things that you were identifying in that time of various prayer requests was this keeps coming back to the unseen realm, no matter what the very different issues between team members. But it was all somewhat anchored in. There's something more going on than just the obvious physical or personal thing at hand. So that to me, that was where God started to lead was that would be a phenomenal conversation to have not just internally, but with our podcasts viewers and listeners. Yeah, I wish that somehow we had like filmed that kind of 20 minutes of the staff prayer time. Can I give a few examples though with, you know, I'll be light on detail, but they were revealing. So we had a guy who felt prompted by Jesus this year to reengage some relationships that he hasn't had as much capacity for recently. Male friendships. Yeah, male friendships. Yeah. Awesome stuff. And he said, you know, guys, they are acting like my eighth grade daughter's friends. And he said, these guys, that's not them. These are solid guys, but there's infighting. There's confusion. And he said it feels like there's something you can I'm going on behind the scenes here. He thought, huh, yeah, it might be. We had all kinds of vehicle stuff. You have a, you know, you have a car trapped at the mechanic. How much do you want to say about that? A vehicle story. Well, for two months. And the mechanic, it's a guy who owns his own shop, a local shop. We've used for over 15 years. He knows everything about cars. So he's phenomenal and he is stumped and it's been going on for two months. It's my daughter's vehicle. It's only five years old. So it's beyond a glitch. Yeah, it's entered the weird. Right. Right. Two months. Yeah. I'm in my own vehicle saga that I was telling you guys about where two weeks ago, total engine failure, my truck blows up. And so I've been jumping from borrowed car to borrowed car while I figure something out. But every car I borrow starts to die such that I'm like, I got to, I got to get my hands off this thing and get it back with its owner, you know, but where it catches on fire on the side of the road. And so I'm telling you guys, yeah, I think I can use the car that I'm in to get home today. But first, I've got to figure out what the burning smell is. And not sure I should start it again. Yeah. Then we had some health stuff going on with the children of members of the team. Or I have got to get to the hospital. There's something funny going on that, you know, it doesn't look like you could neatly account for it by only evaluating the natural. That wasn't all the items on the list. What am I forgetting you guys? Yeah, we can't go into details, but some pretty deep family heartache and extended family heartache and high drama. Right. So then we just began to point out, hey, everybody can we remember where amphibious. We remember that the way the Bible work looks at reality isn't the way most moderns look at reality. There is an unseen realm. It's deeply involved in our lives for the good and for the ill. Yep. So there's that. And one thing is we were hearing from this person and this person and this person, you were reminding us John, like, right, everything isn't spiritual warfare. Everything isn't. You don't have to immediately assume it is, but when something is prolonged and when there are things happening that don't seem normal, like you need to go there fairly quick because if you're just trying to ask the mechanic to tinker with something another week and you're assuming it's all natural, then you're probably not you're probably not going to ever get to the heart of what's going on the unseen part. Yeah. So there's that. And that's a rich and important topic. And if we go there, we've got a lot of stories to tell and some very good counsel to give. What else if you've got a blank slate today? What comes to you and then we're going to ask God, we're going to pause and do what we do is ask Jesus, where would you like us to go? Get a blank slate. Find a blank slate. Well, I've had younger guys on the brain because we've got this podcast series coming up with some. And then I've just been having been a part of some brain storming sessions with other members of the team on young men. If we were to be intentional about reaching them, what would we include in the strategic planning part of the conversation? And so I've had this insight from stage theory on my mind that for both younger folks and for I think, the majority of our listeners, I think are in stage two, is just this really useful tool to outline the trends, the opportunities, the constraints on the various stages of following Jesus. So there are three stages? I've been thinking about that in the background all the time with this conversation on young guys in particular and what they need. Yes. And so learned we had a blank slot. And I thought, oh, I've been waiting to drop by your office and say, I have two ideas for a podcast. Awesome. Okay. So we'll call that the