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Reset Podcast with Archie Callahan is where faith meets real life.
In a world constantly shaping the way men think, lead + live, Reset Podcast takes a fresh look at men + culture through the lens of the GOSPEL. Each episode features honest conversations, practical wisdom + scriptural truth designed to help MEN reset their minds, strengthen their faith + lead with purpose in their homes, workplaces, churches + communities.
Whether we’re discussing leadership, marriage, fatherhood, integrity, current culture, spiritual growth, or the challenges men face today, our goal is simple: to align our lives with God’s truth + become the men He has called us to be.
SUBSCRIBE + join the conversation as we challenge cultural norms, encourage biblical manhood + pursue a life that honors Christ.
NEW EPISODE EVERY WEDNESDAY.
Hey guys, welcome to the Reset Podcast.
I am Archie Callahan, and in today with me is the great Eric Fretz.
Come on.
Yeah, who is our campus pastor down in Currituck, North Carolina, doing a great job we love.
He and his wife, man, they're great people, and Eric is a great guy.
Today we're going to talk out of Ephesians chapter 5, but before we dive into our subject today, I just want you to get to know Eric Fretz.
Who is Eric Fretz?
I don't know.
I kind of want you to tell me.
Come on, man.
You can do better than that.
Yeah, man.
I was raised in Northern Virginia, and so went to public school my whole life.
I went to community college a couple years because I didn't really know what I was going to do.
And so my mom said, if you go to a four-year university, you've got to figure it out.
But if you go to this Northern Virginia community college, I'll pay for your courses for two years.
So I said, okay, I'll do that.
I was wise enough to make that decision.
Yeah, man, that's awesome.
And so I ended up going to ODU, which is what brought me kind of down this way.
My father actually lived in this area.
My mom and dad were divorced, young age, probably about two years old.
And when my mom came to Woodbridge, Virginia, my dad came to the Virginia Beach area.
So he lived here for about 25 years or so.
So we would spend our summers actually in Virginia Beach and would come to this area regularly and
go to the beach and have fun, me and my brother messing around out there.
But ended up coming to ODU, went shortly after there to Regent University, get my Master's of Divinity.
And it's funny, because it's like, I say it's a miracle that I went back to even ODU, because I was like, man, once I'm done with high school, I don't want to go back to school.
I always kind of called myself like, I'm not the school kind of person.
Yeah, you weren't that studio.
Yeah, yeah.
I would read a page in a book, and it would be like, what did I just read?
And so the fact that I love reading today, and I went back not only to ODU.
I studied criminal justice, actually.
I was thinking about being a police officer, federal agency or something like that.
It was really what I had in my heart.
And it's funny that nowadays my son says, I want to be a police officer.
Wow.
But I just wanted something practical.
I didn't want to sit behind a desk.
I wanted to be out dealing with people, having conversation, doing things.
And so that led me into becoming a personal trainer.
But I tell you what, that's kind of all part of my testimony.
Mm-hmm.
Because I got connected to this particular guy.
His name is Jim White, and he owns a string of fitness studios in the Virginia Beach area.
But I met him in a small group men's Bible study that I was invited to.
And actually, a guy, when I did a prison ministry called Kairos Prison Ministry, we were at the end of that weekend, and a guy said, hey, do you live in the Norfolk area?
You should come out to this Bible study.
That Bible study changed my life, Pastor.
I'm telling you, it was a trajectory changer for me.
What was it about that Bible study that changed you, man?
Was it just reading through the Word, or was it the relationships?
What was it?
I mean, it was a little bit of everything, but there was the accountability aspect.
There was the consistency that I went every Tuesday.
We went.
It was every Tuesday night, and it was the same group of probably about five to ten guys any given week, but we would talk about real life.
We would talk about what we were going through.
I wasn't married at this time, but people would talk about their marriage, and they were really opening up about stuff, and I was kind of looking around like...
These guys are like, they're really going there.
You know, hey, I got this problem and I'm dealing with this and I'm struggling with this.
And I'm like, man, and getting prayer forward.
And, you know, guys then are like, yeah, I deal with that too.
You know, let me help you.
You know, this is what I've done or this is where I came from.
And it was like, man.
And so I really, God used that to sanctify my life, you know, that deep theological, but to really change me.
He used that small group Bible study.
And that's what led me to get a job at Jim White, which I was introduced to founding senior pastor of Spring Branch Community Church.
And once I told him that I wanted to go back and get my Master's of Divinity, I think he maybe kept that in the back of his mind.
