You just won the big game. Standing on the podium as MVP, the crowd chants your name. Fans call you the GOAT. Do you absorb the glory yourself, or humbly thank God?

In this powerful episode, we explore Daniel 4 and the cautionary tale of King Nebuchadnezzar—a man at the top of his game who made the fatal mistake of believing his own press. His story serves as a sobering reminder for every athlete, performer, and leader about the dangers of pride and the protection we lose when we step outside God's umbrella.

What You'll Discover:

The King's Warning

Daniel interprets a dream warning Nebuchadnezzar about his pride

The king ignores the warning for one year

God's protection is removed, and severity strikes

For seven years, the king lives like an animal in the woods, eating grass like a cow

When he repents of his pride, God restores his reason and kingdom

The Umbrella of God's Protection

Just like stepping outside an umbrella gets you wet, stepping outside God's protection invites severity

We often blame God for bad things that happen when we've actually chased the devil

Walking perfectly with God doesn't guarantee a perfect life—severity can still blow in from the side

But living outside the umbrella guarantees eventual consequences

The Athlete's Dilemma

Pro players often ignore that God gave them their superior body, quick reflexes, strength, game IQ, and discipline

God provides opportunities to play and protection from injuries

Players can only take credit for their efforts—and even their passion comes from God

The question every athlete must answer: Will you give God the glory?

Why Do "Dirty Players" Sometimes Win?

God understands the goodness and severity each person experiences

Sometimes those who suffered extra severity early in life get extended grace

God hopes they'll learn gratitude and choose spiritual awakening

Hard lessons, like the king suffered, can return us to spiritual connection

Staying Under the Umbrella

Like giving 100% in sports day in and day out, staying connected to God requires everything

Injuries occur when we slack off or hide weakness

Jesus coaches us to carry our cross daily because He knows severity occurs when we cut practice

Carrying our cross requires humility and staying connected to Jesus

Key Questions:

When you win, who gets the credit?

Are you living under God's umbrella of protection?

What warnings have you been ignoring?

Will you heed the lesson of King Nebuchadnezzar before severity strikes?

The Challenge:

Give God the glory. Stay under the umbrella. Carry your cross daily. Don't wait seven years in the wilderness to learn what pride costs.

Hashtags

#GiveGodTheGlory #KingNebuchadnezzar #Daniel4 #PrideComesBeforeTheFall #GodsProtection #UnderTheUmbrella #ChristianAthlete #MVPorGOAT #SpiritualSeverity #CarryYourCross #AthleteForChrist #HumilityInVictory #FaithAndSports #ChristianPodcast #BibleStudy #PrideAndFall #SpiritualAwakening #DiscipleshipDaily #ProtectionOfGod #ReignMakers #FaithWarrior #ChristianLeadership #AthletesForGod #SportsMinistry #GodsWarning

Welcome to the final week of our Advent series! This week we explore love—not just any love, but the kind that heals and transforms our deepest wounds.

In This Episode:

Love is our relational connection within the spiritual community—to love God, love ourselves, and love others. It repairs the brokenness of our heart connection, restoring our passions, purpose, and character that were severed during the fall.

We explore Jesus's challenging words about prioritizing spiritual relationships over even our closest family ties, and what that really means for us today. We'll discover why relationships empowered by the Spirit connect deeper than any earthly bond.

Key Topics Covered:

• Why loving God must come first—and how family, work, and even pets can become idols
• The "oxygen mask principle": Why you must connect with God before serving others
• How love must be empowered by the Spirit and fused to every aspect of our being
• Jesus's encounter with the woman caught in adultery—pairing love and truth
• The discipline of generosity and authentic giving without needing validation
• The discipline of simplicity: Evaluating our lives against Scripture
• The challenging question: Do you love yourself as much as God loves you?

Scripture References:

• Matthew 10:37; 12:48-50
• John 8:4-11
• Colossians 3:12-14

This Week's Challenge: Hold fast to the Trinity and spend time asking them to connect with you. Remember, Christmas celebrates Jesus coming to earth to connect with humanity—he came here to connect with YOU.

About This Series: This is the fourth episode in our Advent series exploring Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. Each week builds upon the last, showing how these virtues work together to heal our broken souls and restore our connection with God.

Connect With Us: [Your contact information here]

#AdventSeries,#ChristianPodcast, #SpiritualFormation, #LoveGodLoveOthers, #ChristmasReflection, #FaithJourney, #ChristianDiscipleship, #AdventLove, #SpiritualDisciplines, #HealingHeart

Welcome to the final week of our Advent series! This week we explore love—not just any love, but the kind that heals and transforms our deepest wounds.

In This Episode:

Love is our relational connection within the spiritual community—to love God, love ourselves, and love others. It repairs the brokenness of our heart connection, restoring our passions, purpose, and character that were severed during the fall.

