September 28, 2025 • 56 mins
In this powerful and honest episode, host Bryan Kelley is joined by two Christian men—Connor and Rob—for a deep conversation about biblical manhood in a culture that seems to be redefining it.
This episode unpacks what Scripture truly says about being a man—starting with 1 Corinthians 16:13 and Proverbs 24:5—and challenges the worldly ideals of masculinity that glorify pride, dominance, and self-gratification.
Together, the guys discuss:
- The difference between cultural masculinity and Christ-like manhood
- How Jesus modeled true strength through humility and sacrifice
- The battle men face today in a world that either dismisses or distorts their identity
- What it means to stand firm in faith, lead with love, and live with wisdom
Whether you're a man seeking purpose, a father raising sons, or simply someone who wants to better understand God’s design, this episode offers raw insight, biblical truth, and a call to reclaim the ancient paths of manhood rooted in Scripture.
🔔 Subscribe & share to spread the message of truth and transformation.
Connect with Bryan at storehouseministries.com
Youtube: @simplicityinthejourney
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Bryan (00:06):
Welcome to the testimony podcast.
I'm your host, Bryan Kelly.
I am joined here today by acouple amazing men.
I've got Mr.
Connor over here and Mr.
Rob on my right.
How's it going, guys?
(00:26):
It's going good, man.
How you doing tonight?
Fantastic.
Rob (00:30):
It's going really well.
Bryan (00:31):
I'm excited to be here.
So glad to have you guys.
We are talking today aboutbiblical manhood.
The title of today's episode isMan of God, Reclaiming the
Ancient Paths, and taking a lookat what scripture says about
being a man.
We've got amazing topics toshare tonight.
I'm going to kick it off with alittle bit of a scripture here
(00:54):
to talk about what the Biblesays acting like men looks like.
It's from 1 Corinthians 16 13.
And the scripture says, bewatchful, stand firm in the
faith, act like men, be strong.
And Proverbs 24, 5 says, a wiseman is full of strength.
So 1 Corinthians tells us toact like a man, be strong.
(01:17):
And then the Bible then talksabout what wisdom and strength
looks like as if they're pairedtogether.
So wisdom, in fact, is lookinginto what the word says about
being a man and not letting theculture define manhood.
And so I just want to ask youguys, what does it look like in
today's culture to be a man?
Like what would you say theworld is, you know, cheering be
(01:41):
a man?
This is what it looks like.
Connor (01:43):
I would say one of the biggest things that men cheer
each other on for today is howmany women they can sleep with.
Rob (01:52):
Yeah.
I mean, in my in my opinion,it's almost like they're not
cheering people on to be men.
Uh you know, there's thisthought of toxic masculinity and
that masculinity is, you know,dominance or physical strength
and things like that, which youknow, is definitely not what I
(02:16):
believe masculinity to be.
You know, I'm I believemasculinity to be what Jesus
brought.
You know, he he didn't comewith a sword to dominate, but he
came with a towel to serve andto wash feet and to love and to
literally die to himself and youknow climb up on a tree and
(02:40):
give the ultimate sacrifice.
So the way I see it is it'sthat ultimate sacrifice is what
masculinity is.
But the the way that I remembermy daughter, I think she was um
she went to UCO in probably2022 or something like that, and
(03:00):
she came to me and she's like,Dad, uh you're I just want you
to know you're uh toxicallymasculine.
Like being joking, of course,but she's like, and I was like,
Why do you say that?
And she's like, she's like,Well, because you wear your hat
backwards.
And I was like, hmm.
And so she told kind of laidout this whole class that they
had where that's what they saidthat you know, any kind of just
(03:25):
guy, it seemed like to me, atleast any of my friends were
these toxic masculine people.
Yeah.
Connor (03:32):
So it's uh it's it's tricky out there nowadays, but
for sure the culture um of mentoday is to perpetuate things
that gratify your flesh.
Yeah.
Um it's it's honestlygrotesque, uh, to say the least.
(03:52):
It's definitely not the way theBible teaches us to live our
lives.
Um, I mean, I remember a timenot too long ago, you know, um,
when I was living exactly thatway, and I was pursuing all the
things of the flesh, and in themoment it all felt so good, and
it felt great to have other menthink I was cool for doing it.
(04:13):
That's just kind of howeveryone they're feeding off of
each other in that sense thateveryone wants to one up the
next guy, who can be thecoolest, who can be the
toughest, who's the best atfighting.
That is just totally not whatwe're led to do as men.
We're led to be gentle, slow toanger, um, understanding, but
(04:36):
firm when we believe somethingis right, and um firm when we
believe something is wrong.
Bryan (04:42):
That's so good.
You know, like just listeningto you guys talk, it it feels
like almost the culture isdirecting this aura of wanting
to revert back to childhoodalmost, like like the
glorification of adolescence oreven like pre-pubescence, where
it's like it's all about you,it's about selfish
gratification, it's about youknow just everything that that
(05:03):
you could want and fighting andall that stuff.
But the Bible says actually in1 Corinthians 13, it says, When
I was a child, I spoke like achild, I thought like a child, I
reasoned like a child, but whenI became a man, I gave up
childish ways.
And it's like for some reason,somewhere along the line, the
world started focusing ongetting men to act like little
boys again when that's not whatwe're actually called to do,
(05:26):
right?
Rob (05:26):
Yeah, it's like instant self-gratification.
Like, you know, I have somefriends that they're they're big
on the online community and youknow, they play video games,
and that's kind of their life,you know.
That's what they do.
They they are they're onlinethe whole time.
And just like that, I'm like,you know, I talked to my buddy
the other day and I said, youknow, what what served you in
(05:49):
your 20s, it it's not servingyou in your 30s, and it's
definitely not gonna serve youin your 40s.
You know, you we have to likeget to a place where we're not
just feeding our flesh in ofthis instant gratification and
allow it, you know, to kind oflike sacrifice.
We all have to make sacrifices,right?
So what are the what are thesacrifices that I'm making,
(06:11):
short-term sacrifices for mymedium and long-term goals?
Yeah.
Bryan (06:15):
It's like you become a man when you realize that it's
not all about you and not allabout what you want.
It's about it becomes aboutyour family, your wife, your
kids.
It becomes about everyone butyou, actually.
And real biblical manhood islearning how to die to yourself
and care about the things thatother people care about more
than you.
Um, even to the point of, youknow, Jesus is our ultimate
(06:38):
example laying his life down,and not just for a friend, but
for, you know, people who are atcomplete odds with him, you
know, people that spit on himand hate him and ripped his
beard and you know, cursed him,and this is the creator of the
universe that they're abusing,uh, but he still chooses to lay
his life down because he is thatsacrificial.
Yeah.
So where along the line did wecome up with the fact that being
(07:00):
a man meant it's all about youand how you feel?
Connor (07:04):
I'll tell you probably where it's going left.
It's a lot easier to gratifyyourself than it is to crucify
your flesh.
Yeah.
Uh Galatians 5 24, and thosewho belong to Jesus Christ have
crucified the flesh with itspassions and desires.
That's not an easy thing tofollow, especially when you're
(07:25):
getting you're used to beingtold yes for everything, or not
answering to anyone.
It's a long, it's a longprocess to to iron those things
out of yourself, and it takes alot of discipline.
Um, and it takes it takes Jesusreally in your heart for that
(07:46):
to start to become fruits inyour life.
Bryan (07:50):
Yeah.
I just want to speak toeveryone out there right now who
might not be a believer.
You might be wondering whetheror not this Christianity thing
is real.
If you go back and listen tothe last episode, Connor
actually shared his testimony,and then in episode one of this
podcast, I shared my testimony.
But both of us came out of a uhreally you know terrible
upbringing with just full of uhdrugs and alcohol and wild
(08:12):
living and uh really just kindof grabbing on to things that
would be you know satiating toour flesh and to our our you
know, filling every single voidthat we have in us that we can't
figure out why we feel soempty.
And deep down, I know thatyou're listening right now.
If you don't have Christ inyour heart, if you're not a
believer, you don't havefulfillment, and I know it.
And so you could be sittingthere thinking, well, I have all
(08:35):
these amazing things in mylife, but deep, deep down, you
know how empty you feel when noone's watching, when you're
laying on your bed and you'reall alone.
And so I just want to encourageyou that until you encounter
the love of God, you don'tactually know what you're
missing.
And so God is actually reachingout through this podcast to try
to show you that he loves youso much, he loves you dearly and
(08:56):
wants to guide you into whattrue manhood looks like.
And until I encountered thelove of God, I wasn't able to
love anyone else uhappropriately.
But once I did, it became allabout well, I need to figure out
everything about this Jesus andhow he lived because this is
the only truth I've everexperienced in my whole life.
Rob (09:15):
So yeah, I feel like I I can definitely um relate to that
last thing you said.
Just I remember a time when Ihad a daughter when I was really
young, and then there was atime about five years where you
know I was married, and then Igot a divorce at like 21 or two
or something really early.
(09:35):
And there was just like fiveyears of gratifying, gratifying
my flesh, which I just felt soempty.
Like, no matter how many peatgirls, how many, how many drugs,
how many whatever, I just feltit's like I got more and more
empty over this, and I'm justlike, and I remember looking
around at my friends, I'm like,I'm not this is not who I am,
(09:58):
you know, and it took the uhAquaman, the movie, which is
pretty funny, to take him out touh kind of change to change me,
yes.
And so I I took my daughter toAquaman and I go in there and I
wanted to see it in 3D becauseand I so I took her to 3D and
(10:22):
I'm watching I'm watching uhAquaman and I don't know if you
know the the story, but so thedad is uh the Aquaman's dad is a
lighthouse keeper and his momis like the queen of you know
whatever the underwater world orwhatever.
And so and so when they were uhoh at the beginning of the
(10:45):
movie, he's like he doesn't seehimself as you know he doesn't
know his identity, he doesn'tknow who he is, right?
So that's how I felt for solong.
And he's doing parlor tricks atthe bar, he lets a guy die at
the beginning.
Well, then towards like the endof the movie or middle of the
movie, he gets the king's armoron and he becomes Aquaman.
(11:06):
And I'm literally watching thismovie, and I hear God's voice
as clear as it's maybe notaudibly, but it was so loud in
my heart, and God said, If youwould put on my armor and you
would use my power, you would beunstoppable, like Aquaman.
Like in that in this in thescene, he's like fighting like a
(11:27):
whole army by himself.
Amen.
And I was like, it's likesomething clicked in my head,
and so I was like, I had it's umI had to hear my father's voice
in order to start to see myselfas who I am and really step
into who I can become.
Connor (11:44):
Yeah, so what the Bible says about what we just talked
about is Luke 9, 25, for whatdoes it profit a man if he gains
the whole world and loses orforfeits himself?
You can have everything thatyour heart desires, but you can
have nothing at the same time.
You can be drowning in theworld, and God has so much more
(12:09):
for you, but you're not willingto let go of the things that are
making you drown.
Tangling you up.
Like my version of freedom isthe world's version of bondage,
yeah, it's completely backwards,right?
And my bondage is theirfreedom, you know?
(12:32):
It's uh it's it's crazy.
Bryan (12:35):
Yeah, it's a beautiful truth, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Amen.
That's amazing.
So, you know, my thought aboutuh, you know, this whole topic
is when someone realizes thelove of God for them and who
they are in Christ and all ofthese things, right?
They might have this revelationand they decide, okay, God's
real, Jesus is real, I feel himtugging on my heart, I want to
(12:56):
give my life to him.
There's so many people thatjust have a maybe an emotional
moment with with the Lord, andthey they say, Okay, yes, I
believe I I want to go toheaven, and then they just stop.
And we we have so manyimmature, boyish Christian men
out there because they've nevergone to the source, the word of
(13:19):
God, to figure out exactly whatthe word says and and who the
word says that they are.
And so I feel like that's ahuge piece because we we spoke
first about the people who arelost and maybe don't know
Christ, but the there's alsogoing to be a big subset of
people listening to this thatthey are nominal Christians,
they are just kind of checkingout this podcast, and they've
(13:40):
never really dove into the wordto find out what the word says
about being a man and how do Iactually change, how do I
actually grow, how do I actuallymodel what Jesus is like?
