"How to Rule Your Spirit - Guest: Pastor Brian Mandel"

0:00 Jesus. special guest. Really appreciate you being here today. Hey, it's fun. Let's keep doing this. Yeah. So, Annette is home with uh painters right now as we're having some deconstruction slash slash construction done in our house. Fun. We it's yeah we we had a cabinet company come in and they completely flubbed it up to the point where they're literally rebuilding the cabinets. The Christmas gift you didn't want, right? Man, this thing is dragging out and anyone who's done home, rentals, and remodels knows, you know, the perils. We feel like we're gonna be on HDTV is one of those shows of, you know, construction disasters and uh so yeah, our our our kitchen's just totally whacked right now. We did have them reinstall the bad cabinets and the doors just just so we'll have some cabinets through the holidays cuz they're gonna be down for 2 weeks. We don't really want them here over the holidays. We we need some downtime. Yeah, you need to take a break.

1:26 So, yeah, it's been an adventure. That's for sure. So, anyway, we're we're getting past it and uh or we're in the middle of it. Now, we've gotta they'll come back hopefully by the end of January. This will be done. Mm. Hopefully. It's all gonna be worth it. Just keep telling yourself that. I'm not holding my breath. I'll just say that. So, hey, welcome to living up in a down world. It's great to have you, our listeners, and thanks for joining us today. Go to our website, living up in a down world.com. You can find daily devotionals. We call it the daily grind. You go to the blog page for that. You can sign up for um uh for to get on our email list and that way we'll send uh just letting you know that we've got a uh podcast coming your way. If you'll just subscribe to that or you can leave a comment or a review, do whatever and hang out on the website. There's lots of information there or you can go to bridge FBG.com. Go about halfway down on the front page of that. Click on the Godcaster. You'll see it there and you can find our podcast there as well and all the archives are there as well. So, yeah, check it out. We'd love to have you and uh hey everybody.

2:31 It's Thursday. It is Thursday. It's Thursday. Almost Christmas. My gosh. It is literally here and uh I'm loving it. I've I've been in the Christmas spirit this year. I feel like I'm celebrating this year. It's it's been a good one. It has been a great year. We've had a great year at the bridge. I mean, God is moving as we celebrate. Aslan is on the move. We're seeing so many good things happen and and we've just had some good things happen recently. We talked a little bit about that. You know, our our Christmas event at Market Plots which one of our church members did and we jumped in on it which is exactly how these things are supposed to go but just even salvations and baptisms and people jumping in that hadn't been in church for years or ever and I mean just we're just seeing everything across the board. It's mind bending. I I went to lunch with a church member yesterday, Robbie and as we're sitting there, I mean no less than six people from our church were in that restaurant and came over to the table. We were having church right there at the table were high five and hugging. Yeah. Loving each other. It was like it was so cool. I just I love being in a smaller community. Yeah, I wasn't got my car washed the other day and uh the the girl checking me out was like, hey Pastor Brian and I was like, hi. Get used to it brother. I I know you you guys have been here for a year now. We're celebrating a year with you guys but also just know that the longer you're here, the more that will happen. You'll go to H.E.B. and you will be on aisle four for a while because you'll end up stopping and talking to people and so you're gonna have to forget the days of going in and getting milk and and cereal

4:03 quickly. Such thing as being anonymous anymore. Not anymore. That's the beauty of being in a small community. I always love shows like uh you know, Gilmore Girls at Stars Hollow, uh Mayberry RFD, you know, Barney Fife, all that, you know, these small communities. There's something joyful and life giving about being in a small community. Yeah, it's good and every once in a while, if I need to feel anonymous, I'll just drive into San Antonio. That's the beauty. We live, we we're very short drive to Austin or San Antonio. I mean, it's easy to get away if we need to and uh and it's good to feel, you know, like you're part of something bigger, you know, and go to Lock and Terror or whatever and hang out at the mall there and great restaurants and all that. So, yeah, that's easy for us. So, we kinda got the best of both worlds here. I'm liking it. And we're in a small town that's very um on the move. I mean, this is a small town with a lot happening. It's a destination. It is. Fredericksburg is a huge destination area. Not just in Texas but we get people from literally all over the world and we are a German community and we're known for that. Yeah. So, we get people from Germany here that come to visit our town because we're like a sister sister community. It's really cool. Uh every time I go downtown, I hear languages and accents I don't even recognize. I'm shocked. Yeah, whenever I've been in other places or I'm talking to people from other places, you know, um how many people know about Fredericksburg have heard of it or have already been there? So, so if you're listening, you should come visit cuz it is a great place to be. Yeah. Great place to hang out. I mean, it's crazy.

