You've been handed something nobody else has.
The only question is whether it ever reaches another man's hands.
Scripture of the week
1 Peter 4:10-11. "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms."
This matters this week because whatever you've been given was never meant to end with you.
This week's Daily Forged: Steward Your Gifts
Peter isn't talking about some abstract spiritual gift here. He's talking about whatever you've actually got. Your time. Your skill. Your position. Your paycheck. Your leadership.
He calls it stewardship, not ownership. That one word removes the option to hoard.
This hits leadership especially hard. A man who uses his position mainly for his own advancement has already misunderstood what the position was for. Leadership measured by how much you accumulate for yourself isn't the model here. Leadership measured by what you release to others is.
The gift was never meant to end with you. It was given so it could move through you toward somebody else.
Ask yourself straight. What gift have you been sitting on instead of stewarding for somebody else's benefit?
Podcast recap
This week Paul and Joey sat down for a conversation guys can't really dodge, "How to Be a Godly Man in a World Obsessed with Alpha Status."
They take 1 Corinthians 16:13 and 14 apart piece by piece. Be watchful. Stand firm in the faith. Act like men. Be strong. Then the line that holds the whole thing together: let it all be done in love.
Joey gets honest about how far he's drifted from his own morning Bible time, and admits Bobbie has had to call him out for being on his phone at dinner more than once. Paul refuses to let "acting like a man" get reduced to lifting heavy and driving a truck. He names it for what it actually is, courage, responsibility, and leading first instead of waiting to be asked.
One line worth writing down. Courage is not the absence of fear. It's being afraid and doing it anyway.
Resource of the Week
Dr. Jim Bob Haggerton is worth knowing before he ever shows up in your feed. doctorjimbob.com
He's a chiropractor by training with over two decades in holistic health, but that's not what makes him worth your time. It's what he's walked through. A year long affair he never expected to survive. Losing a son. A shattered femur that ended his private practice and opened a door he didn't know he needed. He says most of what he teaches is what he learned by messing up badly and deciding he never wanted to do it again.
His site is built around one idea. Get real answers from your own blood work instead of guessing for years. Worth a look if you've been guessing about your health longer than you'd like to admit.
We sat down with him this week. Episode's coming soon.
Challenge
Use one specific skill or gift today to serve somebody, directly. Not generally, not "the world." One specific man.
Pick the man before you pick the action.
Community update
Real progress to report. Both Paul and Joey are adding a second layer of content every week, a 6 to 10 minute video from each of them digging deeper into what men actually need to hear, on top of the weekly podcast. More ways to get this in front of you, more often.
We're also asking you to lift up David H. this week. He's been a friend of Joey's for years, a solid and selfless guy who's given a lot to this community. He suffered a stroke and has been through two surgeries in the past few days. Pray for him if you pray. Send him strength either way.
A note from Joey
I keep chewing on that word, steward. Not owner. Steward.
Everything I've got, this platform, this community, even the years I've got left, none of it was ever mine to sit on. It was handed to me to move through me toward somebody else.
Some days that's hard to actually live out. But it's the whole point.
I'm also praying hard for David this week. He's given plenty of himself to plenty of guys over the years. Now it's our turn to show up for him.
Every brotherhood starts with one guy forwarding this to another guy. Be that guy.
None of this, the newsletter, the podcast, the community, runs itself. It runs because guys like you decide it's worth keeping alive. If you've got a little room this week, it helps more than you'd guess. If not, no hard feelings at all, just glad you're here.
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