Speaker 1: 0:03

Father, god, thank you for today. It's Monday and, with all the angst that we have, you just silence it with your word. And today was such a great start. I get a text message from Matt and he means one thing and I took it another because I was in a good place and he sent me a text that says what's the battle? And that's actually the title. We decided yesterday that we were going to start today.

Speaker 1: 0:32

Father, what's the battle? And I had forgotten that already and when he sent that, I was thinking I actually feel good, I don't feel like I have a battle today. And it's your word, it's your truth, it's everything that you provide us every single day of our lives. That is always there, it's always within grasp, and we forget how much you love us and that in every single battle, you are locked arms with us. And all the stress and all the pain, all the uncertainty, all the lies that the evil one throws at us, you're saying to us stand firm, do not fear. Father. We're excited about today's message, figuring out what's the battle. How do we walk through today and through the rest of this week in your armor? And we pray this, father, in your name.

Speaker 2: 1:48

Amen, praise the Lord. Hey guys, welcome to the Certain Success Podcast. Joe and I we usually pray before we start, but we started praying and God was like, why are you not recording the prayer? And so we stopped and started over again and, uh, you know, what joe just said is such a perfect tee up for the conversation that I wanted to have. And here's, here's why he thinks I said what is the battle? And he thinks I was saying it to him. But what I wrote and what I meant was where is the battle? And what's so perfect about that misunderstanding? Is that that represents the battle. That's the problem that we have.

Speaker 2: 2:39

That I wanted to talk about and focus on today is that, look, we're all running around in this spiritual blindness and I say something and Joe hears something else, and next thing, you know we're misaligned. And then the evil ones like let me dig into that and separate them. And as soon as that, as soon as the battle is between me and Joe, or between me and you, or between me and another driver on the road or any other person, as soon as the battle between us, we lose it's over, he wins, and that's the. That's what I was getting at and that's what we're kind of digging into, not only in this podcast, but sort of this season of life is like hey, you know what, the battle's never between us, the battle's always in the spiritual realm.

Speaker 2: 3:37

And I just have kind of found a new level In this past week. I feel like God's shown me a new level of understanding of that, because you know what? I think we learn something, we read a scripture and we're like I know that scripture, yeah, I have that in my head, cool, understanding a million levels of clarity. And so we think, oh, I got that, check that box, there's no more to learn there. And then God can, if you let him, if you're open to it, can go. Oh, you know what. You actually never understood that, or you didn't understand it anywhere near. The level that I'm about to take you to through some exercise of difficulty or pain or confusion or whatever, or whatever it is and that's what happened to me in the last week is I'm like, oh, you know what? I'll never forget for the rest of my life, that the battle's not between me and any other human. The battle's always between me and the world, the flesh and the devil, everything in opposition no, he loves, no, no, no, but it's.

Speaker 1: 4:41

It's true it's. He loves no, no, no, but it's true. He loves to beat the hell out of us on a daily basis, and he uses other people to do it. He uses our eyes to do it. I mean, it's an example, one you said where I saw what, and it's the who, what, where and why of how evil can do that. There's so many elements of it. There's so many elements of it.

Speaker 2: 5:08

There's so many elements, well, and so I said where's the battle? You saw what is the battle, and it's just so interesting that just that one change of word causes complete misunderstanding.

Speaker 2: 5:23

And it doesn't matter in this context, it's completely benign right but imagine how heated that could be or how powerful that could be if there was other factors, any other factors. All of a sudden it's like wait a minute, what you know, did he really say that? And then the devil's going like matt said this and like no, I didn't, I didn't say that at all. And so it's just such an interesting moment of perspective. I love how god just set that up for us.

Speaker 2: 5:52

Um, for all of you who are catching this to think about in your own lives of what, where's that misunderstanding between you and another human that you should probably reconsider? You should probably go back and ask these questions to the Lord about, like, I think, lord, I think this is true about this person, but what's really? Tell me what's really true, lord, what do you want me to know about this interaction with this person, and how do I love this person, even when I don't want to? Because, just, I think even that posture change changes all of it. And I'm completely talking to myself. Let's be really clear, cause man, I'm really good at not loving people, um and but, man, what a lesson.