5:35 The people who are moving here right now from all over. We get a lot of people from Texas like Houston. Yep. Uh Midland Odessa. You know, people retiring from the oil field industry or you know, Dallas, Fort Worth, California, California, Denver. I mean, I feel like we're getting the good Californians though. No doubt. No doubt. I mean, we get people that in fact, it's it's interesting when you talk to people who come from other places, particularly California. They're they're almost afraid to tell you that they're from California. There is a there is a lot more traditional values oriented conservative people in California than they get credit for. Absolutely. Especially when you get up north. Uh when you get up, you know, north of Redding and on on up into the mountains and and up in that area. There's a lot of rural areas out there and they're they're not playing the game. There's a there's a county in Southern California called Irving. Um right near, it's actually near Anaheim where Disney World is and all that.

6:28 Right. It is one of the most conservative counties in the entire country. It's Irving or Irvine. Uh I think it depends on how you say it. I'm gonna make you. Irvine. I'm about to make you. Probably is correct. Second guess yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's fascinating. In Colorado is the same way. I mean, like where Colorado Springs is proper, that's a very conservative county there. Even though you're you got Manitou Springs, you've got just north, you've got Denver, and yet you've got this pocket of conservatism and so I think those pockets are growing now. I think they might be. With with what happened in this last election and where things seem to be going and heading. And uh speaking of that, wow. How about those drones? Oh man.

7:08 Drones are, that's exciting. You know, is that not the funniest thing? I had to text Adam Curry about that and be like, yeah, like you gotta set me straight on this cuz I'm seeing a million conflicting reports here. What is going on? And uh he was like, just listen to the first 20 minutes of my podcast and it'll put your mind at ease. That's true. That's true. I uh I was gonna look up cuz I actually wrote down some stuff on that because to me, it's fascinating. Uh man, where'd it go? Had it all written down? Oh, I know what it's for. Where did I put this? I put a whole thing on drones. What? Okay, this is weird. I think a drone has stolen my my notes here. This is so weird. Blame it on the drones. No kidding. Where did it go? Anyway, so it's interesting in terms of the drones and what's happening there. Um one of the things I did learn from Adam Curry uh back when we met and we started building a friendship was that uh because of his background in media deconstruction, podcasting, but also some things with his family. Yeah. Being involved in government. I'll just keep it there. He can tell it if he wants to. Um he he said to me, he said, whatever the modern, whatever the mainstream media is chasing. Yep. Look somewhere else. Right. He said, it's a diversion. And he said, always always look at sleight of hand. It's always smoke and mirrors. Hey, look over here. Look, if they're saying, look over here, you need to be looking somewhere else. Yeah.

8:31 And he's really awakened me to that and that's been really powerful for me. Well, and it just so happens that there's a there's a house bill that's due to be passed. Isn't it today or was it yesterday? The twentieth. So that. It's tomorrow. It's tomorrow. Oh, it's tomorrow. Yeah. Okay. Oh, I found my notes. So, go ahead. Okay. Well, I don't I don't know all the details of it but the bottom line is they're trying to essentially re-up the Patriot Act or something like that. FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 and they're gonna they wanna re author re up it so to speak and it gives the federal government the ability to for them. They're saying this is all about controlling these drones. Correct. That's how they're selling it. Right. But there's also a lot of other things. It's called HR 8610 counter UAS authority safety security act man. Say that fast three times in a row. Yep.

9:25 Well, and I believe that that act will essentially give the government expanded powers to you know, ostensibly to intercept enemy drones but the way that that extends to you know, basically being able to infringe on the rights of the American people is a big part of that package as well which same thing as it was with the Patriot Act. It was all in the in the in the package of national defense and national security but what it ultimately did is it let people let the government intrude into our personal lives into our phones and do our data and to all those things. Exactly. I'm gonna read a quote right out of this bill. It is this that another person said this way. It gives various government agencies the authority and then in quotes in right out of the bill which you can look up on USA.gov and which I did. I checked it out to destroy or disable aircraft in flight and intercept signals and communications and you know, you gotta think about this is on American. It's a pretty broad stroke there. That is a very broad stroke cuz these signals and communications could be your cell phone. Yeah. Your your texts, your emails all under the guise of protecting you.

