Living Inside Out with John Peek
Welcome to Living Inside Out with John Peek!
Living Inside Out with John Peek
Inner Strength, Real Defense, True Identity
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Start with the inside, or the outside will eventually tell on you. We take a candid look at spiritual identity and how it shows up when life gets loud—on the street, in a sanctuary, or in a parking lot where hesitation can cost you. John lays out a simple framework from Scripture—pure heart, good conscience, sincere faith—and shows how that inner clarity becomes calm, deliberate action under stress.
Karen’s story anchors the first half: a retired student who thought she needed six weeks and found a new way to live. After witnessing a tense confrontation, she chose training over fear. Through dry fire, malfunction clearing, timing drills, and Krav Maga fundamentals, she learned to manage distance, use cover, and make decisions fast. The breakthrough wasn’t brute force; it was timing, options, and post-engagement steps that keep you legally and morally squared away.
Then David joins us with a raw account of calling, correction, and growth. He arrived at Bible school with plans of his own; the Holy Spirit met him with deeper work. That inner reset led to obedience, discipline, and the kind of steady presence you want on a church security team. We talk repetitions that matter, slow practice that sticks, and scenario drills that run from hands-on control to firearm engagement to securing the scene with clear communication. Along the way, we connect the 7M framework—ministry, marriage, mentoring, media, martial arts, muscle, and money—to daily rhythms that build moral clarity and real readiness.
If you want faith that changes how you move through the world—and skills that hold up when it counts—this conversation is your map. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a nudge to start training, and leave a review to tell us what you’ll practice this week.
Welcome to the Living Inside Out Radio Show with John Peake.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks for tuning in to Patriot Talk Radio, 9 20 a.m., where it's all about faith, family, and freedom. This is Living Inside Out Radio Show. I'm your host, John Peake. So thanks for joining us today. We have a great show lined up for you. We've got two guests. Our first guest is going to be Karen Odom. She's been training with me for about two years. Her and her husband are retired. They came to me. They thought they were going to be training for, you know, four to six weeks, that they would learn a little bit of, you know, firearm training, a little bit of self-defense, and uh go down the road. Well, two years later, and really quite the transformation in what they think is possible now, their firearm training uh skill level is very high, solving problems with malfunctions, changing direction, closing distance, using cover from a distance and using cover close up. Uh entering unsecured areas is still a struggle for them, but uh they're they're mastering that. And they're also able to conquer a lot of my crop program, and that's been a great learning journey of for especially for Karen being you know barely five foot tall and 100 pounds of what's possible for her to really turn up the juice. She's very fast, and so that helps. Um speed, if I always say this, that accuracy beats uh uh power and timing beats speed. And so she's got a lot of speed and her timing's good. So it helps to compensate for you know a smaller frame person not able to generate that much power. But wow, the transformation in her mind and what she knows is now possible has been really great to see. And then adjusting to the pressure slowly and gradually, as I introduced material, that created pressure. As I introduced more uh problem solving, that increased pressure. And then as I get her and her husband in an anaerobic condition to solve the problems, that's a form of stress inoculation, and that really started to like make sense to them. And so they've been with me two years now, and it's great to hear her story and testimony. I also have my good friend and and guest, uh David Cisneros. So David's gonna really be talking about this transition he had uh through college and all the things that go with that. We're gonna be talking about spiritual identity as a theme of the show, uh, especially as it ties into uh David's experience and my experience on this first segment. Um and going through the transition into the workforce, into being a pastor, and of course, you know, conquering all the things that come to you as uh as uh a husband, as a pastor first, and a husband, then as a father. And so it's been a great journey to experience that with him as he shares that with the listeners, and then of course, uh tying in how that affected his training, his ability to learn tactical firearm training with Defend Fit Tactical and my Krav Maga program, uh, which I call Krav Haganah. It is a tribute to um the evolution of Krav Magah to see how that comes uh comes to fruition when you have, you know, this is my 41st year training and teaching, and so all the different things I've done to create that Krav Hagana program and make it, you know, something extraordinary. So you have access to that at our DefendFit location in Webster, Texas, uh 17317 El Communal Real. And we got ongoing group classes in the evening. We've got um eight different curriculums, including the Krov and the tactical firearm classes. Uh those are Monday and Wednesday, 6 o'clock Krov, 7.15 for the tactical firearms, and we do a lot of all that's gonna be dry fire training during the week. We take the gun apart, safety check, put a barrel plug for safety. Impossible to get you know a live round in your gun. And now you're gonna be going through all it takes to be a gun fighter for self-defense. All the knowledge, all the gun knowledge, functional application of drawing, you know, grip, stance, shooting, changing directions, all the things I mentioned earlier that Karen had conquered and more. Uh we also do pistol and rifle transition. So