Speaker 1: 6:55

Yeah, it makes you pause for a moment and think of exactly what you were saying to me in that text and what we chatted about yesterday. And where's the battle for all of us? Is it in the six inches between our ears? All those voices? I mean it's no joke.

Speaker 1: 7:18

When I go to tee off, when I get ready to hit my golf ball, my friends laugh at me. I do not take a practice swing, I do not set up, I get to that ball and before they can get the last word out of their mouth, I'm driving that ball. And they're like Joe, we're mid-sentence and I'm like I don't care, you can talk all you want, no-transcript. If I do that to myself, I'm shanking that ball, I'll be Mr Shankoponymous and that's life for me and I think it's life for a lot of people is the battles between the years and we just come up with all of these questions that make us face plant. So that's my golf game I get up, I hit it and make people laugh because I'm so quick to do it Well, and that you know that that is really cool.

Speaker 2: 8:25

But I want to go back to what you said. You read my text and thought what is the battle? And you said. You said I don't. I think this was before we were recording. You said, you know, I didn't really have a battle today. Like I felt great today, which is awesome.

Speaker 2: 8:39

I love those mornings when you wake up and you're like you know, I'm at peace, like I have this sense of peace and um, which is something that I've become really tuned to. Uh, like the I could, you know it could be a scale of one to a hundred, but on a scale of one to 10, like I know, when I first opened my eyes, like wait, is my peace level 10 or two or seven, and why? And like maybe it was a dream, or like you know who knows what it was. But there's those mornings when you wake up, when you're a 10 in peace, before the thoughts come in, which is what you were saying about the golf swing. You're like I can make this before, so, but you can't.

Speaker 2: 9:25

That's not true in all of life, right? Like you're going to wake up even if you're at a 10,. Okay, in the hours that are going to come up, like thoughts are going to come in, things are going to happen. That dude is going 45 in the left lane for me, like that's my worst, that's my nemesis, I should never drive again because it's just ruins me. You know that that dude can ruin me in five minutes and um and so like things are going to happen. So, and that's the moment when you have to be like, oh, wait a minute, he's not my enemy, and that's the moment when you have to be, like oh wait a minute, he's not my enemy.

Speaker 2: 10:03

I want him to be, but he's not, yeah, so what do I do? How do I do that Tell?

Speaker 1: 10:06

me how to fix that. Yeah, that's when you focus on God. I mean, that's one of the things that you said to me the other day. We're sitting at a traffic light, I don't know if you recall this. You said we were supposed to catch that red because we don't know what's on the other side of that red. Yeah, god was pausing us.

Speaker 2: 10:28

I do know that I do say that to myself, but I didn't realize I said it to you.

Speaker 1: 10:32

Yeah, you said it out loud. Yeah, you're like God's pausing me for a reason. I don't know what's on the other side of that red. You know a car in the left lane and we can clearly see that there's nothing in front of them, and the car in the right lane. That says going at the same rate of speed as they are. We can see there's nothing in front of them. That's where. That's where that and it's not just you, matt, it's the entire world of drivers. Most of us have that same angst. But, like, move out of my way, I gotta get going.

Speaker 2: 11:03

And uh, you know what's so funny about that, joe, is that, as you were describing the situation, I can't actually remember. I don't remember the situation and we were in north carolina together and that must be what you're talking about. But, yeah, that same thing happened again. I was in the car with someone else on Saturday and a car in front of me stopped to let a car out from the left and like the situation doesn't matter, but it was, it was dumb, it was so stupid. I was like, oh my God, what are you doing? I now want to kill you, I absolutely want to hurt you, and we all missed the light and whatever. And but I did that same. I said that same, effectively the same thing, to my friend that was in the car at the time. I was like, hey, well, I guess we were just meant to be here for a minute, you know, and um, but gosh, that's hard.