And when there was a gentleman who stepped off staff there as the youth pastor at Spring Branch,
I was training him, as I did once or twice a week during that time, training for about four years or so.
So we built kind of a little bit of a relationship.
I would just ask him about the Lord and about the Bible and stuff like that.
And he said, you know, I feel like the Lord's asking me to present this opportunity to you.
Would you consider being a middle school director?
Wow.
And so I brought that opportunity back to Stacy, and we talked about it.
And actually, we kind of said no.
We were like, you know, thank you, but I think we're good.
And so he was like, okay, no problem.
But he came back about two or three weeks later, and he said, you know, I really feel called.
I feel led, I think is the words that he used.
I really feel strongly that I'm supposed to ask you again.
Would you consider being a high school director?
And so at that point, I went back, and I just said, Stacy, you know, I feel –
different about this.
I don't know what it is.
We should go for it.
And so we did, and we were there for five years.
Wow, that's awesome, man.
Spring Branch leadership was connected to Bridge Church leadership, which is how we got connected to Bridge Church.
That's crazy, man.
Footsteps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord, even when we don't realize that God's directing our steps.
He was.
In your story of transformation, there's one word that really popped out to me.
You said, consistency.
in that small group.
It's not what we do occasionally that shapes us.
It's what we do consistently that shapes us.
So that consistent accountability, studying the Word, being around those guys shaped you.
As iron sharpens iron, so do men.
And I would even say, leading up to that point, I was very inconsistent.
And my Christian walk was inconsistent.
But once I got consistent and started getting around those guys and changing things and being held accountable and receiving prayer and getting deeper into the Word, my walk with the Lord became consistent.
And there was transformation that took place because of it.
Yeah, it was a good habit.
Mm-hmm.
Habits are forming.
You have to figure out what's forming your life.
There are forces that form you.
A habit is a force that forms you.
You can have a bad habit or a good habit.
You developed a good habit of accountability, small groups.
Why do you think a lot of men resist small groups?
accountability?
I think sometimes they don't get it.
They don't understand the result of it, and therefore they don't invest in it.
I think many times they're guarded.
I remember I was in a group with a couple guys, and they're like, yeah, I'm good.
I've dealt with this, that, and the third, but I'm good.
I'm over that.
I've overcome or whatever.
And I'm listening to them, and I'm going, no, you haven't processed it.
You're not thinking it.
You just think you can...
get by it and just shove it down.
And that's what a lot of guys do.
We just suppress things, not realizing that those things are going to come out.
And the right atmosphere, they're going to come out.
Right moment, the wrong atmosphere, pressure hits.
And like a volcano, it all comes out, whether it comes out on your spouse, your kids, your pet at work, it will come out.
And a lot of guys think, man, I can't handle this stuff on my own.
I am the man.
You can't tell me what to do.
But I think it's in those small groups where we humble ourselves, and God says, I give grace to the humble.
And that's where you find real strength.
I mean, Paul says that our strength is made perfect in our weakness.
It's through humility that we receive God's strength.
And the world gives us a different definition of masculinity.
that says, you can handle it.
You got it.
You're strong enough.
But that's not the biblical form of masculinity.
It's actually, am I willing to submit?
Am I willing to do things God's way?
Because if so, God's got a much better way of doing life than we do.
Oh, no doubt, man.
We have a Western mindset of masculinity.
Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, who are some current guys.
You know, Gladiator.
The Rock.
Yeah, The Rock.
You know, all these big guys.
Arnold Schwarzenegger.
We have this view of masculinity, and that's not what the Bible calls masculinity.
You know, a masculine man can actually humble themselves before.
Yeah.
And you don't lose your man card because you do that.
You know what I'm saying?
You don't check your man card out at the door when you go to a small group.
You take it in there with you, and you just deal with it within the confines of other men.
You're wrestling, and you're working out your salvation, and you're helping each other, and you become better.
Yeah.
And I even think, too, that's actually more what makes you a man, of not being so insecure that you're unwilling to open up and be transparent, but you're actually secure enough to go, yeah, this is where I've been.
This is where I'm at.
I'm trying to get here.
I'm not there yet.
How have y'all gotten there?
That's what a real man does.
He's willing to show that I'm not perfect currently, but you know what?
I'm going to keep getting better.
I'm going to keep progressing.
In order to do that, I have to open up.
I have to share.
I have to...
be humble enough to receive correction or information that I don't currently have to progress in the direction that I want to go.
