Louie Giglio - Opinion is on the Mic
I don’t know if any of you are my demographic, but around the '80s and '90s, a format took hold in radio called talk radio. It didn’t start in the '80s and '90s; it started in the '20s and '30s but sort of exploded in the '80s and '90s. Anyone old enough to remember when talk radio began taking over our lives? Names like Rush Limbaugh became household words.
If you didn’t like Rush, maybe you liked Howard Stern. If you didn’t like Howard Stern, perhaps Don Imus in the morning. If you lived in Atlanta, Georgia, and you’re my age, you spent a lot of time in the car with Neal Boortz. If you don’t know that name, it just means you’re younger, but if you do know that name, it means that you were commuting during those 45-minute to hour-long rides in Atlanta around the time I was driving downtown to Georgia State or back and forth to church downtown from Smyrna. Maybe you didn’t listen to Neal Boortz, but perhaps you logged some time with Clark Howard. Anyone? Herman Cain? Anyone?
When you add it all up, a lot of younger people are like, «I have no idea what you’re talking about right now. I have Spotify, and that’s what I know; I don’t know anything besides that.» But there was a time when you were in your car, and more than likely, you had on a format that is still called, to this day, talk radio: all news and all talk. That means you can turn us on at any hour of the day or night, and someone is talking, telling you what they think about whatever the current subject is. They’re going to have a guest on after the break; we’re going to have a panel after the next break, and then we’ll open it up and take calls from our listeners.
There’s nothing better than the moment they take the calls from the listeners. You knew this was going to be great: Sheila from Hateful is on the line, and you’re like, «Alright, what do you have for us?» Dan from Cedartown is on the line, and you’re like, «What do you got?» When you have all these random people calling in, you have this multiplied panel of guests, and the host is the kind of guy that can talk for three hours and say nine sentences over and over. It dominated life for a lot of us for so long. I would hate to think about how many collective hours we’ve spent listening to all talk radio or all talk TV news—we’re talking, for a lot of us, thousands of hours of opinions.
Opinions are on the mic, and an opinion is defined as a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty. That’s why, in some cases, when you’re making a massive decision and you get an opinion—even though the person who gave you the opinion is an expert—you seek what we call a second opinion. Why do you do that? Because an opinion could come from an expert, but it’s not sufficient enough to qualify as absolute truth. If it were, you’d say, «Great, we’ve got our opinion; we’re ready to go.» But instead, you think, «Hey, that’s a great opinion, and you have a lot of credentials, and you come highly recommended, but we’re still going to get a second opinion.» And we might even get a third opinion because this is a really big decision.
That aspect of opinions is good because the Bible says there’s wisdom in a multitude of counselors. But that’s not the opinion we’re talking about today. Today, we’re discussing the opinions that comprise the world we live in: the echo chamber, if you will, of talk radio that has become our lives. Today, you and I must ask the question: What opinions have made it into our story, and are there some opinions that need to be out of our story? To ask it a different way: Was something said to you or about you that still shapes the way you see yourself? Was there an opinion given about you that has, over time, morphed into your own opinion of yourself? Or do you live from what God says about you, or are you living for what you need other people to say about you?
These are the markers that let us know that when an opinion gets on the mic, it can have a devastating and long-term effect on who we think we are and how we operate in life. God has some great news for us today, and it all rests on two big ideas: one of them is guard, and the other is garner. So let’s start with the first one: guard. The way we get opinions off the mic is by learning to guard our hearts. That’s the first big idea today. You and I have to take up the responsibility to guard our hearts. If you have your scripture, I want you to look at this text. We were in it a few weeks ago, but I want us to unpack it a little further today: Proverbs chapter 4, beginning in verse 20.