three stages possibility. The three stages. All right. So I'll put mine out there and then then we'll model what we do. We'll ask on because it's so important for folks to realize. I mean, especially in any kind of ministry or small group or spiritual setting, you know, church teams and that kind of thing, what normally goes on is brainstorming, which is different than asking God, right? Yeah. The over your vacations, over how you're going to spend money, your car issues, there's brainstorming. That's appropriate. We're doing it right now. But it's not the same thing as discerning what God has for us this week. So my piece, when I realized we had a blank slate, I did go, I did go to the unseen realm and kind of coaching people on what's going on right now. Something else that presented very strongly. We had a leadership off site a couple of weeks ago. And we were doing exactly this. We were kind of looking at the ear, brainstorming. You bring all your creativity, all your wisdom to it. And then we pray. And we ask God, what are you saying? And one of the things that he brought to us is it is so important to help your people be grounded. Please ground your people. And to just kind of help our listeners understand what I understand about that is, how much do you feel right now, everybody that you kind of got a good grip on AI and what's happening in in AI development in the world and what it's doing. I mean, me neither, man, like holy smokes, it just it just developed its own social media network that you can't get it. What? And there's just AI talking to AI, like holy smokes. But the sense is just this elusive sand through your fingers, like what? I can't get a grip on it. Or how much do you feel like you've got a pretty good grip on the immigration issues in the world, not just in the US, but that the world is facing right now. Yeah, yeah, me neither. I mean, it's much more complicated than it first rolls out to be. And then you bring Christian ethics into it and you're like, holy smokes, this is getting really difficult. See what I mean? Like the world is a very unsettled place. And if you're trying to get some sense of groundedness, dang, yeah, it's hard. And therefore, all the more needed. And then we've talked about chaos, we've talked about some of the spiritual forces that are aggravating all of this. That's just hard on the soul to live in times of transition, time of enormous transition, times of uncertainty. In so Jesus saying, ground, ground your people, help everyone be grounded. I'm like, yeah, absolutely. I need it. So that came out of a different meeting and a different time of reflection and prayer, but that when we had a blank, when we had a blank slate for today, I immediately thought about grounding. And what would we want to say about that? I'm going to go with we go with that, right? Right. Is that where you take off your shoes and walk around outside? I've heard of that. I wish it was that simple. That's a fascinating thing, by the way, with inflammation in the body and then yeah, we're not going to go there. This is the difference. This is the exquisite beauty and offer of life with God. It's that you don't have to figure everything out. You're not on your own. It's not draw straws or go with the. Roxasers paper. Yeah. Okay, here we go. You have an intimate ally with the smartest person in the universe. He would love to help you sort your vacation out, your finances, your vehicle, you know, you do your best work because we're creative beings and we're, you know, we have agency. So it's not passivity. It's this. It's like, okay, we've got three, three amazing options. Let's pause live right now and try on the cameras and do what we do. This is what we do. You know, I mean, any given day in any office in this building, this sort of thing is going on. Where we pause, when we go, "Jesus, where are you leading?" These are all beautiful things and I think I want to assure the anxiousness of our listeners who really want to hear more about what of these subjects. We will get to these this year. We will get to these probably this spring. But what are you bringing today, Lord? Where are you? And what are you wanting to bring to our listeners? And so we release personal agenda. We release preferences. Okay, you got to let all that go. Oh, that would be so cool to talk about that. We just let that go. And truly say, Lord, what would you like to do, Jesus? For today, which of these are you lifting up to us as our priority? We're still with you friends. Your feed didn't freeze. We were just allowing room. I love it that we're doing this live on a podcast. I just love that. Do you have a sense? Do you have clarity? Do you have an inclination that you feel is from God? I sense the nudge to go deeper into what you were talking about, John. I just this fear gave me an image of like the water and somebody's hand out, but they're under and they're just going totally under and and just they feel like, you