So I Wrote a Book... "Burn" by Justin Hart

A lot of people aren’t losing their faith in one dramatic moment, they’re just drifting into a quiet, bored, overly safe Christianity. We sit down to talk about Burn, a new book Justin wrote as a practical field guide for anyone coming back to church after years away and anyone who’s still showing up but feels spiritually cold.

We start with the story that sets the tone: Latimer and Ridley, martyred for bringing God’s Word to people in a language they could understand, and the line about kindling a fire that won’t go out. From there we get honest about what it means to live as a living sacrifice (Romans 12), why “there are no little decisions,” and how a biblical worldview changes everything from your habits to your courage. If you’ve been shaped by fear-based Christianity, cultural pessimism, or a constant impulse toward self-preservation, we press into a better frame: redeem the time, wake up to what’s real, and live with hope rooted in Christ’s finished work.

We also get practical: why real Christian community is essential for sanctification, how “fake community” online leaves us isolated, and why action steps matter more than collecting the right answers. We talk Bible study, prayer, calling, and how to stop managing an image of maturity and start becoming the kind of person whose life actually means something.

Subscribe for more conversations like this, share this with someone who’s gone sleepy in their faith, and leave a review to help more people find the show.

Transcript

A Book On The Table

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hey guys, welcome back to the King's Banner Podcast. We uh we're excited, we're excited for today. I'm excited for today. I think you're you know, you've mixed feelings, but I do. Um but no, you you might see you might see our topic right here on the tabletop.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Um I did a thing. This guy, he wrote himself and published a book.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

I did. It's uh I wrote four books at the beginning of last year and finally had time to just like put stuff together and start actually packaging it so I could give it to people. Um this particular book I've been excited about and wanted to put together and finally like it's actually kind of here. It's here. Full disclosure. I feel pretty weird getting on a podcast and telling everybody about it because I hate Is that why you're wearing the cap to try and hide your identity? I'm hiding today. Yeah. You know, okay, like let me explain this to you, all right? Whenever I see like a worship uh album that comes out and it's just got somebody's face right on the front of it, yeah. You know, everything in me is like, are we worshiping Christ or is this about you? You know what I'm saying? Your face isn't on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But anytime somebody's like, I did this, there's something in me that it just cringes. But all right. This came out of like a a desire to help equip people and put language to some of the things that I wanted to say uh to individuals that I've run into on an ongoing basis. So I'm I'm pumped about it because I think it'll actually bless people. I'm less pumped about this part because I definitely don't want it to be about me and what I did. I hope that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

So there's the there's the preface for anything else that we say today. It does make sense. So and we're never going to talk about that again, and you're just going to own it. So I'm just gonna own it. Yeah, let's let's talk about it. So so you didn't want to do it for the publicity. Why? Why

Why We Create Resources

SPEAKER_00 2:02

did you want to do it? So you talk like so the reason we did the podcast is to equip people.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Like every episode that we've done is ultimately trying to help answer questions that people are asking, give them clarity on stuff that they don't get to ask on a Sunday morning, um, provide resources for people to go and listen to so that they can help teach other people, get scriptures to use, get topics. I can't tell you how many times somebody asked me about a particular topic. And it's a big topic. And I got five minutes on the phone, or they have five minutes on the phone. You know what I mean? And I'm like, I I got a podcast about this. Let me send it to you. That'll at least give you an intro to the conversation.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Tell me all about eschatology in the next three years.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

For real, for real. Or somebody will ask the question, like, hey, can you explain to me like the the difficulty in Gaza from a from a biblical perspective? You know, I'm like, how much time do you have? Like, how how much time do you have? Or simple stuff like, you know, we just did one on how to study your Bible. Yeah. And how do you quickly tell someone, well, the answer is just do it. You know what I mean? But but there's so much more there. So the podcast, the you know, the sermons that we're doing, the um, if you've been through classes with me, if you've walked through some of the content that I've written for interns, pastors, all of this stuff is ultimately to equip the saints for the work of ministry in the spirit of Ephesians 4. Yeah. God gave the apostles, prophets, evangelists, preachers, and teachers for the equipping of saints for the work of ministry. My job is to help equip the saints so that they would do ministry, not so that there would be this massive distance between the pulpit and the pews. And the pulpit is these people who are uniquely equipped for ministry and everyone else is just trying to catch light coming off their sails. That's not how it works. Like if you are a pastor and you're great at ministering to people, but not turning them into ministers, you're doing a bad job. Yeah. And I would say the level of maturity and ministry that's happening within your congregation is actually the statement about how the pastor is doing, not whether his sermons are good or not. How much are they picking up on and using? Yeah. So all the content that I'm trying to put out ultimately is to help equip the saints, provide answers for people, encourage people, keep them motivated, keep them pressing the Jesus, keep their brains engaged with good content because the Lord knows there's a whole world of horrible content out there.