there's also live fire events uh as well. And so think about uh the month of February, we're gonna have some live fire events that you can participate in. It's always best if you can come during the week to my uh dry fire shooting to get your uh knowledge up before you go live fire. But when we do our live fire and you've never trained, I'm gonna offer some specific courses for those that can't make it during the week. And we're gonna do some dry fire training and then we'll transition to live fire. You'll be able to put that into application uh at the uh shooting range outdoor that likely will be at at um Eagle Lake gun range. So don't miss out on what's coming on the training side. Now, today we're gonna talk about spiritual identity, not the identity culture tries to give you, not the identity shaped by feelings, pressure, and popularity, but the identity God forms from the inside out. So here's the framework for today's message people are looking externally while ignoring what's happening internally. And wherever there's an internal contamination, it will eventually be manifested externally. And I know for personal experience that that happened to me. I went through, you know, pretty horrific childhood where my parents divorced and you know, my mom remarried, and she married a psychopath, and all the contamination that happened in that environment for three years uh before I finally escaped that. You know, my mom and stepdad went to prison for all the abuse. And so I come out of that really quite the internal contamination. And so it took me some years of processing and training and retraining and getting my mind straight, accomplishing various things and learning and growing. The school of hard knocks also, but also some great mentoring. Uh, really, you know, those experiences start to develop your character if you're overcoming. If you're giving in, your character gets cracked and suppressed and compromised. But if you uh fight the good fight and just resist giving in to those things that were compromising, contaminating you, you can overcome so many things. And then because of my faith that 18 years old, getting uh finding the Lord Jesus Christ, and man, what a transformation that was. And let me tell you, anybody that knew me before that would be like, it's no way that kid's gonna live to C30. There's so much going on with that. And and over time I'll share some more about that with you. But whenever there's internal contamination, it will eventually be manifested externally. That's a big thing for us to keep in mind as we're walking through life, and um maybe a high motivation for you to continue, or maybe even for the first time, to really take a good look at what's going through your eyes and ears and really be cautious because it will manifest uh on the outside and it'll lead to a lot of problems relationally, jobs, financially, health-wise. So you can't escape it. You can manage it for a season, but you can't outrun it. It will eventually catch up to you. Everything you do comes back one way or another. So the Apostle Paul understood this, and that's why he writes in the book of First Timothy, to protect the internal integrity of the believer, because compromise always leaks. So when you think about just reading the word, there's a scripture in Hebrews 4 10 that says the word of God is alive and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of bone and marrow, and as a revealer of the intense of the heart. Some of you that know this may have can really be a testimony of when you hear a scripture, sometimes it doesn't hit you all that hard. And then you can hear these same words another time, and it just penetrates you, and you're like, Oh my gosh, man, does this pastor know what's going on in my life? Because that's really hitting home. So Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God, our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, and our hope. So that's how he introduces himself, man. No shame, no holding back. So notice Paul doesn't define himself by culture, critics are circumstances. Let me read that again. First Timothy one through four, it says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God, our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope. So you can see he's divining himself not by culture, not by critics or circumstances. He defines himself by who sent him. Your spiritual ability always begins with spiritual identity. Listen to what Paul says as he continues. Charge some that they teach no other doctrine, nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification, which is in faith. So this is critical. Paul warns Timothy, a disciple of his, when truth is replaced with speculation, when doctrine is replaced with feelings, when God's word is replaced with endless opinions, all kinds of things follow. Internal confusion is guaranteed, and confusion doesn't stay internal. It eventually produces emotional instability, relational chaos, moral compromise, spiritual exhaustion. And this is exactly what we're seeing today in society. People are trying to fix anxiety externally, medicate despair, redefine morality while ignoring the internal spiritual breach. We see it manifested all over the world. In Iran right now, they've been under a regime that's murderous, that the leader, Khomeini, claims he hears directly from God and that got God gives him authority to kill people, to hang them without a trial. We're hearing reports right now of the protests being so intense, and now the uh IRGC, their military essentially, is slaughtering people. I'm hearing reports from 2,600 to over 20,000. We're hearing testimony from people that have escaped the blackout of the internet blackout. They're that they're taking satellite dishes from people's homes, they're cutting off all communication so that they can slaughter the people without being it reported. You know, there are videos coming out that you see people being slaughtered in the streets for simply protesting. Now they don't have a choice, and they're letting you know that they can't stop them, they don't have