Truth Moments: Episode 18

♪ MUSIC ♪ Welcome back. At it again. Truth Moments. Got the momentum going. Early morning. Early. You just gotta get up and do it. You know what I say, this is what I say when I'm laying there, very tired, right? Oh yeah. My alarm goes off at 4.45. Mine 4.30, yeah. I don't get out of bed until about 5.05. So you're a 20 minute snoozer? Well the thing is... You can't hit it twice because the iPhone will do a 10 minute snooze. No, I don't even snooze it. I'm up. I just lay on my back because I can't sleep on my back. So if I hit my alarm off, I'll lay on my back and then I just process like... That reality shit. Yeah, just like processing. I do this, I'll wake up and then I start to try to contemplate in my day, right? My flesh just starts immediately crying out, saying please cuddle back up, you know? And it's even worse too when you have a baby in the bed. Oh yeah, see, we don't do babies in the bed. You know, but anyways... You'll regret that one day. I've been trying, but anyways. You're soft.

Yeah, I am soft. Anyways, but I say this to myself, maybe I should switch this to something about Jesus and God. But the real thing that I say to myself is do not discount the power of what that Folgers will do when it hits your lips, right? But as I just get up and drink the coffee and I get up dead and then I get this cup in me, man, and I just knock that back and it flushes right through me, dude. You know what I'm saying? I release, you know, whatever just happened the previous day and then I'm here, man. And then we're good. Yeah. Yeah, I just, I lay there and I always forget to change my, my coffee timer is set for 5 45. Oh, and so when my alarm goes off at 4 45, I don't want to get up. I don't want to get up before the coffee is brewed because then I have to stand there and wait on the coffee, wait to be brewed, wait. And so I need to change my timer on my coffee. I could get up early. And we hope you're getting up and we hope you're drinking, getting at it, whatever it is that you're drinking. They've got all kinds of stuff. Now I don't even keep it anymore. No, no. Very few places have Kifi. We had a guy, we had a guy at our, we had a, we had a great event yesterday at our new church building. We had a Memorial Day celebration there. Did you know that guy? No. Oh, well you just came up.

He already introduced himself to me. I was giving him some stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I just see you call him by name. And I was like, Oh, okay. You know, we had a great event in new church building Memorial Day is, is one of our biggest a big barbecue and we have a lot of people come out and, uh, and we had, and we had some, one guy came to me and he, he's fresh out of prison and, and, uh, he's excited and he's getting, he's getting involved. He's getting plugged into church and inside of his backpack, you know, he had a million different things, sweet and low and a bag of Folgers, uh, you know, the Bible, he had what you leave the joint with still in his backpack. And a part of that was, uh, part of that was a bag of coffee and he was like, yeah, man, you know, I got the bag of coffee on deck. It was like, he was acting like he just wanted to give me a shot, right? Yeah. And I'm like, I'm like, bro, I was like, dude, this is just, we just drink this in the morning time. Do you know what I mean? It's like, Oh, like, yeah, but anyways, man, we're, we're still deep in the, we're not even deep yet. We're, we're, we're still still in the creeping into the book of Acts chapter two and we're going through it. And if you, if you haven't already, uh, you need to please, uh, pausing these, um, go back and watch the message and go in and watching the message first, getting the message, uh, soaked in and saturated into your heart. And then, uh, coming in here and, uh, joining us in a group discussion about it and that you would, um, hope and hopes take from your tablet, uh, to an actual circle in your pod or, um, however that may look that you would, uh, get around some godly men and, um, that