Who The Book Is For

SPEAKER_01 4:28

And this book in particular, I wrote for the two demographics that I feel like I'm running into a lot. All right. We have the used to be a Christian coming back to the church, trying to figure out how to do this Jesus thing. Okay. Like there's a lot of people, we talk about the amount of people that are leaving the church. I don't think we talk about the amount of people that are coming back to the church and are trying to figure out how to break free from the idea of it that they had when they were a kid, which is something more like morality. I grew up learning what to do and what not to do. And doing good things meant being with Jesus, and doing bad things meant I chose the devil. And everybody who is an actual Christian feels uh the reality that there's so much more there going on than just this tit for tat theology that so many people get taught. Or maybe that's not what they get taught, but that's the the guts of what they heard.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Um and then the second group of people are just sleepy Christians, just sleepy. They learned all the right answers and they've spent more time trying to look put together than actually enjoying the adventure that Christ has called them to. And so a lot of people think they're mature in the faith and are doing great, but instead of taking that time to pursue Jesus, they've taken that time trying to manage their own uh, you know, their the the people's perception of them.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

It's like a a toddler putting on makeup because they think it makes them look like an adult. You're not actually mature because you're putting on the makeup. That's not how that works.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

The problem is, is it works for a lot of people. I mean, a lot of people think like that guy, he's you know, he's 40 years old, he's 50 years old, he looks put together, his family looks put together, everything must be fine. And the more you get to know different people, the more you find out, oh man, there's a lot of stuff that's problematic, and you've spent a lot of time on image and not a lot of time on being an image bearer.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

And they're just they're just different things. So I really wanted to give a a book, um, a field manual, maybe is a better way to think about it, for people who are coming back into the church and trying to learn what this functionally looks like. And the second group of people is people who have just kind of gone cold and bored in their faith that need some fresh fire. Okay. So you bring up fire.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Um, I realize we're we're recording this on video, but there's gonna be a lot of audio listeners, and we didn't actually say

Martyrs And The Meaning Of Burn

SPEAKER_00 7:11

so. This is this is your book. It's titled Burn.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

It is titled Burn. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

And uh let's dig into why. You you up at the top, you start with a story of two saints, Latimer and Ridley. Yes. Tell tell us their little story in a nutshell and why it sets the stage for this book.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

So um the book is called Burn, and the whole idea of the book is to offer yourself as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. The whole premise of, you know, Romans chapter 12 is like, what does it look like to set your life on fire for the gospel until all of it is consumed? For those of you that can't see, the the picture on the front of the book is a cross in the background, and then you have two shoes left on the ground and just smoke coming out of the top of them because whoever was there is burned up. He's not there anymore. This person is totally given his life for for what God had actually called him to do. Yeah. Well, these two saints, Latimer and Ridley, famously, if you get uh Fox's Book of Martyrs, you can read about this. They famously were translating the Bible, you know, God forbid you take the Bible and write it and give it to people and give it in a language that they can actually understand. And uh they were they were martyred for it. They were taken to, you know, um, they were taken to the stake and uh burned at the stake together. And, you know, they are talking to each other, and one says, you know what I mean, uh play the man, Master Ridley, you know, uh today we'll kindle such a fire in our flesh that it won't be put out until the end of the world. Like their whole desire was to live one life entirely and allow their lives to be a beacon and a torch that would set the world on fire with what they believed and why they believed it. That's uh that's that's what we want to accomplish. That's it. One totally dedicated life in the same direction so that we would be uh a beacon of light and a torch just burning bright against the darkness. And I I want that. I think Christ is calling us to that. I think that's what our life is supposed to look like. Christianity is not supposed to be boring, and if it's boring, you're doing it wrong. You're being disobedient, you are uh doing all the stuff that is easy and it'll help you look put together, but is not actually the stuff that Christ has called you to. And I think if you if your Christianity is boring, um, I would love for you to pick the book up, read it, and take seriously what Christ has called you to do. Uh I think it's important. So that's kind of the that's kind of the reason for the name of the book. These two saints set the stage for where we're supposed to go with our lives and what it should look like.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Yeah. So digging into the book then a little bit, um you how do you structure it? So, like what is your goal chapter to chapter?