guns, they can't fight back. If there's not some foreign intervention, it's likely that we'll have maybe you know hundreds of thousands of people killed across the the whole country. So, you know, this spiritual breach that we're seeing play out is playing out in Europe, it's playing out uh, you know, all over the Middle East. Um they've got a reprieve now, it looks like, in Venezuela. We have the ability to cover the cost because we're taking control of that oil. That also stops China from getting the oil, who takes in 90 percent of Iran's oil, and Venezuela was also a source as well. So there's been really quite the um quite the change going on globally, and we're gonna see we're gonna see what happens with that. There's no guarantee that there's gonna be a regime change, but we're uh we should all be thinking about praying, going ahead, getting uh like a routine of praying for some of these trouble spots around the world and how America plays a part in that. This will also play into your own spiritual life, where it hits closer to home, and you can pray for those that are closest to you. Pray for your pastors if you're going to church, pray for your family. There's a powerful book series, The Power of a Praying Husband, The Power of a Praying Wife. And so tapping into the Word of God so you know how to pray, so you know the words to say, but just speaking right from the heart is really the authentic God understands that you don't need the knowledge of the academic side of the spiritual growth to pray to him, to talk to him, to communicate authentically, deeply, and often. And if you have that kind of relationship, you're gonna see spiritual renewal, you're gonna see moral moral clarity, your relationships are gonna be mended, you're gonna have a lot more emotional stability. Um, you're gonna have the ability to achieve the desires of your heart as you surrender. It's often uh, you know, these kind of things that seem like they're opposite. When you surrender to the Holy Spirit and you allow that influence of God to open your mind and purify your mind and clean your heart, it's just the opposite of what the world tells you that you know, in order to be successful, you have to fight tooth and nail, you have to push, you have to push, you have to succeed. You know, productivity is is key, right? So in the spiritual world, it's more important to be fruitful with your time than it is to be thinking of it as productivity. Fruitful means there's going to be a bigger picture that worth considering success to be a part of. So I want you to look at these things and consider uh being part of our Living Inside Out community by going to our podcast on Spotify and Apple, sharing that with your friends, coming into DefendFit, and getting the training. You know, we're training in tactical firearms and self-defense and fitness. We also offer Muay Thai, kickboxing, uh, American boxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, uh, Filipino uh Arnisse, Modern Arnice, which is empty hand, stick and knife. Um the schedule's wide open. We have a combat fitness class as well. So the schedule is pretty intense, and you can have a combination of different membership choices for your budget. And we really do want to make a difference for you. Uh the mentoring side of it doesn't happen uh so much uh talking on the mat about it, but there's workshops you can attend. Um certainly um we can host, we will be hosting specific workshops that are going to address uh all the 7M's, those categories of you know, marriage and all relationships, uh ministry, uh mentoring, media, martial arts, muscle, and money. So when you hear me talking about, you know, for example, what's going on around the world in the Middle East, that's our you know, media category. When you hear me talking about Defend Fit Tactical and Firearms and Martial Arts, and that's really hitting our muscle and martial art category. Uh, but those categories also include our our mental stability, our confidence, our health and wellness, bone density, organ function, diet nutrition. So there's a lot going on, and I want you to be part of it. So don't hesitate to give us a call, 713-252-5836, uh, or go to our website at RayleighSelfDfense.net. So thank you for being here today at Living Inside Out Radio Show. Stay tuned. We've got uh Karen coming up and David Cisneris coming up. We've got a great show for you, and we'll be right back.
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SPEAKER_01:Thank you for joining us on Patriot Talk Radio where we talk about faith, family, and freedom. I'm covering our 7M's, generally speaking, on every show. That's ministry, marriage, mentoring, media, martial arts, muscle, and money. And that is the 7Ms. That is the essence of living inside out with power, living an abundant life. So today I've got some great guests for you today. I've got Karen Odom and her husband Henrik, and they came to me to train. They are a retired couple, and a lot of times people think they can't train for various reasons. One is as we get older, we think we can't do things like this. So at DefendFit, we meet you right where you're at on the mat. We've also got the Cecenaros brothers. The Cisneros brothers have been on my show before and they're extraordinary. Both of them are pastors, and they have been with me for seven years training at DefendFit in a combination of things. So we're going to talk to them and we're also going to broach the subject of how to do what you don't want to do so that you can level up and live an extraordinary life. So thank you for being with us today. Karen, thank you for being here on my show.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, it's good to be here. I'm honored to be invited.
SPEAKER_01:So we've uh we've gone through a lot of training now, uh just over maybe a year and a half or so.
SPEAKER_05:Almost two years.
SPEAKER_01:Almost two years. Time flies when you're having fun. That's true. So I'd like to listeners to hear a little bit about why you thought about training. What happened that you and your husband decided to train?