And so I guess that's the firststep is uh is getting into the
word of God to actually figureout what it says, right?
Connor (13:56):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, that's the thefoundation and the truth of
everything.
If you don't have thatfoundation in your life, um
there's a parable he spoke aboutit's what you build your
foundation on.
If you build your foundation onsand, then it'll it'll fall
apart.
But if you build yourfoundation on the rock that is
Him, anything that comes willnot shake your foundation, it
(14:19):
will stand still in all storms.
Rob (14:22):
And I've also heard in you know, it's it's true that in
John, the beginning of John,it's it says that the word is
with God and the word is God.
And so if you can literallylook at your Bible as being with
Jesus, and so if you if I askedyou, hey, you know, even if
(14:42):
you're not a believer, hey,would you like to spend six
months with Jesus and like hangout with him every day and just
get to ask him questions andtalk to him and listen to him,
would you take that opportunity?
And I bet everyone says yes.
And that's exactly what yourBible is.
It's it's literally Jesusspeaking to you, it's literally
(15:03):
Jesus, you know, giving yourevelatory uh uh uh thoughts and
emotions and and things likethat.
Bryan (15:11):
Um so Yeah, the the scripture actually talks about
um the word of God being amirror.
And when you look in and youpeer into it, right, you should
see the face of Jesus lookingback at you and reflecting who
you are in him through everysingle you know word on the
page.
And when you see, when you seethe Bible as the living word of
(15:33):
God, he you know, the logos, um,you know, in the beginning was
the word, and the word was withGod, and the word was God, that
is Jesus Christ Himself is theWord made flesh.
And I remember that wasactually my prayer when I first
gave my life to Christ.
I went on when I called out andI said, God, I I believe and I
want this word to be made fleshin my life.
(15:54):
That was my prayer.
Make this word flesh in mylife.
I want everything in this Bibleto become my reality because I
believed in it.
And uh I think that that's kindof the hunger that we're
looking for.
And if you actually want tochange and transform the world
around you and be a strong, realbiblical man, it starts with
getting planted in the word ofGod.
Connor (16:14):
Yeah.
So, Rob, you were talking aboutbefore we got here, um, the man
who translated the Bible for usso we can read that and learn
about God.
So, why don't you tell thatstory again about that guy?
Rob (16:28):
Okay, yeah.
Uh so the guy is WilliamTyndale, and he is a scholar
from he was born in 1494 inGloucestershire, England.
That may not be pronunciation.
Yeah, that's good.
He basically quoted or hetranslated the Bible from Greek
(16:49):
to English in the 1520s, and atthis time that was a big no-no
because this is you, it was theBible was only supposed to be uh
spoken or ri read in Latin, andthe only ones that were
supposed to know this were theclergy.
(17:09):
And so if you weren't that,then it was like heresy.
Bryan (17:13):
Yeah, it was like a stranglehold on truth.
They didn't want the the actualtruth of the words to get out
into the populace.
Rob (17:18):
Yeah, and so Tyndale is the who we can say is the reason
that we have the Bible in frontof us right now, or or you know,
translated, and and he wasactually strangled to death and
um burned at the stake or burnedburned alive.
Wow.
(17:39):
And so if you think about youknow the way that we follow
Jesus, is like, are we believingJesus or are we are we saying
we believe or are we staking ourlife on it literally?
Connor (17:54):
So it's a good word, staking our life on it.
So um when Jesus em uh enteredthe temple on Sabbath, uh he
came in, and this is thescripture, it's John 2, 14, in
the temple he found those whowere selling oxen, sheep, and
pigeons and the money changerssitting there, and making a whip
of cords, he drove them all outof the temple with the sheep
(18:16):
and the oxen, and he poured outthe coins of the money changers
and overturned their tables, andhe told those who sold the
pigeons, take these things away,do not make my father's house a
house of trade.
Rob (18:27):
A lot of people can see that as you know, this m that's
a masculine trait that he thathe's like domineering and he's
doing these things.
But what it is is he's standingup for what he believes in.
If you saw somebody, you know,like say beating their wife or
or doing something horrible to achild, that's it's not this
(18:50):
like domineering thing to stepin and take care of business.
It's a masculine thing, butit's not domineering in any way.
Bryan (18:58):
Yeah, and it's actually Jesus embodying the word because
it was written about Jesus, thezeal for his father's house
would consume him.
And so when he's when he'smanifesting that, he's actually
becoming the word.
You know, the word is is bebeing made flesh in the temple
as he drives out this uh youknow, this unrighteous activity
because he has a zeal forrighteousness and he's
(19:18):
passionate about it.
Um and so we really have todive into these examples of what
the Bible says about being aman, and and there's no better
example than if you model thelife of Jesus Christ.
If you look at him, thegreatest servant among us, the
greatest leader amongst us, thegreatest teacher amongst us, the
I mean, he literally is theepitome of every single
(19:40):
attribute that we should be.
He's he's the the bridegroom inthe story of you know the the
wedding and the the lamb and thebride all coming together.
Um and so he is the he is theman of man of all men.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, so you know, what elseabout Jesus uh uh attracts you
guys to be like, I want to modelmy life after him.
Connor (20:02):
Well, one of the things that I used to struggle with
before I was saved was I wouldget really angry and I would go
and fight people all the time.
I was always in fights at bars,I was always beating people up.
Um and one of the things thatwas taken away from me when I
got saved was my anger.
There's a there's a lot ofscripture about it, but one that
(20:24):
I really like is Proverbs 1632.
Whoever is slow to anger isbetter than the mighty, and he
who rules his spirit than he whotakes a city.
The thing about coming beingslow to anger, it means being
patient and loving with those uharound you because you are
(20:46):
supposed to be the light.
You aren't supposed to reactthe same way as someone would in
the world.
You are supposed to be ashining example for those around
you, having Christ to shinethrough you.
Um, and if you are quick toanger, just like everyone else,
then what kind of witness areyou?
Rob (21:08):
For me, it's it's the vision and the identity part of
who like Jesus knew who he was.
He that's you know, and I feellike when God spoke to me in
that Aquaman movie, that's how Ifelt like he said, you know,
you are a warrior and you're aking, you just have to put on
(21:29):
the king's armor and be whoyou're supposed to be, and so
and and with his power is thecatalyst, you know.
And so I feel like that theidentity part of it.
I know I'm a king, I know I'mthe priest of my home, I know
that I am a son, you know, thoseare some some things that I
(21:52):
have I've had some very shakyfather figures in my life, and
so there's just I feel likeGod's just kind of adding these
pieces bit by bit, trying tohelp me to see who I am.
So, you know, as Jesus, thatwas his whole mission.
Like I'm gonna basically carryI'm gonna bring on the burden
(22:14):
and the sins of this whole worldso that me and you can live not
only here on earth in freedom,but then eternally li uh eternal
lives in heaven amongst, youknow, the people we love.
Bryan (22:29):
It's like that quiet confidence that like he knew
that he knew that he knew thathe knew who he was in every
situation.
And so there was never a needto get aggressive, there was
never a need to get defensive,there was never because he just
walked in and he was athermostat and everyone else was
a thermometer.
Yeah.
Right?
He walked in and set the tonefor the room, set the set the
(22:50):
stage for every you knowinteraction that he had.
And like so much of manhoodapart from Christ is responding
to you know, every which way thewind blows and every you know
thing that comes at you, andit's almost like you know, so
reactionary.
But once you understand who youare and you're empowered by the
supernatural lifestyle ofChrist, it changes everything.
(23:11):
Living as a Christian isimpossible without the grace of
God and without the Holy Spiritempowering you to be able to do
it.
So everything that we're sayingright now, all of this stuff is
available.
And the moment that revelationcomes to the truth of the word,
then grace meets you to empoweryou to go forth and change.
So, like we're not trying tosay, Oh, you need to change
(23:32):
this, you need to change this.
No, you just have to realizethat what you're doing is not
right.
Here's what the Bible says geta revelation of it and watch
grace manifest in your life insuch a way that it just changes
you.
Rob (23:43):
And and and truth, like be just telling the truth, yes, has
so much of an impact.
Um because the truth sets youfree, right?
The truth literally sets youfree.
You know, I just recentlywalked through something like
this where you know, I had hurtmy knee back a couple months
ago, and I I went to like a headshop and I started taking these
(24:04):
like 70H tabs, which I didn'treally even know exactly what
you know what it was.
I knew that it was gonna be forpain, but I didn't know it was
gonna be crazy addictive.
And so for like maybe two,three months, I took those and I
realized like these are likepain pills, like I have to get
off these.
And and I was I was definitelyhiding it, and I was, you know,
(24:28):
just kind of scared of like, howdo I get off this?
You know, and I I went to mywife, God just put this burden
on my heart just to be honestwith her, and I was honest with
her, and it was like broke thatwhat that was on me, you know,
it was literally the truth, itliterally set me free.
Bryan (24:47):
Yes, yeah, yeah.
The scripture says have nothingto do with the fruitless deeds
of darkness, but rather exposethem because when things are
exposed to the light, gracecomes and all of a sudden you're
free.
And it's the most beautifultruth.
So if like you're hidinganything out there, if you're
living in sin and you're, youknow, you've got this
pornography thing that you can'tget over, or you've got this
addiction that you're hiding, oryou've got these lustful
(25:09):
thoughts that you can't breakhold of, and you're like, God,
why can't I get free from this?
I guarantee you, it's becauseyou're living in secrecy, you're
hiding, and where you're hidingand where you're masking, the
light of God can't shine and thegrace of God can't access.
So, just what Rob wastestifying to take those things
into the light and watch thegrace of God completely set you
(25:32):
free from that stuff.
I have personal testimony justlike that, where it's just
freedom comes once things areexposed.
So good on you, Rob, for that.
Connor (25:41):
You can also walk really, really close to the fire
and not get in it.
But the Bible says this aboutthat Proverbs um 6, 27 through
28.
Can a man carry fire next tohis chest and his clothes not be
burned?
Or can one walk on hot coalsand his feet not be scorched?
So you also need to be reallycareful as a Christian, as
(26:03):
really as a Christian, but asanyone, is what you're
consuming, what you're allowingyour eyes to see.
Um you need to protect youryour eyes are gates and so are
your ears.
And um you need to protectthose at all costs.
And like it says, if it causesyou to sin, you need if your
right hand causes you to sin,you need to cut it off.
(26:23):
Not and that doesn't literallymean cut your hand off, please
don't do that.
Um, but it means take thatthing away from your your your
vision, like don't do itanymore.
Like if Facebook's sending youlusty things, delete it.
If Instagram models are poppingup and you can't stop looking
at it, you need to delete it.
Amen.
Rob (26:41):
Or if you have alcohol problems, uh, you know, get rid
of the bottle of jack.
Bryan (26:48):
Yeah, that one's a little obvious, but yeah, okay, with
you.
Connor (26:51):
But you know, there's things we can do.
Um, you know, God can deliverus from these things, but we
also need to walk in thatdeliverance.
Yes.
You can't um it says if you youget deliverance, right, and
they leave and they go wanderingaround and they can't find
anywhere to go, they'll comeback, and the house is swept
clean, and then they'll bringseven more of their friends.
(27:13):
So basically, if you walk backinto that sin after you've been
delivered of it, seven moredemons are going to come and
join that original demon andhave a demon party, and have a
demon party, and it's gonna geta lot worse for you.
And I've personally seen a lotof people where that's happened
to them where they gotdeliverance, and they come back
(27:34):
a month later, they were evenworse.
Way worse.
Uh, and then you getdeliverance again.
No one would disciple them, noone would walk them through
anything, they would just setthem free about their way,
they'd come back even worse.
And I'm one of these dudesactually, I haven't seen him in
probably five months.
I don't know where he went.
Uh, I'm praying that he's okay.
If you're listening to thisbuddy, reach out, uh Justin.