know, they're in a grind. And so how we can ground them, feel super. That's where I felt like the spirit was leading. Okay. I think that the unseen realm and the groundedness are going to relate. And then, you know, sort of widening the toolkit. I did some of those other checks on intuition. What is what? All right. Here's some of the hoist spirit go. How's what is my what's my gut feeling? And then desire, like what had the most heat on it, but I think triangulating those and other data points, I think. Also, there's a really interesting idea from European folk magic that if you are connected to the ground, I didn't mean to learn this. Okay. I don't go read about magical systems, but sometimes it just comes out somewhere that if you're connected to the ground with a piece of metal, it functions as a kind of magical drain for things like witchcraft. So that's not really related to this conversation. Okay. No, this is really good to model all of this because this is what goes down. I think, I think you're right. I think it's, I think it's both and I think it's unseen realm and some grounding. I do because because because because because because of the wonderful things he does, that reference is pointed at the young audience. Because okay. So how did I come to that discernment? Well, I had a sense of what Jesus was saying, but he also pointed out to me, he goes, just remember your last couple days. Oh, it was the Mayday voice message. Oh, holy smokes. It was the Mayday prayer request. Boom, boom. Oh, it was last night's conversation with a different group of people like he was just pointing out, John, what have I been putting in front of you? What's the human need right now? And it was, it was mostly unseen realm stuff. So let's, let's get riffing on this and we may end up going for a couple of episodes on this. Because I yeah, grounding and unseen realm and then I'm fascinated with the street three stages thing. Yes. And we might come back to that after the young man's thing or as part of it as we move through that. Does that seem good to everybody at the table? Yeah. It seems good to me. Okay. Okay. So here, here is where I want to start. What is with the resistance that as soon as you bring out? Okay. So we're in staff. We're in staff prayer yesterday. It's our Tuesday morning. So everybody, it's a beautiful time. And we're in a huddle. And it's, you know, either project or personal. It's completely open. What needs prayer? You know, let's support one another. And he's given week. It's lovely. It goes back and forth between car things or deep family, deep family need. And oh, by the way, you know, we've got this technology upgrade. We're doing this week. We better pray over that. Right. That kind of stuff. Okay. You bring up the unseen realm. And you just feel all the chairs in the room just push back a little bit. What is that? What can we just, can we just talk about for a moment? Can we help people? I'm not, I don't want to chastise. Can we help people with that? Oh, dang, they're going with the unseen realm. I wish they were talking about, you know, something else. Yeah. I've seen the power of breaking through into the unseen realm with with prayer. And I know it works. And I still like in that moment yesterday, I'm telling you guys, hey, it's been two months with the vehicle and telling you a little bit more detail. Well, what is it in me? I recognize that if somebody had said, hey, hey, hey, I know what it actually it is. If you go to this YouTube video or I've got a mechanic who dealt with this with a guy. Yes. Well, I have to ask myself, why does that feel more like the solution or why do I lean into that? But when it's the unseen realm, I'm like, oh, man, like this feels heavy. It feels like work. It feels mysterious. It doesn't feel like the quick solution to whatever we're facing. Right. Vehicle or anything. And so I think in me, that's that's what I have to push through at times. Even though I know it works, it still feels messier and clunkyer. Yes. There's a push through. There is. I think one is because that's what the enemy does. A reliable sign of the presence or activity of the enemy is secrecy plus apathy. We are like, I just, I don't really want to bring, I don't want to talk about this and don't want to delve in further now that it's been opened. I'm not sure I have the energy to pray about that right now. And so one, I think, which I hope is encouraging to our friends is you're not an idiot. That feeling is actually a core part of the enemy's initial strategy. He'll start with like, oh, that's so weird or you don't want to deal with that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Can I just riff on that for a second? Please. That technique is so helpful to know that the French word on we that that really, oh, yeah. Just that's not you. Everybody. This is a wonderful thing to know. The first thing the warfare is going to hit you with is don't fight back. Don't consider