No Little Decisions In A War

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Yeah. Yeah. So the first chapter of the book is really trying to explain to people the intense supernatural nature of the Bible. Um, that when you are born again, the way that the Bible talks about it is that you are opening your eyes to see what's actually going on around us on a daily basis. That it's not there there are no little decisions. Every decision is cataclysmic. Every one of them matters. That every day there are angels and demons blowing holes in each other. Um, and you have, you know, can we get awoken?

SPEAKER_00 10:33

On a shirt, there are no little decisions. Yeah, like you say that, and that just it hits me. I'm like, it matters.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Everything that you're doing, your life matters if you will live for what matters. That's that's the that's the whole point. And I mean, this struck me because the the the verse that I'm king off of in here is um Ephesians chapter 5, uh, verse 16 and 17. It digs into this, but it says, Redeem the times, for the days are evil. Find out what pleases the Lord. And it it's ultimately saying, Would you win back the time that you spent asleep? Do something about it. Don't waste any more time. There are very real evil things going on. There's real darkness, there's real light, and you just woke up in the middle of a battle that's been going on for thousands of years. Do something with your life. Every little decision is compounding. And either you're building a pile of rocks for yourself that will mean absolutely nothing, or you are dragging rocks up onto the mountain of faithful people who have come before us that is making a statement about what the truth is, why it matters. And ultimately, the goal of your life is to then pile that last rock on top of the mountain, drop down, die, give up your life on the altar of everything that you were trying to do. Your life at the end of it. You're gonna breathe out, you're gonna give up your spirit, and your life will be a monument to what you said you believed. It will stand in the eyes of the people around you, of the people that come after you, of your, you know, the people that you worked with. Everyone who knows you and who will know about you will be able to say something about what you lived for. What is it going to say? What is the altar that you're giving your life on top of? And many people are giving their life as a sacrificing holy and pleasing uh to the devil. You know what I mean? Like just it's not, you live for nothing, man. You live for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

You take that, no regrets, crowd.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's that's only God can judge me. He will, man. He will burn you for eternity. Like it's not a it's not a joke. This is a real, the real thing's on the line. And I think we're so naturalistic in our thinking. We think things don't matter. We don't, we don't take the supernatural uh in any kind of serious way. And when you don't take the supernatural in a serious way, I think you trivialize everything else too. Okay. You don't see that something is behind this. I mean, we did a whole series walking through the screw tape letters to try to help remind people there's so much more going on, and little decisions, little battles, everything about your life is either going to be I spent it worshiping a version of myself and what I wanted God to be and what I wanted, or uh, you're gonna end up worshiping the living God. And if you do that, it means uh I'm drawing clearer to him. Yeah, uh drawing near to him. And and I think it's uh Hebrews 12 says our God is a consuming fire. The closer you get to God, the more of your life is gonna get burned up for the right reasons. Yeah, you know, that's what you want.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Yeah. You're talking about talking about demons and dark forces and all that. Yeah. Do you hit on that in the book anywhere specifically or more generally?

Trading Fear For Christian Hope

SPEAKER_01 13:38

I think it's chapter eight. Uh, I talk about our enemy specifically, um, what you're dealing with, uh the reality that he, for you nerds out there, is probably a literal dragon, which is kind of fantastic to think about. Um, we talk about just the reality that he's the he's an enemy of your soul itself. Um, we're gonna talk about what you're gonna give up in pursuing God, ways to uh identify calling, um, simple things in your life that you should be doing. I mean, the structure of the book moves from are you seeing what the Bible is saying and how it's telling you to perceive reality, or are you stuck and still asleep? Moving from that, we're gonna move into the positive outlook that we're actually supposed to have as Christians. I think we have been riddled through, and the average Christian is just a block of Swiss cheese, you know, full of holes because of the way that we have tried to motivate people in the church has been primarily through fear and pessimism. Yeah, I mean, well, it's I guess that's a way to think about it. I just think so many people are in this place of it's all going to hell, everything's terrible, everything's bad, get your bug out pack ready, have a place with, you know, fresh water that's off the grid and a car that isn't going to go down when it's, you know, when the EMPs go off, you know, steal food, hoard gas, and uh, you know, hide in the back of a church on a Sunday and hope that Jesus comes back soon because man, this is it's all going south, you know, and one day I'm praying that I'm the pile of clothes on the floor and I don't find a pile of clothes and I'm still here. You know, this kind of left behind shenanigans. Um that's not the the picture that the Bible paints. The Bible paints this amazing picture of the victory of the saints because of the finished work of Christ and that he is making a footstool of his enemies, you know what I mean, and bringing about the ultimate redemption of all things, and he's using the church to do it.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Yeah, the the gates of hell shall not prevail. It doesn't say the gates of heaven shall withstand.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Yeah, eventually, until everything gets so bad that there's just a massive falling away and everybody dies and the whole world dies. But don't worry, it gets better when you're dead. Like that is not the heart of Christianity. No. The the saints of old were just a terror against the darkness because of the light that they knew that was pervading and moving forward and doing a work across the world, and they knew it was unstoppable. And so they were more than willing to lay their life down to see the light go forward. Yeah. And we're at this, we're at this time in the Western world, especially where um we're driven by pessimism, you know? And I I don't bring this up in the book, but I think I brought it up before uh the story of the Thracians. The Thracians, according to Herodotus, were like the third largest people group on the planet at one point. And um they fell off the face of the planet. People don't know what happened to them. Historians are like, there was no massive battle, no decisive victory against them that anybody can see. They found these burial mounds in the Balkans, uh, these Thracian burial mounds, and realized that they got to a place in their culture where they were celebrating death and mourning birth. Like when people were born, they were essentially having funerals. Oh, it's terrible that somebody is brought into this horrible dark world. And every time somebody died, it was like, this is great. Finally, they don't have to be part of this miserable existence anymore. Kind of like the Western world today. Well, what they uh what what that's people think, what historians think is that they opened up the borders, they eventually didn't get conquered, they just became everyone else because they lost their own identity. And I mean, when I look at our own world today, I just look at the United States.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