you would have these type of discussions too, and let the sermon not just be something that you watch for 40 minutes and then, um, go in one ear and out the other. But it would be actually something that would be implemented and practiced into your life because there's a lot of meat and potatoes, man Yeah, there really is and yeah, somebody was telling me Sunday, this is a gear shift, but somebody's telling me Sunday Reach has been slacking on posting their messages but Is what Pando has done? is They have now set it up to review Everything you post and so I think they have some AI feature that scans your your your content because it's looking for shoutouts and Inappropriate language all stuff. So apparently people have posted Stuff that they shouldn't have posted and that's why It's doing that. So hopefully These messages don't post before The other messages, but there has been a couple day delay Sometimes and in most in the sermons Yeah so like if they get posted Monday which they get posted every Monday morning Diane post them and Then it's to where it might be Wednesday sometimes before it hits But anyways meat and taters there watch what you say, I know But Now there is some meat and potatoes man, there's some good content I've really enjoyed going through and digging into some of this stuff and Developing the messages and I truly believe that if we just if we if we dig in and we we grasp Some of the principles that are in here man. It could really change our walk. Yeah, you know and how that looks like moving forward Well, you know the

Seed what you said about the seed? Yeah, and the seed isn't doesn't change the seeds the same. Yeah, the seed ain't bad It's the environment surrounding the seed That's good, yeah, there really was I I never had really looked at it like that, you know Let me give you an example so even still and walking with the Lord and and and being Do doing all the things There is I have in my house a one of those digital photos for a photo For a frame frame. Yeah, so it's a frame and you upload pictures to it through your Wi-Fi and it just does the photos yeah, and so it I uploaded it maybe three four years ago type deal and And I look at it now and and I'll be in the living room it'll just kind of it just changes pictures and I looked at it the other day and I looked at our wedding photo and Out of the people on these steps right out here. I looked at our wedding photo and There's maybe 10% of the people that are still there at my wedding You know and it was like what what what what is that? Right? You know, like what is that? it wasn't a Even still and I think this is like people identify like like it like they think it's just like such an extreme like what what is a What does the environment look like like extreme wise like they're like, oh, that's that person's on drugs and in doing this That's obviously bad, right? We get we understand that. Yeah, but there's also like a Pruning that goes on in your life, you know And it's like you just you're staying faithful and you're doing the things and God starts to he starts to cultivate that environment You know, I mean, it's not it's not so much of like decision-making that you're doing where you're like, you're bad. You're cool You're great. You know, I mean like where you're pointing these fingers in your in your and you're you're deciding to pick Picking shoes and cultivated out. It's like God's gonna cultivate it out in your heart There there's some great people that they're still great people. Yeah, there's still good people So all those people that are my way none of all of them were on drugs and do bad people, right? They're good people in Christ too, and they do the things but it's just like God's gonna Center those people around you

God's gonna place those people around you and he's gonna decide to shift it and do these things and some people are are meant To stay there. Some people are good for a season And they're good for a season and they're good for a reason and then they move around but what's most important throughout all of that transitioning and Trusting it in that is that knowing that God's sovereign and that that he is in control and of those things, you know I think very dangerously we cling to that those relationships and don't allow those soils to be shifted around in the surroundings to be shifted from God because because we Believe like no, no, no, this can't be right. Yeah This can't be right, right, you know, I mean when I got to looking at the seed The seed isn't bad. But how are you conditioning the soil like how are you conditioning? what what what's taken place in that seed and you know, I think about it sometimes it's like You know, I I referenced in the message like how the thorns, you know, Jesus talks about how the thorns come in and And corrupt, you know the the soil and choke out the seed and the growth of the seed and You know, I I didn't really exegetically get into Second Kings 17, but you know the people of Israel was being conditioned by the culture and the environments Around them and I think sometimes we we under value. I think we underestimate The the the value of the the culture and the condition of the soil around us and we will look at The fruit of a harvest and blame the fruit But neglect the condition of the soil When there is things that we could do differently and some of that is hanging out with different people not being conditioned by culture not being conditioned by the values of People and we even looked at like what Paul talks about inside the church, you know and and what how you know being not being Removed from believers who participate in certain things and and not allowing because I think in the church world And and I even know and in prison

