Dustin Alley: Hey guys, welcome back to another week of the Man After God podcast. I want to take a minute and say thank you to everyone who's listening. It is amazing to see our numbers go up over 4,000 downloads in the last month. Just thank you so much for liking, sharing, telling your friends about it. It's for Luke and I to continue doing this and the way that we're doing it is so different than how we were before and we're just seeing more people listen. So I give up, I quit, I'm done. Luke was right the entire time ⁓ and we have just done it his way from the beginning, ⁓ but here are.

Luke Sorensen: Clip it, clip it, I heard that. It's on recording. I've never heard that before. That's good stuff.

Dustin Alley: and stuff. Nope. Yeah, I know. Right. I was told something in here. We got to get this one out today. I was at an Easter lunch and I was talking to a couple and a man next to me. We found out the lady was psychologist and he said, ⁓ well, what have you, what do you have analyzed us and what have you found from analyze Nostar conversation? ⁓ And she looks at it. She goes, well, you are perfect. And I'm, ⁓ I

Luke Sorensen: Yes.

Dustin Alley: I don't tell my wife, please let her know this. now am no lie. I will win every argument now. then she finished her sentence and said, Lee normal, which I was then offended by. that's, you know, hey, that's just my own pride. I'm sorry.

Luke Sorensen: Which means she said that Dustin was perfectly normal. Just in case for those of you that are still catching up, Dustin is still relishing in the fact that he is not as unique as he thought he was.

Dustin Alley: Yes. Yeah, I'm recovering, man. I'm recovering. I'm going to have to go to a rehab center, work this out. I'll be gone for like six weeks and get a free swimming pool. I don't know. But thank you guys so much for just tuning in. It's great to know that we're being a blessing to you. Feel free to reach out. can email us. You reach me at ali1230 at Love to hear from you. Luke, I'm could share his in just a second. But today, ⁓ Luke, I'm looking forward to our conversation. And guys, they're listening, this is more of an introduction conversation. It's a transition conversation. We've went, we just had like three episodes on one chapter and we're building towards what we're about to enter. And that is the, we're going to call it a five pillar framework, if you will, uh, to, to live as a man after God. I tell people it's five things every man needs in his life. That's a follower of Jesus every week. And if you're, you're unable to schedule these five things, you're overbooked. you need to make room. Okay. And they're simple. They're easy. They're not anything you don't already do, but being intentional about doing them changes the way you live your life. And so I'm going to identify these real quick. I'm going to tell Luke, Luke, get prepared. want you to pick out your top two favorite and tell us why. Okay. So, so the first one is to deepen your relationship with Jesus and this one, I mean, a little self-explanatory. We'll talk a little bit, wave top of this in just a second. The second one is to devote time to your family. The third one is to develop yourself. The fourth one is to deliver value to others. And the fifth one is to do nothing for Jesus. Now, before Luke shares his two, I will tell you the last one's one of my main favorites, just because I know that if you heard that for the first time right now, your brain just glitched. And I love seeing the look on people's faces when I share that one. But Luke, what are your two favorites?

Luke Sorensen: ⁓ Big red flag there, yeah. Oh man, I have two favorites, but the reason they're my favorite is because I struggle with the other three really hard. So, I'm gonna choose the easy ones here. Yeah, it's just, it's natural as an enabler type person, I really love to develop myself as individual growth and leader, all that stuff. I love that. I think it can be spiritual. I love to develop myself, is the third framework. I love chapter number, I say number eight, chapter eight, but the fourth one is delivering value. I love to...

Dustin Alley: I think the two I do really well Mmm.

Luke Sorensen: to be delivering content or value or serving others. I struggle so much with, and this is gonna sound bad, I'm married, I've got kids, I struggle with devoting time to family. I have to be very intentional about that. I really, really struggle with doing nothing for Jesus. And it's not because I struggle with the concept, I struggle with the actual execution. those are the, are the two. The deep in the relationship with those other ones probably depend.

Dustin Alley: Mm-hmm.

Luke Sorensen: depending on whether I'm really good at or not as good at that's where I land on the other ones like, where am I at today with with deep in relationship with Jesus typically will tell you exactly where I'm at with the other ones. So yeah.

