Mark Bell's Power Project - Faith, Evil, and Truth: The Case for God | Ben Alderman

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

What if faith isn’t blind… but the most rational conclusion?In this episode, Pastor Ben breaks down the problem of evil, free will, addiction, hypocrisy in Christianity, and why belief in God may be unavoidable. From the role of suffering to the power of transformation, this conversation goes deep into the questions most people are afraid to ask.We also get into modern issues—politics, culture, and the tension between faith and real-world behavior—and why the biggest challenge to Christianity might be Christians themselves.Follow Ben:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ironmile_ben/Church: https://www.restlife.net/Gym: https://www.ironmilefitness.com/00:00 – Why does God allow evil?10:30 – Addiction, faith, and replacing bad habits22:15 – Christianity, politics, and hypocrisy38:40 – What it really means to “believe”52:10 – Science vs faith debate1:05:00 – Why living right actually mattersSpecial perks for our listeners below!🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 Get your BLOODWORK/TRT/PEPTIDES! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com and use code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off Self-Service Labs and Guided Optimization®.🧠 Methylene Blue: Better Focus, Sleep and Mood 🧠 Use Code POWER10 for 10% off!➢https://troscriptions.com?utm_source=affiliate&ut-m_medium=podcast&ut-m_campaign=MarkBel-I_podcastBest 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM?si=JZN09-FakTjoJuaW🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎➢https://emr-tek.com/Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast➢ https://www.PowerProject.live➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerprojectFOLLOW Mark Bell➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell

God is supposed to be able to control all, be all, do all. If he has the ability to wipe out evil, why would he allow it to exist? In that question in particular, I'd say it because if he wiped out evil, he'd eliminate all of us. To become a Christian, you just have to say, I believe. The Bible is truth. And if the goal is to just to get ahead, the reality is, getting ahead in this life and being rich or wealthy or a playboy or a millionaire or whatever it is in this life is so small in comparison to what eternity is, if I'm going to believe in Darwinian evolution or even a Big Bang theory. I have to believe something.

You tell me the whole thing is all based on science. But in order for me to believe any of what you said, I have to believe this statement that is not grounded in anything except for some presupposition. Our president is a quote unquote Christian. Many people back him up and think that a lot of these things are perfectly okay because this is a God-fearing man. The biggest problem with Christianity is Christians. Here we go.

Yeah. Question number one. I like to be called Coach Ben. But I guess in this realm, I have to switch gears and have to go pastor Ben. Yeah. Father Ben's okay too, except my kids. I'm not really a father, not in the sense of the religious aspect. Sorry, go ahead.

You have something for me. Father's Catholicism. Yeah. Yeah. I think there might be some other flavors that subscribe to that moniker, but not me. If there is a God, why would he allow evil to be around? Well, this is a tough podcast. Just like hops in his car and gets out of here.

But in one, there is a God. Two, there is evil. Absolutely. And so I think that's the real problem, you know, that so many people see. It's one that I wrestle with a little bit because I wish there were other ways. But God is supposed to be able to control all, be all, do all, right? And then so if there's a God or let's say that God is here or there or right here in front of us. Yeah.

With me. If he has the ability to wipe out evil, why would he allow it to exist? In that question in particular, I'd say it'd be more because if he wiped out evil, he'd eliminate all of us. And he wants to leave room. There's got to be capacity for evil. if there is capacity for faith and an opportunity for us to respond. Yeah, there is a duality that exists there.

And we think we see that oftentimes even exempled in our lives. You know, if you're going to open your heart to somebody, they can also take your heart and run it through the mud. You know, but the opportunity for something good, the opportunity for relationship exists because there's the opportunity of the other as well. And so that's the way God did it.

And he allows for evil. He has dealt with it. But as Wes Huff says, it's a not now reality where it's true and he is going to deal with it and he's going to get rid of it. And the Bible promises that. But it's not right now. The way we deal with it now is by having faith in Christ and allowing us to actually see God, for who he is in the midst of this evil. And oftentimes evil in our lives,

the things that are evil in our lives are actually meant to produce good within us. That is the testing of our faith, which is actually just quoting a Bible verse there. But the tested genuess of your faith is oftentimes only tested in hard times. If everything was good, and you're like, oh, I believe in this.

I've got millions of dollars. I'm never sick. I never age. My kids don't go off to the military or to war. and nobody dies. I'll take that too. Like, everybody would take that. Nobody would ever say, you know,

it's not that impressive to say I have faith if there's no actually alternative option. I don't know. So the problem of evil exists because people exist and because God wants the capacity for true love to exist. And he wants an opportunity for a true relationship to exist. And is that maybe what's meant

that we're like born with sin? because it's hard to look at like a little baby and think that that baby has sin. Yeah, it is. Not yeah, it is to your question, but yeah, it is hard to look at a baby and see like a little sinner. Right?

Like the sinner, like that's like oftentimes what we've been labeled. You get you to church right away. Yeah, exactly. Like if we don't get you to church soon, you're just going to catch on fire right here, you know. But God initially started all of this, knowing that we were going to sin, but he started all of it with an opportunity of perfection

and right relationship with him where we get to walk in the garden with God. You know, we got to have fellowship with him. We get to see him and talk to him. But even in that, man's free will decided to go against God's decree, which was so small. It was so small of all the decrees.

It was just like, don't eat of this tree. You can do anything else. But I'm hungry. But don't eat that tree. And we do it, you know? And I say we, but put yourself in the same shoes. What has God told you? What has your own conscience told you not to do that you've done anyway?

Like we do this kind of thing all the time. We co-sign on Adam's original sin with our own behavior. And so that nature has been passed down from generation to generation. So when I look at a baby, I go, as close to perfection as it is, there is still sin. something yet to be redeemed within that baby, right? Something that just is going to miss the mark, if not tethered to a faith in Jesus Christ. But outside, I'm not talking about that,

that baby is a rotten, lying, murderous, you know, individual in practice, but positionally, they are sinful, i.e. fallen short of the standard. You know, in our last podcast towards the end, you were talking about how you went to Hawaii and you spoke a little bit on the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, right? What is it about faith and developing a faith in God that is so powerful for those who are struggling with addiction specifically because it's a big part of the process within that

program and it's something that helps a lot of people not turn back to those former addictions? It's really easy to say, stop drinking. And the person's like, I love drinking. Like, that's what they do. It covers any pain they have. It might give them the only joy that they have. It is a, a habitual thing. And we love habits. We're creatures of habit.

So it's now become even ingrained from that perspective. So they love it. To say somebody stop loving something and not replace it with a higher love is very, very challenging to do. Like, stop powerlifting. Okay. I'll stop powerlifting. if I can body build.