SPEAKER_05:Well, we we have we have concealed carries, we have our guns, we have um all of the things we thought we were prepared for everything. And then real life hit. We were at IKEA, and we we didn't carry our guns, but we were at IKEA, and we saw this young man approach and get into an older man's face and have an argument. And we were two cars down, and I looked, and nobody you you assume people would come, but nobody came, and it was the very it was a very crowded place. And I looked behind him and I saw his wife, and she was just there shaking. She didn't know what to do. And at that point I realized I didn't know what to do either. And I told my husband, I said, we're gonna get some sort of training because I don't want to be that woman. I don't want to be the person that doesn't know what to do. And so I called John and uh I tried to talk him out of telling us that we could we could do it, but we started, and you realize from the Beginning that you don't know what you think you know. And I always assumed I was raised with guns, I always assumed I knew everything about guns. I knew nothing, honestly, nothing. And now after two years of training with John, I can I can handle a gun with confidence. I can feel myself being able to do something if it was a situation. And it just the simplest thing that I didn't even know before I started. When I asked John, what could we have done in that situation? And he said, You could have yelled at the top of your lungs for that man to stop, and it would have drawn attention. I didn't even know that. So when real life hits, it's a total it's different than what you think it's gonna be. And you once you train, you know that you do have some skills. And we have trained with guns and we've also trained with krav. And it's it's powerful to know for me because I'm like five foot two, three, and I weigh about a hundred pounds. So when we were training, I asked John, I said, There's no way I could throw that man over there. And he showed me different ways I could do it, different vulnerable parts. He ran me through all of the scenarios. And now, I mean, if I was attacked, I know I could defend myself. And that's after two years of training. And it wasn't easy. I mean, it wasn't easy for me because I came in just rank amateur. But now I feel more confident from being here. I feel when I go out or when we travel, I do not have that kind of what if. Now I know what to do.
SPEAKER_01:Nice. Well, that's a great feeling of confidence. I know even for myself when I started training as a young man at like 21, I had very similar insecurities, right? And I think most of us do, we're walking around with insecurities. Oftentimes we uh we have a list of excuses why we can't do something. And you did cover that earlier. You talked about, you know, trying to talk me out of it, right? So what were some of the excuses in your head for why you couldn't train? Do you remember?
SPEAKER_05:We were retired, and I uh you know, you look at martial arts as a young person's uh venue or what people want to do. You look, we were retired, so I figured, well, they don't have classes for retired couples, but he did because there is no it's an ageless group. I don't know how else to explain it. When you show up, he meets you where you are, all the other students meet you where you are, they only want one thing. They all want you to be as good as they are, and they treat you the same. I never have felt anything about my age, and these courses are with John in private training. You are met, you he doesn't assume that you can't do it. And that's a very powerful for me. Everybody that I talked to, everybody when we did group training, they just assumed that I could do it just like they could. And as it turned out, that assumption was true. And that was a very powerful training, and I would recommend that to anybody that has doubts of what they can do. If you go to a place where they meet you where you are, that's gonna give you strength.
SPEAKER_01:There's a lot of times I tell people when they're looking for a school and they're not close to us, and they ask me, what should I look for? And one of the things I say is always go and watch a class, right? Run through the sales pitch that they're gonna give you if they force that on you. Go ahead and set through that. If there's a lot of high pressure to join, time limit, oh, get to today or you're gonna miss out, walk away. You know, if they're gonna lock you in a long-term contract, walk away. Typically walk away from those kind of things. And then when you're watching class, if you see that the instructor is impatient or um ballistically moving through every movement with not great explanation, you know, and expecting a new person to jump right in and go ballistic, meaning striking super hard, taking strikes super hard, that's a warning sign, right? And so I think of myself as a software salesman, right? We talked about that earlier. You know, it's about sharing knowledge, right? It's about training people with understanding intellectually so that I call that precision. Precision of mind, then precision of body follows, right? And one of the other things that we follow is a set of procedures, right? So what defines us here at DefenFit, and the reason you've excelled so well, is we follow some very simple basic understanding that the special forces use. For example, precision, speed, aggression, deception. Precision of mind, body follows. Speed of mind, the body can follow once you build the reps in. Aggression is about intention. Sometimes I don't want to be aggressive. I want to be very calculated about how I present myself so I'm not aggressive, and I can use deception to set myself up when I do become aggressive and violent against a threat that you know requires me to do so. So there you had some other reasons of why you didn't want to train. One of them was, yeah, you're retired, and you probably don't do, you know, people that are retired. Um, and then, you know, just being thinking, oh, it's a young person's game, and you're right, we do meet with meet you where you're at. And it was extraordinary to watch y'all come in and start leveling up, right? And then overcoming this predisposed thinking of even being small, right? That I might not be able to be successful, not knowing your options really was what that was about. You know you have options. You do it every day, whether you're driving, go to the store, you know, making decisions at home, you have options and you're running through those options. So that's one of the things I taught you. Here's what's possible. And a lot of times it's based on the timing, the distance, the speed, your anticipation, reading what's going on. And so I always say people have really four options when it comes to this kind of a conflict. Get away. Get away if you can, remove yourself from the threat, de-escalate so you don't have to engage. Then you could use pepper spray, you could go hand-to-hand combat, or you could use a firearm, right? So having those options just simplifying, right? Einstein used to say, make it as simple as possible, not simpler. But I like this the phrase, keep it simple, smart. Yeah. But not too simple.