Dustin Alley: You Yes, that will dictate the rest. That's why I was at the top. You know, and again, I call it a five pillar framework. You can say it of holds up the man. But really that one could almost be foundational with the other four there pillars. And I mean, we had a great conversation the other day, guys. Every now and then I can get a little philosophical. And I sent Luke a text of a note I took when my pastor was preaching and.

Luke Sorensen: Yeah. Right, for sure. Can I, before you do that, can I just say this? Dustin randomly texts me, we text quite often, it's all fine and dandy, just wanted to this out there. I never know the context, so it's the night before Easter, he's in an Easter service, so I'm thinking this has to do with Jesus the cross and dying for our sins, and so I am looking at the, I like, okay, well, let me take this from where he's at. It had nothing to do with that, really, like was totally a separate thought. Anyway, go ahead, so, yeah.

Dustin Alley: Yeah, ⁓ he's great. Yeah, I was it was Friday night. It was ⁓ a Friday evening service a Good Friday service. going blank here. ⁓ was a good Friday service and and honestly guys I'll tell you sometimes I God I believe allows us to have these thoughts based on just just little phrases or things of nature My pastor was preaching about the resurrection and the cross and he was talking about living from the love of Jesus and this Was that stood out to me. I want to share with you

Luke Sorensen: context.

Dustin Alley: I ended up writing a note that, and I'm going to give you the raw thought. Okay. This is the raw thought. This is what I sent Luke. This is the type of friend I am. Okay. You really don't know what you're going to get, right? It could be a joke. Okay. It's, is it the, ⁓ know, what's another random emails? That's what I'll do. Just send out these blasts of the random thoughts. ⁓ my pastor said like, we live from that love. And it was in that moment, like,

Luke Sorensen: Ali123 at iCloud.com and you could be a part of these text messages. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dustin Alley: Boom, I gotta write some stuff down, because it's in my head. So here are the raw thoughts. I don't know how much of this I sense. I'm just gonna read it all. If we live from love, does it stand to reason that when someone is not loved or being loved, their actions reflect their emptiness rather than their brokenness? Is it love that fills the cracks of the heart of man, resulting in a life and behavior reflecting the greatness of the love they feel? I think this is what I text for you. is at the end of love or the process of loving that brings joy to the recipient. If the end of love, the result of love, is pursued, then emptiness can remain, whereas if one seeks the process of love, the loving pursuit of Christ, spouse, or friend, then the joy of love is felt and lived from. Philosophical thoughts from Dustin, sin on a Friday night.

Luke Sorensen: Yeah, so I receive this and in context I'm like, what is he talking about? by the way, it's a great thought, but to be honest, I'm not that deep of a person and I'm not philosophical at all. I can barely say the word. That's one of those words like, what's word you use all the time? Holistic, it's just a big word, ⁓ Anyway, then I get all that to say, I'm processing that, I give a quip answer like, and then I'm like, no, let me.

Dustin Alley: You ⁓ holistic, that's nice word.

Luke Sorensen: take this back to, you I did a whole thing and he's like, yeah, yeah, not where I'm going with that. And then sum up, he summed his own question with his own answer. It was the right answer. It wasn't wrong at all. I was like, well, why didn't you just tell me that in the first place? It saved me a lot of thought.

Dustin Alley: wanted to hear Luke's input on my thought guys. Okay. And that's why I like to buy. We put it's one of the reasons we podcast. I just want to talk and hear what Luke has to say about what I have to say. Um, because he's usually really on point with it. Next time I'll provide context to the deep ones. Um, okay. So I bring that up. Why? Um, because we do live from that love and Luke's right. The, uh, the deepening our relationship with Jesus is really the foundation of the rest. If our relationship with Christ is off, it's going to be off everywhere else because Here's the thing, and this is what that quote has to do with this. We do live from love of something. is giving us love or as I said, the process of love, meaning the actions, know, scientifically speaking, the dopamine hits ⁓ the buildup of dopamine, whatever you want to call it. Something is doing that for us. Are allowing God to be that something? And that kind of where that came from and we'll get into that. The one thing you need to know about this framework, as Luke said, like he does, he loves the, those, those two of his favorites of do nothing for Jesus. No, that's what he said he had trouble with Luke. Help yourself deliver value. It makes perfect sense for you to live, develop yourself, deliver value. Um, he loves those too, cause they're easy for him to do and stuff. And Luke does that in his own way. I do it in my own way. Now we're very similar in the way that we operate. So they can be the same, but many of you, when you develop yourself or when you're

Luke Sorensen: Develop yourself and deliver value. Naturally, yeah.