10:39 Yeah and what it what it essentially does is it eliminates any form of privacy, you know, and so you you don't have any right to privacy anymore. Yeah. I mean which is about as unamerican as it can get. This is so unconstitutional and so that vote is up for tomorrow. There was another vote last week. I believe on Sunday that or or last week cuz Adam was talking about it on Sunday which was another piece of this. It was another it's called something else. He he wrote me and told me about it but it sounded very similar. I mean these are what's happening is is they're they're trying to under the guise of protection. Drones, there's drones everywhere. There's drones from China here. There's drones, you know. Yeah. All that. We need we want to protect you. So, we're gonna gonna pass this bill that's gonna give us now the right to intercept those drones and people will cheer because they're okay protect us from the drones. Right. What? Give me a twelve gauge shotgun. I'll protect you from the drones. Well, and there's there's another end of this that I I heard Adam talking about the other day, you know, that has to do with money as always, you know. Really? In terms of the who's making the drones and the companies that is getting the contracts to to build drones and pushing out other companies that make drones and so that, you know, any drone that even a private citizen has is, you know, if this all goes like they want it to, we'll have to be made by a very select group of people with whatever kind of software on the inside of it and so I mean there there's multiple angles here for sure. For sure. I've

12:10 watched some of the video of these drones and I'm like, what's the big deal? I mean literally up in what Adam said, he said a lot of these are private, you know, just hobbyists that are getting in on the action. They wanna get their phone, their drone on TV. You know, they wanna get somebody to video their drone and it's kind of funny go viral. He said this. He said a combined Senate and House version of this bill has already passed as part of the NDAA on Saturday. That was this this past Saturday. He said that's what all this noise is about. He says he he said he expects everything to die down in the next three or four days after all the hobbyists stop flying their drones to get on television. He says the politicians are well aware of this and the drone lobby may not be extremely powerful but they're very noisy because it includes local law enforcement, Hollywood, etcetera who are using cheap Chinese drones. They now will have to go. So so this is a ploy to get in and really just take control. I mean, it's another angle. It's always about that. You think about what's happening right now. We're in control. Oh my goodness. I mean now with with what's happened even recently, I won't get into the to the weeds on it but the speaker of the house, Mike Johnson is now kinda his backs against the wall cuz he tried to rush push through a bill that had a lot of money and fall out going over to to democratic agencies, a lot of fat, lot of fat and I'm still not sure what's

13:40 going on with that. I'm Mike. I'm I'm the jury's out a little bit. I mean, I like the guy. Yeah, I feel like he's trying to do the right things but I feel like he gets put in these positions where he's trying to he's trying to be such a diplomat that he has seems to have a hard time taking much of a stand on anything clearly. Yeah, that's that's what makes me nervous about him. I don't I wouldn't call him a rhino yet cuz I know that that name gets thrown around a lot Republican in name only but he is he is legitimately in a in a tough situation where to get anything done. He's gotta play both sides to a degree. Yeah, I thought that there's also gotta be limits to that. There's that give and take but at what point do you draw a line in the sand and say we're done. You know, yeah, we're not playing that game. Fortunately, that bill got struck down yesterday. Oh, really? That that got shut down yesterday.

14:25 Yeah, I was reading late last night and I was kinda watching and keeping up with it and and they that has been nixed and they're gonna re regroup. I'm sure you know, so there'll be more coming but but I think what's happening and I do know Johnson on some things is trying to put things off until Trump gets in office. I'm not sure why he tried to push this through. I'm sure there was give and take that we'll never know about. It's politics. Yeah, that's that's the give and take of politics. Man, I think I'll stick in stick with the church world. Hey, speaking of the church world, I wanna share something. I I do a daily devotional called the daily grind and I just call it that. That sounds terrible. It's like it's a grind to me. It's really not. It's it's coffee. That's the whole point. It's caffeine. It's my daily grind and so every morning and I've done this gosh for now 23, 24 years, maybe 25. If I just do the math, it's probably longer than I think cuz I'm older than I think and so I just what I do is I get up early in the morning, get up about six every morning and I just go sit down at my computer after getting my coffee, my first cup, always black rifle and I sit down and I'm just I just sit before the Lord. Nothing fancy. Sometimes I'll just I'll randomly pick up my Bible and thumb thumb through it and I'll see something or or wherever it stops, I'll kinda read. So, it's not it's not real formal.