SPEAKER_05:Well, it's it's uh it's a challenge every day when I come in, which I enjoy. It when we first signed up, I thought it was just gonna be for maybe it was six weeks, we'll learn a few, you know, tactics or whatever. But as we got in and I saw it was nothing like I thought it was gonna be, because I had in the past taken some martial art courses and I didn't really enjoy it because it was so competitive and it was but on this course, once I got into it and I thought, well, I can do this and it is good and I am learning, then all of a sudden I realized I want to do this for life. So we just I want to keep coming back because every day is a challenge. It's never the same every day, it's a different scenario. What would you do? And I notice now that I watch lots of uh police shows or movies, and then you'll go, oh, they made a mistake there. Yeah, because you really learn to to focus on the smallest detail, and that's what makes it smooth.
SPEAKER_01:Tactical understanding, right? Yeah, your intelligence level is already high when you came in. We just needed to support that in this kind of problem-solving area. Uh and today we actually did some things during your private training, and that's one of the things y'all decided to do is add private training to your group training. It's one of the questions you had tried to talk me out of training, y'all is well, we we probably will need to do private, not just group, and thinking I'm gonna say no, right? I just kept saying yes, and you didn't really have any choice, right? You couldn't talk yourself out of it, couldn't talk me out of training you, right?
SPEAKER_05:No.
SPEAKER_01:So good. I'm so glad y'all stuck around, and it's been a real rich relationship. And that's one of the special things about this type of training. You build this trust because of the type of training you're doing, and you make uh great relationships. That's been the hidden bonus. This is my 41st year doing it. That's been the hidden bonus from my first years into it. I was meeting great people. For some reason, the bad people don't stick around because they can't um, you know, but a lot of times when a person has some things going on, their mount minds contaminated or delusional, they simply can't um get under somebody's authority. So there's a lot of rebellion in the mind. And so sometimes people think they already know things and aren't willing to admit they don't. So a lot of what we do on the mat is just live in the truth of where we're at. And um, I think the beautiful thing about training and then testing yourself is different than just being taught, because sometimes being taught, you're not really tested, you know, you're not really able to like demonstrate, okay, I actually know this. And one of the things we did today was we did some stress inoculation.
SPEAKER_04:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:And it's all scalable, right? For where you're at, I stress inoculated you by having y'all do some ballistic striking on the bag, the heavy bags with palm strikes, and I timed it 30-second drill, and then you saw problems. And today your problem solving had all firearm responses, right? Because we created the scenario that this isn't going to be necessary, and then you had to go through all the steps of neutralizing that threat and then looking for other things going on, the post-engagement protocol. What do I do next? Is there other threats? Did the threat I just neutralized met, does he re-manifest, right? And so how do you communicate with each other? What are you thinking about communicating with the groom that's around you, the people around you? Do you make the phone call? Do you ask somebody else to make a phone call or call the police? Yeah, is there is there a medical need now because bullets were flying around the room? So that all that problem solving, it was extraordinary to watch you and uh Hendrik go through all that and just do extraordinary, right? And so there's a real benefit from a teacher standpoint to see you and Hendrik, you know, perform at such a high level, coming to me with you know this lack of understanding, not lack of intelligence, but lack of understanding, and then now you're doing it, and it's quite amazing uh to see that kind of leveling up.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, you could say we were absolute beginners. That's that's the way I would define myself. And we've come a very far away from that moment. And um it's a very it it's I would recommend it to anybody. It's challenging, but it's not undoable. You can do it. I mean I'm living proof here that anybody can do this because I started out, like I said, absolute beginner, and now I have more confidence. I I I can go out and never really be that worried. I know how to manage the distance, thanks to John. I know how to be aware without being so hyper-vigilant. I know what to do in different situations. He runs you through every kind of situation out there that you can imagine. And you know what to do after st after the situation, which to me was very important because, all right, you've done this, you've you've you know, you've protected yourself. Now what do you do? And that that has really helped me. It follows through on every aspect of it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the post-engagement's protocol is really critical so that you don't be you're not seen as a bad guy. And then also the legal responsibility of you know what that's gonna look like now that we've uh used our firearm. And so we talk about all that stuff. It's such a great um tool for stimulating the brain and opening up the confidence. So um you too can do this. There's really no the major limitation is the limitations you put on yourself.
