Born For More

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Welcome to a Word in Season with Doug Stringer and friends.

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We share good news and godly wisdom to empower you to be salt in light in every season of life.

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Doug shared at the Christian Men's Network recently on how we are all born to serve.

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We are called by God Himself, set apart and destined to be world changers.

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Listen as Doug encourages us to keep our focus on the Lord,

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giving what we have with the right spirit and clean heart and watch what God does.

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After the episode, consider leaving a review and follow us on your favorite streaming service.

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If you cleaned anything from this podcast, consider paying it forward with a gift at somebodycares.org.

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Now let's join our host, Doug Stringer.

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Let me talk to you about Bubba. I met the real Bubba Gump.

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And after all the tragedies and all that's going on from Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton,

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we had teams in Georgia, Tennessee, throughout North Carolina, still do.

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There's one particular area called Arden, which is an area near Hendersonville and also Asheville,

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which you've heard a lot on the news. And we tried to go out to outerlying areas.

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And so there's a lot of people that were overlooked that still were up in the mountains and the Appalachians

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and in other places, in valleys that their homes were swept away.

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So there was a lot of needs to get out there.

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So we had a lot of volunteers, an army of volunteers that came out with all-terrain vehicles, trucks and so on.

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And we were able to get probably about 48 semi-trucks initially into Asheville area, into Arden,

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which was about $4 million worth of resources just because people working together.

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That's how the net works.

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How many of you know that if you go fishing with a fishing pole, you catch a fish?

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But if you become a net together, working together, serving together, being cast by the Lord together,

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we can do a whole lot more.

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Just in the first couple of weeks, we did over 20,000 hot meals in that one location.

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There was a guy named Bubba, one of my guys in Minneapolis.

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We have a group called Holy Smoke. It's not smoking cigars. I know some guys like to do that.

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But I'm talking about Holy Smoke, you must say, is all my barbecue guys from Minneapolis,

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Muncie, Indiana, from San Antonio.

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And whenever there's a crisis, they call, where do we deploy? Where do we go?

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And they go out and set up hot meals.

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And around the hot meals, we create the pods, the points of distribution.

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And so one of my guys in Minneapolis noticed a restaurant that they were using because the owner

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wasn't able to keep his restaurant open because there's no electricity.

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But he went ahead and paid his employees to keep working to volunteer for us.

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And then gave us his parking lot.

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So we did massive amounts of hot meals from the park a lot with our barbecue pits and the trucks coming in.

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My guy, Mike from Minneapolis, said, man, we have to cook a lot more meat.

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We don't have enough cookers. So he noticed a place across the street called Bubba's Barbecue.

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And he noticed a huge barbecue pit.

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And he said, man, I'd love to have one of those.

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He walked over and asked to meet the owner.

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And of course they couldn't open either.

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And he walked up to this guy and it turns out it's Bubba who owns Bubba's Barbecue.

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He goes, sir, how much would it cost us to rent your pit to start cooking extra meat

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because we're cooking so many meals and we have to step all night long to do it.

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And he said, absolutely not.

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So Mike was like, okay.

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And he goes, I grew up here. I live here.

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And you're serving my people.

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So I'm not only just let you use it, I'm going to help you cook on it.

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I'm going to serve.

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I was just there last weekend and I went to the restaurant that had initially let us use their facilities

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and outdoors with all the truckloads.

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It was packed, lines outside people trying to get in because it now reopened.

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And we left the place cleaner than when we started using it.

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And it was overloaded with people coming to give back to this restaurant

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that had given out of their own need.

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They served the community.

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When I went to see Bubba at his place, his place had people lined up outside.

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You couldn't get in.

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And people would come up to me and say, you know, it's hard to get anything here.

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He runs out of meat because people want to come and flood the place to order his barbecue.

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So here are the two individuals who turned around in the midst of their own need to serve the community.

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And today God is overflowing their cup with blessing.

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Amen.

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I've seen that time and time again.

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And I've said to many people, I go to people sometimes serving in churches or serving at conferences.