Speaker 1: 11:49

Yeah, you know I like to listen to Rick Warren and Rick said he has the same issue. I mean, I was reading another Christian novel the other day a guy getting into the same exact subject Matt about drivers that are in the left lane, so it must be a common theme and what Rick was saying was hey, that scripture passage that you wanted to memorize this week, just have that off to the side. So when you do catch that red light, you start to review that scripture passage. That's what God's doing. He wants you to learn that passage. So pick a passage a week so that every time that you're sitting at that red light you can look at that passage and guess what? That light's going to turn green before you know it. So I don't think that your struggle with traffic is unique, but I do know that's how God works and he needs to slow us down. And sometimes the devil's in the details, huh.

Speaker 2: 12:57

Sometimes the devil's in the details. Huh, man. Well, we were talking about my back. Pain was kind of going away and yours is picked up. I feel like that's another way that God for me it sounds crazy, but for me that's a reality of. I feel like God does things Because I can hurt my back without doing anything at all and I'm like what's, why is this happening? What's going on? And then I'll like something huge will happen in my life. Some huge things have happened in my life in the last couple of months, in the middle of a real struggle. Boy, there's a fundamental truth Like you know, the learning's always in the struggle, right? But I swear, sometimes I'm like I think it's intentional, I think god's like hey, guess what?

Speaker 1: 13:45

we're gonna stop there's that pause button again yeah, there's that pause button, so what so?

Speaker 2: 13:55

so, where is the battle?

Speaker 2: 13:58

Is going to become a mantra for for me, for us, probably, and and if you're listening to this, you can write that on a sticky note in your car and wherever. It's like the battle is not against the flesh and the blood, but it's in the spiritual realm, the armor of god we keep, we keep really focused on. You're going to hear lots about the armor of God from us, and I guess I just didn't realize that at what level that's true, or you know what I think I thought for most of the last 20 years. I would say I thought, yeah, there's a battle in the spiritual realm and it's going on while the battle on earth is going on. So like, while I'm fighting against these humans, there's also a spiritual battle going on. I think that's the reality that I've been living in, and now I'm like you know what? There's kind of only the spiritual battle, like there's stuff happening on the earth, but whatever's happening on the earth is just a manifestation of what's happening in the spiritual world, and that that's a new understanding for me.

Speaker 1: 15:09

I look forward to us digging into it. I mean, it's Ephesians six and we're going to. We're going to dive into those verses as we go through the days and weeks and months. But imagine if you were handed a Superman cape outfit early in life and you were told you would have superpowers. Every time you put it on In your entire life, you just kept looking at it. It was in the closet and you just left it there and you're like no I don't believe that.

Speaker 1: 15:42

Well, the word of god is more powerful than any fictional superman cape it's. And where I'm going with that is we have the armor of god, and a lot of times we just remember it as great scripture. We don't put ourselves virtually putting it on each day. And that armor is so well needed to get through these days of where's the battle? The battle is within all of us. It's in our minds, it's in our hearts, it's in our physical bodies when we're getting beaten down. It's. It's in the car as we drive to work. It's around the people that we work with. It's within our families, it's within friendships. So I say we have to have that armor on all the time, take it off at night so we lighten our load and wake up and put it back on again I'm glad you brought it back to armor of god, which I think we're going to talk about every day now, forever, but uh, but I think you know what.

Speaker 2: 16:53

What I want to do, continue to do in my own life, and I want everyone who listens to these conversations to understand is to be able to make the bridge from metaphor to reality, because we hear all these things about the armor of God's a really good example Like if you've been a Christian for five minutes, you've heard that language, but and you hear, you know swords and helmets, and like, okay, cool, that all sounds great. But to, to understand at a heart level what Paul meant by all of that and how it actually translates into my life today, on a Monday, on the earth, in traffic. That's the, the difficulty, you know, and the and this thing that I'm talking about, that I think has sort of endless layers, where you're like, okay, I understand that at level 27, but I don't understand it at level 28. And you know, hopefully God will make that clear to me which is probably as much a function of our willingness and openness as anything. And uh, that's what cracks me up is the discovery of the constant.

Speaker 1: 18:16

Next level, it's in that where we learn. And as far as far as going back to that armor, that armor we just have to realize is that when paul was teaching us how to arm ourselves, he knew what we were going to go through when I get. But I, I am finding more comfort every day because I'm repeating that prayer every day now.