15:53 It's quite relaxed and and then I'll land on a verse of scripture and I'll just trust that the Lord led me to that scripture however I found it. Right. So, today, I did one on Luke 4, 31 and 32. I'm gonna read it out of the ESV. That's the English Standard Version and it's talking about Jesus. It says, and he, Jesus went down to Capernaum which that's on the Lake of Galilee. That's right there on on the on the shore of the Lake of Galilee. It's a fishing village, a city of Galilee and he was teaching them on the Sabbath and they were astonished at his teaching for his word possessed authority and that just jumped off the page this morning cuz I was thinking about that word authority and what does that mean and the reason the reason that word has become maybe a little more in my filter is because of what's been going on with our federal government. What's been going on in the world? Yeah. You know, cuz we talk about what is authority mean when when authority is conferred from a higher authority. For example, the federal government may give the DOJ a certain what they call a jurisdiction. Right. And the jurisdiction is that those boundaries in which they have the authority to enact certain things and do certain things and you know, there's been a lot of talk over the last bit in terms of they've have been a lot of what they call overreach government overreach. That means they're stepping on the authority. Yeah, outside of their purview and so but I

17:26 think about this in terms of spiritual things and I wrote this. I'll just read this and we can we can talk about it. It's called the authority of the kingdom as Jesus begins to teach the message of the kingdom of God. The people quickly realized this is no ordinary rabbi. They were used to the weak scholarly and impotent teachings of the rabbis but Jesus words were laced with authority and power. Something was different. Jesus jurisdiction came from God and was released in and through Jesus to reveal the will and plan of God. When we read God's word today, his authority is still present to bring the kingdom of heaven into this present moment. Wow. So what does that say to you because it pings all kinds of things in me even though I wrote that I trust the Holy Spirit helped me write it but I it even I'm already leaping off into other directions with that but well the first thing that comes to my mind is that you know there's a difference between somebody who tries to exert authority versus somebody who actually carries it. The type of authority being referred to here in the scripture is it's what is it's potency from heaven. It's a it's a it's power. It's potency. It's it's effectiveness. You know authority isn't speaking louder or more dominantly. It's it's when you got God backing you up in what you're doing and in what you're saying and you know what I was taught a long time ago is that if if you wanna carry authority in God's

18:57 kingdom, you have to be under authority. Yes, absolutely. You know that the more that I submit myself to his authority, the more of his authority will be conferred and delegated down and through me because I've positioned myself under him that that submission of coming under his mission. Yes allows him to transfer elements of his authority for specific situations and moments and trust me with it. It's great word and and right along with that and and actually I'm just leaping right off of what you said. There there's a there's an element that's so important that I think really opens this channel and it's humility. Yeah, when you're when you walk in great humility, you you can give honor away. You're honorable, but you also give honor away easily when you're humble and when you do that, it opens up a channel where God knows he can trust you. If he can trust you with a little bit and you handle it with humility and you handle it honorably, then he will trust you with more. Yeah and so this this boundary, this jurisdiction can grow. That's what's exciting to me is it's really unlimited. You know when we're young and we're learning and we're you know our jurisdiction is pretty small. I mean, there's not a lot of not a lot of people that we influence, you know, 18, 19, 20 years and I'm not talking about getting online and being an influencer. I'm talking about in real life, people who really your words carry a lot of weight and value. So, you know when you're younger, not a lot, right? Yeah, there's your dog,

20:29 you know at the house, maybe a couple of guys you game with online or whatever, but but as you get older God and you grow your jurisdiction grows as you mature. God be gifts to give you a greater jurisdiction. Now, there's a difference between kingdom authority and worldly authority. That's right. Worldly authority can be had through positional authority. That means you get a title, you get a job, and now you've got a jurisdiction. You're over a certain amount of people in a company. That's different, right? You have leverage through money and you know job descriptions and all that, your KOA, all that stuff. Yeah, that's different or your KRA, key results area. That all happens in that in the worldly sense, but I'm not as interested in that as I am in the spiritual sense. Yeah, me too. I mean what does it mean when Jesus said you're going to do greater works than these? Well, you know what I love about what that that passage you read in Luke 4 is that Jesus didn't declare that he was coming with authority. It was the people that were being ministered to that said it to him. They recognized the authority on him and so much so that they had to say it out loud.

21:41 And that's the way it goes with kingdom authority. If you feel the need to declare your authority, you missed it and that's not godly authority that you're walking in. When you're actually carrying heat from heaven, people will come and tell you because they'll see it on you. They'll experience it in the weight that your words carry, you know, even apart from your your notice sometimes. Wow, that is a great insight PB. You never have to announce your own authority and if you have to announce it, then you probably don't really have it. Right. And I've been in those environments where people very much very loudly announced their authority. They delighted in that and I think sometimes they were trying to convince themselves more than anybody else. Yeah, and it's one of the probably the distasteful things that people wrongly attribute to the church as a broad stroke.