I mean, you look at the world that's celebrating euthanasia, so celebrating death, celebrating death, uh mourning life in the form of making abortion a way to take back your own autonomy. Like you're describing the modern world.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

It is it is unfortunate how many parallels there are. And I think the church, unfortunately, has used pessimism and used fear of the circumstances in the world around them to get Christians to adopt a kind of mentality that says short up your bets, play it safe, don't make any rash decisions, don't really try to do too much, don't have a lot of kids, don't do these things because it's all gonna go south, everything's gonna be bad, and we just need to ride it out. And I'm like, that's not what any of the Christians in the early church were doing. That's why not what Jesus has commanded us to do. And if you're living out of a mentality of pessimism and concern and worry, and you're constantly interpreting the Bible with the newspaper instead of interpreting the world with the Bible, you're going to be a victim of this pessimistic victim kind of Christianity that which basically just says, just try to hold out and be righteous as long as you can, and one day God'll save us and kill everyone else. And it's like, I just, I don't, I don't see that in scripture. I get that there's elements of like being faithful to the end. Things can go south, things will get bad, nations rise and fall, one thing remains the same, the gospel goes forward, the church goes forward, and the gates of hell won't prevail against it. And if you don't have that in your bones, I don't think you see the point in anything else.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Yeah. I definitely think we need to do an episode or a couple episodes digging into that a little bit more soon. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Soon. We'll definitely get there. There's the we talk about it a lot, we allude to it a lot, but there's there's a lot of r uh hope in post-millennial eschatology.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

There's a lot of hope in the Bible. Exactly. There's a lot of hope just reading scripture. And I could say those things to somebody who's not even of the post-millennial mindset, and they should be able to read the Bible and say, yes, amen. I agree. Let's go be faithful until the end. Yeah. All for Christ until glory. That's that's the whole idea. Breathe out, let your life be on top of the altar, let it get totally burned up for Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Some somebody this past Sunday actually said to me that they were like, all for Christ until glory. Does that mean that it's not for Christ once we're dead? I'm like You're missing the point a little bit, but um so uh just to to build on that on that point about fear a little bit, it reminded me of a moment in early 2020 where there was some some stuff happening. Yeah. Um I was going to a church at the time that right at the start of everything happening, I remember them putting up this big slide, like at the beginning and the end of service of uh 2 Timothy 2-7. I think it's first you um don't be given to a spirit of fear fear. Yeah, you have not been given to a spirit of fear, but of power, love and of sound mind. Um is it 2 Timothy 1 7? Oh, 1-7, yes. Okay, I think so. Yeah. 1 Timothy 2 7 or 2 Timothy 1-7. One of those two.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Standby. Um but yeah, but God hasn't given you a spirit of the power, love and of a sound mind.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

Yeah, and and i I think the tur the translation they even used was of you know power, love, and courage. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

Um Second Timothy.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

And it was it was a matter of weeks later that the whole church was shut down and nobody was meeting because of the fear of dying. And I just I that one thing led to another with that that I eventually left that church because they weren't preaching like courage in the face of of Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

So self-preservation gets communicated as loving your neighbor a lot. Which it's it's not. That's not.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