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And I'll walk up to them that maybe no one else notices.

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And I'll say, you know what?

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I just want you to know something.

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Some of the greatest miracles ever truly recognized are those who are behind the scenes serving.

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Like when Jesus turned water into wine, who got to see the miracle?

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It was the people that were pouring the water into the basins

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and found out that, wow, this turned into wine.

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That was a miracle.

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Oftentimes we miss our moments when we realize that in the midst of what we're doing as we're serving,

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we miss those moments of the miraculous things that God does.

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We've seen God multiply over and over and over and start to go up this down.

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Because I really believe this is true.

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Jesus was born to die so we could be born again, right?

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So that we could have life and life more abundantly.

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He was born to die that we may live.

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That we would have a purpose greater than ourselves.

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In Christ we are born to live.

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Look at someone next to you and say, you're born to live.

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We got to get past all these weights that keep us back.

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You can't change your past, but the decisions you make today and every day determine your future.

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You're born to live because Christ already paid the price for us.

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He went to the cross.

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It says, take up your cross and follow me.

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It didn't say take up his cross.

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If we will follow after him, we find that we have a purpose greater than ourselves.

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We're born to live and then we're born to serve.

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I realized when I had the epiphany from God in 1981,

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running a chain of fitness centers and opening my own place and went through all that I went through.

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And I won't tell those stories right now.

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Many of you know my testimony.

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But in the midst of that, when God began to speak to me and said,

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don't call me Lord anymore unless you're willing to live for me.

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And I had called him Lord many, many times.

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And you know when I had a gun in my face overdosing on PCP or going through difficulty,

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oh God, please help me.

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And he always bailed me out.

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But this moment, God said, don't call me Lord anymore unless you're willing to live for me.

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Now, I probably said that so many times, but that moment, something happened because I realized

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of all the numerous times and all the challenges and all the things I went through and all the times I beg God,

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God was saying it's time to grow up right now.

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It's time to basically man up, right?

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And I was 24 going on 25.

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And the Lord said, don't call me Lord.

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And I said, Lord, if you can do anything with someone like me who has broken your heart and brought shame to your name,

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I'll make myself available the rest of my life.

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Something in that prayer that God heard and he turned my world upside down.

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When we get an epiphany or we get this revelation of the work of the cross and the power of the resurrection,

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we now have a purpose greater than ourselves.

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It says in the book of Acts, it says that when Paul was relating to when he was Saul,

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that he had knocked off the animal and the Lord says to him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?

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Why are you kicking against the goats?

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And then he's blinded and he says, and then the Lord speaks to him and says, I've revealed myself to you with this purpose.

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Look at something next to you say, I have a purpose greater than what I thought.

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I revealed myself to you with this purpose to be a minister and a witness of the things you have seen and the things you have not yet seen.

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So the moment we get a revelation of the work of the cross and the power of the resurrection,

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the moment that Jesus invades our world and reveals himself to us,

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now in that moment we have a purpose greater than what we thought.

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We might be successful in a business.

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We might be successful in leading a church.

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We might be successful in doing whatever we do, but that's a part of our purpose.

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That's what we do, but that's not our greater purpose.

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We're to be men who let our light so shine before men that others may see the good works of Christ in us and draw people close to the Father.

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Jesus said that in Matthew 5.16, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and bring glory to your Father in heaven.

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So we have this newer purpose to be a minister and a witness of things we have seen and things we have not yet seen.

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What is that?

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When you get a revelation of who Jesus is and Jesus reveals himself to you,

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in that moment, regardless of what we do, it's now who we are in him.

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We're a men of God and we are called to be ministers and the Bible says,

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what is the minister?

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Not the person just behind the pulpit, but a minister of reconciliation.

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I don't want to get into politics, but the reality is this.

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Our nation has been so divided.

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And just like in the years ago in 2016, I was speaking on the seventh day of the World Series at a large gathering of people.

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I didn't think anybody was going to show up because it was the seventh day of the World Series.

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But the place was packed.

