BraveMen S3E71: Paul Louis Cole - Power of Potential

Everything God does, He does according to a pattern based upon a principle of His kingdom. The more we base our life upon principles and less upon personality, the better our life will be. My name is Paul Cole, this is the Brave Men podcast. I want to talk as we launch 2021, close the door in 2020. I want to talk about a few things today. I want to talk about Joseph and his dreams. I want to talk about the opportunity you have in the potential of this year. And that opportunity is to create something out of the dreams that God has put in your heart by faith, basing your life on the core values of the kingdom of heaven. You see, dreams are the substance of every great achievement. This is part of the series called The Power of Potential, which launches January 11th on YouTube Live, Facebook Live. And we call it Monday Night Mint. Every Monday Night at 8 p.m. Eastern. Is that Central? Yeah, it's Central Time. So 8 p.m. Central Time, 9 p.m. Eastern. That's it. Every Monday Night, we're on live. I'll be teaching The Power of Potential. It's about 28 minutes long. And then if you're a pastor, leader, or you've just got friends, you can go on Zoom or something else, and Google whatever, and talk to each other about it, discuss it, and pry over it. So in a sense, it's like a men's ministry in a box. It's being handed to you. But it is one of the most powerful books that we have ever produced out of Christian men's network. You can find it at cmn.man, cmn.man. And The Power of Potential, the beauty of it, is it's filled with hope. Filled with hope, because it talks about fulfilling our dreams. You see, if a man has a dream, he's got hope. A man without a dream begins to live without hope. He's hopeless. He has no dream for the future. A man with a dream has a purpose to every day, why he wakes up. See, God gives us dreams. I want to give you one right now, in terms of the last days, because I hear a lot of prophecies. And then we'll go to the open, and I'll hit some stuff from The Power of Potential book. And it's great to spend a little time with you right now, just you and I. And that next week, we've got a great interview. Just talk with Darrell Young yesterday. After that, who's the football player? He's in the head office of the National Football League NFL. Share that, John Gordon. A number of great friends coming up over the next couple of months. But launching this year, I wanted to do this. You and I spend a little time together. I was reading early last year, and I heard a lot of prophecies out of all the pandemic and everything that was happening. I heard a lot of prophecies about this. This is what's happening, and here's what's going on. And it kind of shook people. There's going to be rights in the streets, and then there were, and it's going to be, you know, everything's going to be upended. And if you will, fear became the pervasive atmosphere of our culture. Fear. We became fear-driven. Everything we did was shut yourself in a cave, lock yourself away, quarantine. It reminds me of Saul when they came up against Goliath. And he said to his men, he said, everybody in the tents. In other words, he quarantined his entire army. And Peter preached something on the day of Pentecost. I wanted to just direct your attention to it. You know, at the start of last year, Romans 1513 came alive, and the passion translation in my life. And it was something I shared all year on, a Facebook live, and different podcasts. And it was this. Romans 1513. Now may God, the inspiration and fountain of hope. Remember faith is made up of hope. Romans, excuse me, Hebrews 12 says that faith is the substance of things hoped for. Hope is so powerful, it makes faith. So check this out. Now may God, the inspiration and fountain of hope, fill you to overflowing with uncontainable joy and perfect peace as you trust in Him. And may the power of the Holy Spirit continually surround your life with His superabundance until you radiate with hope. That's Romans 1513 in the passion translation that you would radiate with hope. Now here's what Peter said. And he said it on the day of Pentecost. And it's a word of hope for you and me. And it's something that I grabbed hold of, I guess about halfway through the 2020 portion of the pandemic. It really stirred my heart and gave me great hope because it was a prophetic word for the last days. It's a prophetic word of what God does in a generation when everything looks like it's in total chaos. See, I don't believe the sign of the last days is rights in the streets. I don't believe the sign of the last days is everything in your life and my life going upside down and going to hell. I believe that the last days are going to be like this. Watch this. He says this in Acts 2 verse 17, Peter stands up in preaches and he uses a text from the prophet Joel. So in other words, he's using a proof text for those listening that they already had memorized. They knew about it. They trusted it. And it says this, this is what this is God speaking through his prophet. This is what I will do in the last days. This is what I will do. So here's the word of God says what he'll do in the last days. And this is why I believe 2021, 2022, we can grab a hold of our dreams and go after them because God says this is what I will do in the last days. I will pour out my spirit on everybody and cause your sons and daughters to prophesy and your young men will see visions, your old men will experience dreams from God. The Holy Spirit will come upon all my sermons, men and women alike to prophesy. And you know what prophesy means, speak words of life. That's what it means in the new covenant. Second covenant, I will reveal startling signs and wonders that mighty miracles in the earth below. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. So the sign of the last days is the pouring out of God's spirit on the whole earth, everyone. And it will be signs and wonders. And I believe that's where you and I are at now. The Monday Night Men, Power of Potential Studies starts January 11th and you can access it at any time on YouTube. You can go back and see the strong men and tough times that we've done to never quit study. You can grab ahold of this as some churches had. You may be starting February, you grab ahold of the first ones, show it. However you access it, access this and let it build faith in you because dreams are the substance of every great achievement. But we'll only dream dreams when we believe there is hope. And that's what Power of Potentials about every Monday night, 9 p.m. Eastern. I want to go into it. I'm going to give you an overview of that. But let me just finish this little opening segment with this. The sign of the last days is not everything going to hell, but heaven being established on the face of the earth. This is Brave Men. I'm Paul Cole. It's Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Wisdom encouraged for the journey. The Power of Potential was a book my father, Dr. Ed Cole wrote a few years ago. It has principles and core values in order to establish the dreams that God's placed in us. See, I believe according to Ephesians 2.10, it says, you're my masterpiece. I created you for good works from before you were ever born. I believe every single person as they grow up gets dreams in them. Yeah, I know we all wanted to be a football player or a fireman or something like that where we were young. But there are dreams in us as we mature. We begin to look at what are the skills that I have? What are the things that are in my mind? What have I been positioned towards? That's why when we talk about fatherhood, we talk about a proverb says, raise a child in the bent of their life or raise a child in the way they should go when they're older, they won't depart. That means you put faith in Christ with the bent of their lives, not the bent you think they should have. But what is it that God has placed in them? For those dreams, we talked about it in the start. The power of dreams are the dreams are the substance of every great achievement. And let me say this and write this down. A dream without a date is just a fantasy. A dream without a date is just a fantasy. Power of potential deals with the life of Joseph. And Joseph had dreams, shared them with his brothers. His brothers got jealous. He probably wasn't the wise thing to do as a young man. And he was the youngest in his family. And he shared this dream of being a leader. And what he didn't realize and what he learned over the next couple of decades is that to be a leader is this, leadership is not based on directing people or being a general of something. All leadership is based on serving. You're only qualified to lead to the degree you're willing to serve. Jesus came and taught serving. He didn't teach leadership in the sense of what we think positional. He taught leadership in the sense of who we are in our hearts. That we're willing to serve others. Bible says that Jesus came to serve and that his serving qualified him to lead. His humility strength under control. His humility qualified him for the cross and the cross qualified him to defeat death. So when you and I talk about leading our families, it really is about ministry of serving. And the power of potential speaks into that. This is an amazing study. Monday night men. If you can grab that on YouTube, just type in Monday night men. And you'll find it there. You'll find last year we did strong men and tough times and we did never quit. And this year we're launching a year with the power of potential that everything in life has potential. You see the images in our mind. And this is chapter six. Chapter six. I'm going to give you a little overview and kind of create if you will a sense of, yeah, I want that. And you can find it at cmd.men. We have the book and the workbook. This is these materials are the most widely used resource materials for discipling men within the context of the local church in the entire world. It's the most widely read time proven men's discipleship model in the world. It's strong, sustainable, synergistic. Everything we do with the christians network. We desire to be measurable proven. And then it's reproducible. So it inspires us. We can measure that in how our lives come out, pulling men together in the church. You know, the stat I've seen is we go through this pandemic is that 30% of the men who used to go to church will no longer go to church. Now as a pastor and a leader, no matter where you are right now listening for you and I, no matter where we are in our local fellowship, whether we're in some sort of leadership or maybe we run the sound or whatever it is, we have to be concerned about that. But these are men who are just falling away 30%. So that means our men are under attack. What's going to change that? It's going to change if you and I are discipled and if we help the disciple other men. You know, you can have great crowds with great sermons, but you'll never change a nation until you disciple the men. That's what the whole thing is about. Monday night men, power potential, getting to disciples, getting in our lives where, you know, it's kind of like I talk with in a couple of weeks talk with Daryl Young. He was a full back and a linebacker played at Villanova, had a great career there in the national football league, NFL had a great career there. There's a thing you can't think about. You couldn't stop and think, okay, I'm about to run into this guy and I'm helping block on a particular play. You just had to react based on your training. In other words, how you've disciplined yourself. So to be discipled means that we put into our hearts the things we want to do under pressure. Pressure reveals a man for who he really is. Pressure doesn't make a man. It just shows you who you are and where you're at. And at that moment of pressure, man, I mean, I have had times where I did not react very well under pressure. And it showed me, I mean my limitations and where I wasn't yet. And in all the things I thought I was under that moment of pressure or in the midst of chaos, bam. It's like this whole pandemic. How negative can we get sometimes? I mean, we get so full of fear. It holds us back. So power potential is about releasing the fear, getting out of this thing and creating an image of the presence and the power of God in our lives. So chapter six is about images. One of the most powerful things you can do in life is create an image. The next most powerful thing you can do is destroy it. So here's Joseph. He gets an image, a dream and it becomes the driving force of his life and he never lets go of it. One of the things we talk about in chapter six and it'll