Russell Gray - Oct 10 - 8:00 am

0:00Welcome to the Morning Muse. I am your host, Russell Gray, and I am here musing about staying engaged as a Christian while remaining set apart in the world. And that has a little bit to do with where I'm at in my business and what I'm working on and what I hope to deliver for society. And so this study that I did was just me making sure that I'm in tune with what God is calling me to do that I'm building the business the way He is wanting me to do it. And I get ideas and I think they're great ideas and then I get into scripture and I see, oops, that doesn't quite line up with a godly principle where I get a check in my spirit. And I think, hmm, I better check on that. And so as I started thinking about this idea of what I wanted to do and why I wanted to do it, I thought about how in our modern society, we always hear a lot about tolerance. We hear a lot about diversity. And it's usually racial or sexual orientation. Sometimes religious, ironically, it's very

1:04seldom about political. A lot of times people who are preaching political diversity actually want political uniformity and censorship. But that's a whole different debate and argument you may agree or disagree. And I'm not necessarily saying which side I'm on, although you might glean that just from some of the things that I talk about and so on. But you know, it really doesn't have anything to do with this idea of having an open mind and what is an open mind and how should we behave as Christians in terms of open mindedness. And when I thought about a platform like prey.com where I do my Christian capitalist show and my morning muses, I don't put those on YouTube. I don't put them out there yet at least at this time. I may change that somewhere down the road, but I'm not there right now. And what prey.com really is is a curated collection of faith-based leaders. It's people that have to apply. I had to apply, I had to explain who I was, what I did, what I believed, who I was talking to, what I would be talking about. And they had to approve me. And so obviously they did because I'm here. So the the break.com platform isn't an all-comers platform. Everybody just

2:10can't show up and post a show there. And what that does for people who are listeners of prey is that they have an expectation of what they're going to get. And there's a lot of variety. There's a lot of diversity, you would say, at the same time. There are some common themes that are more or less the non-negotiables. And so I think that there's a roll out there for that. And I think that when we look at Scripture, and I'm going to make this case here as I go through my study, that there is a place for Christians to have boundaries. And those boundaries are part of preserving our own faith, part of preserving the people and the institutions we're responsible for protecting. And it doesn't mean withdrawing. It doesn't mean excluding, but it does mean having some boundaries. And so for me, when I think about when I am listening to stuff on public media, I wish there was some kind of a filter, a way to filter out the noise that's out there on public media that I find

3:12often hostile and antithetical to my core beliefs. And I think back when my late wife and I chose to homeschool our children, this was back in the 80s and the 90s before it was a thing. You may have heard me talk about that in the past, but we decided the better part of valor was to withdraw our kids from that public school system rather than try to fight it rather than try and offset it rather than let them do what they did during the day. And us try to unwind it every night and on the weekends. We just decided it was better not to put our kids into that system. So we withdrew. We withdrew to put them in a more curated environment, a more curated upbringing where we had greater control, greater input, greater insight. We could pick their peer group, we could pick their teachers, we could pick their curriculum, and we could direct their experience more carefully, according to our belief system. And so you can imagine when we first started doing that way back then when homeschooling was in a thing, we got a lot of well-meaning criticism. People were concerned, you know, where our kids going to be socialized, were they going to be

4:12able to get along, were they going to learn the things that they needed to learn, or were they going to be so curated that they weren't well balanced and they weren't able to interact in society. Of course, you know, that ship is sailed. I think the argument has long since been made. I think homeschoolers are some of the best adjusted, most competent, best trained, and capable people out there. And I would argue my children are up there on that list as well. But back then we didn't know that. So we stood by our convictions. We did it anyway. And here's the point we didn't do it alone. Our church had a support system which we plugged into. We joined homeschool support groups in our area. And we even tapped into a degree to some of the resources that were made available to schools, public schools that were available to people at homeschooled because they were trying to keep their hand in the revenue pot. If you signed your kid up for a public school system, they still got some of the money and they would even give us some of the money because they, I think, realized, hey, we don't have any expenses related to this. And we can make a little bit of money simply by letting them come under our umbrella. So,