Bryan (27:56):
I think one of the most important things is to surround
yourself with just like somebrothers and sisters in Christ.
Community is so important.
We have um later in that versethat I sure shared earlier, the
Proverbs 24, 5, it says, For bywise guidance you can wage your
war, and in abundance ofcounselors there is victory.
So, like a real man likesurrounds himself with a body of
(28:20):
brothers or sisters in Christthat can help lift you up and
help, you know, guide you intothese things.
And and like Connor was saying,like, we need to tend our
gardens, right?
So our the original assignmentof man when we were created was
to tend a garden and walk withGod.
And so, you know, right nowthat's that's our call too.
Your heart is a garden.
So tend your garden and stopputting junk and weeds in your
(28:42):
garden and expecting fruit togrow.
Yeah.
Like you just can't do it.
You can't, like you said, youcan't let your eye gate be
swarmed with these inappropriateimages and these news stories
that sow doubt and unbelief andwhatever else, and then expect
in three months from now thatyou're not gonna be feeling
anxious.
Like you're going to if you putthat seed in your heart.
Yeah.
So, you know, be intentional,manage your garden, be a man, be
(29:06):
strong, and be wise.
Yeah.
Rob (29:08):
And surround yourself with the right people.
I've heard you are who you hangout with.
Yeah.
You take the five people you ryou hang around, and you are the
sum total of those five people.
And so if you know they'regodly people seeking God, then
great.
You know, if they are far fromGod and not anywhere seeking
(29:29):
God, then it's time to as hardas it can be step away and and
just pray and look, you know, beopen, you know, go to a church,
go go to a small group or s orfind a house church or something
in order to surround yourselfwith the right type of people.
Connor (29:48):
Yeah.
We were not meant to do thiswalk alone.
No.
We were meant to have a tribe.
We were meant to have peoplelike minded surrounding us at a
Us, encouraging us, and holdingus accountable.
And I also I just that kind ofleads me into what I was gonna
(30:09):
talk about is our ultimatehelper who we're supposed to
that's our original ministry isour wives and our children.
And that's also one of the mostmanly things you can possibly
do is treat your wife and yourfamily with respect.
It says in Ephesians 5,husbands, love your wives as
(30:31):
Christ loved the church and gavehimself up for her, that he
might sanctify her, havingcleansed her by the washing of
water with the word.
One of our highest callings asmen is to steward the woman that
God gives us properly and tolead them closer to Christ.
Yeah.
Not to lead them further away,not to corrupt them in any way,
not to stumble them, but to be amasculine man with your wife is
(30:56):
to lead her closer to Christ.
And wash her in the word.
Yeah.
Bryan (31:01):
And there's actually like there's so many people that you
come across that they sacrificetheir marriages on the altar of
going and doing ministry.
But like they don't realizethat their number one ministry
is in their own house with theirown wife and then their own
kids.
Yeah.
And if you can't get thatright, the Bible says you have
no business managing the Lord'shouse.
Yeah.
So you know, those are strongwords, but those are those are
(31:22):
the words of the Bible.
And it goes on to say that, youknow, likewise husbands live
with your wives in anunderstanding way, showing honor
to the woman as the weakervessel, not like, you know, just
weaker physically, since theyare heirs with you of the grace
of life, so that your prayersmight not be hindered.
So for all of you husbands outthere who aren't treating your
wives well, um, and you'rewondering why your prayers are
(31:45):
being hindered, well, maybethat's the verse that you need
to go and reflect on.
Yeah.
Because when you show your wifegrace and you you come into
unity with your wife, becauseyou are one flesh with her, so
you can't expect to have yourflesh divided in animosity and
anger and hatred, and thenexpect to be able to go to the
Lord and uh have your prayersnot be hindered with with you
(32:07):
know, it's the it's the thedivision between the two of you.
It's not the the Lord isn'tlike you know saying, I'm not
gonna answer you because you'renot treating her right.
It's because your flesh, yoursoul is divided, yeah, and you
can't access the grace of Godlike you should.
Yeah.
Rob (32:25):
And as your your wife is a direct reflection of you.
Just because and just in thefact that she's your other half,
but the way you treat her isthe way she's gonna respond.
And so if you're askingyourself, why is my wife doing
this or why doesn't she do thesethings?
Look at your you'd look nofurther than yourself.
(32:47):
Yeah, you know.
Bryan (32:48):
I think so many more marriages would be saved if
people thought like that.
Yeah.
If they said, Well, what'swhat's going on with me?
What can I change?
Everyone's all about like whatwhat can that person do
differently?
And and it's it's really justlook in the mirror.
Connor (33:00):
It's about searching your heart, and it it says in
the Bible, a house dividedagainst itself will fall.
Yeah, I cannot stand, right?
Cannot stand.
That is truth written in theBible, so there is no other way
around it, men.
All right, you you need to betreating your wife as a queen,
and being the leader of thehouse doesn't mean that you are
ignorantly leading.
(33:23):
All right, that doesn't meanthat she doesn't have a say.
That doesn't mean that youdon't pray together about
things, that doesn't mean thatyou're in control of everything,
all right?
That's it's not control.
Control, Jesus didn't controlus, right?
His love was free will.
He we love him because of whohe is and what he is to us, not
(33:44):
because he controls us, becausethat's not real love.
Real love isn't controlling.
So if you're controlling yourwife and wondering why she's
resentful, why she doesn't wantto sleep next to you at night,
why she doesn't want to holdyour hand, it's probably because
you're acting more like adictator than you are her
husband.
Rob (34:04):
Yeah.
And when you're fighting whenyou're fighting with your wife,
it's like you know, the goal isnot to win.
Because if you keep fightingwith your wife and you keep
beating her, you're you'reliving with a defeated wife, a d
defeated person.
Like we don't that's not thewin.
Yeah, the win is to come to acommon resolution with things.
Bryan (34:26):
Yeah.
That's so good.
And then moving on to later inthe family, you've got you've
got children too.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
And the Bible has a lot to sayabout that.
I mean, Colossians 3 21 says,Fathers, do not provoke your
children lest they becomediscouraged.
And to provoke means to beantagonistic, to be like seeking
out and nitpicking things andyou know, be domineering in that
same spirit of control and anduh you know, all of that.
(34:49):
It's it's saying that yourchildren can become discouraged
and beat down.
And they want, just like yourwife, the kids want a leader to
follow.
They don't want someone barkingorders and being domineering,
they want to see their dad runand they want to follow.
Yeah.
And so, like, every singleleader of of a family needs to
be running after Christ.
(35:09):
And as that man runs afterChrist, man, the family will be
swept up and they'll want to runtoo.
Connor (35:14):
Yeah.
So, like when I see a leader,what what I see as a leader is
someone who is willing to doeverything and anything that
they would ask of anybody else.
Bryan (35:23):
That's right.
Connor (35:23):
And they would be the first one to do it.
Jesus was a humble servant.
I mean, he washed the feet ofhis disciples and he he
ultimately, you know, hesacrificed himself for us so we
could all have eternal life withhim.
And if you're not willing tosacrifice your life for your
family, i.e., like your job, ifthe job is taking away from your
(35:46):
family and it's hurting yourrelationship with Jesus, maybe
that's gotta go.
Maybe you find another job.
Maybe your hobby is becoming anidol in your life.
You know, you're at the golfcourse every weekend, ignoring
your children.
Um uh, it can be hunting, itcan be anything that you do.
Uh man, we have to be reallycareful about what we idolize in
(36:09):
our lives, because there's onlyone true king that we should be
idolizing, and that's Jesus.
That there's nothing else abovehim, and we are all below him
because we are his servantsultimately, and we're
ministering to him too.
He's ministering to us, butwe're also asking him, Lord,
what can we do for you?
(36:29):
How can we move your kingdomhere on this earth?
And we're doing the same thingwith our families.
How can we minister to ourfamilies?
How can we help our familiesbecome better?
Like, what are we doing, Lord,that's making my family unit
stronger?
Rob (36:44):
If you take responsibility for things, that's when you
become a man.
It's not when you get marriedor you become turn eighteen or
any of those things, it's it'swhen you start taking
responsibility.
And so I think that you knowdefinitely carries over with
your children of takingresponsibility not only for you
know provision and things likethat, but they're also their
(37:07):
spirituality.
You know, when you look overand you see your children not
worshiping God in a way thatmaybe you feel like you they
should, or instead of you know,trying to say, Hey, why don't
you do this?
Why aren't you doing that?
You know, you could just showthem and and something a kind of
a hack that I learned um waswhen my daughter was younger and
(37:32):
she wasn't worshiping God,somebody told me that if you
don't worship God outside of thehome and just on Sundays, like
she'll she's not gonna get it.
And so we started doing thatlike once or twice a week of
worshiping God, just putting onYouTube, worshiping, and I mean
(37:53):
it was like maybe like sixmonths, and boom, she's like all
in on worship, and now she'slike a worship leader, learned
to play the guitar, she's likean amazing singer, she sounds
like Shakira, shout out toMikaela, and and just the you
know, those little things oflike okay, well, it's maybe it's
(38:14):
easier to just in the moment belike, Hey, raise your hands,
what are you doing?
Or you could do the harderthing and implement something
that's bringing it back to thetrue heart of worship.
Bryan (38:27):
Yeah, yeah.
It's it's so interestingbecause most of the Bible, you
know, when we hear things aboutrevival and we hear things about
wanting God to pour his spiritout and wanting life to change
and the kingdom of God toadvance, we we have these big
aspirations of it being like,yeah, to everybody out there,
right?
But we don't realize thatrevival starts in our own heart.
(38:49):
And until we get that and wewrap our minds around that, if
if you would, if you listeningright now, if you would get a
hold of this, that if revivalstarts in your heart, it will
consume first and foremost yourfamily, then it will consume
your neighborhood, then it willconsume the church contacts you
have, your friends group, youryour job, your workplace, and
(39:10):
all of a sudden you'll haveregional and maybe even global
revival if you just let it startwith you.
Yeah.
So, you know, when we get oureyes focused on everything else
we want to happen, but we aren'twilling to look at ourselves
and model what the Bible saysabout being a real man, um,
we're never gonna have thatrevival happen.
The the the passion of of whatwe want in our hearts to
(39:32):
actually take root.
So Yeah.
Connor (39:34):
It just reminds me of how my dad started revival in my
whole family, you know.
If he had never surrendered hislife to the Lord when he did
the way he did, I probablywouldn't be sitting here right
now.
I would probably be somewherein Massachusetts having a beer,
uh gambling on sports orsomething like that, you know,
(39:56):
wasting my time essentially.
Um, but he did, and it it's nowpermeating throughout my whole
entire family.
So it got my sisters, mysisters are saved, I got saved.
Uh, one of my cousins, Cole,shout out Cole.
I hope you listen to this, bro.
I invited him to come out tothe the Jesus gathering.
He got radically saved, he gottouched heavily by God.
(40:18):
I mean, he got just whacked bythe Holy Spirit.
He got baptized.
I baptized him.
It was just amazing to see.
And my cousin Luke, he's next.
Shout out, Luke, you're gonnalisten to this.
Get ready, Luke.
Um, and just my whole familystarting to slowly but surely
come into the kingdom of God.
(40:39):
And yeah, I mean, it didn'treally fully start my dad, like
my grandma, you know, my mygreat-great-grandfather was the
head of the Church of Norway.
So, I mean, religion, quoteunquote, runs in my family, but
the relationship with Christ,the the way it's portrayed
through me now, started with myfather.
(41:00):
Yeah, so it that's anencouragement to all you fathers
out there who are pushing andtrying and just praying for your
family and just waiting forthem to come home.
Um, they will come home.
You just need to stay strong inyour faith, you need to be a
good example, and you need tokeep showing them how it's done.
(41:20):
It's the only way peopleunderstand the kingdom of God
without having the Holy Spiritis watching it at in first hand
view.
You're watching someone else doit in the first hand, like you
need to see it.
Don't talk about it, be aboutit.
Bryan (41:36):
Yeah, you know, that's the same story with myself and
my dad.