be session seven and going through the power potential, the opening session January 11th is the introduction to the whole thing and then the following week. And so it basically goes from January 11th right up to the week before Easter will be that whole session of power potential. I believe it's going to be life changing. It's going to set some of us free to go after some dreams that you know that we're deep inside of us and maybe fear stopped. And maybe it wasn't just fear out of the pandemic. Maybe it's something that happened years ago. You see because we get knowledge through our whole life. We start when we're young to read and to write and all of that. But the impressions that happened before we're 10 years old become a become a major part of the images we carry forward with us. Whether we believe we can do something or can't do something or we'll try for a better job too often the reason that we don't start a business or go for a better job or increase our savings the things that we know we need to do is because we have a poor self image. And those formative years the issue is what's this statistic it says says that 90% of all abusers were themselves abused. So as a child that image came in and he hated it because he kept it in his heart didn't forgive we all know the principle of released if you release it you don't become it. But if you keep it in your heart you become what's in your heart proverbs four. So that positive or negative that happens by the time you're 10 is something you begin to act out until you find conversion in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ that's the whole process of following Christ does not just about oh hey follow the golden rule it's about getting my mind transformed getting this crap that the world puts on us and and it happens just the the the the the breed of living life. You know what that is I mean we've lived through a lot of stuff right I mean it doesn't matter if you're 25 or 55 stuff is happened in your life and living through that if we're not careful that debris gets on our windshield causes us to not steer or navigate properly and we begin to react based on negativity rather than the positive word of God. So following Jesus Christ is about the transforming and the renewing of our mind so we go after the fullness of why we were placed on the earth. So images so important that's chapter six and we talk about those who succeed in life people who succeed in life have a healthy self image and those who fail have a poor self image. So the kingdom of heaven and the word of God isn't just about oh hey do the right thing when you get tempted it's about having an image in your mind of who you are who God is and gives you the power and a strength to go after through the temptation through the adversity through the issues of life to go after why you were placed on the earth. And then chapter seven is talking talks about leadership and in the pain of leadership and about Joseph and what he went through and how he gets not only tempted but then how he gets falsely accused. How do you go through that you and I all of us if we're alive when we've lived more than 10 or 12 years on the face of the earth we've had some sort of betrayal happen. Somebody that did something wrong to us something that wasn't fair it wasn't right but but Joseph man he got falsely accused by a woman who said she that he attempted to rape her and it wasn't true. She was just she wanted him but he he wanted to stay righteous and when he wanted to stay righteous the unrighteous hate the things that are righteous. Those things in the darkness hate the things in the light I mean that's his Galatians Corinthians you can go right on through Paul Paul's teaching about about that warfare that we're in. And so living as life as a man like Joseph did he had to push through that how did he do it. He had to live based on truth and in practice truth but he hadn't know it that's why we do the power potential every Monday night at 9 p.m. Eastern. I've mentioned before I'll mention it again see him in dot men is the website on YouTube type in Monday night men on Facebook and go to christian men's network Facebook find find it there. And on YouTube you can go back and you can watch the series get the books and materials that see him in dot men. One of the keys that doctor goal talked about in the book is this is the man pastor who said to him one day said I'm not practicing what I preach I'm preaching what I practice. In other words what we have to do is is live a life that has the consistent internal compass that says this is the right thing to do. So you can live four levels of life I talked about truth a minute ago the Joseph committed to truth and lived on that but most of us live on assumption well I think that's going to happen where we live based on luck. Well I hope this is going to happen that hope is really a fantasy you can live in the basis of assumption you can live on the basis of knowledge that's facts. So you can know what to do it doesn't mean you did it then you have skills which means you put it into action but practice putting all of that together is how to live our lives and it has to be based on truth every leader or teacher is limited by three things in life the knowledge of your mind the worth of your character and the principles upon which you've built your life. Too often we make athletes heroes and in making athletes heroes they let us down so often because they're the heroism of that bad is based on their talent not their character and their talent can take them beyond their character. So that's chapter seven let me give you a quick overview of the entire book and it's in the epilogue of power of potential and if you haven't written it down or remember that it's cm.man get this thing this this entire studies we go through a week by week is going to build in you a foundation for going after your dreams man. It's it's really really powerful and that's what Joseph did Joseph had a dream his brother sold them they betrayed him they sold him in the slavery in the midst of famine and everything else Joseph becomes the salvation for his family. They Joseph's brothers accused them accused him of not loving them well that wasn't true he he loved them so much he was willing to go through all of the issues and end up being the salvation for his family at the very