But in the church world a lot of people It works two ways, right? So like out here a lot of people will think that Because these people are in church That it's cool that it's okay that I can hang out with them because I met him at church And and then the next thing, you know, like they're kicking it together And they're they're they're doing things that we shouldn't be doing together and and will they were in church well, Paul talks about that the thing that I've noticed and in prison is a lot of them won't go to church Because some of these things so then they cling to just a device which well I kind of talked about that Sunday too of just being a digital disciple of just being somebody that just participates on here, but don't have no fellowship with other people and You know again, it's the soil. It's like how do you condition the soil of your heart to to best receive? well, I don't think I Mean some of those people that you were referencing some some of you know, some some of the people That are around us never grow not not us just like in a hole Never grow because we can't be corrected. Yeah, we can't be led. We can't be we're not teachable We don't allow and so like that's the good thing about a body because if I have brothers around me, bro I should only be able to veer off so far. Yeah, I mean like very I mean like, you know, like if you're on a highway Nowadays, maybe some of you haven't been on a highway in a very long time But if you're on a highway now, they have these Cuts in the concrete that as soon as you get off. It's and I mean it'll I it's it's it's a wake strip You're like wait, it's but it's made to wake you up. If you fall asleep Yeah, that's what your friends should be bro. Like if you are just barely veering over the line Like somebody's like this. There's no there's no professional athlete, right? There's no professional athlete that's not having a trainer take them to the next level Oh, yeah No, no No person on this earth is saying is is is saying is is is training to the extent where they are so

Isolated right that they're they're gaining in their training right down and in discipleship This is what this is what we believe in. This is what we we practice and we implement in our spiritual disciplines Through our teaching and through our discipleship is that we allow we take you to that place So I go to give an example if we're if you're a runner and and you've ran only a 730 mile Okay, 730 is it's as far as you've gotten Okay, and and a brother comes along and a brother says here's how we can get your 730 mile to a 6-minute mile Okay, we're gonna change your diet. We're gonna change the way you eat We're gonna change the shoes that you're running in and I'm gonna pace you. Okay I'm gonna show you how to how does how to pace out a quarter mile and then we start to train him, and a brother takes you this way, and you're going. And so after a period of training, whether you liked it or not, or you felt it or not, or however it happened, right? A period of training goes through where you just do it because someone's saying this is the way to do it. Yeah. That's what it sometimes boils down to. We chase this feeling so often. And you do need to meet with Jesus. There is intimacy involved. And it's not legalism by checking all these boxes, but someone has to take you there. So a trainer helps you get to that six-minute mile. So hear me on this. So you've got to the six-minute mile. Just let me give you the correlation here.

Just as though a brother has helped you get into your word, held you accountable, walked you through the gospel, you know, was with you through all these steps. You've got to a certain place. At that six-minute mile and through those disciplines, all of a sudden, that's when your soil and your heart starts to change, right? And through that, you've got to this place. Now you're receiving and you're feeling intimacy with God and your soils differ and the sea that's still the same, the same Bible that you were reading before is now resonating different with you now. And it's transforming, it's working on your heart. Okay, great. That's the place you need to be. What's scary is, for the one that's never been to that place, because what you can do is you know what that place is like. So as a runner, you know what that six-minute mile is. When you start to lose pace off that six-minute mile and you start to fall back to a seven-minute or even that 730 mile, you know how to get back there. How do I get back there? Okay, I remember what I did. I started digging in, I started doing these things. Someone has to help take you there. Someone has to help take you there. You have to know what that is because there's gonna be times in everyone's life

that you're even, there's no one, there's no one that doesn't say, man, I need to get back. I need to get back to that. There's gonna be a drifting and a whoo and a whoo and there's no one that's just through it, right? Every human is fleshly putting this, it's this, it's this. If you have, and I read this quote, I gotta pull this up. I read this quote, there's some pastor and 1723, okay, is when he wrote this and it just resonated with me so hard. He wrote a book called, it's right here. His last name is Edwards and I don't really know exactly what the book was called. Oh, Resolution 56, you ever heard of this? Okay, and he said, he opens the book up and he says, resolved never to give over nor in the least to slacken my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be. And it's like, that's what it is. It's the resolve to never give over nor in the least slacken my fight with my corruptions. Now, however unsuccessful I may be, I'm choosing as a man of God, I'm choosing that no matter what happens, I'm not gonna give up. And I'm gonna allow some brothers to help take me there and that my situation would change.

