Discrete and continuum Liouville first passage percolation (DLFPP, LFPP) are two approximations of the conjectural $γ$-Liouville quantum gravity (LQG) metric, obtained by exponentiating the discrete Gaussian free field (GFF) and the circle average regularization of the continuum GFF respectively. We show that these two models can be coupled so that with high probability distances in these models agree up to $o(1)$ errors in the exponent, and thus have the same distance exponent. Ding and Gwynne (2018) give a formula for the continuum LFPP distance exponent in terms of the $γ$-LQG dimension exponent $d_γ$. Using results of Ding and Li (2018) on the level set percolation of the discrete GFF, we bound the DLFPP distance exponent and hence obtain a new lower bound $d_γ\geq 2 + \frac{γ^2}2$. This improves on previous lower bounds for $d_γ$ for the regime $γ\in (γ_0, 0.576)$, for some small nonexplicit $γ_0 > 0$.