And in those small groups, we bring things to the light because whatever you keep in darkness controls you.
And Satan loves darkness, or people love doing their evil deeds in darkness.
The first thing that God said, he said, let there be light.
That was four days before he made the sun.
So he wasn't talking about son.
Right.
He was talking about revelation.
Come on.
Let there be light.
Let there be a revelation of who I am.
You know, light and darkness, they're metaphors in the Bible.
Light is wisdom.
It's knowledge.
It's understanding.
Darkness is the lack of wisdom.
It's the lack of understanding, the lack of knowledge.
So when God said, let there be light, he gave the world a knowledge of himself.
And eventually he creates the sun.
And I believe in those small groups, light comes, a revelation of God and a revelation of ourselves.
You can never gain a revelation of God without gaining a revelation of yourself.
Because when we look at God, we see us.
We begin to see our need for him.
We see God through the lens.
Yeah.
that we have on.
It's almost like one of your favorite parables.
I know you mentioned in your very first podcast is the parable of the stewards or the talents.
And the last guy talks about how, I knew that you were a God that
you know, you were hard.
And yeah, you were a hard man and you collected, you know, you reap what you didn't sow and all this kind of stuff.
And it was, you know, the more I thought about that, the more it was he perceived God incorrectly and therefore he lived incorrectly.
And our perception of God, like A.W.
Tozer said, what comes into the mind when he thinks about God is the most important thing about that man.
Wow.
So many of us have a somewhat an Old Testament perspective
mindset of God, that he's cruel, he's mean, he's vengeful, he's a God of vengeance, he's after people, he wants to destroy nations.
But we have the wrong lens on that.
It's like these glasses.
I can't see without them correctly.
I can't drive without them.
But when I put them on, it corrects my view.
And so we have to put on the right lens, and the right lens for God, knowing God, is who?
Jesus.
Jesus.
Hebrews 1, he's the exact representation of the Father.
Yeah.
And so if I really want to view God correctly, I have to learn to view Jesus correctly.
And a lot of guys, man, they have a weird, twisted view of God, maybe to the point that they see God like their earthly father.
Right.
Their earthly father was harsh, mean, vengeful.
Crazy.
And I think sometimes we don't connect like understanding scripture, understanding who Jesus is, looking at the lens in which we were and connecting that to like the parable of the talents.
I mean, Jesus said, like...
you're a wicked, lazy servant.
We don't connect it to the fact that it actually affects everything that we do, and those are the things that we're going to be judged eternally upon.
And so it matters eternally that all the things that you're talking about become very real to us, and we do the work that we're supposed to do now so that we don't hear those words, but we hear, well done, good and faithful servant.
He called him a lazy servant.
Yeah.
Was he really lazy?
Probably not.
He just had a wrong view of the master.
And that created the lazy response to the talent that was given to him.
The reason we don't respond correctly to God is because we don't see God correctly.
I think that's the reason we don't serve in church.
That's the reason we don't bring our families to church, because we see God in a way that's twisted.
And it's not scriptural.
And so we have to reprogram our lives.
We have to be transformed.
Reset.
Yeah, reset constantly.
Reset.
Yeah, it's all about reset.
Yeah, that's true.
And we have to reset our lives, man.
And when we reset our lives and we begin to see God correctly, we begin to view others through that lens.
Wow.
Then we begin to relate to our wives differently, our children, coworkers, friends, family, in-laws.
We begin to relate to them in a different way through that lens.
But here's the deal.
Sometimes our view of God is tainted or tarnished because of our earthly father.
And we both dealt with that probably.
And I'll say this too just on my personal –
you know, kind of testimony in life story is that many times the relationship that I had with my father, because he was kind of a Bible scholar, you know, he loves the Bible and, you know, loves to teach the Bible and stuff.
And so that's where I really connect with him because I love the Bible.
And so we connect in that way.
And I felt like the Lord spoke to me one time and was kind of talking to me about, that's the way that you kind of connect with me, is that you're just seeking information.
You're just seeking revelation as opposed to real connection and real intimacy and real relationship.
You just kind of are desiring something from me.
And the way that I connect... It's transactional.
I'm going to know you, and I know you're a God that does this because your word says it.
So I'm going to do this, and you're going to do that.
And you make it a transactional relationship.
Not relational.
It's not life-giving.
Yeah.
It's a formula.
Yeah, that's what it is.
Or something.