22:38 People maybe who aren't Christians yet or who have had a bad experience in church. The mistake is to think that it's descriptive of all of church leadership that you know that they just come and exert their authority, you know, without any reins on it. But man, a true godly leader will speak humbly, but his words will carry weight and power because he's got the force of heaven behind them. That is so true. I just people are flashing in front of my mind that carry that but would never tell you they carry that. For example, the bishop that I've gotten to know, Bishop Bill, he's an Anglican bishop. He's semi-retired from being a bishop in a particular jurisdiction, which was in Africa. He's now doing other things and we're going to have him hopefully in February get him here to come tell some of his amazing global stories about what God's doing across the world. But I got to know him and he was so unpretentious. He's 74, was 75 now, but he was 74 when I met him and he was sitting on the back row of this large room I was in at a theological roundtable retreat and they just went around the room.

23:52 Everybody said, hey, I'm so and so from so on. This is what I do. And when he said who he was, you know, I didn't think anything about it. You know, I'm an Anglican bishop. I'm like, Anglican, what are you doing here? You know, it was kind of kind of seemed a little out of place and he was very unpretentious in his attire and the way he carried himself. But then he ended up in my table group and within minutes of sitting with him, I mean minutes, he never had to announce his authority. I knew it. I knew I was sitting with a general in the kingdom of God. And I use that designation in an honorable way to say he has a massive jurisdiction. And sure enough, as I got to know him and unpack and hear some of his stories, I realized this man really is a general in the kingdom of God. He's a mover shaker, a disruptor. I mean, he's all the things you want in a leader. And he's 74, has a hip issue. I mean, has a hard time getting around and yet this man is carrying huge authority. The word authority in the Greek is the word exousia and it means conferred authority. You've been given or designated and he carries that. And those are the kind of people I want to hang around. I hooked my arm through his. I said, I'm going to be your friend. I mean, literally, and I wouldn't leave his side. I hung out with him the whole week, the whole three days that we were there, two and a half days we were there. And we've stayed friends. So it's beautiful. I can't wait to meet him. Oh man, you'll see what I

25:22 mean when you get around him. Well, you know, I think we live in a time in our culture where we desperately need the church. We need Christians to walk in true, godly authority. You know, I was reading a scripture out of Proverbs 16 the other day that I think kind of correlates to this. It's a last or second to last verse of Proverbs 16 is verse 32. And it says, whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty. And he listened to this and he who rules his spirit is greater than he who takes a whole city. And that phrase about ruling my spirit really jumped off the page when I read that verse. And I mean, it was like the Lord was saying to me, there is a way that God's people rule and control the spirit that they walk into environments in that makes all the difference in, you know, really the effect that they have on an entire city, according to this scripture. Wow. You know, that it's this idea that we're walking in the fruit of the spirit of self-control in such a way that God is able to freely work through our words and our actions in a way where we're not getting in his way. We're ruling our spirit. So we're not reacting to the negative things in culture and anger. We're not reacting to them and fear. We're not reacting by just trying to be louder or, you know, demand that things change

26:54 because everything's wrong. But there's this sense of that we can come in ruling our spirits in such a way under the authority of God where that that peace that we bring into situations is what causes the change, not us coming in and fighting the same way that that maybe we're being fought against. And there's another verse in that same chapter, chapter 16 verse 7. It says, when a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. I love that. You know, and I think that's one of the ways that we cause our ways to please the Lord is that, you know, man, we're not reacting in anger. We're ruling our spirits. We're submitted to God and we understand that we come with his conferred authority. We carry it wherever we go and we have this promise that God is able and willing to make even our enemies be at peace with us when we show up under his authority. Wow. Man, I want to back up on that verse 32 as well, but it bodes in both verses. What does it mean? So, listen, you kind of touched on it. I want to go a little deeper this because if I was listening to us riff on this stuff right now, I'd be saying, okay, I get that, but how do I rule my spirit? So, in he who rules his spirit, whoever's slow to anger is better than the mighty and he who rules his spirit, then he who takes a city. So, what does that look like? You touched on it with the fruit of the spirit, number nine. Let's stay on that for a minute. Yeah. So, I mean, what

28:25 immediately comes to mind is the idea of self-control, but not a gritting my teeth sort of I'm gonna control myself, but a recognition that as I am led by the Holy Spirit, as I am submitted to God, that one of the gifts he gives me is the ability to be in control of my thoughts, my emotions, my reactions, and to to do and say what I'm I'm doing with wisdom, you know, the the wisdom that Proverbs talks over and over and out about throughout the whole book, you know, it's that, you know, whoever finds wisdom finds a good thing, you know, but wisdom doesn't come when we're all stirred up, spun up, spun out, freaking out, you know, just reacting to everything. Yeah. There's this when I think of somebody who is ruling their spirit, it's they're they're not reacting. They're responding. Yes. With God's authority. Yes. There's there's almost a holy pause before you react and that becomes a response instead of a reaction.