You gotta find the other high. Right? Yeah. Stop bodybuilding. I'll stop bodybuilding if I can do CrossFit. Stop CrossFit. I'll stop CrossFit if I can do Jiu-Jitsu. You have to have something.

And so what we're saying to the alcoholic, what I'm saying to somebody who loves any sin that's kind of got them gripped, pornography, whatever. You have to replace that with something else. And you could replace it with just Jiu-Jitsu. And that may help you in this life, but it doesn't, it doesn't help you in eternity.

And so instead of replacing pornography or jujitsu with the next high, replace it with the ultimate and then let everything else trickle down after that, right? Love God first and then live your life. I think that is part of Alcoholics Anonymous, right? It's like rule number one basically is to believe in a higher power. Higher power, exactly. Yep. Yeah, it's interesting because maybe it is like kind of just getting the base route of, or at least maybe in that guy's practice of whoever created these rules for alcohols anonymous,

maybe that guy just thought like this is the root. And so that's rule number one. Yeah. And I think I don't like to put words in people's mouth, but if you said the name of the book for Alcoholics Anonymous, I would know what it was. But the initial person who started it was of the Christian faith. But I believe the higher power came in as a way of letting it be more.

more accessible and seeing that this is maybe a way of towards transformation that will lead to then greater transformation into more of a like a Christian worldview not just a AA worldview so yeah it seems like a belief in a higher power you you know you kind of get to turn to turn over I guess some of your issues some of your internal battle with yourself and um and um it's I guess in some way not completely blame yourself since all of us have conflict. I think it's very clear. Like every single person has conflict in their life. And so maybe in that sense,

it's allowing you to not feel so exhausted with the fact that you have this burning conflict within you. Yeah, that blame. That's a good word. The Bible calls it shame. Right? We have shame. So Christ isn't as redeem us from our sin, but also from our shame.

Those things that we've struggled with and we realize, I carry so much weight because of what I've done or who I am or maybe even just who I'm not. You know, I'm not as smart or as intelligent or as brilliant or as high aptitude as a leader as my parents always thought I would be and I didn't measure up. And God's like, I'd take care of all of that. And so I think that the higher power, I would just try to point people towards the highest power of the higher powers, right? The God of God.

So the king of kings, the Lord of Lords. And that would be the God of the Bible. How did you get into being a pastor? So I've been a coach for a long time, right? I've been running my own gym, help at-risk youth. I've been involved in church because of my very real faith of the reality that I'm trying constantly to get closer to God. I want to grow as a disciple of Christ.

It is my highest pursuit. I had a guy who came into my gym about four years ago, five years ago. And he said, actually it was just after COVID. So it was five years, four, five years ago. And he said, he found out as a Christian. And I found that he was a pastor. He said, we should go out to breakfast. I said, sure, let's go to breakfast. I like food. I still eat food, you know, lots of it. And we went and sat down. And he said, you know, have you ever thought about vocational ministry? Because I've watched how you can carry yourself within the gym. It's not just as a coach. You are constantly trying to pour into people's life. You're trying to get to know them. You want to hear their

problems. You want to give them solutions. And my solutions always have that Christian angle to them. And he said, because you're sort of pastoring already. You know? And I said, I would love to. But I'm almost 40 years old at the time. I don't have a seminary background. Like I went to school for this stuff.

But there was a part of me. And even within me, there is a part of me that sees myself as a pastor. And he goes, yeah, I'd love to work with you if it worked out. And I was like, whoa. And I've told people this in the past, but my heart felt like it was singing when I heard him say that. Like it just resonated with me in a way that nothing has in a very, very long time. And I'm not a super emotional guy. I've become more and more emotional.

But when my emotions start to get involved, along with my mindset, I start to go, hmm, God, are you trying to tell me something? You know, are you speaking to me in a way that is special? And so I went home and told my wife, she goes, well, you should probably tell our current pastor that you're considering this, you know, and that you're praying about it. And then from there,

we ended up leaving the church we were at to go and start serving at this other church and then became an executive pastor, which is just somebody who's kind of coordinating the ins and outs of church, maybe calling the quarterback. You know, somebody's calling shots for who goes where and who does what,

just making sure ministries are in place, you know, who's teaching the children and who's teaching the youth and who's unsound that day. So sort of the less spiritual things. And then he felt like I was decent at that. And then I stepped into the interim pastor role when he stepped away and went to serve another ministry in Holland actually at 50 something years old. He decided to uproot from the church he had planted for 20 years. Left a young, maybe not so young, but a young in the ministry guy in charge. And so I've been there for the last, I've been there since September as the interim

lead pastor. And it looks like I'm moving towards the, dropping the interim and becoming just the lead pastor as a whole. But God still knows the answer to that one. So we'll see. But for now, I'm just doing my job. And that's preaching the word

and developing the leaders around me. How does that feel? Does it feel like, does it feel like a pretty big responsibility? Huge. Huge. Yeah. It's a huge.

responsibility because for 2,000 years, the church has has run and has held to certain core beliefs, you know, and in some ways I've always thought myself as more of a pioneer with fitness, with what I do and the way I did it through my CrossFit career. But as a pastor, I feel more like a steward where I've taken something that's really amazing. And my job is to do what I can to amplify that and get it into many people's hands as I can and someday to give it to someone else. Right. And so I want to make sure what I give them is something that is true.

It is historically congruent with what the church is believed for 2000 beyond years and has the transforming power that it has had in my life and will continue to have as long as this world exists the way it does and Christ doesn't come back. You know, curious man. and this is a broader type of idea, but our president is a quote unquote Christian. And it's, I think it can be tough for people who are Christian

to kind of have a level of support for a person who uses the faith, weaponizes the Christian faith, uses that at the backbone, has so much. messaging while many people back him up and think that a lot of these things are perfectly okay because this is a God-fearing man and some people can be more critical. So my curiosity is how do you as a pastor, as a leader, how do you reconcile that with people that you talk to about some of

this stuff? Because again, it's like presidents a man of the Christian faith who's, again, things he's putting forward are he's using the Bible to bolster. it. So how do you see that? It's really tough. I know. It is. It's really tough. Yeah. Just curious what you're thinking about it. No, the reason, there's, there's some real difficulty with that because the areas where our president is not in alignment with the Bible, I would say are absolutely wrong, you know?

And I don't know all those areas. I'm not up to speed on everything that's happening right now. I know that politically, we're hitting a. another fever pitch with everything that's happening with ice and immigration. Yeah. And where is the love and all that? Whereas, you know, and how is this being navigated? But the biggest problem with Christianity is Christians. Because we infuse some of that old self in all the time.