You know, I'd nine years old,my dad gave his life to Christ,
and it I mean, it took me yearsand years 20 years to actually
come around.
But it was 20 years of himpraying, and finally the Lord
got through.
He's he uh he found me and uhlet us be that testimony for our
(41:59):
kids because the you know Iheard it said once that God has
no uh spiritual grandchildren,He just has children.
So until our kids have apersonal relationship and an
impersonal encounter with Jesus,they're gonna have to they're
gonna have to figure it out.
You know, we can't have ourparents' faith.
Rob (42:16):
Yeah, that's good.
And every everybody has theirown destiny.
You know, we have to rememberthat that even our kids, you
know, they they might go, youknow, for for mothers and
fathers that that have awandering child, you know, they
have their own destiny, but youknow, just praying for them and
(42:36):
showing them love and notjudgment, it's the it's the
goodness of God that bringspeople to or brings us to
repentance.
Amen.
So it's love and it'sacceptance, you know, and
obviously you're you've got tobe careful and not we're not
condoning sin, but we're we'reloving the sinner.
Yeah, we're loving them for whothey are.
(42:58):
And you know, I say it to my Ihave some kids that I mentor and
kind of took out as my own, andI tell them, you know, you
could slap me in the face and Imight want to slap you back, but
I'm still gonna love you.
There's nothing you can dothat's gonna make me love you
any more or any less.
(43:19):
Yeah, and so that's the heartthat we have to show to our
kids, and and I only got thatfrom God.
That's the supernatural love ofGod.
Bryan (43:27):
Amen.
It has to be, right?
Rob (43:29):
Exactly.
Bryan (43:30):
So I want to take a moment, unless you guys have any
final thoughts to say, but I'dlike to take a moment to pray
over, you know, anyone listeningright now.
Maybe it's a you know, someonethinking about their built their
own manhood and and how thatrelates and what they want to
change in their life, maybe theywant to surrender their life to
Christ.
Maybe they're a Christianalready and they just want to
(43:50):
start walking this out a littlebit better.
Yeah.
Or maybe if if it's a a girl ora woman listening and you've
got family members that you wantto intercede for and pray for,
um, we'd love a chance to topray.
But do you guys have any finalthoughts?
Connor (44:03):
I have one more thing that I want to say.
This is a great resource forall men.
This book called Wild at Heartby John Eldridge.
Um, I highly recommend it ifyou live in Oklahoma, Texas, I
think maybe Kansas.
Just kind of in the Midwestarea, there's a thing called
Base Camp that you can go to andexperience this book in real
(44:23):
life.
And me and Rob have gone, we'veseen it radically touch men,
completely set them free fromall the bondage they have in
their lives.
Absolutely.
So I I would highly recommendthat you read that book if you
are struggling to figure outyour identity as a man in
Christ.
Bryan (44:40):
Amen.
And like I just really quick, Iwant to hit on the ministry
that you guys are starting.
You're gonna you've got someland and you guys are gonna
start taking men out there.
Yeah.
Can you guys talk about that alittle bit?
Rob (44:50):
Yeah.
I just want to throw in herethat um I was the guy from the
last podcast that was late.
And I just want to clearly uhthat I wasn't late, but it's all
good, no worries.
But it's totally late.
No, but um, yeah, so we have sowhen I met this guy and I
(45:10):
crazily flew across the countrynot really knowing him, and we
drove back.
You know, he he had this uh adream that we were gonna have
this land and we were gonna havea hunting ministry and all
these things, and I'm like,okay, that sounds cool.
Like, why not?
Like everything else has beensuch a crazy ride, like why not?
(45:31):
You know, so yeah, all thingsare possible.
Yeah, God provided the land,and we have like 160 acres, and
you know, it's all God, it'slike it's His land, you know,
you can feel the peace whenyou're out there, and you know,
we just our heart is to bringback the masculinity and really
just be able to touch let Godtouch people's hearts on that
(45:57):
land.
Yeah, yeah.
Bryan (45:58):
And so well, if you're out there listening right now
and this is ministering to youand you're you're you're wanting
to buy a plane ticket toOklahoma and get ministered to.
Rob (46:07):
I will write out there.
Bryan (46:08):
Uh Rob will show up late there.
Yeah, Rob will show up late topick you up.
Rob (46:13):
Yeah, I'll be there 20 minutes later.
Bryan (46:15):
We'll be at the airport, we swear.
Uh go to uh go to thetestimonypodcast.com and fill
out a submission form and say,Hey, you know, I want to
experience the Lord in Oklahomawhile hunting.
So reach out and we'll we'llget set up with you to come on
out.
Connor (46:31):
That would be a dream come true, to be honest.
Seriously.
Um yeah, it was really crazy.
God just gave me this vision ofthat, exactly that.
And I was like, okay, God, howam I supposed to do that?
And I was like, I can't dothat.
You need to do it for me if youwant me to do this.
Bryan (46:46):
Yeah.
Connor (46:47):
So I just kind of put it in my back pocket and and held
on to it, and I was like, okay,I'll save this for another day.
I don't know when it's gonnahappen or how it's gonna happen.
And the day he adopted his son,um, this old farmer came up to
me and he was like, Hey, Connor,I just want to tell you that uh
you can lease a lot of land forreally cheap through the school
(47:07):
commission's office orsomething.
I was like, What?
I was like, Okay, uh, that'sreally interesting that you
would say that to me.
I was like, Okay, God, if thisis you, I need uh I need witness
from you, Lord.
So that night I had a dream andI just heard God speak to me
audibly, and he said, I'm gonnagive you land for four thousand
(47:28):
dollars, and you are to make ita beautiful garden.
And I was like, I woke up and Iwas like, Okay, uh, let's do
this.
I don't know how to do itstill, but let's do this.
So I went on their website, Iordered a pamphlet.
Um, it took like three monthsand it hadn't shown up, and I
started to get into thisunbelief of all of it.
And um that day I felt all thatunbelief.
(47:50):
I just repented and just let itgo and gave it back to God.
And I went and checked mymailbox and the pamphlet was
there, and I was like, okay,amen.
So thank you, God, you are sogood.
And I'm looking through theland, I'm looking for ones.
I'm not reading prices oranything, I'm just looking for
ones that have um hunting andrecreational possibilities.
Yeah.
And I find this one parcel,it's 160 acres, it's in
(48:13):
Cleveland County, and then Ilook at the price and it was
four thousand dollars.
Wow.
And I was like, okay, that'sthe one.
So me and Rob were uh verybroke, yeah.
Uh had no money.
So we're like, okay, God, youknow, you got to do it again.
So two days before the auction,Rob got like a check for like
(48:35):
$10,000 that someone owed him.
Praise God.
So we got and uh we showed upto the auction and there was a
bunch of really rich farmersthere with big fancy trucks and
big big, tall, 10-gallon hats.
Yeah, and they were all walkingaround with their canes, spurs,
looking really masculine, verysuper masculine.
And me and Rob, me and Robalmost shook in our boots a
(48:56):
little bit, but we rememberedwho we who we are.
Yeah, that's right, of course.
You guys are you guys areaquamen.
Yeah, we are aquamen.
We're literally uh we sat downand the first piece of land in
the first county, and they theyauction off like thousands of
pieces of land, was the one wewon.
The first land in the firstcounty.
Bryan (49:15):
Wow.
Connor (49:16):
So we won the we won the auction.
Rob (49:19):
We got the land.
Connor almost knocks me out ofmy seat.
Yeah, I knew that.
And before this, they're like,don't make any noise or scenes,
or you're gonna like be out ofhere forever.
And he's like, dude, we got it.
And he just like literallyalmost pushes me out of my seat.
And I looked at the guy.
Dude, calm down until we getthe deed.
Connor (49:38):
Yeah, I looked at the God told me I was gonna get
that.
And the guy looked at me like Iwas crazy.
Yeah, old farmer, like and thenwe dipped.
Bryan (49:48):
Yeah.
And now here you are.
Here we are.
Yeah, you're about to launch aministry, and it's gonna be
amazing.
Amen.
And you're gonna turn thatplace into a garden, which is
the original commission.
Rob (49:58):
Exactly.
It's a beautiful garden, it'sgonna be a beautiful garden.
It's almost there.
I mean, it's getting close.
Yeah.
Bryan (50:04):
So, like my kind of And not just not just like
aesthetically, right?
It's like a beautiful garden ofsurrender, of surrender and
fruitfulness.
Rob (50:12):
Yeah, of sowing and reaping the right things.
Connor (50:15):
The way I saw it, that this revelation I had over it
was it was it what showing to mewas Jesus in the garden of
Gethsemane crying out to theFather and just saying yes to
his will.
Sweating blood.
Sweating blood.
He was afraid he didn't knowwhat was gonna happen.
He didn't know what was gonnahappen, he knew exactly what was
gonna happen, he didn't want itto.
He almost he said, Father,spare me, but he submitted to
(50:36):
his will and his and he keptgoing.
You know, so that's kind ofwhere I see that place as a
place at where men willsurrender their hearts to the
will of God.
Bryan (50:48):
Amen.
Amen.
So that's ministering to you,and you want to come on out,
fill out the form, let's startthis party.
Your will be done, Father.
Yes, Amen.
All right.
Well, let me have Connor startthis prayer just because I just
feel like um we'll have youstart, then Rob, you can go
next, and then I'll close thisout.
Connor (51:10):
We just want to lift up all the men out there right now
that come home every day afterwork.
They sit down on their couchand they don't know who they
are.
God, we just lift those men upto you that you would show them
your purpose for them.
(51:30):
God, that you would put them onthe great adventure that you
have for their lives.
God, we just pray that all ofthe men who are questioning
their masculinity, questioningtheir identity as a man, Lord,
that all of those those spiritsjust pestering them, telling
(51:52):
them that they're not goodenough, telling them that
they're not man enough, tellingthem that they're never gonna be
anything, we just rebuke allthose spirits right now in the
name of Jesus, and we tell themto go, that those spirits have
no place in your lives anymore.
Lord, we just thank you thatwhoever's listening to this in
(52:14):
faith that they receive thismessage fully and
wholeheartedly, that there'snothing left or wasted on
anyone, that it's just fullyabsorbed, Lord, that your
revelation comes through this.
I just pray that in the name ofJesus.
Bryan (52:31):
Amen.
Rob (52:32):
And Father, I just I just thank you.
I thank you for who you are andwho you are to me and who you
are to these other men and andthe women as well, Lord.
Just just draw our heartscloser and closer to you, God.
Remind us who we are.
You are our father, our good,good father.
(52:57):
We are your children.
And so I just ask God, what doyou want to do today?
What do you want to do today,Dad?
And so just just get make ourvisions clear, Father.
Help us to make draw a clearvision and set out and be have
(53:23):
the courage and boldness to stepinto what you have for us.
And I just thank you for theresponsibilities you put in our
lives, Lord.
Let I just pray that you wouldgive us the understanding and
the wisdom to walk in exactlywhat you have for us, God.
Bryan (53:52):
Yes, Lord, I thank you, Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation,
that you're bringing light todarkness right now in people's
minds, that this podcast isgoing out, and there's going to
be an anointing on the words.
Every person that neededsomething unlocked in their
heart would receive it by theSpirit of God right now.
(54:15):
Wisdom and revelation come intocompassion for your family that
you are missing.
Wisdom and revelation come intolaying down anger, resentment,
bitterness, unforgiveness, andletting it go and realizing that
(54:36):
the greatest example of allsuffered greatly, but still
loved purely.
I'm getting some words ofknowledge, so I'm just going to
release this by faith.
I'm hearing that, Michael,you're wearing a gray shirt.
(54:56):
The Lord is ministering to youright now and saying that he's
calling you to come to Oklahomato hunt.
That's you, Michael.
This is the call in your liferight now.
Will you pick up the call?
I'm hearing someone by the nameof James, you've been really
(55:17):
struggling with discouragement,and the Lord is supernaturally
letting grace flow to you rightnow.
Over that discouragement, it'swashing away.