29:30 Second Timothy one seven familiar verse for God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self control. Yeah. So, you see it as a fruit of the spirit. Now, you have it again said basically a spirit of self control. It's a fruit of the spirit and it's a spirit which is so powerful to me that it's not something I've gotta work up but it is something I have to lean into. Yes. I have to receive. I have to accept that. I have to believe that. Yeah. To say, okay, I feel like I'm out of control but my word, the Bible tells me at least two verses right here. One, it's a fruit of the spirit, not a fruit of the flesh, fruit of the spirit. Yeah. And it's a spirit of self control. I've been given that and if I've been given that, then by faith, I can receive it and now by faith, I can employ it. Well, think about the sermon on the mount, you know, when Jesus is telling these multitudes gathered listening to him teach, he's telling him things like, you know, hey, you know, when your enemy comes against you and forces you to go one mile with them, just go to, you know, if they wanna take your garment, give them your coat too, you know, it's it's what is what is that descriptive of? It's somebody who's ruling their spirit. It's it's not somebody who's not allowing the situation, the person, or the circumstance to take their peace or their ability to to stand in the authority that God's trying to give them and usually the way that manifests itself

31:00 is us coming in the opposite spirit. There it is. Of what's going on. Yeah. In a way that is counterintuitive to the reaction that anybody who's not walking with God would expect. I used to joke about, that's so on point, I used to joke about the fact that we live in that that God's kingdom is an upside down kingdom, then one day I felt the Lord corrected me on that and he said, no, no, no, my kingdom is right side up, your kingdom is upside down. There you go. And I was like, you're right, Lord, we we do, we live in an upside down kingdom, but the kingdom God is right side up, which is an opposite effect. I'll never forget the first time I heard someone talk about coming in the opposite spirit and it was Robert Owens, Pastor Roberts. Yes. Out of Nevada who said that to our group back in Abilene, yeah, 20 plus years ago. I forgot that that was the origination of that. That's where it came from and that's just like it stuck with you, it stuck with me all these years because that was a word of wisdom. Yeah. And that is so true. So and you see it all through scriptures. You know, somebody says carry your gear one mile, you carry it two.

32:04 Somebody hits you on the cheek, you give them the other, it's all backwards. It's all upside down and it is what you said, it's counterintuitive. It's Saul throwing a spirit, David, to try to kill him and then David praying for Saul and coming and still loving him. Yeah, giving him honor. Giving him honor. When he was not being honorable, honor able. Yeah. You know, able to be honored. So that is so powerful and so yeah, so if we're going to talk about ruling our spirit, then maybe it comes back to taking a holy pause when something happens and saying, how do I counter that? How do I come in an opposite spirit? So I guess on a how to, if we're just going to know about what should we do? Because if I was listening, I'd say, tell me what to do. Yeah. So to me, the doing is taking a step back. Agreed.

32:51 Instead of just because I mean, it is easy to react. You know, I played sports all my life and you train yourself to react to situations. You train yourself to get back, fight back, make the tackle, whatever you react to the play. I mean, boom, boom, boom, everything's in real time. But then you get in real life and it's not like that. And if you operate that way, you're going to blow stuff up. Well, your flesh always tries to speak first, right? So if you go with your first reaction to things, you're almost always probably not going to be doing that in the delegated and conferred authority. It comes from there it is. Here's another thing about about authority, just we're riffing all around it, but it just hit me. It never has to get loud. You know, I've been around in Christian circles for a lot of years now and in wide and varied situations and I always realized it dawned on me one time. I was in a situation where this guy was trying to take authority over over a dark thing, like a dark spiritual thing. Yeah. And I noticed he was getting louder and louder and more intense and more intense. And it dawned on me while I was watching this. He's so insecure in his authority. He doesn't know that he really believes it. It's like he's trying to talk to himself into it. Exactly. Or convince what's going on that he has authority. And I took a lesson, I took a step back from that, and I remember praying and saying, Lord, if I believe that

34:23 you've given me true spiritual authority and that I am able to rule, you know, my own spirit and that I have received not a spirit of fear, but of self-control, the holy, if I believe that and I'm truly a believing believer, I'll never have to yell again. Yeah. I won't have to announce my authority when I walk in a room. I want to wear a badge or a tag saying senior pastor or whatever, you know, or you know what I'm saying? I do. Because to me, I want to take it right back to where I started. This humility is the most underwhelming, under talked about, under, there's a word I'm looking for, but I can't remember what it is, but it's not ever hardly talked about. Because we see humility as weak when indeed humility is so confident that it's unshakable.