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The church was full.

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Now they did bring their paraphernalia.

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There were their baseball hats and shirts and jerseys of the team that they wanted to win.

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But I was glad they showed up in church.

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But I said, tonight, some of you are going to be ecstatic that your team won the World Series.

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But some of you will be brokenhearted.

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You'll be disappointed your team lost.

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But when it's all said and done, you will still be Christians, right?

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And I said in a few days, there's going to be a national election, much like we just had.

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Some of you will be excited about your political party that wins.

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And some of you will be very disappointed and saddened that your party lost.

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But at the end of the day, I can't speak to the world, but as Christians who are called to be ministers of reconciliation,

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crossing our racial denominational generational lines, and meet at the cross of Christ,

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because we have a purpose greater than what we see.

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We have a purpose greater than ourselves.

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We're called to be ministers of reconciliation.

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So we have an opportunity right now, because we're still Christians, right?

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We're still brothers, right?

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It breaks my heart to see families and brothers and people separated over those kinds of issues

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when we have something greater in a purpose to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ into a world that definitely needs a Lord.

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It's time to continue to walk in that place of what God's called us to do.

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So we're born to serve.

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We're born to live, we're born to serve, and we're born for more.

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I don't want to settle for mediocrity.

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I'm born for more.

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Now I'm not saying in walking in arrogance, I'm talking about humility and the fear of the Lord.

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God gives us riches, honors, and life for stewardship, not to circumvent humility and the fear of the Lord.

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But when we walk in humility and the fear of the Lord and take that posture,

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God, they can give us riches, honor, and life as a stewardship of the kingdom

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to advance the purposes of his kingdom and to see people's lives changed.

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How many other multitudes and multitudes upon the Valley of Decision right now?

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We have a great opportunity like never before.

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We're born for more, but we're also born limitless.

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I remember a time when the Great Evangelist deal Moody got a letter from Henry Varley that said,

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Moody, the world has yet to see what God will do if the man fully consecrated to him.

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And later deal Moody said this, there are no limitations to those who've been in the presence of the Lord.

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Now how many know that when you have been in the presence of God, when you are surrendered to the Lordship of Christ,

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you have a purpose greater than what you thought, you now are a minister of reconciliation,

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and it says to be a witness.

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There are true witnesses and false witnesses.

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The Bible says a true witness rescues lives.

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Some translation says rescues lives are saved souls.

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We're called to rescue our brothers.

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We're called to rescue families.

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We're called to rescue lives.

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We are CMN.

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We rescue.

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That's right.

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So we are called for more.

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We're called and we're born limitless because now we're not hindered by the things of our past,

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but we are now called by God to do something greater than what we could ever do alone,

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that we could ever do in our own natural capacity because we are men who have surrendered to God

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because we're born to serve.

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Amen.

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I remember this words by David Livingston, the great missionary to Southern Africa,

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and you know Livingston Zambia is named after him,

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but he used to say why is it when an earthly king commissions us, we consider it a great honor.

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But when the heavenly king commissions us, we call it a sacrifice.

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I remind that every morning, yes, we make personal sacrifices to be men, to be husbands, to be fathers.

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We're to do what God's called us to do, but at the end of the day,

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it's not really a sacrifice to serve and surrender to God.

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It's a privilege.

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Every morning I say, Lord, I know there's things I have to do that seem to be sacrificing in the natural,

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but I want you to know, Lord, I thank you because it's a privilege of your calling.

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I thank you, Lord, for your salvation and the privilege of your calling.

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I thank you that you've allowed me to be a part of the things that you're doing so I can serve you and love people.

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In my book, Mending the Net, Bringing Hope in a Hurting World,

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I talk about the search of a bride and talking about out of Genesis when it says that Abraham sent out a servant

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to find a bride for his son, Isaac.

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And I began to process that because it really is about serving.

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Because as he sent his servant, Abraham, being a type of the father,

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sending his servant a type of the Holy Spirit to find a bride of the church for his son, Isaac, which is a type of Jesus.

