You're not a gelding. You're a racehorse. You have all of this
Wild energy that's within you that's from God and that's good
But you got to look in the mirror and say am I being the best person that God made me to be?
Demons the flesh the world the values of this world are
Guarding the palace of your heart to keep you from your destiny to keep you from your purpose
And you've got to make yourself a dangerous
Man of God and that's up to you. You have to decide I'm gonna be dangerous for God
You know when Jesus was talking about John the Baptist says
from John the Baptist till now
The kingdom of God suffers violence and the violent take it by force
I'm talking about being spiritually violent in our lives not physically violent understand what I'm saying
I'm talking about spiritually violent where you're gonna contend
You're gonna contend to be the man that God called you to be
So what are the demons? What are the demons of a man? Because I think there's some unique
Demons to all men that get in the way. And again, I want to say I
Can mean this figuratively about the flesh?
Struggles that you as a man have all of us have but also I mean that literally it can be demonic
I'm not saying that every person who struggles with what I'm about to say is
demonized
I am saying though that you almost have to treat it like an entity like when you read
Romans 6 7 & 8
Paul
the way he describes sin
Makes it sound like
Sin is like a being a being of itself. Just read Romans
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
Acknowledging that this could be actually
demonic this sin within
So hear what I'm saying?
It's not always demonic but it could be demonic in your life and here's the first the first and I think
That it's very this is really huge with men and this is lust and I don't just mean sexual
But I think it's mainly sexual so this can be lust for
money
lust for power
It's interesting. I mean women struggle with this too
Of course they do but I think this is unique to men that we tend to be power hungry
We tend to be lusting after
Sexual gratification
So I'm going to put lust in the rubric of all those things
That we struggle with lust and that's one of those demons that keeps us from being alignment hearted
And we can be passionate harder for all the wrong things and that's what can happen oftentimes with lust
We have a lot of passion. It's just not the passion for God. It's a passion for
Lustful gratification in our lives and it's awakened mainly through pornography. It's awakened through power
It's awakened through manipulation
people
Lusting after someone else and then using manipulation to get what they want
So this demon of the heart that hinders us from being lion-hearted first is lust
Second and it almost sounds like the opposite
But it's not it's it's just another version of it and that's a lethargy there can be this lethargy
within us
Meaning that you're just flat lazy. You're
Undisciplined it doesn't mean someone's laying around watching TV all the time or playing video games, though
It could mean that but that's not the main way. I think that it
Manifests itself when I think of lethargy I think of
laziness spiritually
laziness
Emotionally not wanting to grow not wanting to go after the things that will make you a better man
That that's a struggle because what happens is we just don't want to get up and go after it in our lives
so lust
lethargy and then thirdly isolation
I
Would I would venture to say?
that if you take
Virtually any suicide note if you take anyone who's gone through divorce anyone who has gone through
Some kind of a criminal past even you're gonna find someone who's isolated
someone who didn't have any blood-stained allies didn't have any relationships with people who
Could speak into their life and hold them accountable
Well in Hebrews 12, we have the antidote to these and I think to being a lion-hearted man
contending as a lion
man and I read it the last time I want to read it again therefore we also since
we're surrounded by soda so great a cloud of witnesses that's relationships
that we need in our life let us lay aside every weight not some weights but
every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us so if lust lethargy
isolation our struggles in your life what the writer of Hebrews is saying
you've got to lay that aside you've got to start disciplining your life with the
fire of God and start taking that out of the way laying that aside so you can run
not walk anymore that you can be fully alive not half alive you can be fully
hearted wholehearted and not half-hearted and then run with
endurance the race it is set before you looking to Jesus the author and finisher
of our faith so our model is Jesus we're looking to the type of life he lived he
was fully wholeheartedly in love with his father he was fully wholeheartedly
in love with people this is our model and so we look to him we don't look
around and contrast our life with others or compare ourselves we look unto Jesus
for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame
and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God so this this is the
life this is the contending of a lion in which we look to Jesus as one who
literally went to the cross but he had joy in doing that that's the kind of joy
that I'm looking for and that's what I think is the key to contending as a lion
and making yourself dangerous is looking at Jesus and and modeling our life after
him it and let me give you a definition of content I like the word content I'm
gonna use contend here contend means to struggle to surmount so it means it is a
struggle to achieve struggle to win you have to contend as a lion-hearted man
you have to contend to break demonic strongholds over your life and over your
heart and if you're writing this down write down this is bloody work this
takes a lot of work to get there so I want to give you two things you got to
contend against in your life to become a dangerous man the first is contend
against yourself quit trying to change everyone else quit comparing yourself to
everybody else change you be a better you take responsibility for your life
things don't happen to you they happen for you take responsibility quit making
excuses you're not tame you're not a gelding you're a racehorse you have all
of this wild energy that's within you that's from God and that's good but you
gotta look in the mirror and say am I being the best person that God made me
to be not about Joe not about Larry over here comparing yourself but look at
yourself and say am I reaching my full potential in Christ and so contending
contend and compete against yourself you if you're single out there you want and
you hope to be married someday then ask yourself am I the kind of person that I
would want to marry because men are looking for women who are exceptional
they are and women exceptional women are looking for exceptional men so are you
becoming that of course you're not there yet but I'm talking about are you in a
trajectory to becoming the best you that God created you to be and it's tough
this is hard to do but I'm telling you that's the first thing we contend
against ourself we compete against ourself and we continue to grow we
continue to grow in the areas we need to grow in and then secondly contend in
your schedule to be the best person you can be to be the dangerous person that
God's called you to be you got to harness your schedule you got to make
every hour count and so I remember as an athlete in college as a gymnast I mean I
didn't have any spare time to get into trouble which was great but I mean I had
every hour on my calendar mapped out of what I needed to do because I had school
stuff I had my time with the Lord type stuff I had with campus crusade stuff
that I was doing and then I had gymnastics
and I had the training room and I had so many things.
But I was successful, I was effective
because I harnessed in my schedule.
My schedule was my slave, not me a slave to my schedule.
I made the schedule and the schedule was my slave.
And for you to become the dangerous,
highly powerful person that God wants you to be,
you've gotta contend in your schedule.
You gotta harness in your schedule and follow it.
It's important that you follow a schedule
and you walk in that schedule and you live out that schedule.
So again, like I said earlier about discipline, this is key.
So contend against yourself, contend with your schedule
and you're gonna start becoming more and more
the person that God made you to be
because you're lionhearted and you're lighting a fire within.
So it's really exciting, it's one of the most exciting
things I've ever experienced in my life
is to reel in my schedule, harness it,
contend against myself, quit comparing myself to others
and walk in the new freedom, the new righteousness,
peace and joy that's of the kingdom of God in my life.
And I hope that'll be what you discover in your life too.
♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey ♪