this. Oh, you just don't want to go. Oh, that's just so fatiguing and it's kind of weird and maybe a little creepy. And I'm thinking of World War Two where they would fly over cities and drop leaflets propaganda leaflets saying don't resist. We are rolling through. You don't want to fight back or like the famous Tokyo Rose or Axis Sally, the radio shows from the enemy. They were so badly done that GIs would listen to them because they played the top chart music. Yes. But then they would come on and go, we know your plans. You're coming into this city next week and they're like, holy crap. How do they know that? Oh, no. Propaganda don't resist. The don't resist is the demonic propaganda. It is totally. That's essential. I think there is one which is that as you get more familiar with it, that does diminish. So whatever people propose that is less familiar or less directly under your control is going to be less attractive. It's the same feeling as when your spouse goes, like have you thought about talking to a counselor or it's like, hey, I think there's something like, I think there's something going on say with your friend that we got to. And I think there is this flash. And I think it actually is, at least partly instigated by the enemy of just a version to the work that's involved when you discover, oh, here's now I got two problems solved. And I got a car engine in the devil and his angel slide. The car engine was hard enough. Why are you making my life harder? I'm trying to simplify this. And I think in recognizing that, again, and I've also got Ignatius on the brain right now, is he has this light of, you know, once the devil has been known by a serpent's tail, like once something happens that cues you and this is the kind of thing the enemy does, he says, start by remembering that you have more than sufficient grace from God to resist as you start deploying the countermeasures. And so you're like, hey, I get it. There is an instinctive, almost laziness and instinctive indifference that I certainly feel when someone tells me about another problem. But knowing that is a thing can actually give you the grace of your own heart to go and I don't mostly feel that way. Give me 60 seconds to start praying. And this is going to change, which I know from doing this often enough that it becomes habitual. Yes. And I think the first assurance, and this would be a grounding part, the first assurance is it's easier than you think. And greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. So let's go to first John, chapter four, verse four. The church is dealing with a bunch of weird teaching that's coming in, weird people, division, just trying to break the whole new wonderful movement, you know, the outspread of the family of God. And the old apostle John writes and goes, hey, this is actually the enemy. Don't worry. He actually says, the beginning of verse four, chapter four, first John, he says, actually, you've already overcome them because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. So you we have to start here. It's not us swinging at the pinata, right? It's not a desperate, oh, in the name of Jesus, you know, fix my car or some weird thing like that. It's not that. It starts with Jesus Christ is within you. And every foul being in the cosmos is terrified of him. Okay. When Jesus encounters demons in the gospel, they're usually scream, have you come here to destroy us? Yes. Like, oh, no. You know, we know who you are. Like they fear Jesus. And Jesus is already here. And he's inside of you. So this is grounding to just start from the posture of, okay, okay, okay, this isn't just me and my cleverness or my spiritual maturity. I'm starting from greater is he that is in you. And when John uses the phrase, then he who is in the world, he's talking about the devil and his agents. Greater, greater, greater, okay. The other thing I want to point out is it's like riding a bicycle or learning to read or drive a car. Yes. It's a little clunky at first. You're like, so what do I pray? How do I? How do I know if the enemy's messing with my car? Like, yes, I recognize it's a little clunky at first. But as you get the hang of it, it's not clunky and it actually becomes really enjoyable. And in most scenarios, the relief is worth it. Like, it's just, it is so worth it. So let's just tell a couple quick stories right now to help people. This is a grounding kind of thing of as we're talking about the unseen realm. What we're assuming is the biblical worldview, not the modern worldview, not the post-enlightenment collapse of, you know, all things into material reality. The biblical worldview is Narnia, man. Is Lord of the Rings? It's a phenomenally beautiful universe that's highly populated with all sorts of beings, some of which are so unbelievably powerful. And they are on your side, by the way, Hebrews chapter one are not all angels, ministering spirits, sent to serve those who will inherit salvation. You gain, you