And so that, to me, I mean, God kind of opened it up to me a little bit.
And even one time, I felt like God spoke to me about... I was like, man, God... And I was just kind of giving Him glory.
And as I was praying, I was just being grateful and things like that.
And I said, man, I could never repay you for all the things that you've done for me.
I just get real religious.
And just throwing stuff up.
And I felt like I heard the Lord say, yes, you can.
And I went, what do you mean?
And it kind of goes back to this whole idea, love other people as I have loved you.
Or even like you're saying, if it has so much to do with our lens about ourselves, love your neighbor as you love yourself.
And you can't love your neighbor unless you see yourself correctly and love yourself.
Yeah.
Because you always project on other people how you feel about yourself.
Yeah.
Come on.
And we do that all the time.
It's projection.
It's an inside problem.
It's our insecurity.
It's our own hurt.
It's our own pain.
And it stems from a lot of it's our environment that we were raised in.
Your parents were divorced when you were two.
I don't know how that impacted you or if it impacted you at all.
Did you feel like it impacted you?
You know, I probably dealt with the man syndrome, you know, the kind of Western man syndrome, too.
I would talk to Stacy like, you didn't affect me.
I'm good.
But I had to go back.
And I remember you took us to that retreat of healing the heart and stuff where they tried to go deep into some of the things that, you know, uncovering some things that if there is some stuff there, then you deal with it and you move past it.
And there were some revelations that I had about how potentially it had affected me and created some blind spots and things that I wasn't necessarily aware of.
And so, yeah, I mean, I would say generally the Lord protected me.
That's the way I view it is...
God had a specific reason why he wanted things to play out that way.
But yeah, man, you miss things when you don't have a father in the house.
I mean, you just don't have that father figure.
My mom raised me.
And so there's things that people love hunting and fishing and all that kind of stuff.
I never did that.
Man, I feel sorry for you.
I mean, when I grew up a little bit as a kid, a teenager or whatever, we did a little bit of that.
Is that why you're a Commanders fan?
You just didn't have your dad in the house?
Actually, my grandfather was a Washington Redskins fan, so that's how I picked it up.
He was big on it, man.
He took me to a Washington game early in my life.
It was in the old stadium with the old metal bleachers.
And ever since then, I've been a...
So you said you found yourself becoming transactional with God.
You feel like you were transactional with your earthly dad?
Any at all?
And that's what I'm kind of saying.
It's like because my relationship with my dad was transactional in nature, that's the way that I almost related to God.
And I think God has corrected that.
It's probably still correct.
Yeah, and it's a continual process of God continuing to peel back layers of how I relate to him that may not be the way that he wants to relate to me and things like that.
And that's a lifelong process of, you know, just walking with the Lord.
But at the same time, it's like something you said earlier about...
And the thought that came to my mind is the way that men operate, and it goes back to even the garden, you know, how Adam, you know, you're talking about we project things on people.
I mean, it was like the first thing he tried to do was blame shift.
I mean, he started projecting onto others.
Well, it was her.
In fact, it was you.
You gave me that one.
You gave it.
It went all the way to God, man.
Exactly.
He blamed God.
And we do that, don't we?
We do all that stuff.
The woman and God.
He blamed everybody.
Everybody else's fault.
And he didn't take personal responsibility.
Yes, yes.
And he hid from God.
We're good at that.
Yeah, we're good at hiding.
The crazy thing is that Adam tried to hide from an all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful God.
But we still do that today.
Yeah, we hide.
We hide in our man cave.
Right, right, right.
What is a man cave?
It's just a place where you go to hide.
You go to medicate.
It's crazy.
That's a modern thing, man cave.
We have people building man caves on their homes.
We're going backwards.
We're going back to cavemen.
Yeah.
Going back to our ancestors.
And it's crazy.
I'm not against having a place where you can go relax.
But if you're going there to hide, to get away from the wife, to get away from the kids, get away from the world, to retreat and drink some bourbon.
Right.
What are you doing?
You're hiding, and you're medicating what only God can heal.
Yes, and I had to learn that too because there were some years in my life where I was wandering and just kind of doing whatever, partying and stuff like that.
And I look back now, and I realize, man, the devil really is trying to steal, kill, and destroy from men.
And everything that I was doing back then, that's exactly what I was allowing him to do.
And when I let something... Because I have a little bit of a competitive nature.
I'm not super competitive, but I do have a competitive bone in my body.
And I turn that competitive edge against Satan.