And a byproduct of that, what happens? Your surroundings change, man. Your surroundings change, you level up. You level up and some people decide that that's not them because that's not their time. Say you're that guy that's running that six minute mile now. You've made it, right? You've made it to where you're doing that. You've even hit a 5.58, you know, like you've beat the six minute. But you start slacking at some capacity and you get back to a seven minute mile. If all, because at that point, if you are at a seven minute mile and you have been lacking in your disciplines, you are most likely not going to hang out with the six minute coach. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And so now that you are at seven minutes, most likely you're gonna hang out with eight to 10 minute kind of people. Yeah, yeah. And then is what happens is those eight to 10 minute people will make you feel like your seven minute mile is adequate. Yeah, yep. But it's not because you was at six minutes, but now you're at seven minutes. So quit hanging out with eight and 10 minute people.

Hang out with five minute people, people that's gonna stretch you, people that's gonna pull you, people that's gonna, because that's to me what helps cultivate the soil. When you allow people in that help turn over and pull out the thistles in your. soil and say, hey, that's going to choke you out there. Hey, that's going to choke you out there. Hey, that's going to choke you out there. And then allow yourself to be around some people that are going to call you higher. It's painful. It hurts our pride, you know, it's not, it's not nice. It's not fun when you do something that is against what you should be doing and somebody corrects you on it. You know, it's not, it's not very fun. But to me, that's what the body of Christ is all about. That's what the body should be. That's what we should be doing. And, you know, it just, to me, when you're looking through some of what Acts 2, you know, right there is talking about, I mean, Peter says, save yourself from this crooked generation. That means save yourself from every concept that the culture says is okay. Every moral standard that culture says is okay. Every religiosity moment that says, hey, you've checked enough boxes. Get rid of all that.

Save yourself from this crooked generation and devote yourself, be added to the body, devote yourself to the apostles teaching of the word and to the fellowship and to the breaking of bread and to prayer and watch what your life will do. And we're going to get into that in the next coming weeks of like, what does that look like? What does that body look like coming together? You know what I mean? You know, and just having that Memorial Day picnic, if you will, barbecue, whatever, it allowed me to see some people I hadn't seen in a while, you know, and one thing that I'm kind of sad, I am very saddened by is this mindset of like, that you have time later to maybe work on those things. That mindset is so deadly, dog. Like, it just, it hurts my heart to see that like, there's so much compromise in someone's heart that they're like, that their resolve, their resolve, which means their understanding, they're okay with is that like, later on, I'll hopefully clean that up. You know what I'm saying? No urgency, no urgency in that. And that is what- There's no saving yourself. It's like, maybe one day it'll just be taken. Yeah, like, yeah, like- I will have to deal with it one day. I'll clean that up, like, that will get cleaned up later.

And it's like, right, you know, and it's like, no, dude, hold on a minute. Like, I personally, like, I know that walking with Jesus and Jesus is cleaning us up, and I know about spiritual progression, but there's nothing that I want to put on the back burner and just say, God, you just, you know, I'll just get to that whenever you say get to that. You know, and it's like- It's like, he said get to that 2,000 years ago. He did, dude, he did, man. It's like, why put off today, or why put off tomorrow what you can do today? Exactly, dude, and it's like, and here we are years later, and I'm looking at some people, and nothing's changed. Yeah. Nothing's changed, you know what I mean? And it's like, dang, dude, I want to see, you know, some transformation happen. And it'll be people with just flat out potential, bro. Lots of it. I mean, flat out potential. I mean, and it's like, man, it's like the parable of the talents, you know, just straight squandering it, bro. You know, and it's like, man, it's sad. It is sad, you know? And so it's like, what do you do?

