RAWTALK - What They Don't Want You to Know About Christianity

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

This Episode is Sponsored by: BetterHelp Visit https://www.BetterHelp.com/RAWTALK today to get 10% off your first month! Sponsored by: Prize PicksUse code “BRADLEY” & Make your first $5 line up & get $50 whether you WIN OR LOSE!https://prizepicks.onelink.me/ivHR/BRADSponsored by: Rugiet Go to Https://www.rugiet.com/RAWTALK for 15% off your first order!On this episode of RawTalk, Brad sits down with Sal Di Stefano to talk about the lie most men believe, why chasing success and control leads to emptiness, the battle between ego and faith, how the enemy uses pride to distract us, and what surrender really means.Hope you enjoy, see you next Tuesday!SUBSCRIBE HERE: https://www.youtube.com/c/REALRAWTALK?sub_confirmation=1LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rawtalk/id1294154339FOLLOW RAWTALK PODCAST:INSTAGRAM | https://instagram.com/getrawtalkTIKTOK | https://tiktok.com/@askrawtalkFOLLOW BRADLEY:INSTAGRAM | https://instagram.com/bradleymartynSUBSCRIBE TO RAWTALK PODCAST CLIPS: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvzSBNBOK599FqzrTZS8ScQ/?sub_confirmation=1SUBSCRIBE TO LIFE OF BRADLEY MARTYN: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWTQG2aMDYKGDqYEGqJb1FA/?sub_confirmation=1SUBSCRIBE TO FITNESS CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/bradleymartynonline?sub_confirmation=1RAWGEAR: https://www.rawgear.com (CODE:RAW)

All right, guys, before we get into this podcast, go to the app store, download the price pick app, the best place to do fantasy sports, like the best place to do picks, hands down on the internet. Go there right now, download the app, putting code Bradley. They're going to give you $50 for free on your first $5 lineup. NFL's in full swing, basketball is all the way coming back. Everything is back. Honestly, it's for me, the easiest way for me to enjoy.

I'm not going to lie. If I'm not, if I don't have a little sweat, it's not as fun watching the games. That's just me personally. It's available in California. in Texas, many other states. Follow me on the app right now at Bradley Martin if you want to follow or tell my picks. Again, use it. Code Bradley. I love you guys. Let's get into this podcast with Sal. We're talking about religions today. And I'm trying to figure it out. Damn, so what you've been up to since last week, talk? Not much, man. Last time I was here,

I don't know if you remember, that was, that was the first time I publicly shared my testimony. And that, that kind of went all over the place. And then, yeah. Yeah. So, that was a great conversation with you. But it said, well, how long was that? Was that two years, a year and a half? Yeah, I think it was about a year and a half ago.

Yeah. Yeah. Why was that, was it just significant for you? Because it was the first time you spoke about it? Publicly. Yeah, it was the first time I had talked about it publicly. So it kind of talked a little bit about my show, but I never on my show. But I didn't tell the story of,

you know what happened yeah and so it's unbelievable yeah and i mean it's uh well yeah it's crazy it's a thing um i mean it's a true story um and since then now you know when you i've talked to a lot of people that experienced something similar but um you know when i first when that first happened to me it's like i started to feel compelled to talk about it but there's like there was this fear of like how people would judge me and i don't want to you know how do i talk about this but I was wrestling with it and um you know I came here I was talking with you and it just just happened just started talking about it and then since then I haven't felt any of that fear anymore yeah so do you talk about it more now regularly on your show more of my show but I

just started a series so Adam did a series on our YouTube one of our YouTube channels where he was going to see how how little work he could do to get in great shape and doctor documented for three months. He did that. Then Justin did a series on trying to get a 315 split press. And then it was my turn. And so like, you know, we want you to do a fitness one. But I don't want to do a fitness one because I have a complicated relationship with the fitness and it can be a bit dysfunctional. And that would like totally spin me out. What do you mean by that? It would push me in unhealthy ways, you know. So I have a past where, you know, I've used anabolic steroids and just unhealthy,

just not a healthy relationship with it. It's a bit of a struggle. Like in the balance of it? Yeah, and just pushing myself too hard and pushing hormones and that kind of stuff. And so I knew that if I filmed a fitness one, now I'm documenting, you know,

documenting fitness with some goal. Yeah. And it would just spin me. And I was, I'm trying to, I don't want to move in that direction. So I said, no,

I'm not doing a series. They're like, you got to do a series. You got to do a series. and so I said what if I did a series on how fitness is an idol and how my faith is impacting that and so how fitness is an idol for me I see yeah so it was like an idol for me right so I put it too high on the hierarchy so it's like a you know what is whatever's up here all the other values start to bend themselves and twist themselves to serve that whatever that value is and if it's

too high then it can become a bit tyrannical And so I said, I'm going to talk about my faith and how fitness is an idol. And, you know, thankfully, my partners, we're always very supportive. Like, we're just going to say what we want to say. Yeah. But I expected 50-50 response, you know, 50 percent. Yay. And the other half, stay in your lane.

About the type of content you want to. Yeah, yeah. Like, oh, don't talk about that kind of stuff. Man, it's been super encouraging. That's all I've had is encouragement from it. incredible response. And so that's what I've been doing recently. And it was supposed to be a short series, the three-month series, but the response has been so encouraging. I'm going to continue doing it. So what are you, what are you hitting on? Like what's the, what's the premise of it that

is it about the ideas of, I guess for you personally, it sound like you get too invested in the result? Yeah. So, you know, once I started once I started following Christ you know he starts to change your heart and I've known fitness was a problem for me or could be a dysfunction for me but he really started to put it on my heart to really take a look at it and among other things and so that was the beginning of the series and now the series is really just turning into it's turned into me working out and talking about my faith, talking with other people about their faith journey.

I had Phil Heath on it. I love Phil. Yeah, he was great guy. And he was on my podcasts previously, and we were just talking about working out and stuff like that. And he had talked about how he was going to do plant medicine. And I just felt convicted, like I should talk to him and ask him if he knows Jesus.

I didn't say anything on the podcast. off air. I texted him about it. And he's like, yeah, you know, it's interesting. You're saying that. So we talked a little bit and shared some scripture. And he's like, you know what? I'm not going to do the plant medicine anymore. I think I'm going to go in this direction. I feel pulled. Didn't talk to him for a while. The series comes out, reach out to him. He's like, I'd love to be on your series. So I interviewed him on there. And it was so wild, dude. I had him on. And we're talking about our faith and how he's like moving in this direction. and he brought up how he lost a friend recently

as of the recording of that. And there was some scripture that really helped me when I lost my grandmother and I brought it up and he's like, brought him to tears because he had read that exact same scripture that morning. In fact, he takes the camera and he flips it and it's on his whiteboard. Like, I can't believe, are you bringing that?

And so just this really incredible moment. So there's been a few of those on that series through, you know, through these conversations. Yeah. I know when I talked about it to you, I felt like something pulled at you for a second. All right, guys, quick interruption. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. I've talked about this many times, but it's never not something that's important to talk about.

We all have times in our lives when we need a little bit of assistance to sort of work our minds through certain problems that we're going through. And more often than not, we turn to people that are in our close circles. And it is not always the most unbiased advice. A lot of times they'll give advice based on what they think about. you or what you should or shouldn't do or how you should figure it out. But BetterHelp is a way for you to get an outside talk therapy that may help you figure it out.