SPEAKER_05:That's the truth. That that more than anything else is you walk in the door, you don't you don't label yourself, nobody's gonna label you when you lock through this door, and everybody is gonna try to make you as good and better than they are. That's it, it's that kind of environment.
SPEAKER_01:Well, thank you so much for sharing your story, Karen. And I'd love to have you back, and we're gonna continue our training as well, and so we'll create more reason to share and share people with people your testimony really is like one of those things that's like, wow, maybe I really could do that too, right? So that's why that's why I really wanted to have Karen on today because there's so many things that uh in our head, in our mind, we're just we talk ourselves out of doing things that are good for us. And so living inside out, covering the seven M's, the seven most important areas, ministry, marriage, mentoring, media, martial arts, muscle, and money. I think a lot of us don't think we need to train in martial arts and muscle. You know, sometimes you go, well, I have to exercise, but I don't have to train in martial arts, that's for other people, you know. But it's such a powerful place to have, uh, especially in the world we live in today. Are you glad you're training in the martial arts and firearms?
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely, because you're not only training your body, you're training your mind. You're train, you're doing things that you have never done before. You're connecting your uh emotions with your mind. You you're trying to make yourself do different things in different ways that you've never done before. You know, you can lift weights and be mindless doing it. This one really trains your mind.
SPEAKER_01:Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Karen. Uh, I've really enjoyed you and Henrik, and we're gonna um continue uh building testimony. That's what we do in our life, right? All right, so we got a great show for you coming back. You're listening to Living in South At Radio, don't go away. We got the Cisneris Brothers coming up shortly.
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SPEAKER_01:Welcome back to Living Inside Out Radio. We've been talking about spiritual identity, not the identity culture tries to give you, not the identity shaped by feelings, pressure, or popularity, but the identity God forms from the inside out. We've got our second guest today, David Cisneros. So it's a pleasure to have you here today, David. Let's talk a little bit about that and set up, set the stage for this internal compromise. Let's talk a little bit about this spiritual identity, David. The internal compromise produces external damage. So 1 Timothy 1, 5 through 7 says, you know, with Paul going deeper, now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith. So this is powerful. Paul identifies three internal pillars: a pure heart, a good conscience, a sincere faith. And so when any of these is compromised, your feelings, behaviors, and thought life begin to fracture. Paul warns, from which some have strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, desire to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm. So here's the living inside out truth. Our feelings and behavior are directly linked to our internal spiritual condition. Your thought life gives birth to your emotions. Your emotions influence your decisions, your decisions shape your destiny. So when the Holy Spirit is displaced, instability fills the vacuum. And almost always this collapse accelerates under stress. Physical stress, emotional stress, relational stress, financial stress. Stress doesn't create the problem, it reveals what was already compromised. That's why Scripture tells us to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. That's out of 2 Corinthians 10 5. Unchecked thoughts become poison. Poison tolerated internally eventually manifests externally. So as we think about this kind of thing, David, let's go back to when you left home, went to college, Christ for the nations, you're going to become a pastor, a music pastor, and you're going to be pastoring in a number of different ways. So tell us a little bit about that stepping into college life.