Because there's a period of time that goes by, and people spend five to 10 decades in the same rut, dude. Decades in the same rut, dude. Same rut. You know, and it's like, I want to keep progressing. I look, I love the reflection of my life. I love to reflect on it. That's where I see God the most. I see him in the rear view, man. I'm not always seeing him right present. I'm trusting and believing him in the moment. I'm not really, I'm not too much of a future guy. I'm not really seeing him, you know, I'm not seeing that portion. I'm a journaling, reflecting guy. And I'm like, man, when I need to get back to really trusting in God and knowing how good he is, I go back to my journals, and I look at the reflection of him, and I see a progression. And I want to continue to see that progression, dude. Whatever he's dealing with me on, I want to put that, whatever I think, Was it back here? I want to put it on the front burner, man. Hey, cook that. Did they get the boiling on that? I know we were talking. We were talking the other day just about a couple individuals. But and in that we were we were talking about how it was it was a few people that that was in our conversation

that had went back to their old life. Right. And you and I were talking Sunday, actually, and was like, man, it's crazy because that was us. Yeah. You know, that that was us of just continuing to go back to the same thing. And it's like now that resolve is to never go back to who I used to be. You know, and and you hear a lot of people fresh out, fresh out of addiction, fresh out of prison, fresh out of whatever that will say, oh, I'm not going back to that. I'm not getting high anymore. And it's like, yeah, I believe that 10 years from now. But it's like, bro, I don't want to ever get to a place where I'm just. Comfortable, you know, to where I want to look I'm like you, I want to look back at my life and be like, you know, I think of King David before he was ever king, you know, when he was sent to take some some food to his brothers that were all big and mighty warriors for King Saul. And he walks up and he hears he hears the king make an offer, you know, to whoever kills this giant will get my daughter, you know. And and I've always thought about that. I preached this a really long time ago. But a shepherd boy doesn't have airship to the king. Right. In order to be a king, you have to be a prince. Like you have to have had and Saul had Jonathan. So technically, Jonathan should have been king. Right. Right. Well, with with David coming in. When he defeated Goliath, that gave him airship to the royal family. So now because he married in, you know, he could be king. Right. Right.

Well, in that moment, whenever he was walking into that battle. His brothers were putting him down. All of these other people were putting all of the people that was around him. Why? Because it goes back to exactly what we were talking about. If the people are around, you can't go as far as you can go. They'll bring you back down to where they're at. You know what I mean? Yeah. And David is what David did was he used those moments like we just talked about. Yeah. And is what because they was like, what are you doing? This is this guy is way bigger than you. Yeah. This battle is bigger than you can't go plant that church. You can't go start that ministry. You can't go start that business. You can't go do that. And he said, I've defeated the lion. Yeah. And I've defeated the bear with my bare hands. Right. Who is this uncircumcised Philistine? Yeah. He remembered what God had did in the past. And he looked back and he's like, God delivered me back there. Why would I listen to the taunting of the voices in my head right now when I know that I can go forward? I know that I can conquer this thing because those battles were bigger than this battle. You know what I mean? But what he what he has at that moment, right, is he has momentum. Yeah, he has momentum because he's saying, I've defeated the bear. I defeated. Right. So he's already got some victories up underneath his belt to where he's rolling. Yeah. And that's the that's the portion of the when do you go back? It's the it's the it's when you stop the momentum. And when you stop getting those wins, dude, you start you start

you start getting more defeats than you get wins. Yeah. The momentum stops. That's that's that's how everything goes. Here you are paroled out and you've got that day and you've got your bag and boom, you're boom, 12, 12. And however it is that you get out, man, Lord willing that you step out of those gates, you walk out. However it is, you have some momentum. Why? Because you just got to win. Yeah, you did get a win. Well, and the thing is, is like if you think about let's just keep using King David. Where was King David developed? Right. Where did he even get those wins? Yeah, he was he was on the backside of a mountain, bro. Yeah, he was he was in the valleys, bro. Slinging and banging stones. You know, he was slinging stones for it. You know, slinger. But but the thing is, is like he was he was hidden, bro. Right, right. He was. and to the point that his father overlooked him. When Samuel came to anoint him as king, he went through all these big warrior brothers. There ought to be another one out here, man. And Jesse said, no, no, we ain't got no more. And then Samuel said, no, there's gotta be one. He said, oh. You talking about big boy? Yeah, I got a little shepherd boy out here on the backside of the mountain.