35:21 It's a God confidence rather than a self-confidence. There it is. Which means that true biblical humility can at times be misperceived as arrogance, you know, because there's a way to be so confident in the Lord that people don't quite get it at first, like where that's coming from. You know, and so you got to be careful with that, but you know, you can take humility in a weird direction when it becomes a false humility of self-deprecation and things like that. That's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about that at all. This is about beating yourself down and calling that being humble. It's recognizing the source. That's it. You know, and staying submitted. You know, you never got to sit much under Bill Loveless, you know, because you came after, but a lot of what we're talking about is really what Bill talked about, that one of his things, God is our source. We don't have self-confidence. We operate in Christ's confidence. Those are Billisms.

36:16 He lives his life through us. Exactly. Innocent through us, and we're just available. We're there surrendered. We're available, and that may be another way to look at this. For me, in terms of walking in authority, it's a fact. I prayed this coming in. I was by myself today, so I had about 16 minutes on the highway, and I always try to pray on my way in like that, and I was saying, Lord, I rest in you today. I rest in who you are today. I'm resting in God today. I rest into your peace. I rest into your wisdom. I just, there was just things I enumerated as I was and I was using that language, and to me, when you're secure, when you understand who your source is, when your confidence is not in you, it's in Christ, you can rest, and now the labor you do, you labor out of a place of rest.

37:13 The work you do. That's where this thing gets fun. I had somebody stop me, Kit Patterson, dear friend, dear, dear brother, stop me a couple weeks ago. Kit runs, him and his family run Lucanbach. They're the family of Lucanbach, Hondo Crouch's grandson, and he stopped me. He goes, he goes, man, God is doing so much, Jimmy. Here at the bridge, it was on a Wednesday night. He said, I see you. I said, what do you mean by that, Kit Patterson? He goes, I see you. He said, it'd be easy to get tired, be easy to get run down. He said, I see you, and he meant it in the best way. It was a friend sharpening another friend, iron sharpening iron.

37:57 He's very good at that, and he wrote me again this morning, said, I see you. So, to me, it was like the Holy Spirit saying, hey, are you doing this? I had to check myself. I did a checkup today, and that's why I was saying, I rest into you, Lord, because it's easy when God's blessed you with jurisdiction, blessed you with authority, and you know you're walking in that to start to kind of shoulder yourself a little bit, and I found myself getting tired. Yeah, here lately just part of it's because my house is completely torn apart right now. That doesn't help. I'm not resting well in my own home because I'm breathing fumes all night, shellac or whatever they stain, whatever they're doing, but I realized, ah, I'm getting tired because I'm not going back to my source.

38:49 So, this morning I completely ride the ship on that and said, Lord, I just rest in you. I came in refreshed. Wow, that's so good. It just took a second. It didn't take hours or two days. It just took recognizing. Scripture says that that humility is really the entry point, the access point to grace at the end of the day. No doubt. It gives grace to the humble. Yes, he does. And that grace is part of that authority. It's that power, the ability, the authority that we need to rest in whatever he has us doing and not be striving and laboring and straining. Gosh, everything we've said just all dovetails in. I mean, because as you were saying that, I'm thinking it means you're secure in who you are, so you're confident. But the confidence isn't who you are, it's who he makes you to be. And it's in him because he's the source, not us. And when I get that order right, it clicks and I felt that lift off of me driving in.

39:49 I just was like, I started laughing out loud, literally in my car. I know it's weird. I'm driving down the road in my SUV laughing, but I just felt this peace, you know, that peace that passes all understanding that literally guards and garrisons the heart. I just rested in it and I was like, God, you're so good. And all it took was a shift. It just took a nanosecond. And oh man, I remember the days when it would take months to do that. Yeah, you gave the practical wisdom earlier. There's power in pausing and it's not something we're good at these days. We live in a fast-paced, frantic, distracted, you know, one thing to the next culture. There's not a lot of pause, not a lot of built-in opportunities for us to just step back and reflect. It's it's go, go, go. And I think you have to really be intentional if you're going to do that. Brother, you nail it.