It doesn't always work, but it has worked for me in the past at times. So I encourage you if you're dealing with something, if you're going through something that you just want to get a different opinion, but a better help.com, that's better H-E-L-P.com. Use God Raw Talk to get 10% off your first month. Let's get back into this podcast. Yeah, I just really struggle with religion. Like, I don't struggle with the concept of the idea of God, but. yeah um everything that's written i struggle with it like because it's something that some human

wrote yeah after you know sort of all this stuff that everything we know about jesus and yeah like i said i i grew up and i i think we spoke about it a little bit but i grew up in a catholic church and i guess i would more identify myself as a christian now yeah because the church i don't know for some reason when i was young just felt it felt weird to me sure it felt very forced and but then when I learn about the Bible and I learn about all the scriptures and even how it came to be is like it was all written as all this stuff is in hindsight and how people I don't know how many hundreds of years later wrote and said this is what happened it's like I get it it just it's just religion to me at least organized and like

written it always felt like it's the lightest way to put this but it always felt not that there aren't let me preface it not that there aren't really good things that you could take from things that are said or are written yeah apply them to your life i fully i fully believe that but i feel like the way that it's been used for so long has been to make people obviously feel better about their own mortality which is great but then also to sort of corral people into a certain mindset and then it just i mean look at all the problems in the world are related to it like some of the, I mean, most of the problems throughout the world have been because of religious disagreements. You know, it's interesting, because I used to say the same

thing. Well, we'll take a step back. There is more documentation and closer to the life of Jesus documentation that confirms his existence and what happened than there is to someone like Alexander the Great. It's actually the most, Jesus is one of the most well- documented ancient figures but it's what's interesting about what you're saying because I feel you when you read the Bible there are some times in the Bible when Jesus gets angry and it's when he's speaking to the religious self-righteous people the Pharisees it's not when he's speaking to the prostitute the sinner the tax collector which back then tax collectors were corrupt and hated it's when he's speaking to the Pharisees

these self-righteous religious authorities. And I think it's because they do more to push people away from Christ than anybody else. And so sometimes they'll talk to people who had a bad experience in church and it's harder to bring them to Jesus than it is to somebody who's never heard the gospel before.

So I totally get it. You know the story of the prodigal son, parable yes so so in that story and I was vaguely familiar with it but I read a book on it and then I read the parable through different eyes and the story should more accurately be called the the story of the prodigal sons because there's two sons in that story so in that story there's a father whose youngest son says give me my inheritance now, which is basically a slap in the face because what that means is, I want what I'll get when you die, but I want it right now. And so his dad gives it to him, gives him his

inheritance, youngest son takes off and blows it on prostitutes and parties essentially. And regrets what he did at one point. He's just sitting there and he's like, man, my father's servants are doing better than I am and I feel terrible and so repentful and I want to go back and just apologize to my dad and so he goes back to ask his father

to apologize and ask him if he could just work for him and of course his father runs out to him you know and you picture this patriarchal society right dad and you know like fathers don't go run to their kids but you know he's lifting his robes running to his son hugs him before he even utters a word he's like you're back

you know, you're back. Come in. We're going to kill the fat and calf. We're going to have a feast. And so a lot of people think that's what the story ends. But there's an older brother there. And the older brother hears about this and he's pissed. And he's mad because he says to his father,

I did everything you wanted me to do. And you don't even, you don't throw a party for me. And the father's like, what's mine is yours. Like it's all yours. Come in and celebrate. Your father was, your son, your brother was lost and now he's found.

And the end of the story, the elder brother doesn't go back in. And the story really is about two ways to be separated from Jesus. One way is you rebel. The other way is you think that you can leverage him by doing everything right so you get what you want. And so, and Jesus was telling that story to Pharisees. Really, it's about the older brother. It's about you feel so self-righteous because you do all the right things, but you're not doing it for the love of me.

You're doing it because you think it makes you look better, and it makes you better than other people. So when you say, you know, religion and I don't like the way, I think what you're probably talking about are these self-righteous kind of people, you know, because people will say they're, I don't like that they're judgmental, for example what they're really saying is I don't like the way they look down on me but when you follow Christ it's so much less about looking at other people and saying look at how bad you are it's looking at yourself and saying man I don't deserve I don't deserve your

grace but you give it to me and I'm grateful and and so it's very different than I think what a lot of people may have experienced in church settings or what they think that they'll experience in that setting. But that's not, that's not what it's all about. So what do you think it's all about? It sounds like just surrendering to it. But do you have all this noise of like people who tell you how to, how to be within it and how to be either a good Christian or how to be good at it. Yeah. In any religion, you have everyone telling you what it, what it should look like. 100%. And then specifically nowadays, you talk about it. It's like, you have a million people who you know if you have any sort of platform or not even at all i mean

in your personal life i guess you have a conversation about it and someone else always has an opinion on how you need to show up in it yep yep no well said um the difference between uh christianity and every other religion uh there's a besides jesus is this every other religion says act like this and this will get you into whatever nirvana heaven right Jesus says, uh, accept me, follow me,

and you're in. And I'll change your heart. Very different. But, but accepting me and following me, what is that, I guess from your perspective, what does that mean?

So I'll give you an example. Um, a millionaire donates, uh, $100,000 to help the homeless. But he does it because he wants to look good. He posted on social media.

Look at me. I'm such a good guy. I'm giving $100,000 a homeless person versus the poor woman who barely has any money to feed her and her family, but she gives $5 for the homeless man on the street. Nobody's looking, but because she loves that person. She wants to help him. God is interested in the heart of the woman, not in the man. So that's the difference.

So the difference is the good things, the fruit that, that the faith will say, the fruit of the faith, flows from grace. It flows from love. It's not, now there is an element of obedience, but if you look at it like, I'm a good person,

I'm better than you, I'm better than that person over there, that's not the same. That's not what he wants. So he's interested in your heart, and only he knows your heart. So I think you can look at someone and you can know sometimes you can look at someone's oh that's that person's genuine or that person's not

but you know you might have somebody who struggle with trauma and abuse their whole life then they follow Christ and you know they still struggle with some stuff but they're genuine they're really trying to follow Christ they really love they really and then you got another person who seems to have everything together but they just want to seem righteous and they look down on people that's not that's not following Jesus following Jesus is about about heart posture so it's very different and he does change your heart uh when you follow him and what flows out is that's different but it's not about looking down i mean god hates there's i think it's i forget where in scripture god hates i think it says seven things the first one it says is haughty eyes hotty eyes is means

to look down at others he hates that so you know you become a christian and you look down at other people that's not that's not what it means to follow christ at all yeah What do you think about the people who use religion or clout or views for engagement? Terrible. That's like a fucking... Terrible. Which is, you know what's interesting about that? How do you know so, right?

So like, for example, you right, like I imagine you did, uh, you even mentioned it. You did the series about this and you got engagement and I'm sure you got it. Feedback was positive. Yeah, yeah. So then how do you discern people who are doing it just because other people here and they go, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, because it's the immediate identifier. Of course.

We relate now. Yeah. So then I like you. Yeah. So how do you discern who's doing that? Good question. Truthfully and who's doing that for the cloud. I don't know, man.

Good question. I think you, use scripture. Are they preaching an accurate gospel? Also, you know what's funny about that is now that looks like it's becoming a thing. But how do you, if somebody said to me like, oh, you're just going to talk about your faith, so you can get more followers. That's a terrible way to make money, you know. That's real, though.