5:16you'd make the argument it was a win-win since they didn't have any direct oversight or any significant oversight or insight into what we were doing. We felt like it was an okay thing to do. And that's what we did. But the point is we became part of a subculture that helped us and let us help other people so we were all helping each other. So today, what I'm doing is I'm building a network of businesses and that network that ecosystem is a collection of curated businesses or environment. It's a curated environment for people who care about Main Street. And for me, when I say Main Street, and you hear me say it all the time, I mean, everyday Americans, everyday people as opposed to multinational corporations or big banks or Wall Street or globalist organizations. I care about people that are getting up every day living on Main Street, working on Main Street, raising their kids on Main Street and working to encourage them to understand Main Street to invest in Main Street. And perhaps not to patronize as much some of these organizations that are actually, in my opinion, antithetical to their own best interest. And they may or may not understand

6:21that part of the project is to provide education and enlightenment in those areas, education. And so that people can understand when they spend their money, when they invest their money, when they choose to support different types of organizations and policies that they understand how those decisions trickle down to their daily life on Main Street, especially the future of their children. And so I'm specifically interested in what I call Main Street Prosperity and Liberty. I'd like to believe that I'm beginning and plugging into a movement that I've labeled Main Street Prosperity and Liberty. The plan, word, Zaris, P&L is the same as profit and loss, but in this case, Prosperity and Liberty, recognizing that Prosperity is much more than just money and Liberty is not freedom, but it is the freedom to be safe and the freedom to operate in a society where someone else this freedom doesn't infringe on yours. So you could kind of call that libertarian. And there's a lot of things I like about the way libertarians think. I think sometimes it's so ideological.

7:25You can't get anything done in the real world. That's not a criticism. It's just an observation. And so I think that there's a place for people to get away from these political labels and just work on the concept of what it is to be prosperous and liberated on Main Street. And to me, Liberty is, of course, financial Liberty, financial freedom, financial resources, but also political. When policies impede your ability to make money, keep money and joy money, that's a problem when you don't have your freedom. And of course you can't give an immoral people freedom or they use it to do immoral things. So I think spiritual liberty is important too. I call that conscience. Now for Christians, it's Christ. And the only reason I don't use that term in the secular side is because I don't want to alienate the very people I would like to win to Christ. So I think of it as a soup kitchen for the affluent. Even though when you see the guy sleeping in the gutter, you want to preach Christ to him helping to understand he's a divine creature of God and that was created for

8:26a purpose and is valuable. Those are all philosophical things. They don't fill his belly. What he cares about is a cup of soup. So you give him what he thinks he wants in order to get into a conversation to talk to him about what really he needs. You know, the old adage give a man a fish feed him for a day, the teacher man to fish feed him for a lifetime. So if you take somebody who obviously doesn't know who they are in Christ, they don't know who they are with God, they're not living up to that image because they don't have it. You want to give them that image. But first, you just got to get their attention. So that's the soup kitchen. So anyway, so the first C in this 4C sequence is conscience. And again, for Christians, that's Christ. Then there's the Constitution, which is the document that protects our God-given rights and liberty here in the United States of America. And the third C is capitalism. And I make a distinction between the financialized Wall Street capitalism, which is just trading pieces of paper and claims on other people's productivity. And Main Street capitalism, which is actually producing goods and services that benefit people. And so

9:30I think we need to become a more productive economy and less of a financialized economy. And that needs to be done on Main Street. And I think when we do that, we will fill back in the hollowing out that we've experienced on Main Street over the last many decades. And some of those good working class jobs will come back. And that good working class lifestyle will come back. And I'm very bullish that we're headed in that direction. And I think that changing our mindset as Main Streeters and taking back our prosperity and liberty and exercising it is going to be important part of it. So that's part of the movement and why I do what I do. And then ultimately children, that's the fourth C, the next generation, preparing them to prosper in and protect the spiritual and political liberties that make prosperity possible. You can't do that without teaching history. You can't do that without teaching economics. You can't do that without teaching personal finance and entrepreneurship, right? Otherwise people don't understand how to make money. They don't understand how to manage money. They don't understand how to invest money. And they don't understand the conditions that need to be present politically in order for all those things

10:35to happen. And so they can inadvertently vote for things sound good, but are not functionally practical. They won't actually deliver on the promise because they can't. They don't. Socialisms never delivered on the promise. It's a great promise. It just has never delivered. It doesn't work mechanically because it doesn't take into account human nature. And that's a whole different discussion. And I won't go down that path now, but study William Bradford in the Plymouth Rock experiment. If you want to begin to understand how the United States went from an attempt at being a socialist country to realizing we needed to be a capitalist country. And that's what we did. So the point is that it's creating a curated environment where like-minded people can find ideas, they can find people, they can find resources, encouragement, and opportunities that they need to pursue their own personal prosperity and liberty. So that's the vision. That's the goal. That's the objective. That's the thing that I'm working on. And I bring it to the Lord and say, Lord, show me how to build this. I believe you put on my heart to build this. How do I build it? And so I'm double checking with the Lord to see, well, if I'm creating an environment where people

11:38can get out of the public square because it's toxic, it's distracting, it's antithetical, it's discouraging. Am I counteracting God's commandment to go into all the world and share the gospel? So it's just a check. And I encourage you whenever you get in your mind and your heart to do something, even if it feels good, you got to kind of check in with the Lord and go, Lord, is this what you want me to do? Is this how you want me to do it? So that's how this study came about. And so I do think that one of the most important aspects of achievement in any area of life is balance. If you ask an athlete, they're going to talk to you about how important their balance is. I think that successful people, truly successful people have found a degree of balance. I think sometimes we look at somebody who has hyper-success in one area of their life, but it comes at tremendous cost. You know, the old adage or the scripture actually that Jesus said, what's the profit of man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? That's out of balance. Yeah, I made a lot of money, but I lost everything that matters. So I think that one of the most important aspects of achievement is balance.

12:40And balance then requires boundaries, just like excellence requires standards. You're not going to be excellent if you don't have standards. And so first Corinthians 1533 warns us that bad company corrupts good morals. So who we choose to associate with, what we choose to associate with, the ideas that we put in our mind, everything from the movies we watch, the music we listen to, the books we read, the people we talk with, the podcasts we listen to, all of those things. And some of them come in pretty packages, right? The scripture talks about Satan coming as an angel of light. It doesn't look like it's antithetical until you wake up one day and realize you've been compromised. I've had that happen. And so I'm much more attentive to staying in the word and praying by the spirit and checking in from time to time to make sure whatever I've set my heart and mind on actually conforms to the principles that I find in scripture and whatever guidance the Holy Spirit gives me as I study scripture. So when you think about being tolerant, when you think about engaging the world,

13:43we hear a lot about empathy. We hear a lot about suicidal empathy, toxic empathy, if that's a thing. But when you think about empathy and compassion, I think as Christians, the Bible's pretty clear, we're encouraged to be both empathetic and compassionate. Romans 12, 15 says rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. We're told in Galatians 6, 2 to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ to bear one another's burdens. Believers in 1 Peter 3, 8 are told to have sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, a humble mind. So all those things are part of the Christian life. Jesus himself is said to in Hebrews 4, 15 to sympathize with our weaknesses. He came as a man. He had the human experience, even though he was God incarnate, so that he would be able to empathize with us because he knew what it was like to be one of us. And of course, he wept at Lazarus' tomb in John 1135, although I'm not convinced. You know, they talk about that being the shortest scripture,

14:48the shortest verse in the Bible, just towards it. Jesus wept. Was he weeping because Lazarus was dead or is he's weeping because he was about to bring him back from paradise and put him back here on earth? I don't know. Only the Lord knows, but the point is that Jesus had empathy, either for the people who were grieving Lazarus' death or for Lazarus himself giving up at least an early opportunity to be in heaven to come back and live here on earth. And then of course, Jesus also had compassion on the crowds that followed him around and he did miracles to feed them and make sure they were taken care of. So there's definitely a lot of scriptural support and guidance for a Christian, for a believer to have compassion and to be empathetic. And of course, everybody's sort of the golden rule, whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, Matthew 712, and then the great commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. And I talk about this all the time with the Master's plan, right? Everything we do has one purpose as humans, I believe. Love God,

15:52love your neighbor, make disciples. The missions we have underneath that vary depending on the season and life and where you are and who you are and the opportunities and talents that you have that God gives you providentially. So we don't all have the same mission, we don't all have the same role, we may not even have the same consistent mission throughout a lifetime. In fact, I'd make the argument we don't, at least that's been my experience, but I do think we have one purpose. Love God, love your neighbor, make disciples. But sometimes this compassion, this empathy, it comes at a price. If it was easy, of course, everybody would do it. If it was easy, there wouldn't be this temptation to withdraw when we're confronted with hostile people. And so there are several patches is that urge humility and gentleness, but in the context of bearing, which is a burden with others. And so in Ephesians 4 2, it says, be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love. Meaning putting up with other people in love, being patient with people in love. And in Colossians 3 13,

16:58bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And it's easy to say, I can tell you from experience. Sometimes it's hard to do. And maybe it is for you too, but we're commanded to do that. It says in Romans 15 7, accept one another than just as Christ accepted you. Again, variations on a theme. But the point is is that people are a package deal. And they come with baggage. They come with issues. There's going to be the good and there's going to be the not so good. There's going to be the desirable. And then there's going to be the hard to tolerate. And so where is the line when you shouldn't tolerate, when you need to disassociate. Of course, there's commandments to do that too. And we'll talk about those in just a minute. But we know that it isn't necessarily easy or enjoyable to be empathetic and compassionate that we're going to have to bear with people and situations that we don't care for. Jesus commanded us to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors. That's the last thing you

18:03feel like doing. You want to pray down fire in Brimstone. You don't want to pray blessing. Of course, Psalms, I think it says talks about when you pray for your enemies, you bring coals of fire on their heads. So, you know, maybe there's something to that. But of course, in the description of love in 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, which is the famous, love is patient, love is kind, not easily angered, keeping a record of wrong. It sets a very high bar for how people are supposed to be treated even when they're difficult to get along with or even opposing you. So there's going to be times when you're going to need to get along with people. And be in situations you don't care for. So I think that if the temptation is to cut and run and only be in happy places, only be in safe places, that isn't quite engaging the world in the way I believe Christians are supposed to do it. And so that is again, what I'm trying to work through. Is it okay? Or when is it okay to withdraw? Jesus certainly withdrew to spend time with the

19:04father on the mountain. He withdrew into places of solitude. Believe it or not, I'm an introvert. I know people who know me don't think I'm an introvert. But if the definition of introvert is you get stronger when you're alone and being with other people drains you. It doesn't mean you don't like other people. I love people. And I like being with other people. And I have a good time when I with other people. And I always try to add value to other people and be sympathetic and empathetic and look for ways I can add value to their life. However, when I want to recharge, I don't go look for people to hang out with. I spend time alone. And that's just the way I'm wired. So I don't think it's a good or bad or a right or wrong. Took me a long time to understand. I used to think I was broken. There's something wrong with me. Right? Everybody else enjoys being with people. They seem to feed on it. When they're tired, they go out to get a pick me up. When I'm tired, I just want to be left alone. And so that old thing, you know, treat other people the way you want to be treated. If you're an extrovert, you're trying to drag somebody who's an introvert out to cheer them up. Sometimes, you know, you're not treating them the way they want to be treated. So, you know, I do agree with the

20:05golden rule that you want to treat people the way you want to be treated. But you have to also recognize they're not like you and you're not like other people. So you could almost restate it. And I have to be careful doing this to say treat other people the way they they want to be treated. They need to be treated, which is really deep down what you want. You want to be treated the way you want to be treated. And it may not necessarily align with the way somebody else wants to be treated. So be sensitive in that regard. As I've gotten older, I've gotten better about that. I'm so not great at it, but I definitely have gotten better. So now you've got to get along with these people you disagree with. So how do you handle these differences of opinion? Well, in Romans chapter 14 and 15, and then there's a related discussion over in 1 Corinthians 8. Paul is talking about these arguments, these theological arguments that were happening in the early church over food because so much of Jewish heritage was about being very mindful about what you put in your mouth. Of course, Jesus says not what put in your mouth that is bad. It's what comes out of your mouth. And of course, they had holidays and feasts they were to keep. There was all kinds of religion

21:08and legalism wrapped around being in a relationship with God from the Jewish perspective. And so now these Jews are becoming Christians. And they're going out into the world and they are being asked to do things or they're fellow shipping with people that don't have those same religious practices. There became all these contentions about the details of what it was to be faithful to God. And so those were disputable matters, if you will. Those were things that people argued about. And so what Paul says to do is welcome somebody whose faith is weak without quarreling over opinions. What was the context of that? He said, all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. In other words, you can eat whatever you want. The law is over. Christ fulfilled the law. So you're free to eat whatever you want. You know, I mean, you obviously have responsibility to your body as the temple of the Holy Spirit to eat good food, but from a religious perspective, from a faith perspective, there was nothing at this time for bitten. And yet you had to have faith in the

22:10new testament in order to do that. And someone who came from the Old Testament who wasn't ready for the new testament or was just learning the new testament, their faith and the new testament was relatively weak. And so Paul's like, don't make a big deal about it. If you're with someone in a defensive, if you're going to eat some food, don't eat it. Your freedom isn't there to flaunt in front of somebody else that it's going to cause to stumble. You don't want to be a stumbling block for someone else because you have deeper faith in an area of freedom that they still feel they are constrained by. And I know I've experienced a both sides of that in my life because there's been people I've been with whose faith is further developed the mind, whose understandings further develop mind and people that of course aren't as far along as I am. And then of course, who's to to really know and say, but the point is you don't want to argue about minor things. Paul also says, don't treat each other with contempt or past judgment. So separating yourself from someone can feel

23:10very judgmental. And so you're not there to create division. You're there to try to reconcile division and avoid creating division when you can, but there will be times as we're going to see in a minute where it is appropriate for you to move on. And then you have to follow your conscience, right? That word conscience. Each person should be fully convinced in their own mind. And of course, as I mentioned before, don't put a stumbling block in a brother's way. So the point is you're supposed to pursue what makes for peace and mutual upbuilding. You're edifying one another in love. But that can be hard work to engage with people when you don't say, I know, I know what's hard for me. So it seems to me that the idea is when it comes to the non essentials of the core tenets of the faith, the things that are not salvation or not salvation, Christ's Lord or He's not Lord, right? God is sovereign or He's not sovereign. Those are things that you can talk about and disagree on. The core stuff of the faith, you have to agree on. And that's kind of where the dividing line comes.

24:12So the Bible teaches it patient and kindness also has some boundaries in Galatians chapter one and two, for Corinthians five, second John 10 and 11. Paul and John are dealing with, and other apostles had to deal with this also, is when groups of people and leaders in particular were really just completely had the doctrine wrong, they were not preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. They were not actually holding up what was true and revealed by Jesus, by the Holy Spirit, and what the apostles were teaching. And so when someone was doing that and they camped out and wanted to do it their way and deny those core tenets of the faith, it seemed like, okay, now we have to establish some church discipline. We have to have some boundaries. Because the Bible is very clear, Jesus is the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him, John 146. Anything contrary to that is antithetical to Christian faith. So believers are told in first

25:15Thessalonians five and also in first John four to test the spirits and to hold fast what is good, what is true. So any spirit comes and says Jesus Christ is Lord, you know that that is a spirit of God. If any spirit comes along and says Jesus Christ is not Lord, then it is antithetical to Christian belief and you can't entertain that. So there are ideas that you shun. There are people who bring those ideas that you shun. But it's not as maybe a big appallate as some of us would like, because I'd like to get rid of obnoxious people. I'd like to get rid of annoying people. I'd like to get rid of people that are whiny and needy all the time. And so some of that we have to bear with, right? And we have to discipline or disciple those people and help them grow in their faith and so they can discover the joy of the Lord. So all that to say being a loving Christian includes being empathetic, compassionate, seeking to get along with others, but it doesn't mean being a dormant. And so of course that begs a question what are the limits we've talked about some of them.

26:18But when it comes to guidance and examples of boundaries in speech, fellowship, and association, it seems like the Lord is not against limits. And even withdrawal in certain circumstances. So it's really about protecting your own faithfulness. And if you're a leader of a church, a business, or even a family, you've got to protect your congregation. You have a responsibility as a shepherd to look out for the people who are looking up to you for that leadership and that protection. And so when it comes to associations, which I would call fellowship with people, friendships that you have, people that you allow to speak into life partnerships, whether they're business or life partnerships, alliances when you work very closely with someone where your brand's intermingle goes back to that first Corinthians 1533, which says do not be deceived, bad company ruins good morals. And so it's really understanding these associations and how to make sure that you're in good associations. Proverbs 22, 24 through 25 says make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, unless you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a

27:20snare. And I think if you study anger, and this isn't a study about anger, but when I've looked at it, anger is often rooted in hatred. And that hatred is often rooted in fear. So you can overcome it with understanding and explanation. But if someone has opted into accepting a lie as truth and is using it to fuel hate, and you can't quench that, you can't be in that relationship. They're going to drag you down. That's what the Bible says. So for me, my let Ms. Test, if I notice a relationship that I'm in, and it has me drifting away from trust in God. And again, I define trust as faith in action. James says, even the demons have believe in tremble. Faith without works is dead. So if you're not acting on your faith, you have to ask yourself, how much faith do I really have? Am I willing to step out in faith? Am I willing to trust? You don't know the end from the beginning. Sometimes God only gives you a little bit of guidance. I got a chance to interview Marissa Stryte, founding CEO of Prager University, just an amazing lady. She talked

28:23about how when she started out, she had a general direction. She had a general vision as she started moving. And her experience was as she moved, it became clearer over time. I think that's true in most entrepreneurial journeys, certainly been true in mind. You don't really know every little detail how it's going to work out. You make a commitment to do something. You believe God will see you through because it's something God called you to do. And then you just go along for the ride, constantly seeking along the way. So there's a lot of course adjustments. And obviously the main thing that you always want to be on is God's purpose, the master's plan. So if something is pulling me away from acting in faith and moving in the direction I believe God is calling me. If anything is pulling me away from God's purpose, which is to love God, love my neighbor and make disciples, if it's misdirecting me or pulling me away from whatever my current mission happens to be, if I believe that submission God gave me, then I need to think about withdrawing. If I can't resist that, then I'm going to get caught up in that momentum and I'm going to end up drifting off course. And so it could be in those situations I'm fighting someone else's fight. I think it's my

29:26fight, but it's actually somebody else's fight. Or I'm supposed to be in the fight. I'm supposed to be on the field. I'm supposed to be in the game. But not till the end. I'm only there for a season. I help somebody do something. I'm there to move the ball a little bit forward. Use a football metaphor. But then it's time for me to go back to the bench. It's time for me to turn over to someone else. It's me to hand off the baton now switching to track, whatever it is. But I don't believe that God would ever call me to a mission. He's planning on having me fail. So, you know, sometimes I just make up my mind. I want to finish this mission. I want to finish a mission. But God has someone else assigned to actually finish. I don't get to finish. This is like in harvesting. Some people are preachers. Some people are going to disciple people. So there's the planter and there's the harvester. Right? So the examples is that we're part of a team. And I think that's true in everything that we do. And so just trying to understand where am I supposed to be and how I'm playing my role part of it is is my faith being edified? Am I edifying the faith of others or is my faith being torn down? And

30:28I have no effect on the people around me. Right? When I find the ladder to be true, I'm questioning whether I'm where I'm supposed to be. And so that's kind of the point. And of course the other thing too is if you feel like, oh, I'm a loser because I couldn't finish the job God gave me. And I've certainly felt like that from time to time. Think about Jesus. Jesus himself said a prophet's not without honor except in his own home. The Bible talks about times when Jesus wasn't able to do miracles in his own hometown because of the people's lack of faith. Just one of many, many examples is Matthew chapter 13 verses 54 through 58 where Jesus says where it says, and Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household. And then the Bible says, and he could do no mighty work there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief. So there's going to be times when you're around people that are just hardcore, anti-Christian. They're unbelievers. There's nothing you're going to do or say that seems to change their mind and all they're going

31:31to do is drag you down and quench the spirit that was within you. And if that happened to Jesus, then you don't have to feel too bad if it happens to you from time to time. So those usually are signals that it's time to withdraw. Go someplace else. Seek a mission field somewhere else where you can be of service. And in Matthew chapter 7 or 6, Jesus says, do not give dogs what is holy. Do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. So there's a time where you don't share. There's a time where you don't give your best effort. There's a time when you realize that this is a lost cause. And I'm just not going to throw good words in after bad, good money and after bad, good time in after bad, or good emotional energy in after bad. I'm going to cut my losses, leave that and let God deal with that person in his own way and his own timing. And so that's part of setting some boundaries. So if you get to the

32:31place in life where you're like, hey, you know what, I don't belong here. It's time for me to check out. As long as you're moving on to something, I think that God is calling you to where you feel like you can be of use. That's good. Sometimes you take a time out and you just need to refresh. I took a long time out that again, I'm not proud of, but I needed a lot of refreshing and God took me through this time and took me out the other end and renewed my faith and put me back on path, gave me a new mission, a new group of people to work with and it's been much, much better. But still, I'm very, very careful as I continue to go out there and form alliances and relationships that I'm picking to write people. So part of my motivation to create this curated community that I'm talking about is to give people like me a place to go where I can have civil conversations, right? Not these ad hominem attacks. These like totally vitriolic conversations you see on social media. But civil conversations about things that I care about with people who are like minded. We can debate. We see things a different way. We may have a different perspective. That's okay. Some people are going to be ahead of me in their faith. They're going to be deeper than me in their understanding

33:34of subject matter. They're going to have life experiences I don't have. I need to be open-minded to hear what they have to say as long as what they're delivering to me is offered in love from a foundation of the core tenets of the faith. If it's not, then I just need to be extra cautious. And at some point, I may decide, hey, this is not healthy. I'm consuming poison, if you will. And I need to get out of this conversation. I need to get out of this relationship. I need to not be in this environment. But we are definitely instructed to seek out other people's perspectives and opinions. That's why I think the Bible tells us to wage war by wise counsel and that they're safety in a multitude of counselors. So if the definition of wise is the fear of the Lord, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. If you're with people who embrace evil, who love evil, who pursue evil, that's not going to be wise counsel. I don't care how much money you can make. I don't care much fame you can garner. I don't care much impact on the world you think you can make. If these people are not God-fearing people, and especially if they're

34:35antithetical, then you just have to take that with a grain of salt and run it by the Lord. Now, does that mean that somebody who isn't overtly Christian is going to, by definition, give you bad advice? I don't think so. But I do think you need to be more careful because your worldview dictates pretty much everything else and how you look at the world and look at life. And there's a lot of well-meaning people, even in the personal development space. And I know a lot of these people, and I like them. My favorite ones are the ones that come from a Christian worldview, but not all of them do. And so you can have a form of godliness, but lose the substance. You can have the benefit of biblical wisdom, but you strip out the lordship of Jesus Christ. And all of a sudden, you have this hollow shell. And it works in this life, but it doesn't get you anywhere in the next life. And since the next life is what it's all about, you got to make sure you check both those boxes. So, obviously, when you're on social media, you're exposed to all kinds of stuff. And not everybody that is on there, I think, is worthy of my time and attention. And you do your best to try to filter out.

35:40But it's noisy. And that's part of the reason I want to create an environment where people can go and find other places. And of course, in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, the Bible makes a distinction between people who are outside the faith and people who are inside the faith. And you treat people outside the faith different from people who are inside the faith. People inside the faith, you're actually more critical of. You're more judgmental of somebody who says they're a Christian, but doesn't behave like a Christian who stays in sin, who's rebellious, who does things that are divisive and destructive. The Bible is actually telling Christians to be much harsher, much more firm in church discipline and internal discipline. Then we are to be with people who are outside, outside, we're told to be more patient, to be more understanding, to build bridges and then begin to impart and share the gospel with people. And so those two things are different. So you can look up for yourself all of the different concepts of when you're inside the church and dealing with brothers and sisters in the Lord and how you withdraw from that. But I'm talking specifically about

36:44building a community where people who believe in Christ, Constitution, capitalism, and raising the next generation up to practice and protect those three things can go to be edified, to be encouraged to find relationships, ideas, resources, opportunities, all the things I talked about. And asking myself, is that something that I should build? Is that something the world needs? Is that something that God would want me to do? And I think the short answer after this study is yes. So I'm going to continue working on that. If that's something you'd like, then you can pray for me and pray about that. And if you think you'd like to help, just send me an email to feedback at Russell Gray.com. We can talk about what that looks like. It's a big project. There's a lot of room for help. And I think there's a lot of room for opportunity. It's built for entrepreneurs to be able to create communities, to be able to promote their businesses, to be able to find the kind of people they want to do business with, to be able to raise money, at least build relationships that can lead to the raising of money, and to have opportunities to put money to work, main street investing in main

37:46street, and especially main street investing in faith-based businesses. So all of that is being assembled. It's a big project, as you might guess, but it all had to be based on this idea. Is it okay for a group of people, just like an iron man's book Atlas Shrugged? If you haven't read it, read it. She doesn't come from a Christian perspective, but the idea is that the productive people in a society get to a point where engage and staying engaged in a society that is so against the principles that they believe in of personal responsibility of productivity and freedom and liberty that they decide to withdraw and form their own society inside what's called Galt's Galt, and it's a geographic location, but they withdrew from society. And you see that happening right now around the country. There are certain states and jurisdictions that are losing productive citizenry because of the policies that they have that are hostile to them being in business, they're hostile to them, keeping and enjoying their wealth, and they feel like it's easier to move

38:47than to try to change the environment they're in. They've realized that it seems to be a little hopeless, and so rather than change, they're going to retreat and regather themselves. And I hope put their efforts into shifting the tide in the nation that is causing those types of environments to spread from state to state because if we lose this country, if every state becomes hostile to personal liberty to private property, to privacy, and we end up in a situation where there isn't any place to go, then I think Ronald Reagan said it best way back when if we lose freedom here, that's it. The United States is the world's last stand at the Constitution of the United States is the one thing, the one document that is standing between the world and tyranny. Why? Because our Constitution in the United States believes and states that man's freedom are God given unalienable

39:49rights and the Constitution limits government and protects those rights as the ultimate law of the land, almost everywhere else in the world, every freedom or liberty or opportunity you have is not a divine right recognized by the highest law of the land, but it is a privilege issued by the government and really offered to you at their pleasure what the government can give the government can take away. And so it seems subtle because you look at the bottom line in a lot of countries feel very American like I got a buddy right now who is in a situation in a lawsuit, prosecution, been accused of something and in that country it doesn't work like it doesn't in the United States. I was on a panel with him and he goes you know in the United States you're innocent until proven guilty, but that's not true everywhere in the world in some places your guilty is charged until you prove your innocence. Those are little distinctions you don't realize until you're on the wrong end of

40:52it and that's what happened to him. So all that to say that I think that there is a time and a place for people to withdraw at least temporarily from time to time to regroup to fellowship with people that are like-minded, clearly that's true in church. We can't stand church all the time and not engage the world. We're supposed to be engaged in the world and this thing that I'm building isn't meant to pull people out and have no engagement with the world. It's more of a place where people can come and be strengthened equipping the saints if you will for the work of the ministry. In this case it's equipping Main Street for the movement or the effort to promote Main Street prosperity and Liberty and then we go out into the world and we promote Main Street prosperity and Liberty and the people who want to join can come back and be part of that community and that community growth. So that's the vision. That's what I'm working on. This study was designed to help me make sure that I'm doing something that isn't against what God would have me do. I think I'm in the clear

41:54if you feel differently let me know. Feedback at RussellGray.com. Otherwise and meanwhile may God bless you as you go back to your father's business and may you be blessed to be a blessing. Again send me your feedback at Feedback at RussellGray.com and we will see you on the next morning news.