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And when the servant got to the place where he was looking for a bride for Isaac,

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he says, Lord, let it be the person, the woman,

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who when I asked her for a drink would not just offer me a drink, but all of my animals also.

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So he went specifically with the prayer and he gets there and he sees this woman at the well,

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and he walks up to her and says, would you give me a drink of water?

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She says, not only will I give you a drink, I will also give drink to all of your animals also.

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He had 10 drum dairies or camels.

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Every camel can drink up to 40 gallons of water.

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They didn't have water hoses back then.

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She was at a well having to give drink to not just the servant and his team,

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but also to all the drum dairies that could be up to 400 gallons of water.

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Now think about that for a moment.

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It wasn't just offering to be kind, what can I do for you?

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But it was actually doing something that went beyond the capacity of a normal person wanting to be generous or kind.

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Went beyond, above and beyond.

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And it was that woman that ended up becoming the wife of Isaac.

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When we serve, we don't recognize it in the moments of serving that God is watching, God knows,

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God sees and He's already doing something beyond what we can imagine.

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Like Dr. Cole used to teach that when you're going through something,

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there's been a snowstorm, whatever, instead of sitting there and having a pity party,

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or many like even in COVID, instead of sitting at home and feeling sorry for ourselves,

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or like when I went through to 80% aggressive B cell lymphoma cancer in 2015,

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I could have sat in my chair and felt sorry for myself,

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instead I asked God to give me the grace to keep traveling, to keep ministering,

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and said, Lord, if there's one more that you want me to reach, if you'll give me the grace,

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if I have one day, one week, one month, one year, 100 more years,

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I want to live every day as unto the Lord, because Lord, if I sit here, then the devil wins.

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But if you give me the grace and continue to go and do what you call me to do,

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then God, you and me wins.

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We're born to serve, amen?

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I like what Paul wrote back in 2018. He made a post,

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because I think this is significant, because serving also breeds trust.

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As I've been serving law enforcement and military around the country,

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even in other countries, most of them, military law enforcement, you know,

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have a wall up until you build trust.

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And as we've gone to serve them and give them devotion and to do roll calls,

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ride alongs with them at different law enforcement places around the country,

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they've been much more open. In fact, I was in one particular police department

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doing a roll call for them, where I share a little devotion between

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transition of staff, going into the next shift, and a person comes up to me,

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because I just mentioned that I was born in Japan, my mother was Japanese.

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And this law enforcement officer comes up, pulls me aside, says,

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may I have your phone number? I get a text. Can I talk to you?

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I was really touched by the fact that you're half Japanese.

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My father was born and put in an orphanage in Japan. He's half Japanese also.

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And I know it would mean a lot to him if you had visited him.

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He's become recently an amputee. They don't know how long he'll live.

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Turns out that law enforcement officer lives in my neighborhood.

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And God used that moment to begin to minister to somebody,

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not because I was some great oratorically gifted communicators,

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because I was able to serve and in serving it opened up trust,

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and trust then began to open up opportunity to minister.

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I've seen police chiefs around the country. I've seen mayors and county judges.

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I've seen people I would never have access to that contact us to go speak at their gatherings,

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because God has given favor to someone who said, I'll make myself available.

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I'm willing to serve. Serving opens trust.

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Here's what Paul said in January of 2018.

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Paul Cole, as a young boy and then a mature son, I watched my father live his life.

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Make his mistakes. Enjoy his successes and love his wife.

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The first thing I learned from my father that every husband should know is that we don't own our marriages.

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We're only the steward of our wife's love.

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He taught us how to love our wives and the most important thing a man can do for his children is love their mother.

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Interesting how that works for those who are married or even separated.

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Second, dad taught husbands you can buy your wife expensive gifts,

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but the most valuable thing you will give your wife is a good name.

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A man's name is only as good as his word.

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And if a husband does not keep his word, his wife will not want to keep his name.

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And then Paul says this, trust is extended to the limit of truth and no further.

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Your word is the true expression of your character and the sole source of conduct for your family.