But yeah, so to your point about um the fear that the church preaches, it really is prevalent and unfortunate. So I I don't know. Um I get into it in there, but like sometimes I feel like Well, I wanted to ask do you talk about Athanasius in the book? Uh I don't think Athanasius comes up. Okay. Yeah. You're I just uh we have those contramundum mentality of the shirts and all that. I just it fits nicely.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

He fits he's he's in some other books. Okay. So you'll you'll get to see the the black dwarf uh pop in here and there, that little Coptic monk. All right. Yeah. Who snatched the world back from the jaws of the devil. Okay. Yeah. No, he's he's in there. After uh after I kind of get into how we're supposed to view the world, what's actually going on around us, and the hope that we're supposed to have in the mission that Christ has called us to, then it becomes a matter of dealing with very practical things and how to approach them and rearrange your life so that what you're doing actually

Community That Actually Sanctifies

SPEAKER_01 22:40

matters. Okay. And a lot of it is small stuff that's actually not small. It's stuff that we perceive to be small that's actually massive. Like simple things like the community that you're supposed to be a part of and how everyone now is an isolationist. Everyone is in these fake communities. I feel like there was a good podcast about community recently. We touched on a lot of this, you know, and and the what we really are in this time and place where anxiety, depression, people have more followers on Instagram than ever before and feel very alone. You know, there's not real relationships, there's not real community, and most of it goes back to the self-preservation we were talking about earlier. I just don't want to have to invite people into my life. I don't want them to see my mess. I don't want to deal with other people's messes. And this way, nobody grows, but we can all pretend that everything's fine together. It's a selective sanctification. I'll get healthy in the places that I want to get healthy, and I will avoid people that are gonna bring all the things out of me that I don't actually want to deal with. We talked about this this Sunday a little bit, right? People are not the problem, they're revealing your sin. Yeah, and God uses sinful people to reveal your sin. And we don't like that. We want to point at their sin, and God's saying, Yeah, I'm using them for you, dummy. Yeah, like that's them, they're sinful. I'm trying to think who the pastor was.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

How are you?

SPEAKER_01 24:00

There was this pastor, um, I'm trying to think where I heard this story, but he said for three or four weeks in a row, he had these people who were coming in and sitting at the in the front pew of his church and were taking notes and they were writing articles about what he was doing and how he was doing it, and this and that. And he was so frustrated and stressed and like felt like throwing up when he was getting up there and everything. And God gave him a dream uh where there was this massive marble block and um, you know, it's getting chiseled away, and it's like this beautiful masterpiece is coming out of it. And he was like, Well, what is this? And he's like, Oh, it's you. He's like, Oh my gosh, that is so cool. Like, I'm becoming this thing that I'm meant to be. And he says, Do you want to see who's doing it? And he said, Yeah, and he shows him, and it's the faces of the people who are sitting in the front row. Okay, you know, it's these frustrating people that we don't want to be around and don't like are actually the ones who are doing the work of God in our life, right? And um, I I think it's important. I get into um um life below zero and a couple of other things in the book, and just uh some of these behaviors that we have that are hilarious to watch with people, you know, and we're not exempt. I'm not exempt. People are hard, you know? Uh we get into uh Jean-Paul Sartre a little bit and his perspective on people and which is um that people are hell.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Yeah. I mean, it's uh uh I think it's a pervasive thought in our culture today that people are the absolute worst. And unless you find people that are exactly like you with the same mindset, um, you know what I mean? It's it's all gonna be bad. And the best way to find people who are exactly of the same mindset is to keep them at a safe distance online where we can ramble about the same ideologies that we have, but not actually get close enough to see where we're different and have to deal with it.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

You know this talking about having all these Instagram followers in lieu of relationships, yeah. The imagery that it conjures up is the these women on OnlyFans who are famous for sleeping with a thousand men in the span of a day or whatever, yeah, compared to like when you're seeking a relationship, when you're seeking like to find wholeness in marriage. Yeah. The a the uh analogy would be that person is seeking marriage in the same way that your Instagram followers are giving you community.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. It's a one-for-one. And we're in an upside-down world where now AI is the new uh way to actually find love and find companionship. I mean, like I said, the numbers are crazy of the amount of people who are now dating uh an AI girlfriend. You know what I mean? Um we're broken and we're not getting better. It's not making us better, but it is definitely uh dragging us down into a place where we're not meant to be. When God said it's not good for you to be alone, he meant it. And I think um so I'm hammering on this reality that most people who are uh burnt out or just getting back into the church, the thing that you tend to avoid is people. Um and I I want people, I want to be a part of things, but I don't actually want to be close. We've talked about this even with mega churches, this can be a bit of a difficulty. It's like you can show up and be there and be a part of something and never actually be a part of it, never actually have to engage with people, grow in community, or be sanctified in any of the ways that matter. Yeah, but feel like you're a part of it. Honestly, massive churches where people don't engage and lots of people can engage in bigger churches. It's not the the thing itself that's the problem, it's just catering to individuals who have a problem. Yeah. And so megachurch can become a picture of social media on a on a large scale. We're all here in person, but none of us really have anything in common outside of we we shared this one message together and now we're all going home. Yeah. Um, but we're a part of something. Yeah. Maybe. You know, maybe maybe. So yeah.