And I basically say, you ain't gonna win this battle.
You're not gonna win this fight.
You've had me for a little while, but now I'm standing up... The Lord's gonna win this fight through me.
And I think if men can do that, if they can look at their spirituality like they look at a lot of other things,
in life, they would get somewhere.
Why don't they?
Why don't they?
I just think they don't view it correctly.
They're not looking at life.
They think more things are important.
Other things, they're distracted.
They almost disassociate the Lord and church and the Bible and Jesus from all the other aspects of their life.
Compartmentalize.
Yeah.
Well, this is my home life.
This is my work life.
This is my religious life.
Right.
And the three never meet.
Right.
Right.
And the Bible doesn't teach that.
We don't have a home life, a work life, and a church life.
Nothing is secular and sacred.
For the Christian, all things are sacred.
Yes.
Jesus is everything.
He's all in all.
And so how do we merge those and teach men to merge all those together, put
Christ as the head of everything, come under his lordship and fight the good fight of faith.
I just believe men have lost their fight.
I don't know if that's come from society, you know, 1980s when they began to look at men on sitcoms being stupid, lazy.
run down by their wives.
They have just lost the fight, man.
Kind of the emasculation.
Yeah, you know, yeah.
We have feminized the church.
And the church specifically.
And if you would think, I mean, if Satan would try to do one thing, I mean, that's certainly a main thing that I would think he would try to do is try to emasculate men.
Yeah.
In the church specifically.
Make them feminine.
Yeah.
Not worth following.
Very passive.
Yeah.
Which goes back to the garden as well.
Yeah, complacent.
He was passive.
Adam was passive because he wasn't watching over his wife.
He was the responsible party.
She wasn't.
She actually was deceived.
He rebelled.
He sinned.
Because God called out to him.
Adam, where are you at?
What did you do?
Who told you that?
Yeah.
He didn't go after Eve.
Now, there was repercussions for her deception, she being deceived, but he was the responsible part.
Even though he tried to say, the woman you gave me.
This woman.
How many of us, how many guys out there today have said that?
Man, Lord, this woman you gave me is driving me crazy.
My wife told me the other day, go get your child over there.
Whenever they're doing something she don't like, she's like, that's your child.
That's your kid.
But here, even in Ephesians 5, you know, we're trying to get there, guys.
Ephesians 5, 1, it says, follow God's example as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love.
So I think one translation says be imitators of God as beloved children.
So here, God is saying, I'm your father.
Paul is saying, God's our father, and we need to follow him.
But some of us, man, we can't see God as father because of the father figures we had.
You know, if my relationship with my dad was transactional, if it was abusive, or if he was a deadbeat dad, he wasn't at home, it's hard for me to view God as father.
And somehow we have to cross that bridge to viewing God as not some cosmic reality way out in the galaxy, but a father who cares for his children.
Right.
And that is a big bridge to cross for many men.
They don't see God as Father.
And because they don't see God as Father, they never rise to the nature that God wants to put in them.
You know what I'm saying?
How can you imitate God as Father if you don't see Him as Father?
Or be a son.
Or be a son.
And have the correct identity that you're supposed to have if you don't relate to God as familially, the way that he has given us that as one of the primary analogies that he uses in the way that he relates to us and wants us to relate to him.
But we don't view him that way.
How can we walk in the fullness of what he's offering us if we don't understand some of the dimensions of what that looks like?
Yeah, it becomes transactional, just like Prodigal Son in Luke 15.
Dad, I want my inheritance.
I'm gone.
It was the transaction.
And he left.
Give me my money.
Yeah, give me my money.
Give me my Rolex watch.
Give me my Beamer.
And I'm out of here, Dad.
Until the Bible says he came to himself.
Wow.
And he turned back toward the father's house.
But even when he got to the father's house, he had a slave mentality.
And he concocted this whole thing that he was going to say.
And his dad's like, shut up.
I don't even care.
You came back.
My son was dead and he's alive now.
Yeah, I didn't treat him like a slave.
But he had the wrong perspective of his father once again.
I mean, you see that same theme, which I've never noticed that before until this moment, having talked previously about it.
It's like, man, the way that we view God is one of the most important things about us.
And I think that's why Paul said in Philippians 3, 10, to know...
Christ and the power of his resurrection.
To know.
That word to know in the Greek is a close, intimate, personal knowledge of.
It's not a transactional relationship.
We have made the gospel transactional.
Lord, I'm going to give you my sin.