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Your word is the foundation for the health of your family and spirit, soul and mind.

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When you keep your word, your family knows what to expect and your wife knows that she can trust you, Paul Cole.

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I liked that so well that I actually copied that back in 2018 and held on to it and I'd be sharing it today because I believe the most important thing here is if we show appreciation and we serve, it builds trust.

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And when we build trust, it opens access to ministry and the communication to that person, be it your family, your wife, your children, law enforcement, military, whomever it may be.

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People looking for something to believe in and someone they can trust.

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We gain moral capital through serving.

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Equity is gained and hearts are opened.

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I want to conclude in just a thought here because as I said earlier, he was born to die that we may live.

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I wrote these words probably back in the 80s and tried to live by them as much as I can.

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Obviously, I'm imperfect humanity, I had the frailty of my manhood, but thank God for His grace because the man of all men that I want to be like Jesus because he became a man for me, I can be a man for him.

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But I wrote these words down and I try to live by them.

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I've been quoted many times on this.

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While men reach for thrones to build their own kingdoms, Jesus reached for a towel to wash men's feet.

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While we pursue exalted and high places, Jesus, the exalted one, left his highest place to pursue us.

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There's something about serving.

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He came not for himself, he came to love us, to give his life for us, he came to serve us.

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There's something we can learn because look at the world we have right now and look at how so much, even in the church world, we're seeing so many things that are being highlighted, spotlighted.

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We're seeing people, institutions, even church institutions imploding.

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It breaks our heart because it brings an indictment to the church.

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But the reality is no leader, no man, no individual seeks to say, I can't wait to fail.

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How many of you ever get up in the morning, oh, I can't wait to fail today?

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No pastor, no business leader, no athlete, no one gets up and says, I can't wait to fail.

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It's not your desire to fail.

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God didn't put that in you to fail.

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You were born to serve, born for more, born limitless because God called you for something greater than yourself.

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So no one expects or desires to fail, but it happens.

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And we're seeing that, it lived out in front of us right now that every institution that can be shaken is being shaken.

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It is a privilege to serve God, but here's what I believe that God will help us to keep tethered if we're going to succeed.

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It's to keep our perspective and our focus on Him and not on the things of this world.

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Those are stewardship.

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I always tell those that relate to us, don't let the machine rule you.

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Meaning, don't let the ministry machine, don't let the business machine, don't let the machine rule you,

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that God called you to steward the machine.

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Institutions don't rule us.

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We are the steward institutions.

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Amen?

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Look at someone next to you and say, he's talking to you now.

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Here's what God is looking for us in men.

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I believe through my personal life and just observations of those who are successful is that we walk in humility and the fear of the Lord.

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I mentioned that, alluded that earlier.

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Humility and the fear of the Lord.

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Number two, we have a strong personal prayer life.

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I was just at a gathering with hundreds of thousands of people, I'm at gatherings all the time leading in prayer or speaking.

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And the fact is, it's not how I pray publicly, it's my posture privately.

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It's who I am as a man in private.

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You know, there are many times my daughter or my wife will catch me somewhere in the house where I'm hidden away on my knees.

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That example to my daughter and wife speaks louder than all the words that I speak.

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Our private posture has public influence.

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Our strong personal prayer, if we need to be humility and walk in the fear of the Lord, have a strong personal prayer life where we communicate with God.

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You remember Dr. Cole used to teach us that prayer produces intimacy to whom you pray, with whom you pray.

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And agreement is a place of power and for whom you pray.

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And Savos used to say in his book, Prayer Evangelism, talk to God about your neighbors before you talk to your neighbors about God.

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There are so many things we can bring at the altar of God in private that places it into our Holy Ghost mailbox so God can do a work far beyond what we could ever think or imagine.

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And the third thing about the kind of leadership God wants to raise up today in men is that we would have a kingdom vision.

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That it's not about me, it's about us.

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How do we serve one another? How do we link arm and arm together to reach more men, to reach more families?