He said, call for him. And then right in front of everybody, he pours a flask of oil all over him as if just a little dot wasn't enough. He had to just rub it in in front of everybody else that this little kid is gonna be. And it just like, what if the moments that some of us are in right now are those developing moments on the backside of a mountain? And the victories that you are gaining right now in your valley may be the very thing that God could use whenever you come up to the uncircumcised Philistine. Because that uncircumcised Philistine's coming. But how are you gonna be prepared? And what you don't want is you don't want these voices to continue to influence the decisions that you're making to try to talk you out of fighting a battle that may get you into the very place that God is calling you to be. Because had David never fought that battle, he would have never been king. We would have never had first and second Samuel. We would have never had a lot of the book of Psalms. We would have never had, and of course it was God's will, so it all worked out. But same thing for our lives, you know? And so that's why. That in the backside of the mountain, right? And people may, they may watch the sermon,

they may tap into the church. I don't know how many people personally know your story very well, but when I think of that backside of that mountain, I hear you talk, I think about a young Adam Brown, right, in that prison cell, right? A young Adam Brown in that prison cell, that's the backside of that mountain slinging rocks. Getting out and sleeping on a sister's couch, trying to make it, you know what I'm saying? And you ain't have handouts, bro. No, bro. Got it out the mud for real. You know what I'm saying? There's some people that are blessed enough to really get some advances, man. But it does, it kind of chokes me up a little bit, just thinking about it, man, because there's a testimony of somebody really breaking a family generation of poverty. Curses, yeah. And curses and things, and really, and if you could, if, I get the privilege and honor of viewing what amazing things God has done in your life, but that's from the backside of the mountain, dude. And that's from taking the momentum in those victories, that momentum, and just not allowing that momentum to stop, dude. At all.

Just don't let it stop. No. That's on us, like, that's on us to not let it stop. Like, we choose how the momentum goes, because it is our decision if that momentum's gonna stop. Because why? Because the giving up is what stops the momentum. It's not the victories, dude. It's not how many times is God gonna come through, man? How many moments, like, boom, am I gonna get her back, and get the kids, and get the job, and get the hourly bonus, and do all those things? Like, that's what we're looking for is victories. But God's like, hey, I'm gonna give you these, and how many of these are you gonna keep doing before you give up, right? You did this, and you didn't give up. I didn't get this. Will you serve me even if you don't get it? Man, you didn't get that. You looked for that, that job didn't come through, but you didn't give up. See, we're viewing it as a defeat, our worldly, our finite mind, our fleshly mind's viewing it as a defeat, when God's viewing it as a trial, and then the effort, and the faith that we put in is the result of if the momentum continues in our life or not, you know?

And that's what it boils down to. Anyone that went back, you can look back and reflect, just as we're looking back, reflecting on God's goodness, and his faithfulness, anyone that's a re-offender right now can look back on their life and say, I see where it went wrong, because at that point, I gave up. I started to give up. I started to shift, my mind started to shift, and my momentum was just rolling like this. I think about, as we were talking, I was thinking, what if, how many times do you think that David probably lost a sheet? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And what if the times that the lion and the bear came into the flock, how many did it kill? Yeah. It doesn't say. Yeah. We don't know. We don't know those details. Why? Because David didn't focus in on that perspective. Because Hattie, here's how that story goes. We would have never heard about the victory of the lion and the bear. We would have heard about the casualties. And how many times do we hear that story?