SPEAKER_04:Well, first of all, thank you for having me. It's a privilege, it's an honor. And yeah, I mean, I'm I'm a pastor's kid. I grew up in the church. Um all my life I wanted to be a musician. And to be dead honest, you know, when I went to CFNI, Christ for the Nations in Dallas, Texas, it wasn't with the intention per se at the moment to be in the ministry. It's kind of an escape, man. Honestly, it was kind of a means of me to be like, all right, well, I'm gonna use this vehicle, I'm gonna use this opportunity to kind of do what I want to do. That's what the what the intention in the beginning. Um, obviously, God has other intentions and he always supersedes everything that we want to do and say and think, right? You know, uh, but anyway, so I'm over there, I'm going to school, um, I meet some incredible people, man, incredible musicians. And now at 45 years old, if you would have asked me back then, hey man, so how's pastoral life? I would have been like, get out of here. No way, like I'm I'm not a pastor, right? Um, but now coming into the role and the fulfillment of the role really helps me to give testimony about the Holy Ghost. And and so having the Holy Spirit guide and lead and teach, uh, but mainly I think confronting the inner parts and inner person of what everybody's going through. That's that's the key. The Holy Spirit, the Bible says that he searches all things, he studies and searches the deep things of the heart, right? Um, and sometimes we try to hide from past traumas, or we think, oh, I forgot about that. And we think that we healed from that, and unfortunately, that's just not how it works. So before anything, you know, the Holy Spirit really had to do his supernatural work in my life, but confront the inner root things that were hurting, the inner root traumas that were there that only he can confront, only he can bring out, only he can bring to light. So I'm young, I'm at Bible school, you know, I'm meeting all these guys, I'm thinking, all right, this is it. I'm I'm gonna get connected somewhere. I'm gonna meet more amazing musicians, I'm gonna play with these guys, and little by little I'm gonna use that as an excuse to kind of get out of Bible college, right? But that didn't happen like that. Right? After the first semester, I was I had the privilege and the opportunity to travel with a really, really, really, really cool musician pastor. Teacher, uh, evangelist, and this gentleman had already had a couple of albums under his belt. But God called this gentleman to really speak to the nations, right? Speak and get out of the comfort zone and go to places that normally people don't go to and travel to. And I got to play my instrument at the same time, right? So I'm kind of living what I wanted to do, kind of, but I wasn't completely fulfilled because in my the back of my mind, I always thought, okay, well, this is just a catapult, this is just a door, this is just a a um a means to get here, to get to where I really want to get to, right? Um and again, I repeat, those were my plans, but they weren't God's plans. There were good plans, but they weren't God plans. Does that make sense? Um the Holy Ghost really had to use that time to really get me and confront me and isolate me from my commodities, from my comfort zone. Well, what was that? What does that mean? Well, you know, I wasn't at home, right? I wasn't living here with my family. I didn't have the comfort of mom's cooking, right? I didn't have the comfort of of showing up whenever I wanted, having my own room. No, you know, it was it was one of those things where there was rules on campus. I had to, every student was required to be in their dorm at a certain time, lights off. It wasn't a military school, but it was something where it's like, well, I see now that order needed to be there. Those disciplines needed to be taught to us, right?
SPEAKER_01:Did you see some uh situations or experience firsthand, the internal compromise of the spiritual life leading to external manifestations?
SPEAKER_04:Oh, absolutely. With my temper, uh patience. Um but you you put it perfectly. What happens inside always manifests on the outside, right? I didn't realize how impatient I was or how much of a perfectionist I actually was until I started allowing, and it takes two. And what I mean by that is God is a perfect gentleman, his Holy Ghost is a gentleman, he's never gonna come in and force anybody to do anything. He's a perfect gentleman, but your will has to participate. He'll never violate your will. In other words, it's not an excuse to say, Oh, this happened, I didn't know it happened. Well, in the ministry, when you this is why you gotta take God seriously. When you make a prayer and you say, God, come and do whatever you want to do to me, be careful with that prayer. Because God takes that seriously. You might say it and not mean it, but to Him, it's a very serious prayer. And I think I might have fallen to that trap of doing that, man. And you know, maybe it might have been an emotional moment, maybe it would have been a moment in chapel, you know, where the presence of God was overwhelming. And I might have said, God, come and do it. And God's like, Okay, you said it, I'm gonna do it. And now we go back and we're like, oh man, God, wait a minute, you know, because you know, oftentimes He puts us in the desert. We find ourselves in a desert where we're like, man, why am I going through this? Why is this happening? Why is that happening? I don't have this friend anymore, I don't have this commodity anymore, I don't have this opportunity. I lost my job, you know, I don't have money for school, whatever it is, etc. etc. Um, but in reality, it's it's a place where God puts you to confront you and the innermost being, why? Because of the outer manifestations that happened of past traumas that haven't been healed. And I had a lot of them, plenty of them. And I don't want to admit it, John. I don't want to admit it that I really, really needed being at a Bible school, being at a place where they lift the name of Jesus wasn't enough. I needed to really be confronted and and I I would say I needed a supernatural surgeon, and who better than the Holy Ghost to come and really work in the in the inner inner being of my person.
SPEAKER_01:You know, I think of the old saying that uh you learned through the school of hard knocks, meaning you had those experiences of uh making bad decisions and you're confronted by them by supervision, by parents, by some structure, business, college, uh, or just you know, the suffering and internal, you know, unhappiness and lack of opportunities, and like you said, manifest in various ways. It's a beautiful thing that we have the word of God because Luke 4.18, Jesus tells you why he came, right? So he's reading Isaiah 61 at the very beginning of his ministry when he says, I come to heal the brokenhearted and set the captives free. So it's a beautiful thing to be able to go to that. And and I know you did, I know your personal experience around that. And we're gonna talk about that as a segment into its uh uh of itself, uh talk about the inner healing that goes through uh that we go through when we uh intentionally walk into that space, uh, guided by you know a great pastor. But what I want to do now is I want to talk about you know, you're leaving college with experience and transformation. God's gonna use you in new ways. I want to talk a little bit about the discipline that you learned along the way there.