You're gonna feel a hundredpounds lighter.
I'm hearing Tiffany, youlistened to this episode, and
(55:39):
you were thinking about your dadthe whole time.
And the Lord is restoring thatview that you have of your
father.
He's the God of restoration.
There's nothing he can't do.
And I just release healing,provision, and wholeness by the
(56:06):
power of the living God rightnow through this podcast.
I pray all of these things inthe mighty name of Jesus.
Alright.
So I just want to thank youguys so much for coming out, and
uh, you guys are amazing.
See you on the next episode.
Welcome to the testimony podcast.
I'm your host, Bryan Kelly.
I am joined here today by acouple amazing men.
I've got Mr.
Connor over here and Mr.
Rob on my right.
How's it going, guys?
(00:26):
It's going good, man.
How you doing tonight?
Fantastic.
Rob (00:30):
It's going really well.
Bryan (00:31):
I'm excited to be here.
So glad to have you guys.
We are talking today aboutbiblical manhood.
The title of today's episode isMan of God, Reclaiming the
Ancient Paths, and taking a lookat what scripture says about
being a man.
We've got amazing topics toshare tonight.
I'm going to kick it off with alittle bit of a scripture here
(00:54):
to talk about what the Biblesays acting like men looks like.
It's from 1 Corinthians 16 13.
And the scripture says, bewatchful, stand firm in the
faith, act like men, be strong.
And Proverbs 24, 5 says, a wiseman is full of strength.
So 1 Corinthians tells us toact like a man, be strong.
(01:17):
And then the Bible then talksabout what wisdom and strength
looks like as if they're pairedtogether.
So wisdom, in fact, is lookinginto what the word says about
being a man and not letting theculture define manhood.
And so I just want to ask youguys, what does it look like in
today's culture to be a man?
Like what would you say theworld is, you know, cheering be
(01:41):
a man?
This is what it looks like.
Connor (01:43):
I would say one of the biggest things that men cheer
each other on for today is howmany women they can sleep with.
Rob (01:52):
Yeah.
I mean, in my in my opinion,it's almost like they're not
cheering people on to be men.
Uh you know, there's thisthought of toxic masculinity and
that masculinity is, you know,dominance or physical strength
and things like that, which youknow, is definitely not what I
(02:16):
believe masculinity to be.
You know, I'm I believemasculinity to be what Jesus
brought.
You know, he he didn't comewith a sword to dominate, but he
came with a towel to serve andto wash feet and to love and to
literally die to himself and youknow climb up on a tree and
(02:40):
give the ultimate sacrifice.
So the way I see it is it'sthat ultimate sacrifice is what
masculinity is.
But the the way that I remembermy daughter, I think she was um
she went to UCO in probably2022 or something like that, and
(03:00):
she came to me and she's like,Dad, uh you're I just want you
to know you're uh toxicallymasculine.
Like being joking, of course,but she's like, and I was like,
Why do you say that?
And she's like, she's like,Well, because you wear your hat
backwards.
And I was like, hmm.
And so she told kind of laidout this whole class that they
had where that's what they saidthat you know, any kind of just
(03:25):
guy, it seemed like to me, atleast any of my friends were
these toxic masculine people.
Yeah.
Connor (03:32):
So it's uh it's it's tricky out there nowadays, but
for sure the culture um of mentoday is to perpetuate things
that gratify your flesh.
Yeah.
Um it's it's honestlygrotesque, uh, to say the least.
(03:52):
It's definitely not the way theBible teaches us to live our
lives.
Um, I mean, I remember a timenot too long ago, you know, um,
when I was living exactly thatway, and I was pursuing all the
things of the flesh, and in themoment it all felt so good, and
it felt great to have other menthink I was cool for doing it.
(04:13):
That's just kind of howeveryone they're feeding off of
each other in that sense thateveryone wants to one up the
next guy, who can be thecoolest, who can be the
toughest, who's the best atfighting.
That is just totally not whatwe're led to do as men.
We're led to be gentle, slow toanger, um, understanding, but
(04:36):
firm when we believe somethingis right, and um firm when we
believe something is wrong.
Bryan (04:42):
That's so good.
You know, like just listeningto you guys talk, it it feels
like almost the culture isdirecting this aura of wanting
to revert back to childhoodalmost, like like the
glorification of adolescence oreven like pre-pubescence, where
it's like it's all about you,it's about selfish
gratification, it's about youknow just everything that that
(05:03):
you could want and fighting andall that stuff.
But the Bible says actually in1 Corinthians 13, it says, When
I was a child, I spoke like achild, I thought like a child, I
reasoned like a child, but whenI became a man, I gave up
childish ways.
And it's like for some reason,somewhere along the line, the
world started focusing ongetting men to act like little
boys again when that's not whatwe're actually called to do,
(05:26):
right?
Rob (05:26):
Yeah, it's like instant self-gratification.
Like, you know, I have somefriends that they're they're big
on the online community and youknow, they play video games,
and that's kind of their life,you know.
That's what they do.
They they are they're onlinethe whole time.
And just like that, I'm like,you know, I talked to my buddy
the other day and I said, youknow, what what served you in
(05:49):
your 20s, it it's not servingyou in your 30s, and it's
definitely not gonna serve youin your 40s.
You know, you we have to likeget to a place where we're not
just feeding our flesh in ofthis instant gratification and
allow it, you know, to kind oflike sacrifice.
We all have to make sacrifices,right?
So what are the what are thesacrifices that I'm making,
(06:11):
short-term sacrifices for mymedium and long-term goals?
Yeah.
Bryan (06:15):
It's like you become a man when you realize that it's
not all about you and not allabout what you want.
It's about it becomes aboutyour family, your wife, your
kids.
It becomes about everyone butyou, actually.
And real biblical manhood islearning how to die to yourself
and care about the things thatother people care about more
than you.
Um, even to the point of, youknow, Jesus is our ultimate
(06:38):
example laying his life down,and not just for a friend, but
for, you know, people who are atcomplete odds with him, you
know, people that spit on himand hate him and ripped his
beard and you know, cursed him,and this is the creator of the
universe that they're abusing,uh, but he still chooses to lay
his life down because he is thatsacrificial.
Yeah.
So where along the line did wecome up with the fact that being
(07:00):
a man meant it's all about youand how you feel?
Connor (07:04):
I'll tell you probably where it's going left.
It's a lot easier to gratifyyourself than it is to crucify
your flesh.
Yeah.
Uh Galatians 5 24, and thosewho belong to Jesus Christ have
crucified the flesh with itspassions and desires.
That's not an easy thing tofollow, especially when you're
(07:25):
getting you're used to beingtold yes for everything, or not
answering to anyone.
It's a long, it's a longprocess to to iron those things
out of yourself, and it takes alot of discipline.
Um, and it takes it takes Jesusreally in your heart for that
(07:46):
to start to become fruits inyour life.
Bryan (07:50):
Yeah.
I just want to speak toeveryone out there right now who
might not be a believer.
You might be wondering whetheror not this Christianity thing
is real.
If you go back and listen tothe last episode, Connor
actually shared his testimony,and then in episode one of this
podcast, I shared my testimony.
But both of us came out of a uhreally you know terrible
upbringing with just full of uhdrugs and alcohol and wild
(08:12):
living and uh really just kindof grabbing on to things that
would be you know satiating toour flesh and to our our you
know, filling every single voidthat we have in us that we can't
figure out why we feel soempty.
And deep down, I know thatyou're listening right now.
If you don't have Christ inyour heart, if you're not a
believer, you don't havefulfillment, and I know it.
And so you could be sittingthere thinking, well, I have all
(08:35):
these amazing things in mylife, but deep, deep down, you
know how empty you feel when noone's watching, when you're
laying on your bed and you'reall alone.
And so I just want to encourageyou that until you encounter
the love of God, you don'tactually know what you're
missing.
And so God is actually reachingout through this podcast to try
to show you that he loves youso much, he loves you dearly and
(08:56):
wants to guide you into whattrue manhood looks like.
And until I encountered thelove of God, I wasn't able to
love anyone else uhappropriately.
But once I did, it became allabout well, I need to figure out
everything about this Jesus andhow he lived because this is
the only truth I've everexperienced in my whole life.
Rob (09:15):
So yeah, I feel like I I can definitely um relate to that
last thing you said.
Just I remember a time when Ihad a daughter when I was really
young, and then there was atime about five years where you
know I was married, and then Igot a divorce at like 21 or two
or something really early.
(09:35):
And there was just like fiveyears of gratifying, gratifying
my flesh, which I just felt soempty.
Like, no matter how many peatgirls, how many, how many drugs,
how many whatever, I just feltit's like I got more and more
empty over this, and I'm justlike, and I remember looking
around at my friends, I'm like,I'm not this is not who I am,
(09:58):
you know, and it took the uhAquaman, the movie, which is
pretty funny, to take him out touh kind of change to change me,
yes.
And so I I took my daughter toAquaman and I go in there and I
wanted to see it in 3D becauseand I so I took her to 3D and
(10:22):
I'm watching I'm watching uhAquaman and I don't know if you
know the the story, but so thedad is uh the Aquaman's dad is a
lighthouse keeper and his momis like the queen of you know
whatever the underwater world orwhatever.
And so and so when they were uhoh at the beginning of the
(10:45):
movie, he's like he doesn't seehimself as you know he doesn't
know his identity, he doesn'tknow who he is, right?
So that's how I felt for solong.
And he's doing parlor tricks atthe bar, he lets a guy die at
the beginning.
Well, then towards like the endof the movie or middle of the
movie, he gets the king's armoron and he becomes Aquaman.
(11:06):
And I'm literally watching thismovie, and I hear God's voice
as clear as it's maybe notaudibly, but it was so loud in
my heart, and God said, If youwould put on my armor and you
would use my power, you would beunstoppable, like Aquaman.
Like in that in this in thescene, he's like fighting like a
(11:27):
whole army by himself.
Amen.
And I was like, it's likesomething clicked in my head,
and so I was like, I had it's umI had to hear my father's voice
in order to start to see myselfas who I am and really step
into who I can become.
Connor (11:44):
Yeah, so what the Bible says about what we just talked
about is Luke 9, 25, for whatdoes it profit a man if he gains
the whole world and loses orforfeits himself?
You can have everything thatyour heart desires, but you can
have nothing at the same time.
You can be drowning in theworld, and God has so much more
(12:09):
for you, but you're not willingto let go of the things that are
making you drown.
Tangling you up.
Like my version of freedom isthe world's version of bondage,
yeah, it's completely backwards,right?
And my bondage is theirfreedom, you know?
(12:32):
It's uh it's it's crazy.
Bryan (12:35):
Yeah, it's a beautiful truth, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Amen.
That's amazing.
So, you know, my thought aboutuh, you know, this whole topic
is when someone realizes thelove of God for them and who
they are in Christ and all ofthese things, right?
They might have this revelationand they decide, okay, God's
real, Jesus is real, I feel himtugging on my heart, I want to
(12:56):
give my life to him.
There's so many people thatjust have a maybe an emotional
moment with with the Lord, andthey they say, Okay, yes, I
believe I I want to go toheaven, and then they just stop.
And we we have so manyimmature, boyish Christian men
out there because they've nevergone to the source, the word of
(13:19):
God, to figure out exactly whatthe word says and and who the
word says that they are.
And so I feel like that's ahuge piece because we we spoke
first about the people who arelost and maybe don't know
Christ, but the there's alsogoing to be a big subset of
people listening to this thatthey are nominal Christians,
they are just kind of checkingout this podcast, and they've
(13:40):
never really dove into the wordto find out what the word says
about being a man and how do Iactually change, how do I
actually grow, how do I actuallymodel what Jesus is like?
And so I guess that's the firststep is uh is getting into the
word of God to actually figureout what it says, right?
Connor (13:56):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, that's the thefoundation and the truth of
everything.
If you don't have thatfoundation in your life, um
there's a parable he spoke aboutit's what you build your
foundation on.
If you build your foundation onsand, then it'll it'll fall
apart.