40:46 I'm looking up something because I want to find this. Yeah, I love that word intentional. That's one of my favorite words in the whole dictionary because I don't stumble into grace. I don't stumble into authority. I don't stumble into mercy. There's an intentionality that has to happen that we have to walk in. I wanted to share this, just some friends that have been supporting the podcast, have been encouraging us. And before I read that, I just I want to land the plane on this because if you're listening today and wherever you are, you may be in your car, you may be, who knows, wherever you are and you're listening to this, Pastor Brian, I want to encourage you that when I said it just takes a nanosecond, it's really the truth. What I did when I said, Lord, I rest into you, it was literally a step of repentance.

41:46 Repentance for me is pivoting where you are and in facing Him again. To return is to reface. You face Him again. And I just turned and realized, oh my gosh, running and gunning. Things are going, things are snapping and popping at the church. Exciting season to be in, Christmas is happening, kitchen cabinets are jacked up, you know, just life's happening in very weird real time. And it just took my gaze away a little bit. Not on purpose, I mean, I wasn't nothing nefarious. And I just realized, whoa, I need to reset my gaze. I need to reface Him. I need to return. I need to repent. It's a great way to put that. And that's what I did and gosh, it just lifted off. And I want to encourage you, you can literally reface, you can return, you can repent, you can turn towards Him right now. Here's what the temptation and repentance is that we're going to spend all of our time talking about the stuff we missed or we messed up on. But all that does, that just puts that, that's what you're facing. To reface, to return, to repent means to literally turn. That's not the star of the show. The star of the show of repentance is you facing Him.

42:48 You look at Him not in fear either that He's going to reject you or spank you. You look at Him in love and go, oh God, you're so good. Thank you. Thank you. And as you do that by pure physics, you're putting everything else behind you. That's right. It's at your back because now you're facing Him. And I just connected the dots on that this morning. I didn't say, Lord, I'm repenting. I just said, Lord, I look at you. I mean, I didn't even go that way. It didn't make, it didn't sound very spiritual either. It just sounded like me talking to to somebody that's in authority over my life and saying, wow, I just rest into you today. You know, what was I doing? I was looking at Him. I was gazing. Yeah. Well, you said, you know, you don't stumble into grace, right? And that's because it's a product of relationship. You don't stumble into a good relationship either.

43:36 I don't know a relationship that's not intentional. For example, you and I are both married. It's work, but it's joyful work. And sometimes it's hard work. Sometimes it's dying to self, but it's all intentional. You have to be intentional. If we're not being intentional at it, you can feel the lapse in relationship and connection. There'll be a lack of grace in the relationship. Oh boy, wherever. We don't want to go there. And so, yeah, we just turn. We repent. We reface. We turn to Him and just gaze on Him. And then we rest in that. And then He says, hey, you're back. Welcome back. Just waiting for your turn. Wow. Well, that's a good Christmas gift to give yourself this year is face Him again. Come on. Hey, I want to give some kudos to some folks that have been blessing us. Randy Black, he has a great website on the Bible. I mean, it's just he reads scripture. It's a podcast. And he's just a cool guy, great guy.

44:34 And he blessed us on our last you and I do. I called it the winds of change last one you and I did hours before. So thanks, Randy. Appreciate it. Adam Curry, he gave us a big boost. 77,000 sats. Striper boost. Here's Striper Boost. That's a striper boost. Adam Curry, we love you. He actually just did. I've actually been chatting with him while we're doing the podcast. I saw his name come up. So yeah, he said, great. I got another podcast to listen to. But he's in Italy right now. Now, I think he's going to be, I think they may be in Amsterdam. They're going to be all, this is when they travel. I can't keep up with it. But he just did an interview with a radio station, talked about his face. And he said, hey, I'm talking about his faith and talking about his life and whatnot. They've been trying to get him on to do this. So he did that. But they'll be in Italy for the next few days over Christmas celebrating his sister's birthday. So hey, man, have fun. Curry and the Keeper, check it out.

45:33 They have a great, great podcast. Also Barman. I don't know who Barman is, but he also boosted us, you and I for that. Thank you. That and Adam Curry boosted again. And then Barman, I'm just looking at all the names that's here. So yeah, man, just appreciate you guys showing up and just being a blessing to us. We want to encourage you. Feel free to write us. We want to hear from you. It's great hearing from you, hearing what you're going through and what's going on in your life. Share the good stuff, the hard stuff. And we're here to pray for you and encourage you. Well, listen, we're going to land the plane because we got things to do. Thanks for having me back. Absolutely. We got a staff lunch coming up. Thank you for joining us today at Living Up in a Down World. That is our heart for you to keep living up in a down world. We are out.