Action Steps That Spark A Fire

SPEAKER_00 27:58

Let's talk about the structure of each chapter because you you end with discussion questions or points or things you want people to take. So talk about what how you want people to read it.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

Yeah. So uh the thing about catching fire is that you actually have to do things for that to happen. If I read about how to start a fire, I can read about all the different ways to make it happen. But unless you're actually doing those things, you're not going to see any results. And so I intentionally put at the end of every chapter steps that people can take to see that the proof is in the pudding, that there actually is uh a way to change your habits, behaviors, mindset so that you can actually start to be gripped by conviction and what you're called to do and see, taste and see that the Lord is good, that you don't have to just be the generic, boring, not real really a Christian, calling yourself a Christian person. Yeah. And um, yeah, so we at the end of every single chapter, we have a set of uh some of it is devotional stuff, like you need to have a journal once you had to write this stuff down. Sometimes it's addressing specific lies that I'm dealing with. Some of it's serious action steps, like you need to consider what God has called you to and take two or three steps to like begin this process of doing what you've known you're supposed to do, and just have always told yourself I'm not gonna do it for whatever reason that you've landed on. One of the um larger sections in the book that I love is just the story of Moses and how he's you know called by God, turns aside to this burning bush, hears God call him to do this thing. And uh imagine standing in the presence of God, a bush is burning with fire, a voice is speaking out of it, saying, Take the sandals off your feet, you're on holy ground, and the first person you're thinking about is you. That's weird, you know? But I mean, how often is that the case? God himself is calling you to something, has chosen you, invited you into something, is commissioning you, and you're like, I don't know if I can do it, I don't know if I'm that guy. I I just I don't like who you think it's pious, yeah. You know, you think it's like, oh, I'm I'm making the right call, I'm I'm doing the holy thing and thinking less of myself. And so, oh God, you have to choose somebody else. And it's just a lie from the pit of hell. Yeah, that's not piety, that's not holiness, that's you thinking about you when you're supposed to be thinking about God. And uh, we get caught up in those things. So trying to pull people out of that some stuff, and uh I just think honestly, man, if we believed all the stuff that the Bible said, I think the world would be in a totally different place than it currently is. The problem is that we just don't actually believe what's in there.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

You have the point about even if we just adhered to the sexual ethics of the Bible, 90% of the world's problems would be fixed. Dude.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Could you imagine? You know what I mean? It would be glorious. Abortion goes away, majority of murders go away, uh, single parents go away, prison rates immediately go down, STDs go away. I mean, you have just the entire world is changed overnight. Yeah if that happens. Yeah. In just an insane, just an insane way. I can't even fathom. Yeah. What happens if we actually just start doing what the Bible says that we're supposed to do?

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

And I try to make it small enough that the average person can read it. Like I know that most people don't read books today. Most people are doing, you know, audiobooks if they're doing that, and they're gonna do podcasts, I'll do sermons, but most people are doing like clips. Give me your best 45 seconds. You know what I mean? Uh the first three seconds.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

I'm stuck.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Yeah, I'll I'll just flip, you know, I'll doom scroll. And and I wanted to make it something that I feel like the average person could pick up and read. I think it's about 160 pages, something like that. It's not massive. Yeah. I try to make it really easy for you guys. All right. It's it's it's doable. I promise you can make it happen. You'll you'll get through.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

So because it's it's got the Devo aspects to it, is it something where like you could recommend it to like a married couple to read and go through together?