But if you build yourfoundation on the rock that is
Him, anything that comes willnot shake your foundation, it
(14:19):
will stand still in all storms.
Rob (14:22):
And I've also heard in you know, it's it's true that in
John, the beginning of John,it's it says that the word is
with God and the word is God.
And so if you can literallylook at your Bible as being with
Jesus, and so if you if I askedyou, hey, you know, even if
(14:42):
you're not a believer, hey,would you like to spend six
months with Jesus and like hangout with him every day and just
get to ask him questions andtalk to him and listen to him,
would you take that opportunity?
And I bet everyone says yes.
And that's exactly what yourBible is.
It's it's literally Jesusspeaking to you, it's literally
(15:03):
Jesus, you know, giving yourevelatory uh uh uh thoughts and
emotions and and things likethat.
Bryan (15:11):
Um so Yeah, the the scripture actually talks about
um the word of God being amirror.
And when you look in and youpeer into it, right, you should
see the face of Jesus lookingback at you and reflecting who
you are in him through everysingle you know word on the
page.
And when you see, when you seethe Bible as the living word of
(15:33):
God, he you know, the logos, um,you know, in the beginning was
the word, and the word was withGod, and the word was God, that
is Jesus Christ Himself is theWord made flesh.
And I remember that wasactually my prayer when I first
gave my life to Christ.
I went on when I called out andI said, God, I I believe and I
want this word to be made fleshin my life.
(15:54):
That was my prayer.
Make this word flesh in mylife.
I want everything in this Bibleto become my reality because I
believed in it.
And uh I think that that's kindof the hunger that we're
looking for.
And if you actually want tochange and transform the world
around you and be a strong, realbiblical man, it starts with
getting planted in the word ofGod.
Connor (16:14):
Yeah.
So, Rob, you were talking aboutbefore we got here, um, the man
who translated the Bible for usso we can read that and learn
about God.
So, why don't you tell thatstory again about that guy?
Rob (16:28):
Okay, yeah.
Uh so the guy is WilliamTyndale, and he is a scholar
from he was born in 1494 inGloucestershire, England.
That may not be pronunciation.
Yeah, that's good.
He basically quoted or hetranslated the Bible from Greek
(16:49):
to English in the 1520s, and atthis time that was a big no-no
because this is you, it was theBible was only supposed to be uh
spoken or ri read in Latin, andthe only ones that were
supposed to know this were theclergy.
(17:09):
And so if you weren't that,then it was like heresy.
Bryan (17:13):
Yeah, it was like a stranglehold on truth.
They didn't want the the actualtruth of the words to get out
into the populace.
Rob (17:18):
Yeah, and so Tyndale is the who we can say is the reason
that we have the Bible in frontof us right now, or or you know,
translated, and and he wasactually strangled to death and
um burned at the stake or burnedburned alive.
Wow.
(17:39):
And so if you think about youknow the way that we follow
Jesus, is like, are we believingJesus or are we are we saying
we believe or are we staking ourlife on it literally?
Connor (17:54):
So it's a good word, staking our life on it.
So um when Jesus em uh enteredthe temple on Sabbath, uh he
came in, and this is thescripture, it's John 2, 14, in
the temple he found those whowere selling oxen, sheep, and
pigeons and the money changerssitting there, and making a whip
of cords, he drove them all outof the temple with the sheep
(18:16):
and the oxen, and he poured outthe coins of the money changers
and overturned their tables, andhe told those who sold the
pigeons, take these things away,do not make my father's house a
house of trade.
Rob (18:27):
A lot of people can see that as you know, this m that's
a masculine trait that he thathe's like domineering and he's
doing these things.
But what it is is he's standingup for what he believes in.
If you saw somebody, you know,like say beating their wife or
or doing something horrible to achild, that's it's not this
(18:50):
like domineering thing to stepin and take care of business.
It's a masculine thing, butit's not domineering in any way.
Bryan (18:58):
Yeah, and it's actually Jesus embodying the word because
it was written about Jesus, thezeal for his father's house
would consume him.
And so when he's when he'smanifesting that, he's actually
becoming the word.
You know, the word is is bebeing made flesh in the temple
as he drives out this uh youknow, this unrighteous activity
because he has a zeal forrighteousness and he's
(19:18):
passionate about it.
Um and so we really have todive into these examples of what
the Bible says about being aman, and and there's no better
example than if you model thelife of Jesus Christ.
If you look at him, thegreatest servant among us, the
greatest leader amongst us, thegreatest teacher amongst us, the
I mean, he literally is theepitome of every single
(19:40):
attribute that we should be.
He's he's the the bridegroom inthe story of you know the the
wedding and the the lamb and thebride all coming together.
Um and so he is the he is theman of man of all men.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, so you know, what elseabout Jesus uh uh attracts you
guys to be like, I want to modelmy life after him.
Connor (20:02):
Well, one of the things that I used to struggle with
before I was saved was I wouldget really angry and I would go
and fight people all the time.
I was always in fights at bars,I was always beating people up.
Um and one of the things thatwas taken away from me when I
got saved was my anger.
There's a there's a lot ofscripture about it, but one that
(20:24):
I really like is Proverbs 1632.
Whoever is slow to anger isbetter than the mighty, and he
who rules his spirit than he whotakes a city.
The thing about coming beingslow to anger, it means being
patient and loving with those uharound you because you are
(20:46):
supposed to be the light.
You aren't supposed to reactthe same way as someone would in
the world.
You are supposed to be ashining example for those around
you, having Christ to shinethrough you.
Um, and if you are quick toanger, just like everyone else,
then what kind of witness areyou?
Rob (21:08):
For me, it's it's the vision and the identity part of
who like Jesus knew who he was.
He that's you know, and I feellike when God spoke to me in
that Aquaman movie, that's how Ifelt like he said, you know,
you are a warrior and you're aking, you just have to put on
(21:29):
the king's armor and be whoyou're supposed to be, and so
and and with his power is thecatalyst, you know.
And so I feel like that theidentity part of it.
I know I'm a king, I know I'mthe priest of my home, I know
that I am a son, you know, thoseare some some things that I
(21:52):
have I've had some very shakyfather figures in my life, and
so there's just I feel likeGod's just kind of adding these
pieces bit by bit, trying tohelp me to see who I am.
So, you know, as Jesus, thatwas his whole mission.
Like I'm gonna basically carryI'm gonna bring on the burden
(22:14):
and the sins of this whole worldso that me and you can live not
only here on earth in freedom,but then eternally li uh eternal
lives in heaven amongst, youknow, the people we love.
Bryan (22:29):
It's like that quiet confidence that like he knew
that he knew that he knew thathe knew who he was in every
situation.
And so there was never a needto get aggressive, there was
never a need to get defensive,there was never because he just
walked in and he was athermostat and everyone else was
a thermometer.
Yeah.
Right?
He walked in and set the tonefor the room, set the set the
(22:50):
stage for every you knowinteraction that he had.
And like so much of manhoodapart from Christ is responding
to you know, every which way thewind blows and every you know
thing that comes at you, andit's almost like you know, so
reactionary.
But once you understand who youare and you're empowered by the
supernatural lifestyle ofChrist, it changes everything.
(23:11):
Living as a Christian isimpossible without the grace of
God and without the Holy Spiritempowering you to be able to do
it.
So everything that we're sayingright now, all of this stuff is
available.
And the moment that revelationcomes to the truth of the word,
then grace meets you to empoweryou to go forth and change.
So, like we're not trying tosay, Oh, you need to change
(23:32):
this, you need to change this.
No, you just have to realizethat what you're doing is not
right.
Here's what the Bible says geta revelation of it and watch
grace manifest in your life insuch a way that it just changes
you.
Rob (23:43):
And and and truth, like be just telling the truth, yes, has
so much of an impact.
Um because the truth sets youfree, right?
The truth literally sets youfree.
You know, I just recentlywalked through something like
this where you know, I had hurtmy knee back a couple months
ago, and I I went to like a headshop and I started taking these
(24:04):
like 70H tabs, which I didn'treally even know exactly what
you know what it was.
I knew that it was gonna be forpain, but I didn't know it was
gonna be crazy addictive.
And so for like maybe two,three months, I took those and I
realized like these are likepain pills, like I have to get
off these.
And and I was I was definitelyhiding it, and I was, you know,
(24:28):
just kind of scared of like, howdo I get off this?
You know, and I I went to mywife, God just put this burden
on my heart just to be honestwith her, and I was honest with
her, and it was like broke thatwhat that was on me, you know,
it was literally the truth, itliterally set me free.
Bryan (24:47):
Yes, yeah, yeah.
The scripture says have nothingto do with the fruitless deeds
of darkness, but rather exposethem because when things are
exposed to the light, gracecomes and all of a sudden you're
free.
And it's the most beautifultruth.
So if like you're hidinganything out there, if you're
living in sin and you're, youknow, you've got this
pornography thing that you can'tget over, or you've got this
addiction that you're hiding, oryou've got these lustful
(25:09):
thoughts that you can't breakhold of, and you're like, God,
why can't I get free from this?
I guarantee you, it's becauseyou're living in secrecy, you're
hiding, and where you're hidingand where you're masking, the
light of God can't shine and thegrace of God can't access.
So, just what Rob wastestifying to take those things
into the light and watch thegrace of God completely set you
(25:32):
free from that stuff.
I have personal testimony justlike that, where it's just
freedom comes once things areexposed.
So good on you, Rob, for that.
Connor (25:41):
You can also walk really, really close to the fire
and not get in it.
But the Bible says this aboutthat Proverbs um 6, 27 through
28.
Can a man carry fire next tohis chest and his clothes not be
burned?
Or can one walk on hot coalsand his feet not be scorched?
So you also need to be reallycareful as a Christian, as
(26:03):
really as a Christian, but asanyone, is what you're
consuming, what you're allowingyour eyes to see.
Um you need to protect youryour eyes are gates and so are
your ears.
And um you need to protectthose at all costs.
And like it says, if it causesyou to sin, you need if your
right hand causes you to sin,you need to cut it off.
(26:23):
Not and that doesn't literallymean cut your hand off, please
don't do that.
Um, but it means take thatthing away from your your your
vision, like don't do itanymore.
Like if Facebook's sending youlusty things, delete it.
If Instagram models are poppingup and you can't stop looking
at it, you need to delete it.
Amen.
Rob (26:41):
Or if you have alcohol problems, uh, you know, get rid
of the bottle of jack.
Bryan (26:48):
Yeah, that one's a little obvious, but yeah, okay, with
you.
Connor (26:51):
But you know, there's things we can do.
Um, you know, God can deliverus from these things, but we
also need to walk in thatdeliverance.
Yes.
You can't um it says if you youget deliverance, right, and
they leave and they go wanderingaround and they can't find
anywhere to go, they'll comeback, and the house is swept
clean, and then they'll bringseven more of their friends.
(27:13):
So basically, if you walk backinto that sin after you've been
delivered of it, seven moredemons are going to come and
join that original demon andhave a demon party, and have a
demon party, and it's gonna geta lot worse for you.
And I've personally seen a lotof people where that's happened
to them where they gotdeliverance, and they come back
(27:34):
a month later, they were evenworse.
Way worse.
Uh, and then you getdeliverance again.
No one would disciple them, noone would walk them through
anything, they would just setthem free about their way,
they'd come back even worse.
And I'm one of these dudesactually, I haven't seen him in
probably five months.
I don't know where he went.
Uh, I'm praying that he's okay.
If you're listening to thisbuddy, reach out, uh Justin.
Bryan (27:56):
I think one of the most important things is to surround
yourself with just like somebrothers and sisters in Christ.
Community is so important.
We have um later in that versethat I sure shared earlier, the
Proverbs 24, 5, it says, For bywise guidance you can wage your
war, and in abundance ofcounselors there is victory.
So, like a real man likesurrounds himself with a body of
(28:20):
brothers or sisters in Christthat can help lift you up and
help, you know, guide you intothese things.
And and like Connor was saying,like, we need to tend our
gardens, right?