got the angels on your side. You got these massive heavenly beings. And yeah, it's like Narnia. Yep. There's witches and weird creatures and stuff. We're getting back into the folk magic. I knew it would be a realm of this. That, you know, we've talked in the past about what the what the person living in this contemporary moment most needs is a reenchanted worldview. Right. A repopulated story. Because as you begin to realize, well, greater is he that is in me, and these guys are terrified of the name of Jesus. Wait a second. There are a lot of things we can solve here. So a month ago, I'm trying to think it's a fairly recent story. I woke up heavy in the morning. And that's not my norm. I am a morning person. I like the morning. I don't dread it. I realize people are wired differently, but I wake up awake and I wake up ready to go. And I like the morning. And so it's not normal. And there was just this heaviness. And I just immediately, this is back to your curiosity thing. Wait a second. Just just that discerning. Wait a second. What's this about? I'm like, you know, I actually don't know. I can't point to a recent event. Something the day before that that got me down. But I thought to myself, well, let me get in. Let me get into my morning prayers. Because normally if I can get through the daily prayer, most of this stuff just clears, right? If you just start worshiping, you know, some of the time, that's enough that that clears it, right? You jump into your, your Bible study. A lot of times, I just clears it. So I thought, well, let me get into the prayers. But I'm just started in my prayers. And Stacy comes out and she goes, babe, I woke up so heavy. I just, I don't know what's going on. And then she started to try and find natural reasons. She started to go to the check engine light. And she's like, maybe it's the kids, you know, maybe it's this, maybe it's that. I'm like, whoa, wait a second, babe. First off, both of us woke up heavy. Gang, just get suspicious about this stuff. Just kind of go, I don't trust this. I think we ought to push into this. This just, it looks fishy to me, right? So what do you feel? Well, just heavy. All right, well, we can pray against heaviness. But what I'm feeling as I'm tuning into this is a weird thing, but I feel hated. And what I realized with just a little bit of spiritual awareness, it wasn't a big revelation. It was, oh, my goodness, this is just the kingdom of darkness, hatred of the followers of Jesus. And then, yeah, I pause. I don't start swinging at the punyata. I pause and go, is that right? Father, is that, is that what we're dealing with here? It's just the, the oppression and darkness. So the kingdom, but primarily is hatred, the kingdom of darkness. And he's like, yeah, that's what this is. Bring my love against it. So gang, it's this simple in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay. Which these guys hate and fear. You start throwing that name around, man. It's, it's kingdom authority in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We bring the love of the Father against all of this oppression and hatred of the enemy. We break its power here through Jesus Christ and through the love of the Father. 2001, 2002. Thanks, babe. I'm better. Bye. I mean, she didn't even stay to chit chat like, good morning. And what are you doing today? And that kind of thing. She's like, gone, gone, gone. And this is the lovely, lovely, lovely part of accepting the unseen realm. One of the great reliefs is, hey, guess what? You're not as broken as you thought you were. You're not as big of a mess as you thought you were. You're not as undisciplined or as immature as you thought you were. Half of what you're dealing with isn't you or some complexity of what you are dealing with isn't you? You know, it's, it's a relief, actually. It's not weird. It's not oppressive. They're going to try and keep you from resisting it. But as you resist, it's like the relief is, oh, that's all that was. Well, I'm going on with my day. Yeah. And it helps you see reality for what it is. When you do that, after yesterday's team meeting, I haven't told either of you this said, five minutes after I go to my office. And I noticed there was a call from my mom and, and she's in a assisted living home. And 86 and really sweet and kind. Like some people say, get older, they get not so kind. She's super kind. But I get this message from her when I listen and she's super angry. And I call and there's an issue going on there that the details aren't really important. But I'm trying to say something to her. And she, for the first time ever, just so mad at me, she just hangs up on me. Click. And I'm like, what is going on with my mom? And immediately after that, I get a call from one of my three kids. They're in their 20s, early 20s. And they're going through an issue that's one of them that's got them stirred up. And I'm trying to help. And they don't really want help. They just want