It's so hard to not be the power hungry. the lover of praise of men, the lustful, the angry, the prideful person that sort of served us pretty well in some areas, some areas. And then to hear that God's like, hey, consider others better than yourself, right? Treat others the way you want to be treated. The suffering you're going through is actually for good. You know, instead we just, we want to not be like that. It's hard not to pick and choose.

Yeah, it really is to take the Bible, the whole Bible, because I can tell you, I take the whole Bible, and I go, yes, that is all right. And then you look at my life and you go, and you did not get that right. And so I am also the problem, right? Donald Trump is not the problem. He is one of the problems.

You know, I am one of the problems with the faith. Because somebody's going to come up and they're going to go, hey, I remember you. I remember you. You cut me off on the freeway. Or you said something in a, appropriate here or you stole from me or something right like I'm gonna something like that and I'm gonna go I know I know and I'm so sorry it's not who I want to be there is a huge element of that

that's in me still and I'm working it out and that's the really tough part for a lot of people like I don't want a faith with people who are just walking around hypocrites you put on this mask so you almost have to live this really transparent life where you go I screwed up I screwed up again. I screwed up again. God's really good, but I screwed up again. But if you started just saying God's so good, you know, and using him to as a co-signer on your behavior, and that behavior does not line up with the word, with the Bible. And honestly, with what most people kind of know intuitively to be a good person, it looks really bad, you know. But it's also really hard just to just to be basically naked in front of everybody and go, this is what I did wrong.

This is who I am, you know? I yelled at my wife this day or I was mean to my kids, you know, or I struggle with pornography and I can't put it down. Like you just, and then you're just like, but I'm supposed to be this president or pastor or just good person or coach or whoever. And so I think the hardest part is really that transparency becomes so challenging because it's the only thing that will actually save what people perceive. receive Christianity to be.

Yeah. You know, but it has to be done. But you cannot really do that because then somebody will ask you a really, really polarizing question like, you know, what do you think of immigration? You know, should we be deporting these people? Is it good that they separate those kids from their parents? And you go like, no. Actually, none of this should have happened in the first place.

Do you know that? We should have never actually had to deal with this. We should have just believed God and he said, don't eat of that tree. you know and we should we should have thanked him for a beautiful world where we could actually literally be naked and walk around and just be happy and enjoy what he made for us in our fellowship with him but we didn't and so now we have these answers and you can't answer it like well do you think they should go back to Mexico or to wherever they're on asylum from and you know and it's such a hard question to answer a lot of it happens in the first place because of beliefs like you're living

over here and I'm living over here and I go, no, I don't want you over here because you believe something different than me, so I'm going to stay over on this side. And you got to stay over there or we're going to fight. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of what happens a lot of times. Right. And then, that's the whole thing. And I don't know, I don't know all the answers for that stuff. Of course. You know? So when I'm preaching, right, what I regularly do, I try, because we lost Charlie Kirk in September, right? He was assassinated. The amount of people who knew about about that was so huge. And people come to church looking for an answer

on why things like this happen. But in saying the answer, you also can frustrate a lot of other people who didn't agree with Charlie Kirk's political beliefs, right? So you try to talk about the bigger picture that we're going around and killing people because they have different beliefs than us. And they go, well, then are you saying

that it's okay to believe like Charlie Kirk? you're like, I'm not trying to say anything except for that people are killing other people for what they're thinking. Yeah. You know? And they go, well, thoughts are destructive. Yes, so are bullets, right? And we decided to shoot somebody, right?

And some people are saying, good, and applauding that, you know? And so you try to figure out, how am I going to navigate this with Scripture? How do you love your neighbor as yourself and God first? You know? And so there's a lot of questions out there that feel almost unanswerable. when you look at him like that. So Donald Trump, is he a Christian? I don't know.

It's crazy because to become a Christian, you just have to say, I believe, essentially, right? And I don't mean just with the mouth. You have to believe it in your heart. As the Romans 10.9 says, right? If you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is Lord, you'll be saved. It doesn't say what you do.

It doesn't talk about what you, It doesn't talk about any of that stuff. It says this is how you get saved. A heart belief that manifests itself in what you proclaim. That's honestly, it's a pretty low bar. It's a pretty accessible bar, I should say. It doesn't work. So I don't have to work for like six, eight months, clean my life up,

get rid of this, get rid of that and go do these few good things. I just have to come to a place in my heart where I'm done wrestling with the problem of evil and the hypocrisy of Christians and of everybody else and every other religion, right? And I can just say, I believe. You can say it, but it's got to be in the heart, right? And you got to, that's got to come from somewhere. And so it's a very interesting situation, you know?

Yeah, these topics are, they are really difficult to tackle, but we do have a playbook at least, right? Yeah, we do. It gives you some instruction. And some of what you talked about when I went to go see you at church, at your church, you were mentioning almost like this idea of, because it was something you heard on a podcast, Sean Ryan podcast, I believe. And somebody mentioned, why bother?

Why bother trying to be so good? Right. Like, why not just, you know, a step on people's throats a little bit, you know, ruffle some feathers here and there and not really give a shit, make your money, do your thing your own way. don't really worry about some hurt feelings of some of these people and just keep cranking forward until you make it, then you make it. And then at some point, believe in your heart, say it out loud. And overnight become a Christian when you kind of had this dark past because there are a lot of people

that have dark past and my own experience of being at church when I was young. I was really surprised when I started to figure out, because this was like 13 or something. like so many of these people here have been like broken and that's how they not everybody but a lot of them that's how they kind of ended up there and I was like that's really interesting but anyway you can live that life and then you could still make it to the promise land it kind of sounds like so what what are your thoughts on that I thought that um the answer to that question that was given on the Sean Ryan podcast was pretty good. I think that if you want that answer, you can go listen to Sean Ryan, but I think that there's another aspect to it. Right. So we talked about, we've talked

about kids. We've talked about our own kids. I would like to have answers for the people who I love, who are in my orbit on a regular basis and who are nearby me. I would like to have real answers for them, for what to believe and what is true. Now, I don't want to force them to believe. But if I am convinced that on the other side of life and death, or on the side of life is death and as eternity with Christ in a place called heaven or eternity without him in a place called hell, I want to be able to give those answers and that direction to my kids. I want to be able to give it to my friends. And I actually want to give it to anybody who I happen to rub shoulders with. So a big part of the reason why I think we need to change the way we live is because of the

model that it shows other people. It also confirms within us that our faith is real. It's been tested, that the genuineness of our faith has been tested through walking through this really challenging life where things just want to pull on you and to get you to renounce that or to pay more of this or just whatever it is. And so for me, I really want to have that because I believe that people could drop dead at any time, right? I love the fact that I've had a long time with my kids up to this point. The reality is I could lose one of them very easily. You know, there's like this much blood.