So our the original assignmentof man when we were created was
to tend a garden and walk withGod.
And so, you know, right nowthat's that's our call too.
Your heart is a garden.
So tend your garden and stopputting junk and weeds in your
(28:42):
garden and expecting fruit togrow.
Yeah.
Like you just can't do it.
You can't, like you said, youcan't let your eye gate be
swarmed with these inappropriateimages and these news stories
that sow doubt and unbelief andwhatever else, and then expect
in three months from now thatyou're not gonna be feeling
anxious.
Like you're going to if you putthat seed in your heart.
Yeah.
So, you know, be intentional,manage your garden, be a man, be
(29:06):
strong, and be wise.
Yeah.
Rob (29:08):
And surround yourself with the right people.
I've heard you are who you hangout with.
Yeah.
You take the five people you ryou hang around, and you are the
sum total of those five people.
And so if you know they'regodly people seeking God, then
great.
You know, if they are far fromGod and not anywhere seeking
(29:29):
God, then it's time to as hardas it can be step away and and
just pray and look, you know, beopen, you know, go to a church,
go go to a small group or s orfind a house church or something
in order to surround yourselfwith the right type of people.
Connor (29:48):
Yeah.
We were not meant to do thiswalk alone.
No.
We were meant to have a tribe.
We were meant to have peoplelike minded surrounding us at a
Us, encouraging us, and holdingus accountable.
And I also I just that kind ofleads me into what I was gonna
(30:09):
talk about is our ultimatehelper who we're supposed to
that's our original ministry isour wives and our children.
And that's also one of the mostmanly things you can possibly
do is treat your wife and yourfamily with respect.
It says in Ephesians 5,husbands, love your wives as
(30:31):
Christ loved the church and gavehimself up for her, that he
might sanctify her, havingcleansed her by the washing of
water with the word.
One of our highest callings asmen is to steward the woman that
God gives us properly and tolead them closer to Christ.
Yeah.
Not to lead them further away,not to corrupt them in any way,
not to stumble them, but to be amasculine man with your wife is
(30:56):
to lead her closer to Christ.
And wash her in the word.
Yeah.
Bryan (31:01):
And there's actually like there's so many people that you
come across that they sacrificetheir marriages on the altar of
going and doing ministry.
But like they don't realizethat their number one ministry
is in their own house with theirown wife and then their own
kids.
Yeah.
And if you can't get thatright, the Bible says you have
no business managing the Lord'shouse.
Yeah.
So you know, those are strongwords, but those are those are
(31:22):
the words of the Bible.
And it goes on to say that, youknow, likewise husbands live
with your wives in anunderstanding way, showing honor
to the woman as the weakervessel, not like, you know, just
weaker physically, since theyare heirs with you of the grace
of life, so that your prayersmight not be hindered.
So for all of you husbands outthere who aren't treating your
wives well, um, and you'rewondering why your prayers are
(31:45):
being hindered, well, maybethat's the verse that you need
to go and reflect on.
Yeah.
Because when you show your wifegrace and you you come into
unity with your wife, becauseyou are one flesh with her, so
you can't expect to have yourflesh divided in animosity and
anger and hatred, and thenexpect to be able to go to the
Lord and uh have your prayersnot be hindered with with you
(32:07):
know, it's the it's the thedivision between the two of you.
It's not the the Lord isn'tlike you know saying, I'm not
gonna answer you because you'renot treating her right.
It's because your flesh, yoursoul is divided, yeah, and you
can't access the grace of Godlike you should.
Yeah.
Rob (32:25):
And as your your wife is a direct reflection of you.
Just because and just in thefact that she's your other half,
but the way you treat her isthe way she's gonna respond.
And so if you're askingyourself, why is my wife doing
this or why doesn't she do thesethings?
Look at your you'd look nofurther than yourself.
(32:47):
Yeah, you know.
Bryan (32:48):
I think so many more marriages would be saved if
people thought like that.
Yeah.
If they said, Well, what'swhat's going on with me?
What can I change?
Everyone's all about like whatwhat can that person do
differently?
And and it's it's really justlook in the mirror.
Connor (33:00):
It's about searching your heart, and it it says in
the Bible, a house dividedagainst itself will fall.
Yeah, I cannot stand, right?
Cannot stand.
That is truth written in theBible, so there is no other way
around it, men.
All right, you you need to betreating your wife as a queen,
and being the leader of thehouse doesn't mean that you are
ignorantly leading.
(33:23):
All right, that doesn't meanthat she doesn't have a say.
That doesn't mean that youdon't pray together about
things, that doesn't mean thatyou're in control of everything,
all right?
That's it's not control.
Control, Jesus didn't controlus, right?
His love was free will.
He we love him because of whohe is and what he is to us, not
(33:44):
because he controls us, becausethat's not real love.
Real love isn't controlling.
So if you're controlling yourwife and wondering why she's
resentful, why she doesn't wantto sleep next to you at night,
why she doesn't want to holdyour hand, it's probably because
you're acting more like adictator than you are her
husband.
Rob (34:04):
Yeah.
And when you're fighting whenyou're fighting with your wife,
it's like you know, the goal isnot to win.
Because if you keep fightingwith your wife and you keep
beating her, you're you'reliving with a defeated wife, a d
defeated person.
Like we don't that's not thewin.
Yeah, the win is to come to acommon resolution with things.
Bryan (34:26):
Yeah.
That's so good.
And then moving on to later inthe family, you've got you've
got children too.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
And the Bible has a lot to sayabout that.
I mean, Colossians 3 21 says,Fathers, do not provoke your
children lest they becomediscouraged.
And to provoke means to beantagonistic, to be like seeking
out and nitpicking things andyou know, be domineering in that
same spirit of control and anduh you know, all of that.
(34:49):
It's it's saying that yourchildren can become discouraged
and beat down.
And they want, just like yourwife, the kids want a leader to
follow.
They don't want someone barkingorders and being domineering,
they want to see their dad runand they want to follow.
Yeah.
And so, like, every singleleader of of a family needs to
be running after Christ.
(35:09):
And as that man runs afterChrist, man, the family will be
swept up and they'll want to runtoo.
Connor (35:14):
Yeah.
So, like when I see a leader,what what I see as a leader is
someone who is willing to doeverything and anything that
they would ask of anybody else.
Bryan (35:23):
That's right.
Connor (35:23):
And they would be the first one to do it.
Jesus was a humble servant.
I mean, he washed the feet ofhis disciples and he he
ultimately, you know, hesacrificed himself for us so we
could all have eternal life withhim.
And if you're not willing tosacrifice your life for your
family, i.e., like your job, ifthe job is taking away from your
(35:46):
family and it's hurting yourrelationship with Jesus, maybe
that's gotta go.
Maybe you find another job.
Maybe your hobby is becoming anidol in your life.
You know, you're at the golfcourse every weekend, ignoring
your children.
Um uh, it can be hunting, itcan be anything that you do.
Uh man, we have to be reallycareful about what we idolize in
(36:09):
our lives, because there's onlyone true king that we should be
idolizing, and that's Jesus.
That there's nothing else abovehim, and we are all below him
because we are his servantsultimately, and we're
ministering to him too.
He's ministering to us, butwe're also asking him, Lord,
what can we do for you?
(36:29):
How can we move your kingdomhere on this earth?
And we're doing the same thingwith our families.
How can we minister to ourfamilies?
How can we help our familiesbecome better?
Like, what are we doing, Lord,that's making my family unit
stronger?
Rob (36:44):
If you take responsibility for things, that's when you
become a man.
It's not when you get marriedor you become turn eighteen or
any of those things, it's it'swhen you start taking
responsibility.
And so I think that you knowdefinitely carries over with
your children of takingresponsibility not only for you
know provision and things likethat, but they're also their
(37:07):
spirituality.
You know, when you look overand you see your children not
worshiping God in a way thatmaybe you feel like you they
should, or instead of you know,trying to say, Hey, why don't
you do this?
Why aren't you doing that?
You know, you could just showthem and and something a kind of
a hack that I learned um waswhen my daughter was younger and
(37:32):
she wasn't worshiping God,somebody told me that if you
don't worship God outside of thehome and just on Sundays, like
she'll she's not gonna get it.
And so we started doing thatlike once or twice a week of
worshiping God, just putting onYouTube, worshiping, and I mean
(37:53):
it was like maybe like sixmonths, and boom, she's like all
in on worship, and now she'slike a worship leader, learned
to play the guitar, she's likean amazing singer, she sounds
like Shakira, shout out toMikaela, and and just the you
know, those little things oflike okay, well, it's maybe it's
(38:14):
easier to just in the moment belike, Hey, raise your hands,
what are you doing?
Or you could do the harderthing and implement something
that's bringing it back to thetrue heart of worship.
Bryan (38:27):
Yeah, yeah.
It's it's so interestingbecause most of the Bible, you
know, when we hear things aboutrevival and we hear things about
wanting God to pour his spiritout and wanting life to change
and the kingdom of God toadvance, we we have these big
aspirations of it being like,yeah, to everybody out there,
right?
But we don't realize thatrevival starts in our own heart.
(38:49):
And until we get that and wewrap our minds around that, if
if you would, if you listeningright now, if you would get a
hold of this, that if revivalstarts in your heart, it will
consume first and foremost yourfamily, then it will consume
your neighborhood, then it willconsume the church contacts you
have, your friends group, youryour job, your workplace, and
(39:10):
all of a sudden you'll haveregional and maybe even global
revival if you just let it startwith you.
Yeah.
So, you know, when we get oureyes focused on everything else
we want to happen, but we aren'twilling to look at ourselves
and model what the Bible saysabout being a real man, um,
we're never gonna have thatrevival happen.
The the the passion of of whatwe want in our hearts to
(39:32):
actually take root.
So Yeah.
Connor (39:34):
It just reminds me of how my dad started revival in my
whole family, you know.
If he had never surrendered hislife to the Lord when he did
the way he did, I probablywouldn't be sitting here right
now.
I would probably be somewherein Massachusetts having a beer,
uh gambling on sports orsomething like that, you know,
(39:56):
wasting my time essentially.
Um, but he did, and it it's nowpermeating throughout my whole
entire family.
So it got my sisters, mysisters are saved, I got saved.
Uh, one of my cousins, Cole,shout out Cole.
I hope you listen to this, bro.
I invited him to come out tothe the Jesus gathering.
He got radically saved, he gottouched heavily by God.
(40:18):
I mean, he got just whacked bythe Holy Spirit.
He got baptized.
I baptized him.
It was just amazing to see.
And my cousin Luke, he's next.
Shout out, Luke, you're gonnalisten to this.
Get ready, Luke.
Um, and just my whole familystarting to slowly but surely
come into the kingdom of God.
(40:39):
And yeah, I mean, it didn'treally fully start my dad, like
my grandma, you know, my mygreat-great-grandfather was the
head of the Church of Norway.
So, I mean, religion, quoteunquote, runs in my family, but
the relationship with Christ,the the way it's portrayed
through me now, started with myfather.
(41:00):
Yeah, so it that's anencouragement to all you fathers
out there who are pushing andtrying and just praying for your
family and just waiting forthem to come home.
Um, they will come home.
You just need to stay strong inyour faith, you need to be a
good example, and you need tokeep showing them how it's done.
(41:20):
It's the only way peopleunderstand the kingdom of God
without having the Holy Spiritis watching it at in first hand
view.
You're watching someone else doit in the first hand, like you
need to see it.
Don't talk about it, be aboutit.
Bryan (41:36):
Yeah, you know, that's the same story with myself and
my dad.
You know, I'd nine years old,my dad gave his life to Christ,
and it I mean, it took me yearsand years 20 years to actually
come around.
But it was 20 years of himpraying, and finally the Lord
got through.
He's he uh he found me and uhlet us be that testimony for our
(41:59):
kids because the you know Iheard it said once that God has
no uh spiritual grandchildren,He just has children.
So until our kids have apersonal relationship and an
impersonal encounter with Jesus,they're gonna have to they're
gonna have to figure it out.
You know, we can't have ourparents' faith.