Dustin Alley: Delivering value it may look completely different. So that's why we called this a framework and not a system this is is something I wrote out of broken my own brokenness and Wanted to give to others to say hey listen You can be a follower of Jesus and it's not cookie cutter because there's no such thing as cookie cutter Christianity if you go back and you listen to the first year of episodes of the men after God podcast apart from like the first five They're all interviews and they're interviews with men from so many different walks of life and different backgrounds grounds and stories because I wanted be a podcast that was allowing men to know that Jesus looks different to each man and how you follow Jesus again biblically grounded with truth let's let's not separate anything from that but how you follow Jesus and how you live that out that's gonna be on you and that's what this framework is it's not system this isn't hey do these five things and your life will be better there are five but how you approach them

Luke Sorensen: Yeah, right.

Dustin Alley: That's where the depth of conversation is going to come from over these next few weeks as we get into these. talk for just a second and I'll try to extend this question to give you time to think. Have been taught a system that was supposed to help you but didn't, spiritually or other ways? And talk about that experience and why having a framework is better. ⁓ be customized to you rather than something that's copy and pasted on to you and I think I've ⁓ this question enough to give you okay, you're good. Okay, shaking his head. He can do it guys. All right, here we go ⁓

Luke Sorensen: Yeah. At this point, forgot what the question was. I'm just kidding. You know, it's funny Dustin was talking about like how we add value to people and how Dustin's different. Dustin does it through random philosophical text messages on Friday night. No, just kidding. No, it's funny. I was thinking as you're asking the question, I'm like, which one? Because to be honest, in every one of these, we go into devotions, I was taught, and by the way, I don't disagree with the discipline of this.

Dustin Alley: That's it. it.

Luke Sorensen: But I was taught you do your devotions first thing in the morning. You do it over a cup of hot chocolate or hot cider. Because that's what my parents modeled for me. My parents still do that. They get up very early. did it. It was kind of like this reward. If we got up and did our devotions and read the Bible, we could have a cup of hot chocolate. And worked for us, to be honest. It was something very special to us. We read the Proverbs in the morning. ⁓ Did lot as a family. Now, take that back to my life. I go to college. And to honest, I worked many, many hours in many, different ways. things and different conversations, we get to do nothing for Jesus. But during the morning time were not an option. Because to be honest, by the time I got to sleep at 4am, getting up at 6am to do devotions wasn't a priority. But I time between job and job two in the evening, right after dinner, before I went to sleep for an hour before I went to work security, that's when devotions could happen. And so that changed. So I don't really do devotions in the morning even now. My devotions are typically through different times where I've scheduled it based on what my schedule allows. Now different days of the week dictate that based on that. So that was the thing. like, this is how you're supposed to do it. And it was modeled for me and taught that. But to be honest, I don't disagree with morning devotions. I just know I know morning people that shouldn't do devotions in the morning. Or people that aren't morning people, should say. They should do that when their mind is fully active. Now I believe in giving God the first of all the stuff.

Dustin Alley: Hmm.