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I remember driving with Dr. Cole back in the early 80s and going from city to city, we'd be in that blue van.

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And I remember after he'd get done ministering to a man and talking about the upcoming National Christian Men's event in 1984 and we were traveling around, he'd be exhausted.

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From city to city, you get into that van in the passenger seat and you would pull that seatbelt down, he'd grab his arm around that seatbelt, lean his face to the window.

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And he would say, Lord, just give me more strength to reach a few more men, to reach a few more families.

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At the end of the day, the kind of commanding presence that Dr. Cole used to have, that he would still take that private moment.

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Other things that I saw when traveling with him is when we recall to his room, he pulled that pillow down off the bed and he'd take the bed spread off and he'd take it on, put it on his shoulders, go to his knees.

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Because it was that place of the posture of humility and prayer, of a kingdom vision beyond himself, that he was asking God to do something greater than it could ever happen by himself.

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He knew it was going to take a kingdom vision. We're part of something greater than ourselves, aren't we?

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And the fourth thing I want to leave with us today is God wants us to move forward.

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If we're going to bring a lasting change and we're going to be ever born to serve, we want people to trust us and to follow with what we say, then we need to be tenacious, resilient and persevering.

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James chapter one verse 12 in the ESV English Standard Version says,

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And here's a word I know I always share something about Japanese culture and I talked about the Bushido code and the way of the warrior a couple of years ago, but there is a word that I want to leave with us today.

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And that word comes also, we can see this in Ephesians 6 and Isaiah 26, Proverbs 14, but it's the word rectitude.

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Rectitude was one of the things that were part of the Bushido code, the way of the warrior, the summarize.

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And by the way, there was Christian summarize hundreds of years ago that had a huge influence in the culture of the Bushido code today in Japan.

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I'm able to reach and minister to a lot of Asians because of the Bushido code.

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You guys said, you know, this really is scripture. It's not what you think. It's not Shinto. It's not Buddhism.

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It really comes from scripture. It's the Lord. And that word is rectitude.

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Rectitude is morally correct behavior or thinking, righteousness, morally correct, rightness of principle or conduct, moral integrity.

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Rectitude is to be guided with the moral compass, moral uprightness, moral conduct of righteousness and conformity to the love of truth.

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How many know we have to love truth more than we love ourselves?

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The Bible says in 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul says that if we don't have the love of truth, we turn over to strong delusion.

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We need a time right now for the discernment and the love of truth more than anything else.

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Rectitude is a respect for divine, natural and human laws.

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It's an uprightness and being honorable with integrity, honesty and justice.

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Ephesians 6-14.

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So stand firm and hold your ground, having tightened the wide band of truth, personal integrity, moral courage, around your waist and have put on the breastplate of righteousness, an upright heart.

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And finally it takes courage. It takes a benevolent serving heart because serving and benevolence attracts God's presence.

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And we also need to be those who honor everyone, even in our disagreements. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the Lord.

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And then we need to be a person and a man of honesty. It's hard sometimes to be brutally honest with ourselves, but honesty attracts the presence of God.

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And people need to see that we are men of loyalty.

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They will build trust by the way we serve, show honor and respect them.

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It's more about how we act in private, not so much who we think we are in public.

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Our private posture has public influence. Our private choices also have public consequences.

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If you want and love your wife and love your children, love those around you, that it's not always about what you say. It's who you are as a man in private.

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That attracts the presence of God, that empowers you to be born for more, to be born limitless.

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Because you are born to live and to do so we start by being those who are born to serve because by serving it brings equity and capital, moral capital by the ones that we want to minister to.

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Let's stand with me right now. Put a hand on your heart and raise the other hand to heaven.

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Say with me, Lord Jesus, I want to be the man who lives by fortitude.

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I know I was born to live because you died for me and gave me life.

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I'm born to serve. I'm born to live. I'm born for more and I'm born limitless.

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Do whatever you need to do, Lord, in my life to help me to be the man you called me to be.

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In Jesus' name, amen. Give a couple of high fives.

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you