Rob (42:16):
Yeah, that's good.
And every everybody has theirown destiny.
You know, we have to rememberthat that even our kids, you
know, they they might go, youknow, for for mothers and
fathers that that have awandering child, you know, they
have their own destiny, but youknow, just praying for them and
(42:36):
showing them love and notjudgment, it's the it's the
goodness of God that bringspeople to or brings us to
repentance.
Amen.
So it's love and it'sacceptance, you know, and
obviously you're you've got tobe careful and not we're not
condoning sin, but we're we'reloving the sinner.
Yeah, we're loving them for whothey are.
(42:58):
And you know, I say it to my Ihave some kids that I mentor and
kind of took out as my own, andI tell them, you know, you
could slap me in the face and Imight want to slap you back, but
I'm still gonna love you.
There's nothing you can dothat's gonna make me love you
any more or any less.
(43:19):
Yeah, and so that's the heartthat we have to show to our
kids, and and I only got thatfrom God.
That's the supernatural love ofGod.
Bryan (43:27):
Amen.
It has to be, right?
Rob (43:29):
Exactly.
Bryan (43:30):
So I want to take a moment, unless you guys have any
final thoughts to say, but I'dlike to take a moment to pray
over, you know, anyone listeningright now.
Maybe it's a you know, someonethinking about their built their
own manhood and and how thatrelates and what they want to
change in their life, maybe theywant to surrender their life to
Christ.
Maybe they're a Christianalready and they just want to
(43:50):
start walking this out a littlebit better.
Yeah.
Or maybe if if it's a a girl ora woman listening and you've
got family members that you wantto intercede for and pray for,
um, we'd love a chance to topray.
But do you guys have any finalthoughts?
Connor (44:03):
I have one more thing that I want to say.
This is a great resource forall men.
This book called Wild at Heartby John Eldridge.
Um, I highly recommend it ifyou live in Oklahoma, Texas, I
think maybe Kansas.
Just kind of in the Midwestarea, there's a thing called
Base Camp that you can go to andexperience this book in real
(44:23):
life.
And me and Rob have gone, we'veseen it radically touch men,
completely set them free fromall the bondage they have in
their lives.
Absolutely.
So I I would highly recommendthat you read that book if you
are struggling to figure outyour identity as a man in
Christ.
Bryan (44:40):
Amen.
And like I just really quick, Iwant to hit on the ministry
that you guys are starting.
You're gonna you've got someland and you guys are gonna
start taking men out there.
Yeah.
Can you guys talk about that alittle bit?
Rob (44:50):
Yeah.
I just want to throw in herethat um I was the guy from the
last podcast that was late.
And I just want to clearly uhthat I wasn't late, but it's all
good, no worries.
But it's totally late.
No, but um, yeah, so we have sowhen I met this guy and I
(45:10):
crazily flew across the countrynot really knowing him, and we
drove back.
You know, he he had this uh adream that we were gonna have
this land and we were gonna havea hunting ministry and all
these things, and I'm like,okay, that sounds cool.
Like, why not?
Like everything else has beensuch a crazy ride, like why not?
(45:31):
You know, so yeah, all thingsare possible.
Yeah, God provided the land,and we have like 160 acres, and
you know, it's all God, it'slike it's His land, you know,
you can feel the peace whenyou're out there, and you know,
we just our heart is to bringback the masculinity and really
just be able to touch let Godtouch people's hearts on that
(45:57):
land.
Yeah, yeah.
Bryan (45:58):
And so well, if you're out there listening right now
and this is ministering to youand you're you're you're wanting
to buy a plane ticket toOklahoma and get ministered to.
Rob (46:07):
I will write out there.
Bryan (46:08):
Uh Rob will show up late there.
Yeah, Rob will show up late topick you up.
Rob (46:13):
Yeah, I'll be there 20 minutes later.
Bryan (46:15):
We'll be at the airport, we swear.
Uh go to uh go to thetestimonypodcast.com and fill
out a submission form and say,Hey, you know, I want to
experience the Lord in Oklahomawhile hunting.
So reach out and we'll we'llget set up with you to come on
out.
Connor (46:31):
That would be a dream come true, to be honest.
Seriously.
Um yeah, it was really crazy.
God just gave me this vision ofthat, exactly that.
And I was like, okay, God, howam I supposed to do that?
And I was like, I can't dothat.
You need to do it for me if youwant me to do this.
Bryan (46:46):
Yeah.
Connor (46:47):
So I just kind of put it in my back pocket and and held
on to it, and I was like, okay,I'll save this for another day.
I don't know when it's gonnahappen or how it's gonna happen.
And the day he adopted his son,um, this old farmer came up to
me and he was like, Hey, Connor,I just want to tell you that uh
you can lease a lot of land forreally cheap through the school
(47:07):
commission's office orsomething.
I was like, What?
I was like, Okay, uh, that'sreally interesting that you
would say that to me.
I was like, Okay, God, if thisis you, I need uh I need witness
from you, Lord.
So that night I had a dream andI just heard God speak to me
audibly, and he said, I'm gonnagive you land for four thousand
(47:28):
dollars, and you are to make ita beautiful garden.
And I was like, I woke up and Iwas like, Okay, uh, let's do
this.
I don't know how to do itstill, but let's do this.
So I went on their website, Iordered a pamphlet.
Um, it took like three monthsand it hadn't shown up, and I
started to get into thisunbelief of all of it.
And um that day I felt all thatunbelief.
(47:50):
I just repented and just let itgo and gave it back to God.
And I went and checked mymailbox and the pamphlet was
there, and I was like, okay,amen.
So thank you, God, you are sogood.
And I'm looking through theland, I'm looking for ones.
I'm not reading prices oranything, I'm just looking for
ones that have um hunting andrecreational possibilities.
Yeah.
And I find this one parcel,it's 160 acres, it's in
(48:13):
Cleveland County, and then Ilook at the price and it was
four thousand dollars.
Wow.
And I was like, okay, that'sthe one.
So me and Rob were uh verybroke, yeah.
Uh had no money.
So we're like, okay, God, youknow, you got to do it again.
So two days before the auction,Rob got like a check for like
(48:35):
$10,000 that someone owed him.
Praise God.
So we got and uh we showed upto the auction and there was a
bunch of really rich farmersthere with big fancy trucks and
big big, tall, 10-gallon hats.
Yeah, and they were all walkingaround with their canes, spurs,
looking really masculine, verysuper masculine.
And me and Rob, me and Robalmost shook in our boots a
(48:56):
little bit, but we rememberedwho we who we are.
Yeah, that's right, of course.
You guys are you guys areaquamen.
Yeah, we are aquamen.
We're literally uh we sat downand the first piece of land in
the first county, and they theyauction off like thousands of
pieces of land, was the one wewon.
The first land in the firstcounty.
Bryan (49:15):
Wow.
Connor (49:16):
So we won the we won the auction.
Rob (49:19):
We got the land.
Connor almost knocks me out ofmy seat.
Yeah, I knew that.
And before this, they're like,don't make any noise or scenes,
or you're gonna like be out ofhere forever.
And he's like, dude, we got it.
And he just like literallyalmost pushes me out of my seat.
And I looked at the guy.
Dude, calm down until we getthe deed.
Connor (49:38):
Yeah, I looked at the God told me I was gonna get
that.
And the guy looked at me like Iwas crazy.
Yeah, old farmer, like and thenwe dipped.
Bryan (49:48):
Yeah.
And now here you are.
Here we are.
Yeah, you're about to launch aministry, and it's gonna be
amazing.
Amen.
And you're gonna turn thatplace into a garden, which is
the original commission.
Rob (49:58):
Exactly.
It's a beautiful garden, it'sgonna be a beautiful garden.
It's almost there.
I mean, it's getting close.
Yeah.
Bryan (50:04):
So, like my kind of And not just not just like
aesthetically, right?
It's like a beautiful garden ofsurrender, of surrender and
fruitfulness.
Rob (50:12):
Yeah, of sowing and reaping the right things.
Connor (50:15):
The way I saw it, that this revelation I had over it
was it was it what showing to mewas Jesus in the garden of
Gethsemane crying out to theFather and just saying yes to
his will.
Sweating blood.
Sweating blood.
He was afraid he didn't knowwhat was gonna happen.
He didn't know what was gonnahappen, he knew exactly what was
gonna happen, he didn't want itto.
He almost he said, Father,spare me, but he submitted to
(50:36):
his will and his and he keptgoing.
You know, so that's kind ofwhere I see that place as a
place at where men willsurrender their hearts to the
will of God.
Bryan (50:48):
Amen.
Amen.
So that's ministering to you,and you want to come on out,
fill out the form, let's startthis party.
Your will be done, Father.
Yes, Amen.
All right.
Well, let me have Connor startthis prayer just because I just
feel like um we'll have youstart, then Rob, you can go
next, and then I'll close thisout.
Connor (51:10):
We just want to lift up all the men out there right now
that come home every day afterwork.
They sit down on their couchand they don't know who they
are.
God, we just lift those men upto you that you would show them
your purpose for them.
(51:30):
God, that you would put them onthe great adventure that you
have for their lives.
God, we just pray that all ofthe men who are questioning
their masculinity, questioningtheir identity as a man, Lord,
that all of those those spiritsjust pestering them, telling
(51:52):
them that they're not goodenough, telling them that
they're not man enough, tellingthem that they're never gonna be
anything, we just rebuke allthose spirits right now in the
name of Jesus, and we tell themto go, that those spirits have
no place in your lives anymore.
Lord, we just thank you thatwhoever's listening to this in
(52:14):
faith that they receive thismessage fully and
wholeheartedly, that there'snothing left or wasted on
anyone, that it's just fullyabsorbed, Lord, that your
revelation comes through this.
I just pray that in the name ofJesus.
Bryan (52:31):
Amen.
Rob (52:32):
And Father, I just I just thank you.
I thank you for who you are andwho you are to me and who you
are to these other men and andthe women as well, Lord.
Just just draw our heartscloser and closer to you, God.
Remind us who we are.
You are our father, our good,good father.
(52:57):
We are your children.
And so I just ask God, what doyou want to do today?
What do you want to do today,Dad?
And so just just get make ourvisions clear, Father.
Help us to make draw a clearvision and set out and be have
(53:23):
the courage and boldness to stepinto what you have for us.
And I just thank you for theresponsibilities you put in our
lives, Lord.
Let I just pray that you wouldgive us the understanding and
the wisdom to walk in exactlywhat you have for us, God.
Bryan (53:52):
Yes, Lord, I thank you, Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation,
that you're bringing light todarkness right now in people's
minds, that this podcast isgoing out, and there's going to
be an anointing on the words.
Every person that neededsomething unlocked in their
heart would receive it by theSpirit of God right now.
(54:15):
Wisdom and revelation come intocompassion for your family that
you are missing.
Wisdom and revelation come intolaying down anger, resentment,
bitterness, unforgiveness, andletting it go and realizing that
(54:36):
the greatest example of allsuffered greatly, but still
loved purely.
I'm getting some words ofknowledge, so I'm just going to
release this by faith.
I'm hearing that, Michael,you're wearing a gray shirt.
(54:56):
The Lord is ministering to youright now and saying that he's
calling you to come to Oklahomato hunt.
That's you, Michael.
This is the call in your liferight now.
Will you pick up the call?
I'm hearing someone by the nameof James, you've been really
(55:17):
struggling with discouragement,and the Lord is supernaturally
letting grace flow to you rightnow.
Over that discouragement, it'swashing away.
You're gonna feel a hundredpounds lighter.
I'm hearing Tiffany, youlistened to this episode, and
(55:39):
you were thinking about your dadthe whole time.
And the Lord is restoring thatview that you have of your
father.
He's the God of restoration.
There's nothing he can't do.
And I just release healing,provision, and wholeness by the
(56:06):
power of the living God rightnow through this podcast.
I pray all of these things inthe mighty name of Jesus.
Alright.
So I just want to thank youguys so much for coming out, and
uh, you guys are amazing.
See you on the next episode.
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