You lose this much blood and you're dead. You know, there's a lot of ways to lose that much blood. You know, and when you have four little treasures that you care a lot about, you start going like, I want to make sure that they know the truth. And that's what the Bible is. The Bible is truth. And we get to that place where we get to, and people go, I don't believe it's truth. That's okay for you to believe that.

But you will deal with the ramifications of that. And if the goal is to just to get ahead, the reality is getting ahead in this life and being rich or wealthy or a playboy or a millionaire or whatever it is in this life is so small in comparison to what eternity is. Eternity by definition is much longer than that. the 50. Well, let's say here. How old are you in Sema? 33. 33 to 100 years that we're going to get, right? Guaranteed you got to 33, right? Who knows if you get more? But like eternity is way longer than that. I feel like my life, I'm 43. Went by already. I feel like I could snap my fingers. And it's just like,

that's how long I've had so far. So I probably get double that. I probably get one more. And then I'm gone. So for me, I look at this and go, why would I live as a Christian? I want to live as a way that it reflects what I'm really focusing on, and that's eternity. That's my relationship with God. That's my relationship in eternity with him, being able to worship him and love him and enjoy actually redeemed right relationship with him like we were supposed to have in the garden. And so that's why I think it matters the way we live. Because otherwise, who are you going to bring with you?

people like, oh, you're living for self and then you want your ticket into heaven, why would God even want that from you? You know? Now, there are certain people I think that that actually happens out of ignorance. I don't think necessarily we need to do that at a decision and go, you know, I know Jesus is Lord,

I believe it, I see it, and I'm just going to pretend that doesn't exist. Do all the bad stuff I can do. And in the very end, I'll go, yes, Lord. that's using him as a tool right that's not seeing him as lord and savior that's seeing you as lord and savior right and you hold all the keys and god's like no you don't hold any of the keys i do right so interesting i love all this stuff um what are like what are some of the things that people come to you with and do you send like not you don't have to share anything personal but i'm just

saying like in in modern times of what happened with charlie kirk and all this stuff being released on the epstein files and all this stuff being released on social media and kind of the ugliness and even people mentioning evil and like uh satanic rituals and like there's some crazy stuff that's come out of this super crazy yeah epstein stuff do people at church do they share that with you that they say hey i i really got a lot of concern over i'm seeing all this stuff and my kids are seeing all this stuff and did they come to you with some of that stuff? They do. Yeah, I get to hear a lot of that. I had a mom come to me and she got two little girls and they're at school and their school

was doing a walkout and a protest for ICE. I think this was a couple weeks ago. And in support of immigrants, I believe. I think it's how the protests. I think it was a statewide thing. I think a lot of schools did it. And she tends to lean that way politically as well. she's a Christian but she leans towards this

this position where she believes that that ice has gone too far our government is overreaching and she is trying to get her kids to support a right position and so she comes to me and she goes I don't know what to do I don't know if I should have them walk out of class and be a part of this protest I don't know if I should have them not do that I don't know the right answer

And here I am. I've been a pastor for about five minutes. And I'm like, well, God doesn't say explicitly what to do in this situation. Other than to pray, ask for discernment and wisdom and guidance to see what action might allow you to show that you love God more than anything else. And we had a couple of a little bit back and forths. and she said, well, I decided not to have them walk out, even though she's sympathetic towards immigrants and does not like what ICE did.

But she didn't like the demonstration. She didn't like that. She didn't like that it was sort of here, this is what you do. This is what happened and here we protest. She feels like the solution was much bigger than that and more nuanced than just protesting. And so I said, okay, praise the Lord, because I didn't have to tell her what to do, you know. I just said, hey, do what you think is best, you know?

And she's asking me, like, you know, sort of like, what would you do? And I'm like, it doesn't matter what I would do. I'm not in that situation. I homeschool my kids for a reason, you know, but I think that there's, it's challenging. And then you get people all the time. I have people who are friends of mine because I still run a gym. I have 250 members at my gym. and they have all kinds of different lifestyles.

And some of them decided that they love somebody of the same gender. Right? They're practicing gay lifestyle. And they ask me, is that accepted in your church? And I have to talk to them. I say, it is accepted in my church. Right? What I mean by that is, you're accepted.

You're a sinner just like me. Now, is the practice of homosexuality? Encourage in Scripture? Absolutely not. It's actually condemned in scripture. So are many other things that I've done, right? And be able to have a relationship enough with people to tell them that and go, hey, do you love Jesus? Let him deal with the rest, right?

When I get to those portions of scripture, will I talk about them? Yep. We'll offend you and ruffle your feathers? Probably. But I can't shy away from those things. And neither can you. You have to hear those things too. And then you have to justify them and say, well, the Bible is dated in that portion or it's wrong in that portion.

or it's wrong in that portion and I'm right. And you have to live with that. But there's so many things that people bring to me. You know? And then there have people who are, this happens all the time. People are really great Christians. That's what I say air quotes.

Because what does that even mean? But we overlook heterosexual relationships living together all the time. Even within the church. People like, oh, well, at least it's not a homosexual marriage. Like it's like, This sin, we start grading it. You know, there's a lot of hypocrisy.

Like we were talking about, Donald Trump, right down to your local church. You know, it's like, what is sin? How about this? How do we just say what sin is? Because the Bible says it. We all admit that we're sinners and we screw up and we need a savior. And we're being transformed from one level of glory to another, which is what the Bible says. Right.

Redeemed, I come with a whole lot of baggage. And then God starts to work these things out of me, right? Are you welcome as he's working these things out of you? Absolutely. Are you welcome to influence people for that? We start to draw some protective guidelines on the health of the flock when certain things begin to happen more overtly or without repentance type thing. But when they are struggles or a part of your life that you're dealing with

and trying to get a hold of, it's then different. So I get asked a lot of questions. One would rather not have to answer honestly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I think a lot of people struggle with the idea of having a true level of faith in Christianity. Because, like, you know, as you were speaking outside, there's a feeling of people who are Christian where they're like, oh, yeah, I just know. There's just like, it's like, I don't need to see. I don't need to have a level of proof for deep scientific proof.

like I just know. I have this faith and I have this understanding and I just know. Right. So for you, what gives you that level of confidence? Because I anticipate that there's really nothing anyone can come up and say to you or try to, you know, argue with you to make you believe otherwise. So what is that for you? Right. Well, it's really tough now because I feel like I truly, I know I have a, personal relationship with Christ. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it'd be like somebody telling me that you don't exist.

Yeah. I'd be like, okay. Yeah. You know, and then they'd be like, he really doesn't, you know? And it would just be, it's just so hard, like you said. But when I look at it, I look at scripture and I see the hundreds of prophecies

of Jesus before he ever came around, written hundreds of years beforehand. And I have at least a little bit of, of actually actual evidence, what I would call evidence. Some people won't like that as evidence. They go, those prophecies can be interpreted a different way and, you know, whatever. But when somebody's going to be born of a virgin in one particular town, it says this 600 years beforehand, like to me, that's a, you know,

there's a bunch of prophecies just like that. So that helps. There's a amount of Old Testament manuscripts that talk about what Jesus did, right, and who he was. And I see that. And then I see the transforming power of him in my life, in other people's lives. it's it's really hard for me to come off of that and go well let's look at this from a more scientific perspective from a scientific perspective we could explain all these things away

in this particular way but then when you look at those whether it be the big bang theory you know if we're talking about like where everything came from there's so many holes in the big bang theory it's not even funny you know it's like well who created the big bang like bang from what? There's still an idea of an uncaused first cause that what do I have to do in order to believe it? I have to have faith if I'm going to believe in Darwinian evolution or even a Big Bang theory that's not attached directly to Darwinian evolution. I have to believe something. And for me, I'd much rather put my faith in a God that I know and to what I can hold in my hand than just like everything looks really, really good. And this uncaused first cause is this philosophical statement.

You tell me the whole thing is all based on science, but in order for me to believe any of what you said, I have to believe this statement that is not grounded in anything except for some presupposition. This philosophical in nature, think it's not scientifically proven. It just must be because the other things are. How's that any different than what I'm doing?

I will never go to a doctor ever again about my general health. All they wanna do is put you on pills. Really well said there by Dana White. Couldn't agree with them more. A lot of us are trying to get jacked A lot of us just want to look good, feel good. And a lot of the symptoms that we might acquire as we get older, some of the things that we might have, high cholesterol or these various things,

it's amazing to have somebody looking at your blood work as you're going through the process, as you're trying to become a better athlete, somebody that knows what they're doing. They can look at your cholesterol. They can look at the various markers that you have, and they can kind of see where you're at, and they can help guide you through that. And there's a few aspects, too, where it's like, Like, yes, I mean, no, no shade to doctors, but a lot of times they do want to just stick you on medication. A lot of times there is supplementation that can help with this.

At Merrick Health, these patient care coronators are going to also look at the way you're living your lifestyle because there's a lot of things you might be doing that if you just adjust that, boom, you could be at the right levels, including working with your testosterone. And there's so many people that I know that are looking for, they're like, hey, should I do that? They're very curious. And they think that testosterone is going to all of a sudden kind of turn them into the Hulk. But that's not really what happens. It can be something that can be really great for your health because you can just basically live your life a little stronger, just like you were maybe in your 20s and 30s. And this is the last thing to keep in mind, guys.

When you get your blood work done at a hospital, they're just looking at like these minimum levels. At Merrick Health, they try to bring you up to ideal levels for everything you're working with. if you go into a hospital and you have 300 nanograms per deciliter of test, you're good, bro, even though you're probably feeling like shit. At Merrick Health, they're going to try to figure out what things you can do in terms of your lifestyle. And if you're a candidate, potentially TRT. So these are things to pay attention to to get you to your best self.

And what I love about it is a little bit of the back and forth that you get with the patient care coordinator. They're dissecting your blood work. It's not like if you just get this email back and it's just like, hey, try these five, things. Somebody's actually on the phone with you going over every step and what you should do. Sometimes it's supplementation. Sometimes it's TRT. And sometimes it's simply just some lifestyle habit changes. All right, guys, if you want to get your blood work checked and also get professional help from people who are going to be able to get you towards your best levels, that's AmeriHealth.com and use code

power project for 10% on. Right? And then I see the transforming power of God in my life. And what he saved me from? The addictions he saved me from. Yeah. Right? The person who I was. They go, you really are at redeeming God. You really are who you've said you are all along. And I just stepped into a place where I could see it. And actually, nowadays, maybe it's just like, I notice a lot of, there's a lot of men in fitness who are, whether they're becoming Christians,

their new dads and becoming Christians, or people who are doing a lot of stuff in fitness are now talking more about Christianity. why do you think that might be something that's becoming a more of a proclivity now? I think there's two reasons probably. One is more trendy. So people feel like there's a level at which they can talk about it because it's more of a trend. It's more accepted.

And I think sometimes within the fitness space, the goal is to say something new. And so Christianity, even though it's old, is sort of new right now. So I think there's the unfortunate reality of that. But I'm not necessarily saying that all people who do it for that reason are in this horrible place or anything like that. But I also think that there is something happening in the world. There is a shift starting to happen in the world where, I mean, politicians, which used to be kind of sequestered from the rest of the world and sort of unknown are now becoming more known. through Epstein files and through investigative reporting and through social media and leaks and whistleblowers, right?

Hollywood is becoming more and more fractured because what are we going to do with movies? Now with streaming and with YouTube and with different things. I think even with social media, right, there's so many things happening where the world is shifting and our footing isn't as sure as we'd like it to be. and what you're finding is people are trying to figure out like what is the thing that I can stand on and what's happening now is I think men because right uh good times create weak men right weak men create hard times hard times create strong men and I think we've gone through some hard times because we've let a lot of things slide we let all the things go and I think people are seeing

some hard times and they're trying to find something they can grab a hold of that actually is going to matter and it's going to stand in the hard times. Money's not really all that important. Relationships are important and family's important, but what are you going to give them? And I think there's people who want to have real answers out there. And I think that you look at the different religions of the world and you get to do that as a human being with agency. You get to look and see like, am I going to lean into the Buddhist religion or into

Islamic faith or the Christian faith? And I think a lot of people within fitness are in the Western world and positionally are in a good place to be able to see Christianity first. They're also able to see the fruits of some of the fruits of some of the other religions and what those things have done around the world. So I think there's a lot of men out there in particular who are going, gosh, there's a lot of weight on my shoulders right now because there's nothing I can just, I can bank on. And I need something I can bank on. And so I think that it's, I think there's a resurgence of people who are realizing that by ourselves, we're not as awesome as we'd like to make everybody believe that we are. And so reaching out to an awesome God is a natural byproduct, I guess, for, for many people.

I think a lot of people have been, you know, trying to, you know, better themselves and trying to advance and trying to, you know, I guess, you know, make money, make a little. living for themselves, provide for their family and all these different things. And then they get to this point where they're kind of like at the end of that. And I think Derek Wolf is an example, former NFL player. He recently posted on his social media. He got baptized. Joe Rogan's been talking about this guys like Sean Ryan,

people that are already sort of secure in their life. And they feel like they already kind of made it. But they spent like a whole life, you know, searching for these things, searching for particular things and then they weren't able to maybe find exactly what they were looking for. And I think now maybe they're finding some of that in going to church and exploring faith. I agree. I think that's a huge part of it. I think that you get everything you want and you realize you still have something missing and you start exploring your faith. You start exploring the spiritual dynamic of who you are. There's not much return. We were talking about return on

investment when it comes to certain types of exercise. There's not much return on trying to make more money or trying to get more followers or trying to, you know what I mean? For some of these guys, they've already got it all. They don't need what's another 100,000 followers for them or what's another $100,000 for them. And they go, oh, I need to lean somewhere where there's going to be some ROI for me. And I'm like, I'm spiritually bankrupt. And so I start looking somewhere else.

And then you start filling that in and go, wow, that's what I was missing. I thought it was the money. I'd actually give all the money to have this. You need to pop out of here? I do. But it's good, fuck. I'm just going to continue to chat with him just a little bit. We'll catch you later, buddy.

See you and Zima. I said something to piss him off. Yeah, oh, you got him really upset. He can't wait until my arms better. He could tap me out. Yeah, it was great going to your church. And it's just really cool to see, like, it's just fun to see friends make progress. You know, I've known you for probably like 20 years.

Yeah, almost, I think. Right? Yeah. Yeah, probably 20, 19, 20 years. So I probably met you when you were. were 22 or 23. And I'm older than you, but not like a crazy amount older than you. But, you know, seeing you mature and seeing you, like you didn't have, you had no kids.

No kids, yeah. You know, when I met you. And you were someone of faith when I met you, but not anything close to kind of where you're at now. Yeah. So I've seen the maturity in you, even without, you and I haven't had, like, like real deep personal conversation about really some of the stuff that you alluded to on the show. But I've kind of seen it in you. I can almost like feel it coming off of you.

And it's really cool to see. And this was amazing to see you, you know, at your church being a pastor. And I know that that's something that you've been, I think it's been something you've been maybe seeking out before you ever even became it. Yeah. And it was just, yeah, it was awesome experience to see you doing that. Yeah, thank you. I mean, we have known each other for a while, 23. Yeah, 23, I think I was when, was it body construction zone? Yeah. Yeah. Walked in there and you only have, and we've talked about this, but you only have so long to make some friends that you can know for a long time. You know? And if I meet somebody tomorrow, after 20 years, I've known them for 20 years, but I've known you for 40, right? You know? And so it, feels really special. And so you have to take time to, I think, hang on to relationships. This is part of

the reason why I'm a relationship guy, you know, and I say I wouldn't sell for money. I wouldn't sell for, you know, notoriety. I would only sacrifice a relationship for a higher relationship if I had to. And thankfully, the people I put in my circle, I don't have to do that, right? Nobody's like, oh, you're friends with Mark Bell. Now, you can't be friends with me. I'm like, hey, well, sorry, I've known it for 20 years. So, you know, it is what it is. I had an opportunity to do that. with money. I had an opportunity to trade money for some number with a couple of different couple commas in it, which is a lot of money. And I didn't do it, you know, because my relationships are actually where I feel the richest, you know. And so it actually warms me and tickles me a little

bit to be able to talk to somebody I've known for a while about the relationship that actually matters to me even more, right, which is my relationship with God. And so I enjoy talking about my relationship with God with people. I have no trouble bringing my relationship. I got into the gym. I tend to be the same person wherever I go. I don't have a persona that I turn on in one spot or turn on in another spot, especially around people I know. If I don't know you, I may dial down and be a little bit more reserved,

but for the most part, I'm just the same guy wherever I go and I get to chat about this stuff and it feels good. And watching maturity happen in me is because I'm being drug along by you and some of the other relationships that I have in my life of guys who are also maturing and progressing in their respective ways. And so, you know, I kind of, I'm always looking around to the left or the right, you know, if I'm in a room with you and I'm going like, do I belong in this room with, with Mark? Like, he's just, he's done so well in so many different areas. And he's, he's built himself up and his mind works in such a unique and magnificent way. And I start,

I start pondering that. I go, well, wait a second. I have to remind myself that Mark text me. Right. Mark, Mark asked me to be on the show. And he really is my friend. And, and we really do have something in common. We really have some differences, but I really belong here. So there's a lot. There's a lot to the relationship, you know, that goes both ways. Yeah, I saw another thing I was just thinking about recently because when I left your church, my son and I had a lot of conversation on the drive home. And you'll be happy to know. It was all church stuff. And my son was great. You know, he, he,

uh, I think he, you know, he needs to go through his own, you know, stuff to figure out, uh, exactly where he wants to land with,

uh, how religious he gets or whatever, whatever it might be. But, um, he was taking notes as you were, as you were speaking. And then we got talking about certain things.

And he was able to, like, quote a bunch of stuff in the Bible and like, I was just like, I don't understand like he just. Where did that come from? Yeah. He just has.

And, I know that my dad used to take him to church and my dad is very religious and stuff like that. And my parents, my mom was very religious too. And so he has some of that background, some of that experience. But the stuff that he was just that he just knew was amazing. And then the words that he was using was even more funny to me because he was talking about like quotes from God. Okay, okay. Which is interesting because that's a weird way to word it because they don't usually talk about like a quote from God.

or from Jesus rather. And one of the ones he brought up to me was, why have you forsaken me when he's on the cross? And we just, we talked about that a little bit and about like, you know, how much, you know, how much pain he was in. And it was just, I don't know, it was just an interesting conversation,

but what are some of your interpretations of, you know, Jesus dying on the cross and like kind of how he died and what he was trying to, I guess, convey. We're just trying to communicate. Yeah. So there's a word called atonement, right? It's called there's a word atonement. And it's basically that Christ was our atonement on the cross for our sin. So he took our place, right? He, there is a payment for sin that needs to be paid. And in the Old Testament, we used to take an animal to our high priest. And then they would, we put our hands on it. then they would kill it because blood was necessary for that.

And because sin demands payment. But the thing was that would always have to come every year. And the high priest also not a perfect person. And so what the true high priest is, that is Jesus actually took off his robe and put himself on the cross. And he took our place. So there is no sacrifice better than the perfect son of God. God himself comes down in human form and puts himself on the cross and pays the debt that we could never pay.

No matter how many animals we slaughter, no any times we say I need forgiveness, we couldn't bridge that gap. And God did that. And so he was reaching back into the Old Testament, right, the thousands of years of human history where God overlooks in on the basis of an animal sacrifice, which was an imperfect system. But it was perfect in the way that it pointed to Christ actually doing it. for real. And then now we looked back to the cross. And so that's what that is. Now in terms of how he died, right, he was crucified. So he had nails put through his hands or his wrists and his feet. And he would have died of asphyxiation, that is suffocation. You need to push down on the nails that are in your feet in order to take a breath because what's happening is you're starting to sag and

your muscles are going limp. You can imagine your muscles don't work the same way when there's a nail. through them, a spike through them. It doesn't work so well if you've been beaten. You know, it doesn't work so well if you've been cut up by a crown of thorns and have blood running through your eyes and your family looking at you, right? All the things, all the gross and hard things that Jesus went through. But then it says that Jesus gave up his spirit, right, which is when he died. And so the idea is that God's conveying to us that he didn't let the world kill him.