We explore Jesus's challenging words about prioritizing spiritual relationships over even our closest family ties, and what that really means for us today. We'll discover why relationships empowered by the Spirit connect deeper than any earthly bond.

Key Topics Covered:

• Why loving God must come first—and how family, work, and even pets can become idols
• The "oxygen mask principle": Why you must connect with God before serving others
• How love must be empowered by the Spirit and fused to every aspect of our being
• Jesus's encounter with the woman caught in adultery—pairing love and truth
• The discipline of generosity and authentic giving without needing validation
• The discipline of simplicity: Evaluating our lives against Scripture
• The challenging question: Do you love yourself as much as God loves you?

Scripture References:

• Matthew 10:37; 12:48-50
• John 8:4-11
• Colossians 3:12-14

This Week's Challenge: Hold fast to the Trinity and spend time asking them to connect with you. Remember, Christmas celebrates Jesus coming to earth to connect with humanity—he came here to connect with YOU.

About This Series: This is the fourth episode in our Advent series exploring Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. Each week builds upon the last, showing how these virtues work together to heal our broken souls and restore our connection with God.

Connect With Us: www.ReignMakersForge.com.

#AdventSeries, #ChristianPodcast, #SpiritualFormation, #LoveGodLoveOthers, #ChristmasReflection, #FaithJourney, #ChristianDiscipleship, #AdventLove, #SpiritualDisciplines#HealingHeart

What's the difference between happiness and joy? In this third week of Advent, we explore joy as steadfast confidence in our soul's connection with the Trinity and with others in safe community.

Episode Highlights

Discover what Jesus focused on as he endured the cross—the joy of reconnection with his creation. Unlike happiness that fades when life gets hard, joy remains solid because it's rooted in hope and peace.

Learn how:

• Hope stabilizes our body and peace settles our minds
• Trials demonstrate the strength of our spiritual foundation
• Authentic community multiplies joy exponentially
• Confession clears the way for Christ's light to shine through us
• Immersive fellowship creates rich soil for joy to grow

Key Scriptures

• Hebrews 12:1-2 - Running with perseverance, eyes fixed on Jesus
• John 14:28-31 - Jesus's joy in returning to the Father
• Colossians 3:15-17 - Joy in community and gratitude
• Matthew 5:3-12 - The Beatitudes

This Week's Challenge

Reach out to others and share your story of Christ's redemption. Hold fast to Jesus so your attitude stays grounded in joy, especially when holiday trials threaten your peace.

Practical Takeaway

Joy must draw its strength from hope and peace, or community turns to chaos. Practice confession of sin to stay humble and confession of faith to keep your eyes fixed above. These disciplines bring healing and restoration to broken souls.

Like the disciples' immersive lifestyle with Jesus portrayed in "The Chosen," we can connect with Christ at the same depth through surrender and belief.

Connect with us: www.ReignMakersForge.com Next week: Advent Week 4 - Love

#AdventJoy #ChristianPodcast# AuthenticCommunity #SpiritualDisciplines #FaithOverFear

#JoyInTrials #ChristmasReflection #BiblicalTeaching #ChristianFellowship #HolidayHope

This second week of Advent explores a radical understanding of peace—not as mere tranquility, but as the alignment of our minds with the Spiritual Realm. When Jesus said "I did not come to bring peace but a sword," he revealed a deeper definition that challenges our worldly assumptions.

True peace begins with our connection to God, then extends to ourselves and our relationships with others. We examine powerful passages from Matthew 10 and Colossians 3 that reveal how authentic peace requires us to elevate Christ above all earthly attachments, even family when conflicts of honor arise.

The episode traces God's peace plan from Abraham through Jesus, showing how the Jewish expectation of a warrior Messiah missed the transformative nature of Christ's mission. Jesus came not to restore a physical kingdom, but to reconnect broken minds to the Trinity through renewed thinking.

We explore how the devil continuously poisons our mindset through worldly systems and experiences, creating judgment, betrayal, and condemnation. The antidote? Practicing disciplines of silence and meditation on Scripture, allowing the Spirit to purify corrupted memories and replace them with biblical truth.

Peacemakers aren't simply conflict-avoiders—they're children of God who think, speak, and act like their Father. This requires tearing down broken mindsets and rebuilding with Scripture through the Spirit's wisdom. It's about abiding with Jesus to create separation from the devil's lies.

This week, we challenge you to examine relationships that keep you from Jesus, allow His sword to cut those ties, and connect more tightly with fellow believers aligned with your journey. Discover what Jesus meant when he said, "My peace I give you"—the assurance of eternal connection through the Holy Spirit.

Join us as we explore how peace with God creates peace on Earth and goodwill toward all.

Join us at www.ReignMakersforge.com for Online Chat Tuesday Nights at 7 PM.