It is, it is. And it's becoming more of a thing. There seems to be in a revival going on. So it's, like, more cool to talk about it. But it wasn't when I, it definitely wasn't, there's about, there's about 101 different ways I could make money that are way easier than me talking about my faith.

And the encouragement, I'm talking more about the comments. It's not like it's, um, this viral content. But the encouragement was from the, from the content from the comments which i'll tell you what i needed because i have business partners and if i felt like i harmed uh the business then i would have had to separate and do it separately if i was going to do it um so thankfully the encouragement was there but it's funny my friend uh jason calipa he's a i don't know if you know he is like a crossfit i've heard i've heard that name yeah great he's one of the top guys right yeah great guy

he started sharing his faith and he lost followers and he said that that was a blessing to him which is interesting. I said, what do you mean? He goes, I wanted to make sure I was doing it for the right reasons. So when I lost followers

and I continued doing it, I knew it was for the right reasons. And I'm like, that's fascinating because for me, had I hurt the business, I would have been very afraid to talk about it anymore

because it wasn't just hurting me. It would have been hurting Adam, Justin, and Doug. And you know, they got families to support and stuff like that. And I feel responsible if that would happen.

Yeah. So, but one thing I'll tell you, I'll share with you, is if you ever when you if you ever feel that pull that's him it's not you he has to reach out to you before you could even reach out to him there's a lot of scripture on that so when people feel a little bit of that poll and then they want to fight it or debate it that's him reaching at you and grabbing you it's not coming from you uh and there's lots of verses about that that he i've been feeling that for a long time he draws he draws you to him uh in fact we're so broken that

I don't even think we're capable of drawing ourselves to him. He has to pull it in itself. Like I thought we were going to come here and talk about fitness. I'm like, fuck. What's going on? What's going on? No, but I love it. I love it.

Because like, seriously, I've, I've been like struggling with this for a long time. And it's like times I'll get closer, times I want to talk about it more. And times I'm like, I mean, I'm burnt out on just the idea. Because I just, I look at the world. And I'm like, man, everyone's using religion to just fucking hate each other. Yeah. Yeah. there's it's uh one of the hardest questions that'll get posed to a Christian is uh and I

used to ask this question as an atheist I was a hardcore atheist Bradley like I could would have debated anybody okay and one of the questions uh that would always pop up for me was like well if God's real and loving why is there so much suffering he's this great loving God why is there so much suffering but I realized I was asking the wrong question the better question The one that's actually the question is, why is there any good? Why is there any order at all? If I take a bunch of rocks and I throw them in the air, they don't assemble a house. They scatter and turn into disorganized mess.

Why is there anything good at all? That's the real question. And when you read the Bible, you realize that it's a broken world. We live in a broken world. So all the goodness that exists is because there is a God. uh that's why that's why that's why that's any at all um and and that's why there's also evil that's that's the one thing that makes me go okay this that's why i know i know this has to be real well when you speak about that so so trip off this right you become a christian should i talk

about my faith you feel kind of conflicted it's even more weird and conflicting to talk about the fact that there's an enemy that there's satan uh and that to me is evidence that he's real you know in the bible jesus uh deals with the demonic 25% of time so you believe in jesus you also believe that there's a that there's an enemy 25% of time he's dealing with that he does not want anybody to turn to jesus and he definitely doesn't want you to influence others so someone like you with influence or anybody with influence you start feeling that pull there's somebody else working on you to pull you in the other direction and so you think well what do i do how do i know how do i know how do i know what you

where to go. This is where you start. Very simple. It's where you start. You do this by yourself. You don't do this for anybody else. By yourself and if it feels awkward, that's the point. You get down on your knees and you pray out loud and you just be honest. That was the first thing I did. You just, you be honest. And you say things like, I don't know if you're real. I don't know if you if you're good. I don't know if you're pulling at me if you want me to follow you. But if you're real, help me, show me, give me signs, bring people to me. And you do this by yourself and then watch what happens let him do the work and see what happens I just feel like I've done that and it's like go back and forth what was the last time you

did that oh man maybe like a month ago where you got down on your knees and prayed I mean I pray pretty often I get getting down on my knees and praying out loud I haven't done as often but praying in general yeah yeah I do I sit I definitely I mean I don't necessarily you know doing a conventional way but I'll just sit down and I'll just kind of talk to myself head about what's happening you know what's so powerful about doing it out loud it's super intentional i mean he hears you no matter what right so you don't need to say anything out loud but if you get on your knees and talk out loud it's very intentional it's very like it's hard not to like wander or feel that's why i said if it feels awkward that's the point the first time i did it i'm

like all right i never done this before like actually got on my knees and like talked out loud know it's just honest very very honest what came out um but you i mean you you know i'm talking to you about it yeah it was just not expecting it's things will start popping up you know it's been it's been it's been a thing man i just struggle so much with just i guess the the evilness of the world which again it doesn't necessarily lead me away from it yeah it like religion or god itself but it does lead me away from I guess sometimes sharing about it or talking about it because I feel like I'm just adding to yeah you jump in there and someone goes well this and that sure and that well this happened to me so that well the world bro the world is lies dude it's so full of lies

it's um you're going to hear a lot of stuff that um that we believe to be true uh but it's just not true like uh follow your heart how often you heard that follow your heart all the time you know what the Bible says the heart is deceitful how often have you followed your heart and led you all kinds of crazy places yeah you know um you know money uh success power you know what happens when you accomplish those things first off not everybody can get those things but then when you get them then what you find uh this is empty yeah recognize that for sure this is not what i thought it was going to be it's because you're looking what you're searching for which is what you're made for,

is a relationship and connection to God. And what you're trying to do is fill it with other things. And it's like drinking seawater. It's just drinking all this seawater and you're just thirstier. And you're drinking it. And it turns into a fervor. More, more, more, more, more. Not enough, not enough, not enough.

And so we search for those things. We search for him through all these things that are not him. And for people, for someone like me, as hard-headed and arrogant as I can be, I'm a smart guy. I got a lot of worldly success. It took me almost breaking before I finally reached out to him. Took me to the point where I was losing my marriage and I'm just spinning.

And I had that situation with my daughter that I told you. And I was desperate. And that's when I finally like, okay, like I'll talk to you. And then he got a hold of me. And I didn't deserve it. None of us deserve it. I definitely deserve it. I don't know why he did, but I just want to talk about it.

Well, how do you know? How do you know, how do you deserve something or not? None of us deserve it, bro. That's what makes it so crazy. You know, if, God, it got to explain to me once like this, and it kind of made sense to me, but you have God that, you know, it says God is love, right? Doesn't mean he made love, by the way.

He is love. Because if he made love, he wasn't love before. He made it. So he is love. So he's perfect, perfect love, perfect holiness, perfect, right? So infinite goodness, one degree away from that is infinitely far away. You know, one mile is as far away from an infinite miles as a billion miles is. And the penalty for that is death.

Penalty of that is suffering. And so, you know, you don't want a God that's not just, right? You don't want a God that like, you know, is just over here, not just. You want them to be consistently just, right? What kind of God would it be if he wasn't just? But you also want them to be merciful. So what he did is he said, you guys are falling, you're broken, and you're screwed.

There's no way, there's no way for you to do this. And what's coming to you is eternal separation from me, which is hell. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to come down. You know, every other religion is you reaching up to God. Christianity is God came down here. He came down as a baby, poor, serving. suffered, tortured, separated from the father, so that, you know, on the cross, what did he say?

It is done. It is finished. I paid the bill. So he served the sentence. So now you get that eternal salvation that he paid for. What is, I mean, when you really get that, by the way, you know, it's crazy. There's just so much scripture on this. There's a story where Jesus after death is resurrected.

and there's a couple that is leaving the area. They followed Jesus and they're leaving the area after he got crucified. So they're walking and Jesus shows up next to him and is walking with him. And they're like, he's like, what happened? And they don't notice is Jesus. Even though they followed him, right? They don't even notice him. And they're walking and he goes, what happened?

He goes, you didn't hear what happened? He goes, no, tell me. Jesus, this great prophet was crucified and died and it's terrible and he's listening to them and they're talking to him and then they come to a fork in the road and he's about to leave and they say come with us come come be with us it's getting dark so he's like okay

so Jesus goes with them in their home they sit down and they start eating with him and then it says in there that he opened their eyes suddenly they're like it's you and then he's gone and they're like I can't believe that was him we were talking to him the whole time and what that highlights is

he reaches out to you first he opens your eyes first so whenever people feel that pull that's him reaching at you and eventually you can mute that if you deny it and push it away enough times you start to quench it's called the holy spirit but if you feel that pull that's him it's not you it ain't you making the choice or the decision it's him going hey man I'm trying to get you. I'm trying to get you. I want you. So when you feel that, that's a gift.

That's a total gift. How do you know that? How do you know that? Ask him and pray. Ask him and pray. He's like, yeah, bro. Listen, that's me. He told you that?

He, the things of the, the spiritual things can't be discerned without the Holy Spirit. So it says in scripture. So in other words, the cross seems foolish to those that don't have them. So you could read the Bible without the Holy Spirit and it's just, what does this mean? Then when you accept him and you read it, you're like, what am I seeing? This is, I can't believe what I'm reading. This is amazing. It's transformative. So, I mean, how do I explain it? I don't know, man. You know it when you have it. But if you feel that pull,

you know that, you could feel that, that struggle, that wrestling. And it just takes that submission. How do you know it's not just sort of your inner, your inner dialogue, like struggling with itself? Your inner dialogue is struggling with something, but what's pulling you is him. That's what's pulling you. So, I mean, and I always say, I tell people, what do you got to lose? You know, I mean, you want to talk about the data?

We can talk about the data. What does the data show? People who genuinely follow Christ, how do they determine that in the data? Do they go to church? Do they read the Bible three or more times a week? You know, are they like evidence that they actually follow, not that they just say like, oh, I'm a Christian, but they actually follow. What is the data show?

They give more to charity. They donate more time to charity. The more likely to adopt, they're less likely to be addicted to substances. Less likely to go to jail. Less likely to be anxious and depressed. They just overall do better in those ways. But by the way, the world will lie to you and tell you that. that's not that's not the case it's the case i mean just donating time and money to charity it's

last time i looked at data it's like three times as much as the average person and in oh by the way this is true for poor christians as well so i mean you tell me what drives that um and then the spiritual physics that happens is as is wild the you know i'll tell you like i'll give you an example this was shortly after i started following christ uh and before that i tried to be a good person, right? But had somebody called me and said, so I'll tell you what happened. My mother-in-law calls me and says, hey, my brother needs, he needs someone to take him to the doctor, he needs some help, and I knew it would take all day.

And it's like in the middle of my work day and this and that. And I would have done it normally, but part of me would have been like, oh, okay, I got to do this thing or whatever. I don't know him. It's not like, you know. But when she called me and asked me, I felt blessed. How weird is that? I felt like this overwhelming joy brought me to tears blessed that I could go help this

person, this man that I barely know. And I remember when that happened to me, I thought to myself, wow, thank you, God. Like, how do I feel blessed right now? I'm going to go take a bunch of time out of my day. I'm not going to be able to do things I want to do because I'm going to go help this other person. That doesn't make sense. Not in the worldly sense, but from that sense, it makes sense from God's sense. and so you'll so you i experience things like that which are unexplainable very strange

how far do you think is too far gone for someone like do you think someone could commit such atrocities and and still be accepted anybody we're all lost man we're all broken all of us i think there'll be a lot of pain i think the boy i think especially if you really hurt other people i think coming to christ will be very painful Look, I didn't do any terrible stuff, okay? But there's things I did in the past now that I'm like, oh, man. And I repent, you know, and it's just like, that's hard. But one of my favorite stories in the Bible is a thief on the cross next to Jesus.

I mean, there was a man on the cross was also being crucified, deserved to be crucified. Jesus didn't deserve to be crucified. But this man did. And he's sitting there and he looks over and God, Jesus opens his eyes. right again he reaches out to him first and he looks at him and he recognizes him as god and jesus says this day you'll be in paradise with me you're in that's it some people would say that's not fair right what are you trying to tell me the guy that's like you know terrible person accepts christ right before he dies he gets into heaven and this other guy over here that's been following christ's

whole life gets into heaven like how is that fair i look at it this way uh it's the most of inclusive graceful thing we could ever ask for anybody anybody has this gift if you if you fully let him in your heart if you if you stop resisting submit let him in your heart fully you're in now what does that look like as you live your life um well once you're justified which means you've accepted him then begins the sanctification process and what that looks like is a lot of wrestling. So suddenly, and this is a scary part for a lot of people, it is for me, it was for me, still is.

It's like, what's he going to change? What if I don't want to change those things? Fitness for me is a struggle because I know what he wants for me and I know what I do with fitness. And so it's like, do I want to let go of this? And I'm trying, I'm trying to let go of it. But what are you trying to let go of?

The obsession, the obsession with it. Fitness is great, but it's not the ultimate great. You know what I mean? Yeah. But, you know, maybe, I don't know, maybe you're promiscuous. But are you talking about for you, sorry, I interrupted, but the obsession with like the way you look? I like to be jacked and feel capable. I like to feel like I can control my own destiny, which is a myth anyway.

You know, like I got it all under control, man. I can do it all. I can, hey, you know, I'll sleep when I die. I can put my head, I'll accomplish anything. I put my head in my mind, you know, to you or whatever. What a myth. What a terrible myth. I mean, that's just ego.

Huge. Absolutely. But you'll start feeling convicted of, you know, sin or things that take you away from him. And then you wrestle with it. It's like, oh, you want, okay, I know you want me to change this. I don't want to change this. There's been a few things like that. Early on, it was pornography for me.

Yeah, me too. I had that problem. Yeah. I knew the data on why it wasn't good for me, because I'm in health and fitness, right? I know what the data shows. So I try to not, you know, not use pornography. But, you know, you keep going.

But it's so easily accessible. It's right there. So whatever. And so the way I prayed was, I can't do this, Lord. I need help. I can't do this. I can't do this.

And in his grace, he took it from me. Now, he didn't do that with everything. But with me, he did. How do you take it? Gone. You turn off your internet? No. He took away my desire for pornography.

Not my desire. Yeah. I still have desire for my wife, but he took it away from me. I thought he, like, like, canceled your section or some shit. Put a porn blocker on my phone. Yeah. Or you moved to Florida or something. Yeah.

No, because if you, I mean, because then you still be lustful, right? He took that, that away from me, which was his, it was just his grace. Because he's just like, here, I'll give you this bro. because I know you ain't going to be able to do this on your own. Or maybe you just got older. Yeah, no, bro. I got the hormones of an 18-year-old on testosterone. Yeah, yeah, fair, me too.

It ain't that for sure. Yeah, but my mind, I mean, as I've gotten older, my mind's just changed on it. Yeah. You know, I mean, maybe that's him and maybe I'm unaware of it. Yeah. You said something interesting earlier about, you know, I think Jesus being on the cross and he didn't do anything wrong. this this leads me to talk about obviously other religions um when i look at it all it's just everyone feels like they're right of course and their religion is right of course um whether

it be you know Judaism Islam Buddhism whatever sure so how do you discern that yours is the right one when when those people probably feel just as strongly that you do about yours of course rightfully so in their own way yeah yeah that's a good question um i can't think of again um how how do you know you're going to be in eternity with god well because i do this that and the other because i'm a good person because i do this because i do that uh christ says um there's nothing you can do that will meet the standard of god there's nothing you could do so i'm going to die for you and you're in that to me is not just unique but that is um i mean for lack of better term it's powerful so that for me is the big

thing besides the documentation oh you know jesus existed and there were eyewitnesses and you have outside of the bible you have people who you know uh you have roman writers and and philosophers who talked about them and all that stuff. And it's transformative. Besides all that. Like, what a wild story. What a counter human reason and intelligence story.

You mean to tell me that it's not what I do? It's just that I accept that you paid that price for me? That's wild, man. Now, some people would say, well, what does that mean? you just follow Jesus and then you do whatever you want? No, because when you accept them in, you change. You change.

It starts to change you. And it's from the root, not from the outside. You know, it's a heart. Your heart changes. So the heart changes, the actions change. Maybe this sounds sacrilegious, but when I hear that, I think, like, you're you're relating God Jesus right the physical version of God um dying but he's God yeah you're human yeah we're human so how do you weigh that much

importance on God who've created all this if this is what we believe right yeah what you believe to you're like equating him to like a human but he's not he's both and so when you I'm not trying to challenge. Yeah, no, it's great. When you say that, I'm like, yeah, but he's, he's, he's, he's all this at the same time, sort of, in my mind. So him dying is not as, is not, I'm not saying it's not as detrimental as, it's just not the same as you dying or as me dying. He was fully, fully man and fully God. So he felt he was tempted in every way.

And he felt, you know, there's a story in the Bible where. where he's going to his friend Lazarus, who had died. So he gets there, and they come to him, and they're like, he died three days ago. Now in the story, Jesus resurrects him, okay? But you know what he did before that? He cried. So the shortest verse of the Bible is he wept.

He knew he was going to resurrect him, and he cried. if that doesn't tell you that he doesn't feel what we feel and connect to us, I don't know if anything well. He knew he'd resurrect him and yet he cried. That was powerful for me in particular when my grandmother passed away. My grandma was very close to her,

loved her, very godly woman, wonderful woman. And I remember when she died, I have a very tough time with tough feelings. I can, like, shut them off, right? Kind of like a robot. And I remember when she dies very painful. That's testosterone. Yeah.

I don't know, sometimes too much I'll make you the opposite, but Yeah, yeah, that's when the estrogen gets a little That's right, that gets a little high I remember when she died, I thought to my, I had this picture of like a Buddhist monk And like, you know, just like detaching from human feelings.

Yeah. And then I thought of Jesus crying. And I said, oh my God, our God cries. He cries with you. Why? Because it's, you're supposed to. Because it's painful. So when he was on the cross,

first of all, he felt every bit of the pain that it felt from that torture. The beating, the whipping, the abandonment from his closest friends. They all ran away. You know, Peter denied him three times. Boom, gone.

He's by himself. His spine is exposed. He's on this cross nailed up there. Every time he has to take a breath, he has to lean back and press up his exposed spine up to the cross and just bleeding or whatever. But the worst part was he, felt separation from the father when he said, why have you forsaken me? Why? Because that's the

ultimate penalty for sin. He had to feel that. So what did he do? He took on, it's as if he owned every sin, every human ever committed all of history. Forward and back. He owned that. Imagine owning that. Imagine if right now I snap my fingers and you did everything bad that's ever been done in all of human history. Like what would that feel like? He had to feel that. So we can't even comprehend what he went through and what he felt so that we could have a chance to be with him in eternity. So yeah, that was a lot. And he didn't want to. Remember, he prayed in the garden before. And he's like, I don't want to do this, but I want your will more. So he's like, I know what I got to do. I don't want to do it, but I'll do it. How has how has

religion i guess your relationship to god not even to say religion how is your relationship to god i truly tact tactfully affected your life like how is it not um i have way more grace for for other people for myself um i wrestle with uh behaviors now and differently i've always loved people but now it feels different um what feels the love for people yeah what about it you know it was the kind of person i can struggle with this but it was way different before where like if you cross me it cut you off i'm done like never again um when i feel his grace for me now i can extend it to other people um objectively transform my marriage completely completely my relationship with my family you should ask my partners that question yeah you know how it's

changed me um so it's it's touched every part uh every part of my life but it's a it's a i mean it's a journey it's just two years in it's only been it's only been a couple years yeah you seem to know a lot about scripture what's what's your i guess maybe it's more of an evangelical thing but your your idea of uh i don't know if you've seen i mean yeah if you're on the internet you see the sort of tussle between um judaism and christianity pretty heavily you know there's this judeo-christian values yeah people talk about that yeah well the the the jewish uh you know the the the old testament is jewish right so the difference is the new testament so the old testament will point to jesus this messiah um and so when you read the old testament

in that context you see it pointing to to Jesus and then Jesus comes and completes the whole thing essentially but there's sometimes you'll see struggle between different Christians over who's more Christian which is disheartening as someone who's new to it like me because I would see this I'd read this

and I'd be a little disheartened like don't you guys all let Jesus why are you guys arguing over who's more Christian you know what I mean but as far as the different religions are concerned, they're very different. They're very, very different. And, you know, I highlighted just the biggest difference between being a Christian and other ones is the grace aspect of it, whereas other religions are very, do this, get that, do this,

get that. And the Bible says, that's not really how it works. I mean, if you read, like, Proverbs, proverbs sounds like that, because it's wisdom. Like, hard work gives you this. And if you speak like this, you'll get that. but then when you read the whole Bible in its entirety I mean read the book of Job Book of Job is crazy

Job was this righteous man it says in there he was righteous so he was good and Satan tells God you know goes up to God God's like what he been up to he's like well I've been controlling the earth he goes have you seen my have you seen Job and Satan's like yeah

he's only righteous though because he's got a good life and God's like well why don't you go take some stuff from him and see what happens so Satan goes down there and messes with Job and Job refuses to denounce God so then Satan talks to God again and he's like well he's only right he's only righteous because he still has his health so God goes take his health so he goes down there and he gives him disease and so here's Job suffering for no reason. He's like, what's going on? Why am I going? And his friends come to him and they're like, you must have done something wrong. And like half of the book is his friends berating him. Like, no, you did something wrong to deserve this. You did something. And he's like, no, I did nothing.

I'm like a good man. I don't understand what's going on. At the very end of it, God appears with Job. And Job is, and God's like, where were you when I, basically he shows him the universe and how he made the earth? And Job realizes like, I couldn't possibly understand everything. And he restores them. And so at the end of it, you think to yourself, why, why do you do that? And then it dawned on me, well, it was for God's glory. What does that mean? How many billions of people have read the book of Job and now understand that just because you follow Christ doesn't mean you're going to get all this good stuff. Bad stuff still happens. You need that book to understand that. Some people preach a prosperity gospel, which is not accurate.

Right. If you have enough faith, you'll get money. You have enough faith, you have a good life. That's not how it works. World's broken. The truth is everyone's going to suffer. You're going to suffer. You're just going to be more prepared and he'll be with you if you follow him. That's the difference.

I see. What sort of, because I've read not large portions of the Bible, I've read like sort of pieces here and there. What sort of scriptures or what sort of, like you mentioned, the Job thing. What are you think the best for people who are interested in starting to understand more or like the easiest way in? The gospel. I would start with the gospel. So read the apostles. And then you can go through the New Testament. You know, the letters that Paul wrote to the Corinthians, you know, Philippians, all the letters that Paul. Romans is good. It's very theological, but he kind of breaks down like that explains the faith but the gospel i think is um you know where

you'd want to start and again if you have an earnest heart if you're if you're honest and open then what he'll do is reveal to you uh his word and it'll start to strike you and hit you differently so you'll read something you've read before but then suddenly it's going to hit you it'll make sense i mean i've heard you know how many times i heard he died from your sins like what does that mean. I don't know what that means. That doesn't make any sense. Now it makes sense to me. Now it makes a lot of sense to me. So there's a supernatural element that's there as well. Where am I going with this? I don't think there's any wrong way to start. So, and here's the truth. I don't do anything. So I could be talking to you about this all day long. If you come to Christ, it's not

because of me. It's because of him. So I guess my thing with it is like, it's a discernment thing and everyone is so unique like i could sit here and have a conversation with someone else who's you know as equally as invested in this as you are from a completely different perspective in his life and he would say that this means that that means this etc etc so that's that's where i get like it's pretty plain uh the the the the gist of it is very clear and very plain uh in the bible so it's not vague it's very very clear um who Jesus was, what he did, why he died, what it means to follow him, that you are justified through faith and not because you do a bunch of things. It also says, though, that the things

that you do flow through that from that, right? So it does change you, but it's very clear. There's no, like, vagueness to it. That's a myth where people are like, well, it depends on how you interpret it. No, no, it's, it's very plain and clear with what it says. And it's very, very consistent uh with what it says so it's no there's no inconsistencies there's a lot of uh myths around that kind of stuff that i also used to believe but now that i've read it uh i'm like oh there's no it's very clear very very clear what it says i mean it's clear maybe because you're smart no like oh man you think it's just clear to everyone i think uh the the the core of it is yeah The core of it is, you know, what are the, what are the most important commandments?

What is Jesus said? Follow God with your whole heart, mind, what does he say? Your whole heart, mind and body or your soul. What's the second one? Love others as you love yourself at the Golden Rule. Treat as they like be treated. Yeah, that's it. What does that mean to love?

So, you know, I had this conversation. I have a friend that's a pastor that I work with a few times a month and we'll go through scripture and ask him questions and he'll explain things to me and I remember once there was this you know there was this moment where my wife and I were having this argument

and this is in the early days so our marriage was really healing but we would still have these conflicts and he said Sal stop focusing on her focus up on Christ like what does it have to do with this situation this thing happened she said this I said that.

Like, Sal, focus on Christ and watch what happens. So I said, okay. So I literally did that. And I thought about what he did, why he did it. And I meditated on it and prayed on it. And I felt his grace and that just extended out. What he did and why he did what? Why he died, what he suffered through so that we could have that chance.

And I just focused on that. and then it just she's like take out the fucking trash yeah yeah please god please have her stop pause yeah yeah yeah like what is that what you mean yeah dude i mean um okay i'll give an example what does the world say like when you're married get your needs met get your needs you got to get your needs met what does the bible say meet their needs it sounds so crazy meet their needs what about my needs um when you're other focused in that true way uh then it's joyful and it shapes things here's another thing in the in the in the bible men lead men lead that's what we do and your wife will respond and so you have to initiate that includes initiating repair you know um so there's

stuff like that in there that's uh pretty prescriptive and when you follow it then it works it's just pretty wild sometimes it's sometimes it's too much to repair it can feel like that it could definitely feel like that for sure yeah i guess it's like how do you know how do you know when to i guess in that sense obviously not with a wife that's a little bit more of a deeper meaningful connection but i guess in a relationship how do you how would then how would you apply this sort of thinking to knowing when to stay and knowing when to go yeah prayer lots of prayer um you know it also says in there that uh he is the vine dresser um and he cuts away the branches that don't bear any fruit and he prunes the ones that do and um you know so

uh it sounds like a painful process right so i think what happens to some people too is they'll start to follow christ and he'll cut away things in your life maybe even people uh that are going to take you away from him and then the things that are good he still prunes them so it's this kind of process that can feel things that you perceive is good could be maybe are not ultimately good for you yeah or things that'll take you away from him so ultimately we do have free will so you can you can deny and push him away how do you think you know when you're doing that uh boy that's that's that's that's a tough one i think anything anytime you turn away from the convictions that he feels you with And then scripture also will help lead you.

You know, the Bible says, lean not on your own understanding. Meaning, you know, the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God. So what does that mean? It's like, I don't know. So I'll lean on his character and on his word because you're not going to know everything. You know, the Bible says that he is a lamp unto your feet. What does that mean? Well, you're walking down a dark path and you have a lamp.

and you put it down at your feet, what can you see the next step? You can't see down the path. You don't know where you're going, but he'll show you the next step. And that's what it kind of feels like often. It's like, God, where are you taking me right now? And he's like, I'll show you the next step. Okay, but what does that mean? Where am I going from here?

Take that step, have faith. And I'll lead you in the right direction. So it sounds like just almost like surrendering. Oh, big time. I think that's probably the thing I've always had the hardest with. course for sure especially a guy like look i i can identify that right like um you've gone very far on your own yeah and up until now uh it's you've been confirmed or should i say that the world has told you that you're right because yeah you work hard you get this and you do that and it's

been all on you but at some point maybe you're feeling it maybe you're feeling in some areas of your life where it's like why is what's what's happening like okay I got this. I got that. Now what? You know, if you chase the things of the world, you might get the things of the world. You might just get them. Not everybody, right? Not everybody can be, you know, make millions of dollars. Not everybody can get. But maybe you will, but that's all you're going to get. You're not going to get anything else. And so then you're left with this like, this is why I think, um, you ever notice like celebrities how messed up they are? Yeah. Like all of them. Yeah. Yeah. Money. Pleasure. Drugs. Sex. They got all this worldly stuff, I feel like it's, uh, it might even be worse for them because they get all this stuff of the world and they're still left grasping, you know, like, it's not giving me what I want. So they get more of it, more of it until they kill themselves. Yeah. Well, that's good, that comes back to purpose. Like, why are you actually doing it? What is it actually all for? Yeah. And you think, do you, do, do, is it your perspective that you think only God can give you

that ultimate purpose? Of course. It's not who you are. It's whose you are. it's whose you are who's who you belong to that's your identity your identity isn't your body it's not your performance it's not your business

what happens if you lose your business what happens you get a car accident and you can't walk anymore who am I now you know I have a podcast for a living what happens if I lose my voice who am I now

it's not that's not who you are it's who you belong to and that's that is the purpose that is the ultimate purpose you mean that in the sense of like what what sort of religious beliefs you have like who you who you who you surrender yourself to you've your identity is in Christ and following him so no matter what happens because through that that's okay in fact following him is good. It's all good. But we want to identify ourselves so strongly with the things of this world. Look, man, I mean, we're in fitness, right? You can identify this

happen to me. Like, I can identify so much of my body and my performance. I'm going to get old. Yeah. I can't stop that. He just asked me when they came in, right? How old are you, Sal? 46. Like, how long are you going to stay jack for or whatever? Yeah. You know, you can use all advanced you know pharmaceutical interventions you want you'll be 80 if you're lucky one day

are you going to be you know Mr. Jack guy no yeah no unless you're Michael Hearn yeah how's that guy that's impossible oh god I know I told me come on the pot I want to talk to him about it but that's a

different guy yeah you should ask him to for sure for sure I will I plan to yeah he's actually he's a great guy you know him I've, I've interacted with you. I don't know him super well, I've interacted. He's a good dude.

He's a great guy. Yeah. Yeah, I love him. No, I'm not at all questioning his character. It's just that whole, he's like, he's got to be like 50, but he looks like Superman still. Yeah, dude. And he's so strong. It's not your funny.

Natty, dude. I don't care how much gear he takes. That's the, that's the impressive part about him is that my perspective is like, dude, he must be such a psycho when it comes to his regimen that even when he's, you know obviously he says he's natural i don't necessarily believe that when he's on less gear he's probably just as a psychopath when he's on more gear i mean he's got to be so locked in to be i could take all the gear in the world i wouldn't be as strong and jacked as michael her yeah i mean genetically obviously everyone's different but that guy has insane like in he must have a crazy willpower to like maintain that because that's different man yeah i've yeah i've been

on a show once and i was over his house and met him and his wife and he's a great guy super night, super great thing. Yeah, lock the fuck in. Totally. All right, guys, cooking in orange for the podcast. Sometimes, look, we all have those nights. We all have, maybe it's during the day. We all have those times when, you know, our performance is not A1, but if you want your performance, always be A1. Go to ruggeant.com. That's RUG-I-E-T.com. Use code raw talk. They're going to give you 50% off your order right now. Again, we all have those days. So don't be shy about it. This is a very easy and discreet way to get this. If you want to, you've never tried it. I don't want to encourage you, but that does work.

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Full safety information is available at rigid. On that side of things, I guess the fitness side of things, what do you think is coming down, I guess, from science that will be the future. I guess some steroids, because I've heard some things about, it seems like they're going to, like almost steroids will be obsolete in a way myostatin inhibiting drugs yeah so they have like myostatin and I believe

I want to say activein inhibiting drugs that just just grow muscle but it's not it's not like functional muscle so you'll have more of the characteristics of an obese person with muscle than you will just genetically where you would build muscle it would just build muscle yes but it's not

again it's not functional so like if you look at like, um, uh, Belgium blue bowls. These are, these are bulls that have a mild statin deficiency. So they're super jacked. They're not stronger than a normal bull. They just have more muscle. So imagine being,

you know, 280 pounds jacked, but you're not, but it's not functional. That sounds terrible. Exactly. It's like an obese person that looks jacked. That sounds like a nightmare.

Yeah. That's how Dr. that's how Dr. Seeds explained it to me. So he's like, no, it's not going to be what people think. Yeah. Yeah.

But I imagine if you did that alongside, of actual functional training maybe that's what i would that's what i would imagine that's what i'll tell you what bodybuilders are going to figure it out yeah i'm pretty sure when that comes out they're going to be the first ones yeah yeah they don't need they don't care either they don't be strong you know and they don't care they're they're the cosmonauts so whatever yeah yeah so we'll know through them i'll watch and see what they're doing to see what happens yeah they're always the guinea pigs everything they figure it all out first yeah how much even how much recreational drugs you shouldn't take oh man those guys are crazy yeah they are they are but yeah it's it's it's it's

I'm always interested in that like where where I guess sort of science technology goes to like this lifespan thing because they've talked about crazy things about if they could figure out certain ways in our genetic code to to alter it in a way that like people could live for like 20,000 years and there's just crazy statements that have been made yeah I don't know that'll be interesting to see I'm more I don't know where it's going to go because what what's more fascinating to me is because people are we're more connected than ever even though we're connected um people are anxious depressed i think what'll be interesting is to see what people do with things like ai and simulations uh what are people going to do with the relationships because you know people are going to have relationships with a i it's already happening so weird bro uh so that's what i'm more i'm more fascinated and interested with uh and more weary of because i i could see you know i could see some dude getting on with his AI girlfriend and it's like the best friend he's ever had and then for $10 a month or whatever she'll get naked there's like a movie like that I saw that specifically but her to stay alive

oh not even her that that that's another version yeah but there's a different one that I saw where it was like you you're someone was going to die and they like give you this sort of you know I don't know what some sort of drug but it's like a subscription oh and they're like yeah you got to keep updating it if you want to live like is you got to live your life a certain way like around your house a certain area and then it's like but if you want to go further you got to upgrade it's I was like damn this is the fucking future

which is very scary yeah yeah I don't know I don't know what's gonna go I know GLP ones are are huge I like them as a tool I think with a good coach they're very valuable I don't know if we'll ever you know you can't replace the benefit of um

of exercise with just the results you get from exercise because there's so much much more you get from it than just the results. Right. So, good luck. We've tried to replace a lot of things, man. We replace sex with porn, food with processed food, connection with social media, and it all

terrible. It's bad. It's way worse. Yeah. It's way. We need people. We need connection with people. We need our connection to God.

We need to have kids because that's wonderful. You know, so I don't know. I don't think we'll be able to out science that. Yeah. Do you believe in a collective consciousness? no i think we're all unique i think we're all unique individuals we're all unique made in him in his image so no i don't believe in the that there's this collective i i believe that there's a god but we're all made unique i believe you know you're bradley i'm sal when we die and we're

with god that's who we are yeah but when you talked about the pole like being pulled in certain directions i don't think that has that has sort of a feeling towards it that's the holy spirit Yeah, that's God, that's the Holy Spirit that does that. Didn't they say that like God is in us? The Holy Spirit? Yeah. Yeah. But if God was in each and every one of us, wouldn't that then be sort of?

He's, he, the Holy Spirit will do his work in you, but he doesn't reside in your heart until he accept Jesus. Then he's, then he's with you. So if you accept it, then everyone who's accepted is in a collective consciousness? Not a collective consciousness, but we have the Holy Spirit. We have God guiding us. Like a coach. Think of it that way.

you know help giving you convictions like oh i don't know if i want to do that and changing your desires and your tastes for things i see yeah i know it sounds crazy it's because it's supernatural yeah i mean dude at this point i'm i'm open to fucking trying to believe not trying to believe anything but understanding for sure yeah 100 percent i just struggled so like i've had so many different versions of sure my belief with it yeah of course i know i feel you dude pray out loud on your knees, bro. By yourself. I'm about to do your shit tonight. And just be honest, dude. You know, when I first started praying, I remember I was praying like I was talking like to this like, it's like this formal

prayer. Like, you know, dear Lord, you know, type of deal. And I'm like, what am I doing? He knows my heart. Like just like, just tell him. Just tell him what I feel. And so that's, that's, you know. But then I hear that and I go, if he knows your heart, then he already knows. He does, but you got to, you got to, he wants a relationship. So he doesn't want robots. That just. just, you know, he wants, he loves you, he wants you to love him back. So yeah, he knows your heart, but it's also different when you reach out to him and you're just like, here I am, you know, would you want a girlfriend that just, or a wife that just, maybe some people would, but you'd want to know that she, you'd want to know that she actually genuinely wanted to be with you.

Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. So you think that's the main ingredient is, is just reaching out, trying to. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, you pray, get, you know, and you pray to him and talk to him and earnestly and then watch him work. Watch him work. And you'll feel more of a pull. Things will happen.

You'll see things. You'll hear things. And be like, oh my God, that's a weird coincidence. Or, oh my God, this makes sense to me now. And you just keep preaching out to him. See, I get that feeling, but it was the way I learned about this was not so much religious, but more about intention. like you put the thoughts out there you put the feelings out there and you notice the same sort of thing happening yeah yeah it's um that's kind of a twist on what uh like maybe a twist or um not really what it is uh it's it's not you controlling things because of your thoughts uh he's ultimately in control so it's more like submission and relationship not and there's a lot of scripture that says that he will if you pray you'll get you'll get it and so you think to yourself like you just give me

whatever I want that's not what it means what it means is when your heart aligns with gods what you want he wants and so what you pray for happens because you want what he wants which is very different than just what I want I see what you're saying. And then that comes back to why certain things won't sustain in your life or just can't sustain in your life. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely. I got some homework to do, man. Fuck. Yeah, I could tell he's pulling at you, bro. I could tell last time I talked to you, too. Yeah. And something is keeping you,

something that will keep turning you away. That's real too. So you might. What fuck is that? that that's the other it's the enemy bro the devil that's right it's it's it's real that's real you think he wants if you're if you're the enemy and you got your demons right and there's a lot of them but there's not everywhere all the time like god okay and he's looking at this as it because it's a war okay it says in there we do not battle with flesh and blood but with the principalities

of the of the dark world right so our battle is with the enemy you start following christ you entered into this war he like a general isn't going to be like well i'm going to you know make mrs johnson eat that donut it's that doesn't what's not how it works right like you spill your coffee oh that's the devil that's not what it works he's looking at it strategically so he sees someone with influence and he's like oh no i'm not letting that guy uh you know reach out to christ no way so you're a target uh people with you know pastors targets people who start to talk about these things targets step one keep you from christ once you get to christ step two keep you from talking and influencing other people and that's real that's real so you're saying i got to not be a pussy that's what you're

saying that's what it sounds like in other words that's how my brain took it yeah i think um well i'll tell you this you ain't going to win against the enemy if you think you're you know he's way smarter than we are he's been around since before us he's been watching humans forever he knows he reads you better than you read yourself so the only way you'll you'll the only way you can um battle that is is god does that what makes you believe other than what i've said maybe within our conversation last time or this time that that something's pulling on me oh i bro i i when you and i were talking and i told you i had become a new christian you sat forward your chair took your head off And I could, the comments, people were commenting about the, whoa, Brad,

took us out, what's going on? I could tell something happened. And I shot you out a text, in fact, and you didn't respond to it, which I get because. Really? Yeah, I did. What the fuck? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me check.

Yeah. This is a live response. Yeah. Was this the one on the fourth or the 13th? Well, there was, there was one, what I wanted you to, I wanted you to be on my series, and I sent you a clip of my series and told you I was praying for you. Oh, but September 4th. Yeah, there's August 13th that's saying another one.

And I tell you, bro, because I could tell, I could tell he's pulling out. You know why? Because if I'm telling you this and you're pausing, I can tell that there's a little bit of wrestling inside of you. So I can tell. But maybe I'm wrong. But I don't think I am because I think you're asking these questions because you're like, okay, this is weird because I am feeling a pull.

Yeah, no, there's no doubt about it. Otherwise, like, earlier in the conversation, I would have steered the podcast in a different direction. Yeah. But like, I do want to understand. My biggest thing is it seems like I get to that point and then something I get there not even something stops me. I get there and I kind of like surrender to it and then something else will pull me back. That's right.

And I'm just like that's right. And I kind of fall back into the mundane of just life and just doing what I do when I've always done. Keep praying. Keep praying. In fact, I'll encourage the people watching right now to pray for you. You know what's wild is when I first talked about. this. I had all these comments of people who were like, man, I've been praying for you for years ever since you were an atheist. I'm like, what? You've been praying for me for years? Even

when I said I was an atheist and I made fun of religion. Yeah. So, so, uh, people will be praying for you now, bro, when this comes up. And then you'll feel a pull. I hope it helps. Then you'll hope it helps. I hope it helps. I will. It will for sure. Yeah. Dude, such a, it's such a fucking weird thing i don't know to describe it i feel you man yeah i tell you what bro he loves you he wants you uh and uh he just wants you he loves you he wants you he loves you cares about you he wants you um he wants to change your heart and just just let him in that's it and I'm not going to say it's easy afterwards because it's not, but it's different. It's different.

Yeah, that's the point I need to get to. I'll figure it out. You won't. He will. Yeah. That's the key, dude. That's the thing. It's not you, bro.

It's not on you. It's not on your own effort. It's not you. It's not like the way you've lived your life where you go do it and you make it happen. It's him. I think that's what I've struggled with for the most part. Of course. like everything that I was like like you said it's all it's all been like I've had to make it

that's right what it is that's right that's right and every turn that's right I identify that that was me dude it could still be me I still struggle with that so when it when it when it comes back how do you not pray pray Lord I know it's not me Lord I need help you know help me to rely on you to know that you're there remind me show me and he does dude in the craziest ways i've been feeling like well i feel discouraged you know talking about this kind of stuff man i don't know that i'm not a theologian i'm a fitness guy you don't think it goes through my head every time i talk about like what are you talking about bro stay in your lane you know these these thoughts come in my head and uh today you know uh i'll get random message from my friend it's on my heart

bro i just i don't know my buddy i'll read you my text for my buddy tim who's um You know, he's a friend of mine, he's another Christian. And he literally said to me, this was this 4.20 a.m. 4 o'clock this morning. He sends me a text. Hey, Sal, apologize for the strange text, but God has had your name pop up on my heart this morning. And I don't know why or for what, but the only word I keep getting is encourage. 4.20 a.m. I get this text. And I'm like, yeah, dude, I totally needed that.

so that's uh that's god's grace he uses the body of christ he uses other christians too you know to do this yeah i get i get a lot of people message me all the time i also have people message me about islam all the time too so i don't know it's like which what's what's going on it's jesus it's jesus it's jesus yeah yeah you're not going to get down your own on your own efforts nobody is yeah well i got some work to do all right man you got me thinking all right man i know exactly what i'm gonna go do right now all right all right all right thank you for real for coming man no i appreciate i know how much time do you have any more time no i got i got a i got a man i'm gonna i don't know if i'll make my flight but i got that's what i had the back

of my mind yeah yeah i was like dude i don't want to i didn't want to screw you on your flag i got i got I got to go, dude. If you want, I'll pray with you. Yeah, yeah, I'd like that. You're going to pray? Yeah. Let's pray right here. Lord, Father, thank you so much for this opportunity to talk to Bradley.

Lord, thank you for the encouragement this morning when I was feeling discouraged. Lord, Father, I know you love your children so much. I know you love Bradley so much. And you just want him. You want him to reach out to you to let you grab a hold of him. Lord, I pray that you get a hold of his heart. Lord, I pray that you show him. him, what he needs to see to know that you're there and that you love them. I pray that you use other

people around and bring people to him, Father. Make it so obvious and so clear that he can't deny you because that's what he needs. Father, that's what he says he needs. That's what I needed, Lord. Lord, we are broken, we are arrogant, and we need your help. I pray that you reach out. Pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. All right, man. Yeah, I appreciate you, brother. I love you, man. Oh, God. Thank you.