The writer says, «My son, pay attention to what I say; listen closely to my words.» That’s the passage we talked about early on: the commodity the world wants from you right now, even more than the payment from your debit card, is your attention. That’s how everything is set up now because we’re screen-oriented people. Your screen runs an algorithm that’s carefully calculated to get your attention. I don’t know exactly how it works; it’s a little scary. If you talk about wanting to learn how to wakeboard this year, lo and behold, you’re going to have ads for wakeboards and wakeboard boats all in your feed for the rest of the week because the powers that be know that’s what you’re interested in right now. They’re going to drop that in so you can click on this site, go to this link, follow this trail, and give us your attention. Because when we give attention through a comment or a click or by following down that trail, it ultimately results in dollars and cents for somebody. God understands that our attention is a valuable commodity, so He says at the beginning of this text, «Pay attention.» See the commodity there? «Pay attention to what I say; listen closely to my words.»
I’m just thinking about how if I had an equal amount of the input of God’s Word in my mind and in my life as I had over the last 12 months alone of listening to the opinions of people talking about the various subjects of our lives—the hundreds of hours we invested in 2020 listening to opinions—what if we had invested hundreds of hours paying close attention to what God has said? He says, «Do not let them"—these are my words—"out of your sight; keep them within your heart, for they are life to those who find them and health to a man’s whole body.» Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. He finishes by saying, «Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; keep your foot from evil.»
The key phrase we’re resting on today is verse 23: «Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.» I want us to talk about that for a moment. That’s the first of the big ideas: guard your heart. It’s interesting how this instruction comes to us, highlighting the proactivity of this instruction. We see all throughout scripture that God is promising to guard us. «I’ll protect you; I’ll cover you; I’ll shield you; I’ll be with you.» But here He’s saying, «But you have something to guard too. I’ll guard you, but you guard your heart.» In other words, «I’ll cover you, but it’s up to you to guard your heart.»
Here’s why you want to pay attention to that instruction. Whatever flows into your heart is what’s going to flow out of your life. He said, «It is the wellspring of life.» So it’s not necessarily just our human heart, although you want to guard that too, but you also need to guard the heart of your thoughts, your mind, and your emotions. Why? Because if you squeeze your thoughts, mind, and emotions, the life that comes out is what’s in there. You’ve got to be careful about what comes in because you can’t change it magically with a filter when it comes out. In other words, you don’t put the filter on the outflow; God is saying to put the filter on the inflow. Guard what gets in, and if the right things get in, you won’t have to worry about what comes out. He’s telling you and me today, «I want you to take up the responsibility to guard your heart because your life is going to flow out of whatever you have allowed into that space.»
This is a powerful idea, and what He’s basically saying is you’ve got to take back control of the mic. If you’re going to guard your heart, especially from opinion, you have to take back the mic. We talked about guarding our hearts from fear two weeks ago, guarding our hearts from comparison, and now guarding ourselves from opinion. An opinion is anything contrary to what God thinks, and that’s what we want to guard our hearts from. We’re looking for that person in our life. I don’t know if you’ve seen them before, but they are always in the equation, and their leading line is, «Well, I’ll tell you what I think.» You know that guy? Or are you that person? They’ll ask, «Do you want to know what I think?»
In our minds, we have to adopt an on-guard mentality so we don’t go, «Yeah, sure, I’ve got an hour; tell me what you think.» Because I’ve already been listening to what they think and what they think and what they think, and whoever was on the mic, I heard what they thought. No, when someone says, «Hey, do you want to know what I think?» you need to say to yourself, «I’m going to guard my heart right now.» So internally—and I might need to say it externally, but for sure internally—I’m saying, «Yes, I’d like to know what you think. If you’ve been saturated in God’s Word, centered on God’s will, filled with God’s Spirit, and concerned about the best in me and the best outcome for God’s glory, then yes, I’d be open to hearing what you think. But if those other things aren’t true, no, I’m not really that interested in your opinion because I’m on a mission right now, and my mission is to guard my heart. I want to make sure I put the filter on the inflow so that I get the life God wants me to have at the end of the day.»
So we’re guarding against these thoughts and opinions that are contrary to God’s view. Where are they coming from? They’re coming from four places. They are coming from the enemy; he is filled with opinions about you. They’re coming from our inner circle—our friends and family—where there are tons of opinions about you. They’re coming from the court of public opinion. