Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the Jonathan Project podcast, where we help men navigate the complexities of the world around them. Iron sharpening iron. And we take the example of Jonathan and his great friend David and future king as the inspiration and loyalty for this show. If you want me and Jason to come on out to a men's event, you're having a business function, you name it. Please reach out to us at the Jonathan Project podcast gmail.com. again, the Jonathan Project podcastmail.com. jason, welcome to another episode. How are you doing this lovely morning?
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Hey, good morning. Good morning. It's all good here. It's raining. Know we've kind of broken the cold spell for about three days. It's raining.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: So that's it. We're. We're headed off to see if we can find a more agreeable rooster.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: Oh, man. Saga continues, man.
Like a reality show or something about chickens, man.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: They are like. Because they're pets, my family. You know what I mean? And it's like, oh, we gotta have this. And they moved from being survival meals to pets. That's where we are.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: Pets that you could eat in a survival situation. There you go.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: That is. That is true. That is true. But I have a feeling we would be starving if it came down to eating them.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: You know, you'd be the hated man there. That's funny.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Hey, let's put it like this. Those things get blueberries. I don't.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: How about you, man? You got big news? Got a lot been going on.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: Well, it's been good, you know, I finally. I'm moving on to a new chapter professionally. Going back to some. Some familiar territory.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: To speak here in the next month. So be heading back to. To the wonderful command there at socom. So I'm excited for that opportunity and closing last chapter in the private sector and probably will never reopen that. That chapter again. I'll just.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: Oh, man, what a ride that was. But no, really, what it is, and you know this because we talk all the time, is it was really just the testament to faithfulness. God's faithfulness. Right. And I was reminded of that time and time again, as you know, the story, like, and it went from applying a thousand times, multiple different, you know, civilian jobs to.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: Giving up. And I was like, hey, man, I don't know what's happening. And then. And then the Lord opened up a tremendous opportunity and blessing. So I'm grateful for that. Glad to be back to supporting those that really do a great job for the country and I'm glad to be back into to that supporting role so.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: No, it's good man. I'm glad that you're. That chapter's kind of closed and we're opening a new one.
You know that's, that's been a ride. That's been a ride.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: Well to put it, it's a ride for both of us but I believe again I keep praying for, for both of us and our family. Yeah, this is, this is the year of breakthrough. So it kind of is a good dovetail into what we're going to talk about here today. Right. Understanding who's influencing our life.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good one. Influence in lives.
That's a, you know, that's a new job. Social influence.
So hands down the government uses LinkedIn to, to do a lot of training and so I've been going through, I can't tell you how much like it's a lot we've talked like I'm at 30 something classes and of everybody selling a good idea and they are coaches from.
I'm a executive drama coach. I'm an executive, you know, whatever coach.
They've come up with every flowery way to say something for sure. Right. That's basically says I'm going to give some advice, I want you to take it and which it's, it is like it's advice but you know it's, it's like social media. So social media influencers, you know that's moved. It's no longer a niche is the way Forbes described it. They call it a global shapening force. Right.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: Wow, that's, that's interesting because we use shaping forces in our and previous lines of work. Right. In the military sector.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Here's the best part. 50 million social influencers worldwide. I love that cup by the way.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: And Jonathan Project cup.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: There you go.
If, if somebody out there, I guess they could email us if they are looking for one of those.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Yeah, we got to figure that out.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll figure it out. Shoot us an email. But 50 million social media influencers worldwide. Guess how many of those are in America?
[00:05:06] Speaker A: About 49.9 million.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: It's so close. So close. 25 million. Oh right. And 2 million of those make over a hundred thousand dollars.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: God bless them. Only in America.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: God bless them.
[00:05:20] Speaker A: Only in America.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: So 57% of Gen Z said they quit their job right now if they could maintain their lifestyle and be a social media influencer.
Yeah. So long gone are the days of I want to be a doctor, I want to be a lawyer, I Want to be a social media influencer. So do I think we're going to make it back to the moon? Probably not.
Not unless. Not unless TikTok moves up there.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: Oh, speaking of which, we, you know, TikTok is, by tomorrow, if they don't, don't dissolve themselves from their Chinese overlords, they're going to go the way of the dodo. So it doesn't look good for the TikTok home team.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. And we just figured out how to use that. I love it.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: Just figured out how to use that. So you know what? That's technical. Animal Planet at its finest. And we will, we'll continue to find a way to get the message out there. But no, you bring up some good points and to throw out some stats because I like to try to be cool like you sometimes with some stats.
Pew Research center, you know, they've done quite a few surveys in their history, and they say that amongst Christians that only about 40% of men and about 60% of women read their Bible at least once a week. Not daily once a week. Only 40%.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: 40%.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: 40%. And then when you talk about those wonderful generations that we love to talk about all the time, when you look at the younger millennials, which I fall into the older millennial Gen X kind of category, there's only 28% of that demographic that are eating their Bibles once a week. And then with Gen X, you're looking at about 35%.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: Yeah, we're in the 35%. Okay, there you go. Well, I didn't get. I didn't get asked. So.
But, you know, you only got to have a certain sample size to make it legit. Right. Like you don't have to survey everybody.
That's pretty interesting. You know, that only that. That very few read your Bible. I like how C.S. lewis put it. He said, imagine you're caught behind enemy lines and the only radio communication you have is your prayers in the Bible. Right.
And that's how he, he viewed it and how he described it during the World War II time frame. Because really, you are caught behind enemy lines. If you're a Christian, you're caught behind enemy lines because Satan is the prince of this world. That means he has dominion of this.
So you're really as an ambassador, and even Christ calls you an ambassador. That means you're not. There are no American ambassadors inside America, if that makes sense.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: So I wonder if we did a quick research on what's the screen average screen time use per generation. That would have been a nice.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, maybe.
[00:08:25] Speaker B: But I don't know how to do that while we're talking, so.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Yeah, and I don't want to, I don't want to kill the, the feed because I'm scared.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: No, but it kind of leads to the central question that kind of highlights this conversation that we're having is who are those top two people influencing your life? If you, if you just narrowed it down to two and why? Because I feel like that's something that's overlooked of who is really influencing me, who is really pouring into my life. And I know me and you had this conversation a couple days back which kind of led into this. But it's really important to understand who, who's driving your morality, who's influencing the way that you perceive others in the world? And the Bible, if you're only reading it once a week, which is probably on Sunday, when, I'm guessing, when folks kind of go to church and like, all right, let me dust myself off and be a Christian today.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: Then what are you doing the other six days out of the week? How are you being driven? And I would argue in this social media saturated world. And that kind of ties into the interesting points you brought that these social media influencers which come in all walks, shapes, flavors and lifestyles, you're pouring into yourself and that's not necessarily the best thing to do.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: No, I agree with you. You know, you think about it, how, how is influence coming into your body? Right. You know, I think about. Long gone are the days of the, you know, the tv. God, you know, I'm, I'm absolutely going to date myself. I still believe it is one. It was at one point one of the more influential books because it determined what people were doing in the evening. Right. But you only had three channels, which that blows my kids minds. I'm like, no, it's three channels and if you got in trouble and you missed Night Rider, you wasn't seeing it till next week.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: Fresh out of luck and got what happened next week.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: You weren't rewinding it.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: No, there's none of that. Yeah, yeah.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: We didn't have Netflix.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: No, nothing. That's funny.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: So, but you're, you know what, what, what does influence you? What comes into your life and what influences you? If you look at your amount of screen time, it's just exposure rate, right? Yeah, you don't, if you don't think exposure time counts. Set out in the sun without sunscreen and they go, well, the sun's out you know, or. Well, everybody does this. Well, yeah. Set outside, it's the same thing.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: Let's see how that goes.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: You're right. But when you see social media, when you see who is influencing you, I bucket it into two things. Are they in it for what's their purpose? If somebody, if you can figure out what someone has to gain personally gain by them, by you believing what they say, then you can figure out what they're saying.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: A car salesman, if you can realize that, hey, if I believe them and I buy all this stuff, I buy the, the, you know, the, the butt cooled seats.
I had those in the winter when I was a kid. Right.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: And I had the heated ones in the summer with the old, it wasn't the leather, whatever those seats were.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: But you, yeah, they were cracking.
[00:11:39] Speaker B: Yeah. When you set in them, you can hear those legs sizzle. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:11:44] Speaker A: I remember that with my grandparents.
Old 65 Ford Galaxy, like.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:51] Speaker A: Cook yourself on that bench seat.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: Oh yeah. So you know, if you think about that, what, what did I, what did they gain by me believing them? And you can see through a whole lot of stuff. So for people out there, and it blows my mind that people don't understand this. There is a psychology behind influence. Right. Especially for social media marketing. And there is no regulation on it. So they can, they can manipulate that dopamine stream repeatedly until it burns out. And that's why people, after about an hour on social media, they're depressed. They got. It's the one hour mark. Congratulations, you can tread water for one hour and then better get real good at holding your breath.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: It's funny you say that because I took my son on a field trip yesterday and we were looking at manatees, swimming with manatees, which was a pretty cool experience as I was trying to watch two sixth grade boys and make sure that they didn't drown. And, and that was paramount in my mind. But my pool noodle, because again, you want to float and you don't want to disturb these gentle sea cow things.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: So that you couldn't kick. That's what they told you. And so the pool needle breaks. Anyways, I, I'm, I'm doing some very gentle treading water for about 30 minutes. And I'll say at 44, the legs started getting that lactic acid. I' like one or 10 things about to happen. I'm gonna punch one of these sea cows because I'm about to die and I'm about to drown. I need to start swimming back to the boat. Oh, yeah, and I took option too, but that's awesome. A whole another story. I kind of derailed this with it. I'm sorry. But yes, Mark. Mark 8, 1121. Right.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: Jesus cautions about who do we allow to influence us? And, and I've heard people say this. Well, you know, Kobe, like, why do you so bash on like social media? And why. Why do you think? It's just a younger thing. I'm like, it's this. I'm. Be fair. I'm not one of these people that takes into this generational fight. It's just the same thing that's going on forever. It's just new tools. In Jesus day, you had teachers and philosophers, you know, the Roman way of thinking, the Greek way of thinking. That's nothing new. They didn't have Tik Tok or Facebook and all these other high fancy tools, but they would go to the public square. You have the local traveling philosopher come in and he would say something. And Jesus cautions about that in Mark 11. And that's the parallel for us here today. The message is still the same. You have to slow down and think about what am I receiving and is it drawing me closer to God or farther away? Am I broadcasting light or am I talking about darkness? And we talked about this. And I encourage everyone to go back to the Jonathan Jonathan podcast website and look at some of our older episodes where we talk about this, where you can lose that salt, that flavoring, that potential to influence someone to the greatest decision that they will make. You can be that influencer as a Christian and push them away from God because you are portraying yourself and you're being influenced by Satan and adversaries and a spirit that is not the Holy Spirit. Right. By what you're putting out there in your daily life, not just in social media, but in the world around you. You know? Yeah, let's use traffic. It's a human thing. We all experience that frustration. You got two little ones in your back watching you, little eyes, little ears, and you got Caleb on.
But then you're cussing the guy out because he cut. Cut you off. There's some streams crossing to go back with old Ghostbusters reference.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: So we need to slow down and think about why the Bible says out of the abundance of our heart comes what. What's in this? Right. And you speak that out. So make sure that we're being influenced in the right way. And. And if you're only reading your Bible once a week, please look at what you could do better, because I Guarantee you're not looking at social media or your phone or tick tock once a week. You're doing a lot more often.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: So, no, you bring up a good point in traffic. I had a buddy of mine that as he became a Christian and he was, you know, we all grow, right? And those growing pains are what they are. And he was driving and he said, traffic hit him and he got super aggressive. And then it dawned on him. He had a Jesus sticker on the back of his window of his. Of his vehicle, right? I said, well, what'd you do? He goes, man, I was so embarrassed. I just rolled the window down to cover it up.
Because he knew his actions weren't reflected, right?
[00:16:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:16:21] Speaker B: But by the sheer nature of influence, it's applying a pressure to move, right? Let's just break it down into what it is. I'm applying a pressure to move. Now you as a human get to choose which direction you move. It's pretty simple to bucket those things. Either one, it's for someone else's glory, someone else's benefit, or your benefit. And if your benefit, your benefit will always be pushing you towards Christ, right?
I go back to manipulation. There's a psychology of manipulation, and salesmen can use it, right? Like there. There's great stories about it where if they can manipulate you to feel like you're getting a deal, you'll get it. Especially if they feel like it's, you know, way above. They had this one, I loved it. And I'll tell it real quick. This one guy, these two brothers sold suits. And he goes, one of them pretended to be deaf, and so he got get ready to check it out. And he'd still be debating on the cost of it. And they'd say, hey, how much was the suit? And the guy be in the back, and he'd go, it's you know, eight, you know, $160, which no suit cost 160 bucks. But he goes, it's $160. And the guy at the counter goes, did you say 40? And he like. And they kind of go back and forth. Well, the moment, you know, the guy thought he was getting a deal, Audi left. Well, the truth was, the suit didn't cost 160. Yeah, it cost like 50 bucks, 40 bucks, whatever.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:51] Speaker B: So the guy thought he was getting a deal and he left. They do those things to. To manipulate for their gain. So if your buddy is giving you anything other than what James describes of wisdom is from above, it's first, pure, peaceful, gentle, and easy to Be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits. Hey, it's. It's not true, Right?
First Corinthians, I loved it. Paul says, hey, don't be misled. Bad company corrupts good character.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: Yes, sir.
[00:18:21] Speaker B: You can only be around bad character for so long before you exhibit it.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: That's a great point, Jason. And I want to. I want to pull on that for a second because I think sometimes as Christians, we can. We can take that to the extreme. And here's what I mean. You look at the 12 apostles.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: This is a who's who of. Of some crazy characters, right?
[00:18:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:45] Speaker A: And let's start with one in particular. Matthew.
And Matthew was a tax collector, which I don't know if there's a cultural equivalent of. Of a job that is so derisive and hate it. Maybe only fans model or, or, I don't know, Kardashian makeup artist or something.
[00:19:04] Speaker B: But yeah, the IRS is more accepted than Matthew was.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: Maybe something on those lines in our modern society where it's like everyone's like, oh, that's. That's not good. Yeah, but Matthew being a tax collector was that. But g. In the Pharisees, again, equate that to. Now the. The super churchy religious elite will look at it like, why are you talking to those people on that side of the track? Or why are you trying to give resources to this group of people or whatever the case may be. Here's the thing about influence. Jesus wasn't changed his nature. We never find in the Bible where he was changed by hanging out with a tax collector, catching the woman in adultery, whoever else was following him, the who's who of these characters, he changed them.
[00:19:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: And that's the reason that you pour into yourself daily your mind, as the Bible says, you renew your mind daily with his Word, because then that is how you can change the world around you. But too often, I think it's hard for a lot of Christians, all of us, if we're honest. You can get down that slippery slope where, yeah, you're cussing out everybody around you and you forget like, oh, and then the Holy Spirit hits you like, hey, man, what's going on with you today? So I don't think that we should separate ourselves out into the fields and just pray and wait for, for whatever's going to happen. We have to follow Jesus example, spend time with the Father, which he did put the word into you, and then be the influence in the world around you. That is the way to handle those quote unquote, non Believing relationships.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: You're either a thermometer or a thermostat. I love that you reflect the environment you're in or you change it. Now understand what you're up against. Because everybody likes to think, I'm not influenced. I'm not influenced. Well, stop. First off, if you tell yourself you're not that easily influenced, you're already setting yourself up for failure. In 1955, Ash had this experiment. It was called Opinions and Social Pressure. I'll just tell you what he said. He said people will often submit uncritically to external manipulation by suggestion. And that almost any idea can be sold or unsold without resistance with enough social pressure. So what he did was he applied social pressure. He had 11 people in a room, and he says, we're going to test visual acuity. And he would hold up these cards with a line that was long. You know, he says, just pick the longest line.
And everybody was in it except for one guy. And so he had it worked out very well where. Where it wasn't like they just flipped all at one point, but it would be this slow coercion. And pretty soon it was where everybody in there was picking the shortest line as the longest line. And he has some video footage of it, but you can see the look on the guy's face. And he's like, you guys are wrong. And then. But he capitulates. He goes, nope, nope. Because we have that need for social identity and we want to be a part of things. Acceptance and so forth. It begins to wear at your self esteem, right?
So at that point, he became a thermometer, right? He's just like, hey, I'm gonna go with it.
And you will.
You got to be careful of who influences you. I thought about this the other day as I was in church. We have a. We have a balcony. We're not. It's not like a balcony, but it's where the choir sits. You know, you got steps to the. To the. Where the preacher stands. And then you got the steps for the. To the choir and, you know, and of course, the baptistry and all this, right?
And I thought about influences as I'm sitting in there and you and I talked and I thought to myself, if pastor come in from the top and jump down from the top of those steps, everybody be like, oh, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. You know, that's a funny.
They would, you know, because it makes this big. It's a big shift. But yet if he walks down Those steps, nobody thinks anything about it. And that's how influence works. It's a little at a time. It's like little steps. Yeah. And pretty soon you're on the bottom floor.
[00:23:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: You don't realize it.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: So I agree with you on who influences you, who anchors you, who in your life is anchoring you, who's your iron? Sharpening iron.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: No, and that's a great point. And you have to put up, and especially as, as, as men, you have to put up that guard. You have to set the tone and the example of safeguarding hearts and minds, primarily yourself first. Because you can't think about that example when they, you sit on the plane like you sit next to your kids, like, hey, please make sure you put on your mask before you try to put on your kids mask. Well, it's the same thing. You have to fill yourself with the knowledge and precepts of the Bible to be able to go out and to help anyone else. Right. Guard your own heart and mind. Then defend your home, your family and your children. If you bless with those or whoever is around your friend circles and then go out. But I think too often we go out and we're trying to put on and we're trying to criticize proverbially the mask of like someone else, like that, someone else's little sins. Like hey, like you know, this is what you got going on versus and what happens over time is Satan just grinds you down and the next thing you know you are desensitized to what's going on, those influences. And you look, the lines start to get a little blurry of if someone asked this very pertinent question and it was a life or death thing. And me and my wife talked about this example, don't know you from nothing. And they were asked like, hey, you work with this guy every day, is he a Christian?
[00:24:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: What, what, what would be said? Because that's ultimately what highlights your influence. If people know like hey man, this, this guy, this gal is a stand up person for the kingdom. I don't necessarily agree with it, but yeah, that's, that's who they are, then that tells you what kind of influence you are having on the world around you.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good point. You know, used to be in the community when it was a lot smaller, they would just ask do you know so and so? And then they would go what about so and so? And it would determine who your friends were. And then they could really very rapidly determine whether you were a quality human or not a quality human.
So your reputation was. Was literally solidified or not. Not solidified, but verified by the company that you kept. Right. Because that's it. And it's. As a. As a Christian, we look at who influences us, and on today's society, we have multiple levels of influence. I thought about this last night. Like, who. Who influences? And I'm like, well, it kind of depends upon in what topic, right?
So as leaders, they did this study, Colby, and there's five power bases of influence. It's legitimate, like formal authority. Like, I may not stop my car for anybody, but if those blue lights come on, I'm stopping.
Like, I just am. Reward.
Reward for obedience. If somebody has the ability to reward me, that's another one. And then there's coercive, which is kind of like the. The discipline piece. Okay. Referent. You know, through Adam. Admiration. You see that a lot with the movie stars, things like that. Oh, there's. It may. It amazes me. But then there's expert task, relevant knowledge. You know, we look to certain people because they're the smartest in that field.
But when you look at Jesus Christ and you look at the Bible, he has all those, you know, formal authority. He's the son of God, don't think. And the most high. Right? Which is what the King James says. There is none higher.
Reward for obedience, of accepting him. That's heaven. That's pretty good. Coercive. We got the flip side of that called hell admiration. There are no character flaws. And expert knowledge. He absolutely comes out and says, I'm the way, the truth and the light, Right? That's the influence. And if your friends aren't keeping you on that track, they're keeping you on a different track. Right. It's a binary thing.
[00:27:32] Speaker A: Yes, sir.
[00:27:34] Speaker B: No, I agree with you.
[00:27:36] Speaker A: No, that's. That's a great point. And I guess what I'll throw in as far as, you know, my kind of some reconcluding thoughts is just this, is that, you know, I would encourage everyone, identify who the top two influences are in your life and then dig deeper and ask the question, why?
And what are they doing in your life? Are they leading you towards a deeper relationship with the Lord or a good impact on you to help make that decision. If you're a non believer and they're demonstrating a life that you want to follow, or are they leading you away to something that is negative, something that is depressing and temporary, focused on the world, then kind of challenge those relationships, you know, guard against those negative influences. It doesn't mean you separate yourself out, take some intentionality, arm yourself daily by putting the word of God into yourself. You know, looking at those positive examples of people leading, mentoring around you that follow that biblical kind of life and guard yourself every day. There's a reason why Ephesians 6, they talk about put on the full armor of God. And then, you know, the last thing I would say is, you know, we have to think about the example that Jesus Christ gave us in all aspects of life. You know, I love the, the saying that modern day people probably wouldn't have picked anyone from the 12 apostles.
[00:28:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: You know, and we would have judged them out the church. This is, I'm speaking about the church. You know, if you ask people that are quote unquote Christians, they wouldn't have picked the 12 apostles. But that goes and speaks to the character of God and why I say and leave with everyone that it doesn't matter where you're at right now in life. It doesn't matter what you've done. If you're a non believer listening to this, God loves you and don't let a negative experience with a Christian that might have been broken push you away from making the decision. That's right, because there's plenty of positive examples out there. And then for the Christians around you, don't miss the opportunity because someone is hurting, they're in a bad spot that you don't want to talk to them. Right. The Matthews of the world, the Peters of the world. Right. The doubting Thomas, whoever those are, those modern examples, lean in to help those people make the best decision that will change their life and change the world around him, which is meeting Jesus Christ and letting him do what he does best, which is transform lives and hearts.
[00:29:49] Speaker B: No, it's, you know, that's. Do you point people towards Christ is the ultimate question. You're pointing somebody somewhere and you influence people. You don't. Everyone influences somebody. Everyone is a leader in, in one or two domains and that's it. So what are you doing? Are you influencing for the positive and the negative? So you and I talked about a week and a half ago about the salt of the earth. Jesus calls us the salt of the earth. And I sat down for about an hour and I was just thinking about that and I did some reading. And so salt, the way that back then you buy a bag of salt and it was very expensive because it was such a preservative and well, a lot of times they would hide inside that other white material, right. Like baking soda. For example, something like that. And that's what he means by the salt would lose its flavor because it was so diluted, right? Now you go in there and take a little bit off the top, and you're like, oh, that's salt. But as you walk down the road and it began to shake around and stuff, the salt would lose its flavor, so. Or they'd have some other product in there, Borac or something like that. And so my nerd self began to wonder how you separated it out, Right? And so I'm like, well, a lot of those chemicals, you just dilute it. You just put water in there, and the salt dissolves in the water, which. The water is the word. I love this because no matter how you look at it, it all comes back around and it would dissolve out. Well, then you could heat it up and the water would evaporate, just like when we're exposed to daily life, what's left behind? So there it is. There's the salt. Now, I thought about baking soda, and I'm like, well, it dissolves in water, too, because I've had some. And. But the way you do that is you put vinegar in it. And I thought about, man, the vinegar that points back to the cross. And so it's all about Jesus. It really is. So if you're the salt of the world and if you don't get in the word and you don't have the cross in your life, hey, man, you're deluded and you're. It's. It's not good. Can you imagine being on a plane and it's on fire and you're either pointing people to the exit or back towards the flames? It's probably not the time for uncertainty. It's probably not the time to go, hey, I'll tell you the way out if you give me five bucks.
[00:32:16] Speaker A: Yeah, so, no, that's a great point, Jason. And. And that's why important. It's so important to understand how you're influencing the world around you and what's coming out of your heart and who's influencing you. So another great episode here at the Jonathan Project Podcast. This episode, every episode, comes out on Tuesday mornings on numerous, numerous platforms from iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple Podcast, you name it, you can find us there. And we put our website, which all of our old episodes are archived, and it allows you to subscribe so you don't miss an episode that is always in our comments. If you want Jason and me to come out, speak to event that you have, please reach out to us at the Jonathan Project podcast gmail.com. again, the Jonathan Project podcast.com also want to give a shout out to all those who are supporting and listening to us. Thank you for your prayers, your support. And again, you can find us again at that email address if you want prayer or if there's something that you want us to cover in this season. Jason, always great to spend some time with you.
You and the family continue to do well.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: Same to you, brother. As I see my wife's email pop up and guess what it talks about Getting some chickens. Exactly. Keeping your chickens warm this winter.
[00:33:40] Speaker A: I'm like, all right, man, well, I'll let you get to the chicken saving business.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: All right. See you, brother. All right.