Luke Sorensen: The other thing is I was looking at like devote time to family. was I got marriage counseling I this is some of the worst marriage counseling I got. ⁓ the way, it wasn't good for either one of my marriages. Alicia, who's passed away, would agree with me on this. Monica would actually agree with me on this. I used to I got counsel like you never go to bed upset. You never go to sleep upset. You never go to sleep frustrated. You always work it out. What that created was a two or three a.m. argument, which I wasn't going to go to sleep. ⁓ Right. this is the counsel that I got. when if somebody just said the framework, hey, don't let the sun go down upon your wrath, but it's okay to sleep on something and deal with it later because sometimes it's better to not deal when you're emotionally elevated, you're tired, you're hungry, all that stuff. And so that was one of those frameworks that is a framework of, if I'm gonna devote time to family, it's like, hey, don't go to bed angry. Well, I don't believe in the sun go down upon your wrath, but that doesn't mean you can't go to sleep even when you're frustrated to be able to process it because dealing with things when you're tired not always healthy for the relationship. And so those are the two easy ones that were low hanging fruit for me. So yeah.

Dustin Alley: Yeah, absolutely. man. So guys, that's the thing. We cover some things that are great for Luke and I. And you it, and you think, man, could never do that. That's OK. And I want to say this, and this is where we're going to of wrap it up tonight, because we want to do a quick introduction of what we're going to go to over the next few weeks. And that's this, guys. Look. I hope this is encouragement to you because I want it to be. I want you to be anticipating what's coming. I want you to be ready to tune in, ready to tell your friends about this. going to give you permission. You need it from us, right? You don't. God's given it to you. But this is I mean. Some of you may not have been given the permission. We're going to give it to you. To follow Jesus as God made you to follow Him. And even seasonally, can of his season of I know deep sadness where reading the Bible would have been great for him. But at the same time, what was even helping him go deeper with Jesus was worship was singing praises to God. I know I can think of times where people like to lift hands and I can raise hands. I could turn off the light bulb, do the goalpost, whatever you want to do. You know, that's fine. ⁓ can do, ⁓ do, I've done those things. and, and it's in a moment of a true honesty, like it's just, you know, what I'm doing in the moment. but

Luke Sorensen: Yeah, it does.

Dustin Alley: am more of one, if I surrender my heart and mind to the moment, that is more impactful to me than raising a hand in worship or anything of that nature. ⁓ some of you may live ⁓ that way. So lifting a hand is the physical expression of that for you. The my mind operates, for me, is where I'm at, if someone disagrees with me, well, get your own podcast and go against me. I stand there, sing songs, and it's when I have been able to turn everything off and just focus on who I'm singing to, what I'm singing about, those moments are better for me than a raised hand. And we're all different. ⁓ Some you may want to read your Bible a chapter a day, a verse a day. Some of you may read seven chapters a day. I don't know. There's different systems. Maybe you read your Bible in a year. Bible in 90 days. Jason Brown, shout out to pastor in California, Victor Baptist Church. reading the Bible in 90 days. He's done it once this year. He's gonna do it again I think he's gonna do it like every quarter this year dudes machine. That's phenomenal thankful for him and the people doing it with him Maybe you're like I can't do that this season then don't and don't feel bad about it. It's okay So these these next few podcasts are all gonna be about helping you live a life as a man after God and the man God made you to be not What some other guy is Luke final thoughts and close us out?

Luke Sorensen: Right. Yeah. I mean, I'm looking forward to this. think that the freedom of what Christ has done for us, and not freedom. There's so much when we talk about the freedom in Christ, but freedom from the bondage that we've put ourselves under when we are free because of what Jesus has done for us. The framework allows you to do that. And I would just encourage you as you're listening. as an individual. don't care whether you're a man after God or a man not after God or a female assisting with some... your name is Monica Swanson, it's okay too. you know, listen to... Listen for your opportunity of what does the Holy Spirit want you to do as an individual so that you can connect at a deeper level in obedience and with your Lord and Savior who wants to walk with you as an individual. Don't cookie-cut your relationship with Jesus to match everybody else.

Dustin Alley: Mmm.

Luke Sorensen: He doesn't want that. He wants you to walk with him in obedience. But that's going to look different than it might look for me. It might look for Dustin. It might look for somebody a different season. It's okay to say, I'm gonna obey. And it may not look the same thing. That's okay. I just want to give you this. Listen for the prompting of the Holy Spirit and then obey. That's all I got.

Dustin Alley: So good. Awesome guys. Hey, have a great week. We will talk to you on the next podcast. See you then.