SPEAKER_04:Well, fresh out of uh Christ for the nations, I didn't come home right away. I stayed in Dallas. Uh was offered an opportunity with the gentleman that I was traveling with at the time. But it took, I remember specifically, it was a trip in Atlanta. Um there's some incredible leaders and pastors from Mexico. Their last name is a Bremer. Um, they were given a word, and I was at that meeting at that word, and God spoke to me and says, Hey, it's time. Your time has come. You need you need to go back home. You need to go to Houston and give. Because I'm gonna, it's a new chapter, a new season. Um, that was that was a fight in itself. I was like, okay, God, this is it, let's do it. I come back to Dallas and I stay in Dallas for another year. Right? So I'm already in disobedience that whole year, man. The majority of that year, man, it was really tough. It was really hard, nothing was working out, everything was closing, no doors were opening, no opportunities, and I I had to admit and realize, okay, I'm in disobedience. It's not that Dallas is bad. It has nothing to do with that. It was my internal fight. I I said yes in my heart, but my actions and my words were were in complete rebellion and disobedience.
SPEAKER_01:You know, one of the things that I saw when you and Daniel and the uh church security team came to train. We talked about that last segment, and I saw the level of excellence and discipline as y'all were performing uh the firearm, tactical firearm training with me. And so I see the fruit of going through the fire that you had to go through and these transitions in college life and then back to uh you know being in disobedience, recognizing that, coming back home, and uh you know, all that went with that, and and now you're a pastor back at home and you've been to Israel eight times. Eight times, yep. And uh it's not enough. And we're gonna go again in November more willing. Lord will. Uh but now let's transition to some of that discipline that you felt like paid off. For example, even your most recent training. How did that play off in the discipline and focus that's starting to develop because of the internal spiritual cleanliness and purity of heart? Not that we're perfect, but I saw it, you know, in our last training session. Tell a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, we have time. So uh God, I I'm fortunate to be able to testify and say that God had put a lot of heroes in my life, He put a lot of role models, a lot of good guys, a lot of angels in certain circumstances that always told me. And one blessing in particular that I participated in this band with this gentleman that I that I traveled with is that all the musicians in that band were way better than me. Right? That's a huge deal because they poured into me. They taught me discipline why they lived it. I saw it in them. That happened in my mind. Something happened in my mind, a shift happened, and I always had the discipline of sitting down for hours to play and practice. So when I come over here years later and start taking your first class, I realize okay, we can do this, and I know the formula. What's the formula? Slow and a lot of repetitions, right? And if you think about it, it's pretty practical, but you know, it's easier said than done, right? A lot of people are like, oh, that's it, okay, and then won't go home and do it. Right. So that has a lot to do with what I was taught and poured into and the drive that the Holy Ghost puts in us when we're able to see clearly. When we go through in healing and deliverance and we break yokes and chains, or I should say the Lord does it, even the way you think, the way you process things, the way you you operate on a daily basis, whatever it is that you do, it's better. Right.
SPEAKER_01:Amen. That's a testimony right there. And I saw it uh in our most recent training when you're responding to a threat, hand-to-hand combat, you're getting tied up wrestling, and then all of a sudden you you strike and neutralize that threat, take them down, you're creating distance to see what other threats are. That re-manifested with a firearm, and you reacted right appropriately with your firearm, neutralizing that threat, and still with your head up looking around, and now communication on the radio with the security team, with cameras, looking for the next step. What do you see? Securing the scene, getting pastors and leadership uh protected and isolated while still communicating to the audience there, making sure they don't move and and create more danger or unpredictability. And so flowing through all that, I see really your ability to be disciplined and applying these spiritual truths, right, of cleanliness of mind and purity of heart, doing the what's very difficult, and that is trying to do the right thing at the right time in the right way.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_01:So training is really an external manifestation of what's going on in the mind. And uh we've seen some things get exposed over seven years of training. We see things come to light and we fix those things and move on. And so it's been a powerful testimony to see how your previous development as a musician, as uh a spiritual pastor, as uh father, as a husband is paying great dividends on the mat. Yes, sir. So that's a beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_04:Praise God.
SPEAKER_01:Now we have some courses coming up uh in February for tactical training, tactical firearm training that we'd like to invite you to. So get in touch with DefendFit. Also, tune in to Living Inside Out Radio Show on Spotify and on Apple Podcasts, and tune in, of course, on Patriot Talk Radio every Saturday at noon. Uh we'd love to hear you again. We've got a great show coming up next week as well. So thank you for being here and have a great weekend.
SPEAKER_00:Tune in next week for another edition of the Living Inside Out Radio Show.
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