to kind of tell me and, and I get that a little bit resolved. And then five minutes later, I get a text from another one with another issue. Well, instead of the old way, I would have handled that, which would have been, I'm getting more chaotic. I'm getting more chaotic. I'm feeling stress. It was, okay, time out. God, help me see what's going on in the unseen realm because not only are we exposing things in our prayer time about vehicles and other things, but it's like now, the wrath of the enemy is that becomes obvious is playing out in not comical ways, but just absurd ways all at once. Right? So to be able to see reality in that situation and pause like you and Stacy did and go, okay, God, help me see what's going on with eyes. It can see into the unseen realm and pray for my mom and pray for one child and pray for another. Yes. And within an hour or so, all three things had been resolved. But not out of my strength or my, my human wisdom or ingenuity, it was inviting God into it and knowing what the enemy was up to. And we can talk more about how to pray in those situations. But that was, that was a life saver. Yes. So you go from, oh, is don't bring up the spiritual about my car, right? So then boom, boom, boom, several things are going on, right, inviting you to really step in and go, wait a second, wait a second, we're going to shut all this down, right spiritually. And then we're going to see what's left. But that's human that doesn't need to be addressed, right? Yeah. Something that for me is helpful to remember is that you are a part of a great campaign to overthrow the kingdom of darkness, restore the human heart, and restore the world. One thing that means is that the season of that campaign is in most cases going to, uh, Trump or color your personal season. And yes, you can have all kinds of different things going on in the urban flow of your life with God. But right now it seems to be like, you're going to experience chaos, you're going to experience demonic sabotage, you're going to experience that blanket of heaviness. And I'm saying that just because I'm seeing this stuff all over the place. All over the place. One of the most helpful things, Dad, you and I were on a long drive recently. We were just talking about, you know, one of the best things that you can do is get your kingdom back under the kingdom of God, consecrate it, bring the work of Jesus against the enemy, and really firm up the boundary lines between your kingdom and what's happening in the rest of the world. So if you want to say more about how to do that, you want me to keep working on that. How do you do that? Yeah. Okay. So let's give people, so where we're trying to do both the grounding and some reality to where we are right now because my phone's blowing up this week. It is. And there's just a lot going on in the unseen realm in the world right now. It isn't something to fear. It's a relief to go, wait, this isn't just me. This isn't just family dynamics. Wow, what a relief. Wait, we have resources from Jesus Christ and God our Father to clear the air here. That is greatness. So it's not weird, freaky, intimidating. It's like, oh, come on. Let's go throw down. Get this stuff out of my house. Okay. So if we could give a couple of helps today, first off, you have the power of the name of Jesus. Okay. So in Acts 16, where Paul and his pals are being harassed by the demon possess, fortune teller girl who's following them around the city, just creating chaos, right? And it really weird way because he's like, these men are servants of the most high god who are telling you the way to be saved. You're like, yeah, but it just takes one nut job, right? To shut down an entire revival. So she's in there and all Paul does. You can go read the story, everybody. He just goes in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Leave silence. Be gone. That's it. It's, I think it might be one sentence. It could be two sentences in the New Testament. Okay. So we use the name of Jesus, right? And then we use the power of his blood. Okay. So Revelation 12, when it's talking about the overthrow of Satan, it says they overcame him by the blood of the lamb. It's the first thing they use. The word of their testimony and they did not love their lives so much so as to fear the enemy, to shrink from death. So the blood of the lamb. So you wake up in the night. It's fear. You just go, use the name of Jesus. Jesus. No, no. In the name of Jesus, I bring the blood of Christ against you. Go. Like these are the very, very basics, but they work, right? Okay. And then what blame was talking about in terms of like your kingdom, I think we're going to end up doing a whole podcast series on this. We had an idea that we wanted to run by about how do you rule your own kingdom well in a time of chaos? Because that's where, yes, where we are right now. And that was your day yesterday, right? Right. Okay. Well, the very first thing, the idea that everything