Dude, every Sunday, bro, we hear a casualty. We hear a casualty of, well, I haven't been able to see my kids in six years. Well, my baby mama did this to me. Or, well, my son's dad did this to me, or whatever. And we hear the casualties. But if you look at it, if you shift your perspective and look at it, because you know what? I went six years without seeing my son. You went a lot of years without seeing your kids. But now on the backside, and I even remember walking through that with you after I had walked through that myself, of just wait. And now looking back on that, you could proclaim the victory of the stone being thrown at the freaking giant, you know, but as you're walking through it. But if all we focus on is the casualties, bro, we'll never see the victory. You know, and it's like, dude, how devastating. And you know what's even more, here's our more reality, is that living a life of sin for years, you've got casualties coming, dude. Oh, bro. Man, they are coming. Dude, you're focusing on them. There's very many earthly consequences for what you have done in your life, for me in my life. I've faced lots of earthly casualties because of the earthly consequences that I am facing.

Man, you don't just demolish people's lives. You don't go through and tear people's lives up. You don't go through and do these things for all of this amount of time and split all this stuff up. And then all of a sudden, you're upset by the fact that this life is happening to you. Dude, you got that coming. And if you don't understand you got that coming, you're in a bad position. And it's like, yeah, your circumstance stinks. It's not good. But God is still the same, man. He's still faithful. And it's like, that's what we're clinging on to. And that's about the victory, dude. The word that comes to mind is resilience. You know, I think that we need resilience because when you're walking out the casualties, it's hard to be resilient. You know, you want to fold. You want to go back to the coping mechanisms that we used to have. We want to go back to these other methods of our flesh and different things. You know, I talked to a brother not too long ago, been down 30 years, you know, and was trying to make mends of everything that had been destroyed. And it was like, dude, you know what? You just got to walk this stuff out, man.

You just got to keep pressing in. Don't let that stuff set you back because in reality, I've seen this too often is we get out and we try to take all of these consequences that we have brought destruction in our life with and we try to just mend them immediately. And then what happens is we don't have the capacity to do that. And then when it don't work out that way, we fold. And I have seen too many men and women go back to that life and it's like, hey, get out. And that's why I lived on my little sister's couch, bro. Don't quit. Yeah, just keep pushing. Just don't quit. You know, keep pushing. Keep being resilient. Keep pressing into the things of God. Get connected to a local church, bro. I don't care if it's older white people that talk religiously, that don't know how to handle a tattooed freak that's been in prison for freaking 20 years. Like, I don't care. Just get connected. They will love you eventually if you show them that you have the heart of Christ and you want to grow. They will love you and they will love you brokenly. But I know, I went to a small white rural church, bro. And because that's just where my family went.

And so I went and I got connected and yeah, there was some offensive things said and I probably said some offensive things because I'm a little raw, you know? So they're like, oh my God, this guy really isn't saved. You know? And who cares? Just flesh it out, man. You know, get connected to the Bible. So, we didn't go over any questions. But I am uploading the PDF document so they can access it. Go over the questions. You'll be able to see them in the file. And so, dig in there, get some people around, man. Start just talking about the goodness of God and the good things of God. That's what can transpire. Focus, yeah, really, bro. Focus on the victories, not the casualties, and let God grow you. That's good. Father, we thank you. Lord, we just pray that you would just use these moments, these truth moments, to just resonate in the hearts of men and women, maybe men and women that don't even know you, God. Maybe there's some sitting in solitary confinement right now, God, all throughout this country, Lord. I pray that you would use these moments

to just speak to their heart. Let it be a veil that is removed from their eyes, Lord God, that they would just be able to see into the deep things of God, Lord, and just be able to have understanding of some of the patterns that maybe have been made in their life, and that they could just reverse those patterns, Lord, and begin to break those things that have been handed down through the generations, God, and just be the buck that stops here. And Lord, I pray that you would just give them strength to walk it out and encouragement to be to their brothers, Lord God. We just thank you, or sisters, Lord. We just thank you, in Jesus' name, amen. Bless y'all. Yes, sir. Amen.