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Yeah, I think um, I think anybody who is bored in their faith, who is um struggling with the the meaningfulness of their own Christianity, how to how to actually walk out the stuff God is calling them to do, and anybody who wants a good, solid reflection on am I doing the things that the Bible is telling me to do and taking it seriously, or have I just gotten caught up in this lie that because I know I'm supposed to do those things, that means I'm actually doing it. Which means basically everybody. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like I don't think there's anybody who wouldn't benefit from the book. It is not a um it is not a a marriage book specifically. I'm working on that one. Give me give me some time. Do you cover marriage in it all or no? Um we talk about getting married and we talk about staying married, um, but not a lot of time specifically on marriage. What more do you need? What it is to do. Get married, stay married, you're done. Get married, stay married. That's it. Check. Yep, boom, done. You can just do that. Doesn't matter what happens in the middle, it'll seal not once in my life have I considered a divorce. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Murder. Murder, yes. Yes, divorce.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Divorce, absolutely not. Yeah. Yeah.

Bible And Prayer Without The Fluff

SPEAKER_01 33:13

So um the book is really just trying to hammer on, dude, stay, stay on fire. There's um, there's a chapter on there on how to read your Bible, how to get more out of it, how to motivate you, how to actually pick up the sword and use it and learn how to do that well. There's a chapter on prayer in there. Um hard chapter to write for both of those, because there are just tomes written, you know, whole libraries on these topics. And I just want people to see it through a biblical lens where they would at least understand the value and weight of what is being given to you in these things. And I think when we again, if you don't have hope and you don't have eyes to see, you're gonna be wandering around in the darkness doing these things, but not understanding why or how they actually benefit you. And I think a lot of people are doing it not understanding what it's supposed to be doing or why it matters. Yeah. Um, and I think those things are important.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Well, you you said to me some time ago, talking about writing a book, or or you were talking about, you know, it's difficult to write some things because other people have already written a lot about it. It's like, well, I I think I asked the question, why are you even write it then? Yeah, and and part of your answer was um one to to get it out because you it's inside of your mind and you want to get it out there, but two is also um there are some people who aren't going to read a random book about prayer or a random book about it. They're not gonna read Thomas Aquinas, but they might read what they might you said about you because oh yeah, I know Justin. Yeah, he wrote the check it out.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

That really is it. I've I've thought about it for a long time, and the only reason people read things in general is not because somebody else hasn't said it already and maybe even better than you, yeah, but you may have said it in a way that is uniquely the way God laid it on your heart, and that might might be exactly how they need to hear it and the way that they need to hear it in that moment.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

It's sort of like preaching. You can preach on nothing unique. Yeah. But that's not the point. But one, it's not the point. And two, um, just because somebody's preached on something doesn't mean that your sermon on it can't strike somebody's heart.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

Oh, it's the Holy Ghost, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:27

He's doing the work, not necessarily us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

Yeah. Totally. Yeah. So um What other stories do you have it in there that you think are particularly potent? We have I think you have the lighthouse story.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

Nehemiah, Daniel, yeah, I got the lighthouse in there. We got um, I mean, all kinds of stuff. I like to quote random people. There's a bunch of C.S. Lewis in there. If there wasn't, it wouldn't be my book. That's true. Um, I got yeah, uh different poems in there because I'm a sucker for poems. I uh ultimately the the book is an expression of what I spoke to a lot of people that were interns. A lot of the questions. So um last church that I was at, I think we had about 50 interns. I was a part of it for a very long time, just pouring into people. And our interns weren't just young. There were this demographic of people that were like the 20 somethings and like the 50 somethings, because those two groups have the most availability. Yeah. And it's funny because those two groups usually hate each other, you know, and if you can get the wisdom together and the energy together, you can get a lot done. Um, but you have to get them to work together. And so a lot of what is in this book is what I was giving to people who are in our internship who wanted to like learn and grow and figure out how do I maximize my life for the kingdom in a way where I'm not wasting what God has given to me. Hence, redeem the times, the days are evil. Yeah. Um, I'm looking for people that wanted to do something with their life and just not be carried along by the currents that we're stuck in all the time. And uh it's it's punchy. Uh it wouldn't be you if it was. Yeah, yeah, it's a little punchy. Uh uh, I I also would say this, it's probably geared a little bit more towards men, but that's just because that's generally the people that I'm trying to call up and pour into. Doesn't mean uh ladies can't read this and enjoy it. I'd several ladies read it and really enjoy it and give me good feedback on it. But I am looking to grab dads, um, husbands, young men, and breathe some breathe on those coals a little bit and and see them ignite, man.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

And I hope men, but young in their faith, too. Like you said earlier in this episode, like you can have somebody who's in their forties and seems put together and yet is still that sleepy Christian.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

