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You're not a gelding. You're a racehorse. You have all of this

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Wild energy that's within you that's from God and that's good

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But you got to look in the mirror and say am I being the best person that God made me to be?

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Demons the flesh the world the values of this world are

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Guarding the palace of your heart to keep you from your destiny to keep you from your purpose

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And you've got to make yourself a dangerous

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Man of God and that's up to you. You have to decide I'm gonna be dangerous for God

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You know when Jesus was talking about John the Baptist says

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from John the Baptist till now

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The kingdom of God suffers violence and the violent take it by force

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I'm talking about being spiritually violent in our lives not physically violent understand what I'm saying

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I'm talking about spiritually violent where you're gonna contend

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You're gonna contend to be the man that God called you to be

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So what are the demons? What are the demons of a man? Because I think there's some unique

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Demons to all men that get in the way. And again, I want to say I

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Can mean this figuratively about the flesh?

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Struggles that you as a man have all of us have but also I mean that literally it can be demonic

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I'm not saying that every person who struggles with what I'm about to say is

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demonized

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I am saying though that you almost have to treat it like an entity like when you read

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Romans 6 7 & 8

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Paul

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the way he describes sin

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Makes it sound like

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Sin is like a being a being of itself. Just read Romans

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I would say start with five five six seven and eight, you'll know what I'm talking about. So I believe that even Paul was

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Acknowledging that this could be actually

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demonic this sin within

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So hear what I'm saying?

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It's not always demonic but it could be demonic in your life and here's the first the first and I think

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That it's very this is really huge with men and this is lust and I don't just mean sexual

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But I think it's mainly sexual so this can be lust for

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money

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lust for power

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It's interesting. I mean women struggle with this too

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Of course they do but I think this is unique to men that we tend to be power hungry

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We tend to be lusting after

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Sexual gratification

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So I'm going to put lust in the rubric of all those things

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That we struggle with lust and that's one of those demons that keeps us from being alignment hearted

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And we can be passionate harder for all the wrong things and that's what can happen oftentimes with lust

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We have a lot of passion. It's just not the passion for God. It's a passion for

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Lustful gratification in our lives and it's awakened mainly through pornography. It's awakened through power

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It's awakened through manipulation

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people

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Lusting after someone else and then using manipulation to get what they want

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So this demon of the heart that hinders us from being lion-hearted first is lust

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Second and it almost sounds like the opposite

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But it's not it's it's just another version of it and that's a lethargy there can be this lethargy

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within us

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Meaning that you're just flat lazy. You're

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Undisciplined it doesn't mean someone's laying around watching TV all the time or playing video games, though

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It could mean that but that's not the main way. I think that it

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Manifests itself when I think of lethargy I think of

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laziness spiritually

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laziness

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Emotionally not wanting to grow not wanting to go after the things that will make you a better man

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That that's a struggle because what happens is we just don't want to get up and go after it in our lives

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so lust

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lethargy and then thirdly isolation

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I

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Would I would venture to say?

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that if you take

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Virtually any suicide note if you take anyone who's gone through divorce anyone who has gone through

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Some kind of a criminal past even you're gonna find someone who's isolated

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someone who didn't have any blood-stained allies didn't have any relationships with people who

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Could speak into their life and hold them accountable

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Well in Hebrews 12, we have the antidote to these and I think to being a lion-hearted man

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contending as a lion

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man and I read it the last time I want to read it again therefore we also since

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we're surrounded by soda so great a cloud of witnesses that's relationships

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that we need in our life let us lay aside every weight not some weights but

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every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us so if lust lethargy

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isolation our struggles in your life what the writer of Hebrews is saying

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you've got to lay that aside you've got to start disciplining your life with the

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fire of God and start taking that out of the way laying that aside so you can run

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not walk anymore that you can be fully alive not half alive you can be fully

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hearted wholehearted and not half-hearted and then run with

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endurance the race it is set before you looking to Jesus the author and finisher

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of our faith so our model is Jesus we're looking to the type of life he lived he

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was fully wholeheartedly in love with his father he was fully wholeheartedly

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in love with people this is our model and so we look to him we don't look

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around and contrast our life with others or compare ourselves we look unto Jesus

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for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame

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and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God so this this is the

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life this is the contending of a lion in which we look to Jesus as one who

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literally went to the cross but he had joy in doing that that's the kind of joy

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that I'm looking for and that's what I think is the key to contending as a lion

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and making yourself dangerous is looking at Jesus and and modeling our life after

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him it and let me give you a definition of content I like the word content I'm

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gonna use contend here contend means to struggle to surmount so it means it is a

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struggle to achieve struggle to win you have to contend as a lion-hearted man

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you have to contend to break demonic strongholds over your life and over your

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heart and if you're writing this down write down this is bloody work this

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takes a lot of work to get there so I want to give you two things you got to

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contend against in your life to become a dangerous man the first is contend

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against yourself quit trying to change everyone else quit comparing yourself to

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everybody else change you be a better you take responsibility for your life

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things don't happen to you they happen for you take responsibility quit making

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excuses you're not tame you're not a gelding you're a racehorse you have all

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of this wild energy that's within you that's from God and that's good but you

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gotta look in the mirror and say am I being the best person that God made me

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to be not about Joe not about Larry over here comparing yourself but look at

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yourself and say am I reaching my full potential in Christ and so contending

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contend and compete against yourself you if you're single out there you want and

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you hope to be married someday then ask yourself am I the kind of person that I

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would want to marry because men are looking for women who are exceptional

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they are and women exceptional women are looking for exceptional men so are you

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becoming that of course you're not there yet but I'm talking about are you in a

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trajectory to becoming the best you that God created you to be and it's tough

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this is hard to do but I'm telling you that's the first thing we contend

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against ourself we compete against ourself and we continue to grow we

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continue to grow in the areas we need to grow in and then secondly contend in

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your schedule to be the best person you can be to be the dangerous person that

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God's called you to be you got to harness your schedule you got to make

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every hour count and so I remember as an athlete in college as a gymnast I mean I

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didn't have any spare time to get into trouble which was great but I mean I had

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every hour on my calendar mapped out of what I needed to do because I had school

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stuff I had my time with the Lord type stuff I had with campus crusade stuff

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that I was doing and then I had gymnastics

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and I had the training room and I had so many things.

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But I was successful, I was effective

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because I harnessed in my schedule.

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My schedule was my slave, not me a slave to my schedule.

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I made the schedule and the schedule was my slave.

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And for you to become the dangerous,

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highly powerful person that God wants you to be,

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you've gotta contend in your schedule.

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You gotta harness in your schedule and follow it.

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It's important that you follow a schedule

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and you walk in that schedule and you live out that schedule.

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So again, like I said earlier about discipline, this is key.

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So contend against yourself, contend with your schedule

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and you're gonna start becoming more and more

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the person that God made you to be

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because you're lionhearted and you're lighting a fire within.

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So it's really exciting, it's one of the most exciting

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things I've ever experienced in my life

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is to reel in my schedule, harness it,

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contend against myself, quit comparing myself to others

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and walk in the new freedom, the new righteousness,

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peace and joy that's of the kingdom of God in my life.

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And I hope that'll be what you discover in your life too.

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♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey ♪

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♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey ♪