He actually gave up his life for the world. world. And then three days later, he rose again, proving that he had victory over sin and death. So when somebody goes, I don't know if I should put my faith in Christ, can he really save me from this impending train that's just coming at me full steam ahead that's called death? And he can say, yeah, you can't because he already conquered death once. And he proved it. And then he rose and he ascended into heaven. And he'll come back again for his church. And if he doesn't come back before you die. He says, when you die, just like you did the thief on the cross, today you'll be with me

in paradise. And then at some point he'll come back and he'll rapture the whole church and take all of his people with him. And the church is a preserving influence on the world, the ones who are carrying the message for the people who don't believe. Because my goal is still for you to hear what I'm saying and go, Ben might be right, but let me just go to you God and say, God, are you right? And then have you have your own epiphany with God.

Like, I don't want you to have to ride my. cootails into heaven. You just start looking at all the dumb things I've done, right? And go, I'm not riding in some coattails. I'll find somebody else. Maybe Ryan or somebody else, you know. But yeah, that's still the goal. But at some point, he'll remove the church as one last act, excuse me, of love.

So that people go, why this happened? He goes, that was God. God really could do that. Wow. And then you have another chance still because you still have breath in your lungs to believe in God. and go, oh, God really must be who he says he is. A third of the world's population left or, you know, whatever.

So these are the end times and how things kind of wrap up in eternity. And there's still some people who have speculation around that because we have illustrative words and we don't have, in predictive words, we don't have like perfect, you know, a viewpoint of what all happens with that. Yeah, I just wonder if someone was to come back, you know, or if someone claimed to come back, how would we know? You know, how would we, because in this day and age, we have like AI,

with people lying to us about all kinds of different things. There's a lot of cover-ups and just be, it would be, I know that there's, I know the Bible has guidance. I mean, the Bible has, it probably tells you. Yeah. Many different things that are going to happen when he rises again, right? Yeah. When he comes back.

Yeah, he doesn't need to rise. He will actually come and ascend, you know, or descend, excuse me. Again, yeah. And I mean, there's going to be all kinds of ways. And the Bible does give us clues throughout various books within the New Testament, specifically in the book of Revelation about the details of his coming and the timing of his coming. But within the timing, what the signs of the season will look like. Mention anything about him having an Instagram or anything like that?

Not yet, not yet. No, no, but there are some people who, you know, have tried to predict it on social media. But that's one thing. If somebody says, hey, it's going to be this date for sure. You pretty much know they're lying because the Bible says that you won't know the day or the hour in which the son of man returns. So you think like, oh, Jesus is going to come back in, you know, 2030 on December 14th. And I try to build a platform off that. Somebody should not give me a platform for that because I'm actually misusing scripture.

So. Yeah, we live in some some crazy times. But I think, how did you help your kids navigate some of this stuff? Have your children ever kind of come to you and gotten to deep conversation about like other religions? And like something I always kind of wondered in my own head was like, I just grew up in a different area and believe in a different God. Like it doesn't seem like it would be so wrong. Yeah, I think I try to preempt that question actually a little bit. I don't wait for it to come up in my kids.

A lot of things that I want them to know, I'm more proactive in the way I approach it. You know, I don't say, I don't wait for them to come up and go, you know, anyway, I don't make an example right now, but I don't wait for them to do that. I actually go to them, homeless people, you know. Sometimes we drive, around Sacramento, there's a lot of homeless people.

And kids who love their home and their bedroom and things like that. Dad, why is that person homeless? You know, why don't you give them money? Isn't there someplace they can go? You know, those types of questions can kind of put you on your heels a little bit if you're not ready. And so you kind of get out in front of them a little bit as a dad. And so I try to do that with religions.

And so my gym is across from a Islamic temple, mosque. And so we see a lot of people going for prayer at different times throughout the day on a very regular basis. And my kids know, I talk to them about what they believe. And I talk to them about why we as Christians don't believe those things. You know, why certain things fly in the face of what the Bible would say is true. And some people would find, as peacemakers, they'd find more commonalities between the two and go, look how they, you can kind of believe both. and see the good from both. And I've decided not to go that route with my kids.

I've decided not to say, hey, every religion has something beautiful about it, and that's what we really need to hone in on. I decided not to do that. I said, hey, there's truth, there's absolute truth, and you can trust God and you can trust His Word. And if it contradicts the Bible, if anybody preaches to you any other gospel,

in any other name, it's actually not true. And they go, why? The Bible says so. One day, they're going to look at the Bible and go, So if the Bible is wrong, then everything I was taught is wrong to. And I will say yes. And so I want them to know that. Like I want them to know that our faith hinges.

It's either 100% right or 100% wrong. Yeah. Either get rid of it, right? Or believe it. You know, don't pick and choose, you know, based on how you feel. And so that's why I tell them. And I tell them that there are people in other parts of the world who don't have the advantage of growing up in a Christian home. You have a very unique place here in America with our

family. And so take that message into the world, whether it be across the street or into, you know, Kathmandu, you know, into Nepal and share the gospel with those people because they may have an idea about who God is that is wrong. And you want to show them what is true. and that kind of language is very, very hard and divisive for people because they go, well, that's the only language I have for God. It's the only language I've ever known for God. And God has said many times in his word, he, he's not far from man. You know, he is near.

And people can find him, you know, if they're looking. And so I think that Romans 10, it talks about how can someone believe unless they hear and how can someone hear unless there's somebody who preaches? How beautiful are the feet of those who carry the good news, right? And so it's beautiful for them to go. So I don't really know what happens to the person in Nepal who only has one specific book and is devout and loves and does all those things. Like is there a God's grace that covers that and says they were truly seeking me,

but this was the only thing that they could find in their resource world. And even for me talking like that, some Christians would go, wow, I can't believe he's so soft on that. You should say that they know they are going to hell, right? And some people look at me and they go, how could you even wonder if there would be grace to cover that? Of course there's grace that covers that. I don't know where that line is.

You know, I just don't know. So for that reason, it motivates me more to proclaim the gospel wherever I am so that people can hear who the true God is of the Bible. I guess maybe you just sort of stay more concerned with your own relationship with God. That's the only thing you can do. Not worry too much about other peoples.