that is under your domain. So you have a little kingdom as Dallas Willard would explain to everyone. This is how God is training you to reign over the universe one day with him. And that little kingdom is the things where what you say happens, right? You have say so. So your money. What you wear today, your living space, if it's a room in a house, if it's an apartment or a whole dwelling, that's your place, man. That's your car. Right. If you're the coach of a soccer team, that little team, if you are a teacher in a classroom, your classroom, not the whole school, but your classroom, you know, you're a doctor in a clinic, that clinic, you have a little kingdom in the world. And it's very, very, very helpful to do two things on a regular basis. One is Lord Jesus. I bring all that is my kingdom in this world under your rule and into your kingdom again. It's called consecration or sanctification. It's you are bringing all that you have say so over, Lord, I bring my finances. I bring our marriage. I bring my work. I bring this trip. I'm taking under your rule and into your kingdom. Okay. It's like an act of consecration. And then what was the second part of it that you were saying? And then do the resistance and then do the resistance. Having done the consecration. So this is James 4.7. James 4.7 goes like this, submit therefore to God. Resist the enemy and he will flee. So the submission to God part is oftentimes, hey, look, if there's somebody you have to forgive and you're trying to pray for reconciliation and the relationship or that they start behaving themselves, you got to kind of start with your stuff. Like, okay, Lord, I'm sorry, I forgive them, right? Or if you've been squandering your money on the lottery or stupid choices and you're trying to get your finances under control, you have to start with, I'm sorry, my finances belong to you. I bring my kingdom back under your Lordship. So submit therefore to God. And then you do the resistance in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We order the forces of darkness that are currently attacking us to the judgment seat of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the easiest thing to do with them. And we can talk about some other things in part two, but the simplest thing is I just send you to the feet of Jesus. Let him decide what to do with you. Middle of the night, middle of the day, last piece. If you can be a little specific, it does help. God is not a legalist. This is going to be such a revelation to so many people. God is not a legalist, but the enemy is. And that's why this stuff can feel so picky, you need at times. And like, oh, you're kidding me. We're wrestling with the car again. What the heck? Okay. So here's where I thought you were going. The last lesson is specificity. Here's where I thought you were going with the car because I was going to bring this up to you yesterday. I just didn't get a chance to grab you. So this is your daughter's car, right? But you got it from your mom, right? Did you have you brought it out from under mom's authority and under your authority? No, not certainly not in a specific way. Okay. You got to do that. So anytime you buy a car, rent a house, buy a house, anything that comes into your kingdom, you go, thank you so much. But I bring this, you know, use car. I now take authority over it and I bring it under my kingdom and I bring this under the Lord Jesus Christ because your mom might be the open door to the weird things that are going on there. Well, that's huge, right? Yeah. I missed that. Okay. All right. So that's the consecration part first part of James 4.7. And then gang, if you can be specific, you know, so we woke up heavy and you can pray against heaviness. But if you can be a little bit more specific, you're like, no, no, this feels like accusation. I just feel like I suck. That's what I feel like right now. It feels like condemnation. Name that. Pray against accusation and condemnation or, or, you know, you wake up as so many people in the night and you're like, oh, I just feel anxious or fearful. Go, okay, just linger a little bit more. Like name it. Is it just fear or you're like, no, this just feels taunting. I feel mocked or this feels like intimidation. Okay, good. Now we're going to send intimidation to the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ in the power of His name. Okay. All right. Part two. Think it needs a part two. Okay. Haven't even talked about the folk magic yet. Or how does that stuff into the ground? Yeah. That's pretty funny. So delightful conversation. Love where God is taking this and hope you're with us next week. We're going to just, we're going to keep riffing right now and cut this into a part two. Yes. Hey, friends, this is Alan. Thanks for being part of this week's podcast. And before you rush off into what's next, we invite you to spend some time reflecting with God on what you've heard and on where he's leading. [Music] , you