Engage with the transcript and the workbook of the same title at www.ReignMakersForge.com/blog

#AdventSeason

#BiblicalPeace

#SpiritualTransformation

#MindRenewal #ChristianPodcast

#FaithJourney

#PeacemakersOfGod

#AbidingInChrist

#SpiritualDisciplines

#EternalConnection

This Advent reflection explores hope as confident expectation in God's promises. Drawing from Isaiah 7:14's prophecy of Immanuel, we examine why Jesus had to come and what his arrival means for humanity.

At creation, God breathed his Spirit into humanity, creating a perfect connection. When Adam and Eve chose disobedience, they severed this vital link—leaving humanity as "animated but dead creatures" with broken hearts. The disconnect from God's Spirit meant losing our source of life and protection.

Jesus came to restore what was broken. Born fully human, he lived his entire life surrendered to God through the Spirit's guidance—the same Spirit now available to us. He experienced every human struggle while maintaining perfect connection with the Father, checking off all the boxes to undo the fall's damage.

Hope addresses the brokenness we feel in our bodies—our nervous system's response to fear and need for protection. Since the fall, we've developed coping strategies that work like bandages, covering issues without healing them. But the Spirit offers true stabilization, casting out fear with genuine protection.

During Advent, disciplines like fasting ("hold-fast") train us to cling to Jesus instead of our broken coping mechanisms. This isn't about deprivation—it's about replacing faulty systems with God's design, experiencing our need for his help in every aspect of life.

God's protection works like an umbrella: stay close to the handle, and you're safe. Stray too far, and the enemy's influence grows stronger. Hope means trusting Jesus for protection even when we don't understand his ways, staying close to truth as our nervous system learns this new normal.

Through Jesus, we can now connect with God as he did—and as Adam did before the fall. God's promises have always come true. Hope in Advent celebrates both Christ's arrival 2000 years ago and our eternal future with him.

For links to community, Join us at ReignMakersforge.com

#AdventHope #BrokenHeartHealed #SpiritConnection #HolySpirit #FaithJourney #ChristianDiscipline #MessiahPromise #TrustInGod #SpiritualStability #AdventReflection

Welcome to our first episode of Journeys Through the Fire, where we witness how God refines us and burns away the corruption that influences and traps us.

In this episode, we sit down with Lance Hardin of Hardin Fitness—worship pastor, husband, father of four, and concierge nutritional and fitness coach. For nearly five decades, Lance has lived by two mantras: "Practice doesn't make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect" and "We don't live to eat, we eat to live."

What You'll Learn:

The Science of Transformation

How muscle memory gets stored in the body through engrams (neural pathways in the central nervous system)

Why it takes 500 repetitions to code a good engram but thousands to overwrite bad ones

The parallel between retraining physical movement and renewing spiritual patterns

From Pride to Purpose

Lance's journey from being a pride-driven "gym rat" starting at age eight to surrendering to the Lord in his twenties

How proximity to excellence in his father's gym shaped him, but proximity to God transformed him

The danger of "beast mode" as a fear-based coping strategy versus the freedom of "no fear" performance in Christ

Core Foundations—Physical and Spiritual

Why retraining core functional movement is essential (like protecting a house from termites)

The ballerina under the umbrella: staying centered under God's protection

How spiritual disciplines like fasting and silence engage our spiritual core

Three Levels of Excellence

Immediate goals: proper form and function

Lifetime goals: sustainable health and movement

Eternal goals: building character and proximity to Christ

Ministry Through Movement

How Lance serves both churched and unchurched clients, impacting them spiritually and physically

The connection between 1 Corinthians 9:25 and training with eternal perspective

"It's not about behavior, it's about proximity. If you're close to the Lord, you will become like the Lord."

Key Quotes:

"Every poor repetition requires ten perfect repetitions to erase and overwrite the correct movement."

"We don't live to eat. We eat to live."

"The Lord gave me this vessel to serve Him, not to serve myself."

Connect with Lance:

Website: www.lanceHardinFitness.com

Email: lancehardinfitness@gmail.com

Phone: (512) 799-8943

Hashtags

#JourneysThroughTheFire #ReignMakers #FaithAndFitness #ChristianAthlete #PerfectPractice #SpiritualFormation #CoreStrength #KingdomFitness #NoFearPerformer #ProximityToChrist #MusclMemory #Engrams #BeastModeToPurpose #WorshipPastor #FitnessMinistry #TransformationTestimony #ChristianPodcast #FaithJourney #SpiritualDiscipline #EatToLive #HardinFitness #FromFearToPassion #ChristianCoaching

When connecting with God spiritually, we must humble ourselves. God imparts the fruits of the Spirit on individuals; even though who have wicked behavior. We unintentionally allow ourselves to become distracted by the world, the flesh or the lies we have been told and put into play actions that oppose God.