Maybe you share here and there appropriately to help get the word spread. Well, it has to start with you, right? It has start with you. And even the Bible says you have to take the log out of your own eye before you go remove the speck out of your brother's eye, right? So yes, it is self-focused is what you should do is you should be working on your relationship with God. But from that, there is a very real outworking, you know, of that.

And it spreads into the people around you. And sometimes it's met with a closed door and sometimes met with a cracked door and sometimes it's an open door, you know? But you still go. You still go. You still do what you have to do. And you still are transparent

like we were talking about within Cema before he left. You know, it's just being really transparent about your own shortcomings. Talk about what you know. Talk about what you see. And let the Holy Spirit and let God do the rest because I'm not going to get it right every time. Probably listens to this podcast back in a little bit

and be like, oh, I probably should have said this. You know, I got to be. I'm just not going to get it right every time, but God knows my heart, he knows your heart. He knows that he can take these words and make them what they need to be in order to meet people where they're at. You know?

And my job is to tell the truth as best I can. I'm just not perfect. And you have a gym where you work with at-risk kids and you also have them doing fitness, right? And then you're also preaching? Is that fair to say? Sort of, yeah. I think for that environment,

What I like to say is I'm sharing. You know, I'm sharing. And that's really what I'm doing is I'm, it is preaching, but it's the degree of which is not what most people would think. It starts much more with conversation, trying to hear them in what they believe and their background. You know,

nobody ever wants to hear from these kids. They're not ever, but a lot of times people don't want to hear from kids. They don't want to hear from at-risk youth. They don't want to hear from a kid who's been to juvenile hall multiple times. I remember people arguing so much back and forth about what should happen with school during the COVID situation. And I was like, did anyone, I asked my son, I was like, anybody ask you guys?

That's funny. Yeah, he's like, no. No. Like, of course not. Right. Yeah, why would we? They don't want to hear from the kids. Exactly.

And that's sort of what we're dealing with a lot of times when we're dealing, especially with the kids from the group home because they're just told to go here, sleep here, oh, we're moving you from this home to this home. You need a certain level or you drop below a certain level. So you go to this tier home or this tier home and, you know, or you have to go back to Juvenile Hall. And so there's a lot of that. And so I spend a lot of my time trying to get to know them, you know,

and from there hear what they have to say. Of course, I'm going to prompt the topic for them. I'm going to make sure I say, hey, what do you think about the word commitment? You know, and they tell me. And you start to hear because you bring up a word like that. to a kid who's having nobody ever commit to him at all. And you're going to get all kinds of things.

Commitment. Maybe they're committed to finishing out their sentence. Maybe commitment's something they don't like at all. And they tell you. And then you tell them your experience of commitments. You're just sharing two people, two souls in the universe who are listening to each other communicate about what a single word means for a few minutes.

And then you get to go back. And you get to look at scripture and say, hey, here's a book, older than both of us combined. Been around for a really long. long time and people have hated it for the last 2,000 years. They've burned more Bibles. They've killed more people for it. And yet it's still here. We have access to it on our phones. And here's what it says about commitment or honor or love, right? Pain, suffering. Here's what it says on these things. Finishing, completeness, whatever, you know. And you get to break it open and then go,

now you get to receive something that's bigger than the judge who sentenced you to, six months in juvenile hall or your mom who left you decided she didn't want to be a mom anymore, but you can see what God says about you or says about that topic. And it has really transforming power. You know, it's really cool. And we have kids, we have a kid, one kid right now,

who was with us for about two years. Every week he'd come in and work out with us. And now he comes to the gym as an adult. He's 18 years old. He's graduated from the group homes. He's in a continuing education, or continuing continuation program that allows him to go to school. He's going to a junior college here locally.

And we have a staff member, a volunteer staff member, who goes and drives 20 minutes out of his way, each way, to pick this kid up and bring him into the gym. Oh, how cool. Yeah. And we still don't charge him, right? Because he doesn't have those resources. But we want to show him, hey, now that you're here,

we have this kind of buffer zone where we, if you were part of our overcome project, we're going to take care of you in the gym as well. because we want you to network. The people who are involved in fitness at the CrossFit level, the Iron Mile level, who pay $150 minimum to be there a month are the same people

are going to have connections for them for jobs, the same people are going to have connections with them to network them with somebody else who can maybe hire them somewhere and then also have the right mindset. The mindset these kids need to develop, that they show up here every day and do something hard, even though they can go home,

watch TV and eat bonbons, but they're here. And so we put them in that same environment. Yeah. That's freaking awesome. Yeah, how long have you had that for? Just before COVID, maybe seven years now. Yeah, it wasn't a nonprofit for a really long time. And it was just my wife and I doing it.

We didn't have volunteers. We would do it because we loved it. We would do it because we felt it was our calling to do that. And it was Banning Lebeshire, the lead pastor and founder of a church, a ministry called Jesus Culture. And I had lunch with him. And he goes, man, he's like, you really should do something with this.

You should make this something, a nonprofit where people could support you, a nonprofit where people could get involved and something that has legs sort of beyond you. And because, and he has a heart for the foster care program. He has a heart for orphans. The reality is I think there's something like 60,000 orphans in California.

And that means that if every church in California, because there's about 60,000 churches adopted one kid, there be no need for the foster care system. Right. So we've talked about these things a lot, him and I. And so how do we fill in the gap so that kids are getting taken care of? Where can people find you? The Overcome Project is actually a really strange website

because Overcomeproject.com was taken. So we have the Overcome proge, stop at thej.org, and people can go there and see what we're doing with the Overcome project. You can find me at Restoration Life in Sacramento. Oh, there it is right there. you guys can send us a message. We'd love to have you if you're one of those people who love to serve others through prayer. And if you are a prayer person, you know what I'm talking about.

There's people who pray for things that are way out in the future, but they're trying to pray that they come sooner. My dad was praying that I go to church and I ended up at your church. That's pretty cool. Yeah, you sent me that message and I was just, I was, it actually made me feel I was warm and fuzzy. Your dad probably did. I was like, wow. Okay, that's cool. And if you want to support us financially.

there's a way to donate on there. We're just, we have volunteer staff right now and a couple of these kids are great. And even if you are in the Sacramento area and you think you want to help volunteer and coach some of these kids, that would be awesome. And then again, restoration life on Sundays

is where you're going to find me as Sunday morning, teaching, publicly proclaiming the Word of God. That kid right there on the left is not an overcome kid. That's an over-kid competition. That is my son. But he's an overcome kid. for sure is because he's part of the program. In fact, he coaches now.

Oh, that's cool. Yeah, some of our kids' classes. And so he's really, really great. But yeah, that's where you guys and find me. Great having you on the show today. Really appreciate it. Thank you, brother. I appreciate it.

Strength is never a weakness. Weakness never a strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.