Speaker 2: 18:59

Yeah, well, and so there's. You wake up. Today you were a 10, but you go through your process. We were talking earlier about focusing on process versus outcomes. But you get up, whether it's a 1 or a 10, when you open your eyes. You go through the process that you've learned, that you've disciplined yourself to that, you've the routines that you've built and the put on the armor of God in the morning and you know, clarify your understanding of Scripture and connect with the Lord and hear what he has to say to you, that the morning and all the things that you do, and I think.

Speaker 2: 19:45

But then you step out into the world and it's so quickly derailed into like, oh wait, my battle's against that person and I think just recognizing that that's even happening is such a massive turning point and go oh wait, my battle's not against that person. I've got to find my way back to clarity on where the battle is and take the next step and like that to me is just this big for me, a big shift in understanding. And you know I I always love, you know, conversations like this where, because I'm like I don't, I don't care, I'm like I'm not proud, I'm like, you know, it doesn't bother me to go like, hey, I just discovered this, um, but I think it's like a fundamental thing that that, if you make this jump in your life and like constantly self-arrest and go like my battle is not against these other humans, and then it's like, okay, well, what do I do with that? And I've also learned. It's like go back to the Lord, like speak to the Lord about it. Like what am I not understanding about this Lord? Speak to the Lord about it.

Speaker 2: 20:58

Like what am I not understanding about this Lord? Like I think it's this, but I want you to tell me what it really is, because it's probably not Going back to like I said where and you said and you heard what. So like it's not what I said, it is not what you think and what you received is not what I was sending. So it's like that disconnect is there all the time and the only answer is take it to the Lord.

Speaker 1: 21:29

Amen.

Speaker 2: 21:33

So guys ask yourself constantly today, where is the battle? And the answer is it's always in the spirit room. Whatever's happening in the physical world is just a manifestation of whatever's happening in the spirit world. And, um, you know this concept of spiritual battle that I was thinking about this too, joe. I want to talk about this, the uh.

Speaker 2: 22:00

Most people, if they acknowledge a spiritual battle at all, think that it comes and goes like at this moment I'm in a spiritual battle and then it's going to go away. And I mean, you know, and I know that it's just like constant, never ending every minute of every day from the minute you open your eyes, never ending every minute of every day from the minute you open your eyes, like constant battle. And so I think that's a really another really important thing that I think that people need to break in. Their, in their theology and their understanding is like it's not like, oh, I'm in a spiritual battle right now and it'll be over in a minute. It's like you're going to, we're doing this until we, until we go to be with jesus.

Speaker 2: 22:42

And, as importantly, the and you and I talked about this a lot in the last week is like the closer you are to victory. The closer you are to being on your purpose, on your mission, being effective in the world and whatever it is that God's put on your heart to do, the closer you get to all of that, the more the battle is, the harder it's going to get, the more it's going to look and you're going to go. How did that thing happen in the physical world? That looks so insane? Why is that happening? And if you feel like you're getting closely aligned to your purpose and your direction and your outcome, those things are happening because that's the spiritual battle.

Speaker 1: 23:48

Exactly those things aren't happening, because that's the spiritual battle, exactly.

Speaker 1: 23:50

Yeah, as you were talking just now, I wrote down the rest of what, uh, all the who, what, where and why, you know. And you asked, you know this morning, where's the battle? And I, and I saw it as what's the battle and I think everyone could sit down and write who's my battle with, where is my battle, what is my battle and why am I battling it. And if they wrote it all down, if they just paused and just do, just do what I just did, I mean I just wrote it down and, as I look at it, it, as I wrote it down, who are we battling and why, and what is it that we're battling? And then, of course, it all comes back to the evil. One is going to be in all of those places if we allow the evil one to take a foothold, but the one that's bigger and better and has already won the war, won the battle, defeated the evil one, our Christ, our Savior, is there before him saying go ahead, you can beat them up.

Speaker 2: 25:03

But they're still mine. Nice Dude. All right guys, thanks for being with us on the Certain Success Podcast. Go fight the spiritual battle, we'll see you back here real soon, see ya.