it's an amazing story an amazing story. One thing that that doctor Cole talks about is he talks about being loving and being committed to truth at the at the diametrically opposed to being nice I think of Paul Cochland's book no more Christian nice guy and and that whole niceness thing hey I want to be a nice guy I want to be a nice Christian. And and doctor Cole says this says I'm not talking about he's I'm not talking about being nice it's courteous or genuinely I mean he says the kind of nice I have a problem with is that kind of nice it's bland palliative insipid sugar coated sweetness it's like artificial God's called this to be the salt of the earth but if we're with loss that consistency of salt what good are we. And being nice is not always being loving and being loving this not always being nice sometimes we have to speak truth in love it's important doctor Cole told it told the story about the man who it was trying to be nice trying to be nice as mayor trying to be nice work trying to be nicer where else and he ended up being absolutely messed up and he felt like everything was his fault and what he came to was a an understanding of hey I'm rejecting all that false guilt that's been put on me the accusation of the enemy that I'm that I'm not enough because that poor self image caused this man to not go after his dreams. And so the conviction of sin is not an evidence of God's displeasure but of his love. That's that's the key right there so Peter talked about it as we talked about second in Acts 217 Peter talks about preaching that multitude and it says you know pull back from those things that are ungodly and that temptation the accusation everything is about and the power potential comes back to relationship with God everything comes back to that. The vulnerability being open with him and openness with God and the whole the whole key is that God has no plan for failure for your life is committed to him. Everything in life has potential but it has to be developed it doesn't just happen that's called so being a disciple means discipline going after the thing. The purpose in we talked about image a minute ago the purpose of Jesus Christ coming to earth was to become the image of God for the world to see the image of God and that image that creating an image in us pulls us towards him. In fact the image that people have of who Christians are will either attract or repel them. I think sometimes we've created images that don't attract men to God. You either master your passion or the passion will master you these are some of the things we would go through in the power of potential true joy is born out of sorrow. We're going to have some issues we're going to have some some things that knock us down but the stalwart man when he gets knocked down gets back up. Joseph was an overcomer and God wants you and I all of us to be overcomers. You see in the life of Joseph it becomes evident that God is more concerned about delivering us to our destiny than just delivering us from our past and that's a key to our lives. Power of potential is going to be a great thing every Monday night if in fact if you're listening to this sometime in the middle of 2022 you can go back and find these teachings of the power of potential starts January 11th be live on YouTube every Monday night at 9 p.m. If you're a pastor a leader listening to this right now go to see him in dot men get the materials and just go to the Christmas network of Facebook and then we've also got to it's on Instagram you know all that social media stuff. Man I sure love talking to you with on brave man we've had some great guests this past year if you would like we sent out to all of our friends of digest of the entire last year of programs everything of all over north to different to Mario Davis with the New Orleans Saints align backer and right on down the line everybody that we talked to it's been a remarkable year but this year power of potential man there's nothing stronger. And nothing that has an image for me of the dreams that God has for this year in the next couple years than the power of potential Joseph went to jail he went through hell he held on to his dream he didn't let go don't let go of your dream because your dream like Joseph's will be the salvation for you and your family don't live a small life live a large life let the moments stretch you so that increases the capacity so that your level of faith become stronger and stronger in the days ahead. Man I love hanging out with you and we got some great guys coming up interviews teaching times got Doug Stringer coming up a number of others that we have on the podcast but brave men is about building us as men of courage. It's not just about introducing you to brave men and they all are but it's helping us become why God and who God has planted on the face of the earth. You're the right listen let me tell you something you're the right man to be on the earth right now God destined you to be alive because there's a purpose in your life that he has that establishes the kingdom of heaven. You're part of that you're alive right now on purpose I remember a guy saying one time man I should have been born a hundred years ago I would have been better off in that culture and I said if you were born a hundred years ago you wouldn't be you did be somebody else. So you're alive right now as you to be to be the exemplification. The manifestation of the love of God on the face of the earth you're the right man at the right time right now and I prophesy over you if you commit to the word of God to times and prayer I want to tell you something brother your life this year will be stronger you'll be able to withstand fear you'll be able to withstand the attacks of the enemy and you will rise up and end this year stronger than you began it. And stronger than you were last year because God needs warriors like you who will rise up and fight for the next generation and for the establishment of the kingdom of heaven on the face of the earth my name is Paul Cole this is Christian men's networks podcast program called brave men. It's been great being with you remember hope is alive hope as a name hope's name is Jesus bless you. You just experience brave man with Paul Lewis Cole Paul is president of the Christian men's network connect with Paul at cmn.man or write to him at Paul at cmn.man.