Doesn't know how to pray. Yeah, exactly. Like 40, 40, 50 years old, knows uh has memorized verses from other people telling him the verses, not because they actually have meant something to him. They just meant something when somebody else said it. Yeah. You know, they got a bunch of sentimental Christianity in their head, stuff that I've heard that I've just believed is true, but never actually seen in the Bible because I don't really get much from it. Caught up in sin patterns that I'm not supposed to be, don't really know what the purpose of church is outside of looking like a moral person. Um that's Jesus didn't die for that. No, Jesus Jesus didn't die to give you uh just a better way of life. If that's what you think, you are not a Christian. That's not Christianity. Jesus Jesus gave his life and is calling you to die. He's saying Christ is calling men to die. Give your life up, make it matter. And um so many people I think get frustrated by this. You know what I mean? Yeah, and they got Ephesians 2 10 in their head, you know, I'm God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that he prepared beforehand for me to walk in. And that's what makes it so much more frustrating. That's like that you're not doing anything with it. Yeah, yeah. It's like, no, no, no, I'm super unique. Yeah, that's what makes it so much worse. And you're robbing the body of Christ by not using the fullness of who you are in this capacity. You're robbing yourself by not actually walking these things out. Do something that matters, go get after it, do the stuff that God has called us to do and watch your life become the adventure that you maybe don't want in the moment, but deep down have always wanted your life to become. You know, that's this is the way.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Come on, Bilbo. Let's let's let's leave our comfortable home.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

It's a dangerous business going out on the road. Yeah. Um, there's uh I don't know if I have any Lord of the Rings quotes in there, Casey. I may have let you down on that one. Oh that would be maybe another time.

SPEAKER_00 39:43

Maybe another time there. You you probably can slot some in some you I don't know. Do you talk about um oh no, was it I think it was C.S. Lewis that's no no, it is Tolkien that talks about the dragon. It does you know no good to uh uh preparing for it. I'm gonna botch the quote. So how does it? I believe in here.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

It's um it it's no good to leave out uh live dragons in your planning if you live near one. Yes, right? Yeah, yeah. That is Tolkien's. Yeah, Tolkien. Is that in the book? It's directly from the Hobbit, I believe. Yeah, it's in the Hobbit. Yeah, I don't know if it makes it in there or not, but you know me. I'm I'm full of quotes.

SPEAKER_02 40:19

You've got a

Where To Get It And Share It

SPEAKER_02 40:20

new.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

So if you guys, I would say this, if you guys have benefited from the podcast, if you guys have benefited from this uh material in general, the stuff that we're trying to put out to encourage you, to equip you, this is um a ultimately a field guide for how to catch fire. So if you know somebody that is just bored in their faith, you know somebody who's half-hearted, doesn't understand the whys, is um is starting to drift, starting to get bored, starting to be stupid, this would be a great gift, a great something that you can give to somebody to help encourage them to walk in a manner worthy of the calling that they've received, and by the grace of God, have their heart uh captured with some conviction so that they would see the fight that God has actually called them to, have hope in what he's called them to, and start seeing that the little things that they're doing become the massive things that actually define not just your life, the generations that come after it. Men like Latimer and Ridley, who were burned at the stake, that story is still speaking to us today. Yeah. We're talking just, you know, decades or I'm sorry, um, not decades, uh centuries centuries later, after what they did. And and ironically, the thing that they died for, uh, the uh the tyrant that put them to death um later was taken out of office and a Protestant uh came into place and it became a Christian nation, which is fantastic, right? But um their lives meant so much. And I think my goal would be to run the same kind of race that those men ran who understood the value of what it was to follow Jesus, what they were giving their lives to, and had a single-mindedness about it. I think I think if the church lives that way, we see radical revival, we see massive change, we see reformation, we see families get healthy, uh, marriages get healthy, kids get raised up stronger, churches that actually look more like the way that the church is supposed to look, and uh you see the world begin to catch fire. Yeah. That's what we're here for. That's what I'm about, and that's hopefully what the book is gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

All right. Well, I think you'll have a little more information about you know where to get it and everything when it releases shortly after this episode releases, if not right around the same time.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

Yeah, we'll have information. You should be able to buy it in any normal place. There'll be a website uh set up that you guys can go to. I'll give you information about that shortly. It should be on Amazon.

SPEAKER_00 42:40

Will you do an audio version?

SPEAKER_01 42:42

We'll see, we'll see how it goes. Um, I would like to put it on Audible or Kindle for all you nerds that are about the audiobooks. I'm sure it'll be on there. But uh you'll be able to, I'm sure, get it off our website and we'll put a link in the podcast for you guys to get it. But uh hope you enjoy it. Read the book, give it uh good reviews, recommend it to people, send it around if you can. Love to uh love to help uh the world catch fire a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

Amen to that.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

Right on. Well, thank you guys. Appreciate it and uh hope it blesses you. Have a great week.