You give me your salvation, and I'll see you in eternity.
Right, right.
And there's no relationship.
Give my ticket to heaven.
Yeah, I raise my hand.
I got my stay out of hell card, and it's transactional.
And it's like you've arrived.
Yeah, that's it, man.
Now I can go live my own life and there's no relationship.
And even the way some pastors will say it, and I try to avoid these words, they're like, if you said that prayer today, we believe you're saved and on your way going to heaven and you're good.
And I'm like, I believe that if someone is truly saved, that is true.
But pronouncing that over someone that I don't really know, I don't know what's going on in your heart.
You don't know a person's saved until you watch their life.
Right.
And see.
Fruit.
The fruit of their life.
The fruit.
Yeah.
What is the fruit?
And then I'll tell you if you're saved or not.
Yeah.
It takes a while to bear fruit, doesn't it?
Yeah.
One of my mentors told me, try not to tell people that they're saved.
Try to ask them how they got saved.
Or tell them to tell you if they're saved or not.
And then see what people say.
How do you know you're saved?
You know, we tell people we're going to go to heaven.
Well, what's heaven?
That's a whole other reality.
That's something, you know, we're trying to get to heaven, and God's trying to get heaven here.
Come on.
In the New Testament, you never see people going to heaven.
You see heaven coming down.
Jesus comes down.
Jesus is coming back, and we're telling people they're going to escape the planet.
Or the new Jerusalem comes down.
Yeah, it comes down.
The earth.
That's a whole other theological... There's a new heaven and a new earth.
Yeah, that's a whole other theological discussion, man.
We've been good, and...
And Plato gave us that, man.
That came out of that era.
Your flesh, your body is evil.
Physical reality is evil.
We need to get into some spiritual.
Your spirit's going to leave.
Your soul's going to heaven.
No, your body is sacred.
Amen.
God made it.
God made it.
You're not going to be a dismembered spirit that doesn't have a body in heaven.
You're going to have a body.
Yeah.
But, you know, so he left the father's house.
He went to the pig pen.
He came to himself.
He came home, and his dad put a robe on him, put sandals on his feet.
When he put sandals on his feet, he declared he was no longer a slave, a hired hand, put a ring on his finger, you're my son, gave him the kiss of forgiveness.
And I believe we need to relate to God that way.
I don't care how far you've went away from God.
You might have gone into a distant country.
You're still a son, but you have to recognize that you're a son.
For instance, my son who's 27, I can call him son, but if he never comes to the realization that he's a son and that, hey, you come into my house, everything here is yours.
You can go to the refrigerator.
You can swim in the pool.
You can go fish on a dock.
You don't have to beg me.
It's yours.
But if I came in your house and tried to go in your refrigerator, you might have something to say.
Yeah, we'll have a gun waiting on you.
You try to break it in my house, you know, I've got plenty of guns.
I can break one out of the safe.
But, you know, it's that sonship, man.
And I believe guys need to come into a revelation of that.
And I think that one thing, you know, even here at the beginning of Ephesians 5, because he talks about following God's example as dearly beloved children.
and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God.
He talks about this father relationship, this family relationship, before he ever gets into the way you should behave.
Because if you disconnect Christian conduct from the heart of the Father, you're producing religion.
You're producing behavior modification without relational transformation.
And so these two go together, man.
And Jesus said, I am the vine, you're the branches.
If you abide in me, you will bear much fruit.
So there's a connection there.
There's a family connection.
So if I'm really going to change my behavior, it doesn't come from self-help.
It doesn't even come from self-discipline.
It comes from the Holy Spirit who gives me discipline to produce that.
Yeah, and it all comes from that relational connection.
I mean, it's not just a theological idea.
I mean, it is a spiritual reality that we have a Father, you know, and we're accepted in the Beloved is what, you know, the Bible is accepted in Christ.
I mean, it's like...
If we could come to grips with that, I mean, our whole lives, I think we deal with fear and fear of failure, isolation, rejection, all of these things that cause us to put on masks and whatever, work out, and all the motivations that we do things, make more money and buy big trucks and whatever else.
It's all kind of rooted in the reality that we don't really know who we are.
We don't, man.
We have identity crisis.
And we're reaching for things.
And this is good stuff.
This is good stuff.
We're trying to find an off-ramp here on Reset Podcast.
I want to thank you for joining us today.
Pastor Eric's going to be back with us next week.
And I look forward to seeing you on the Reset Podcast next week.
Thank you for being with us today.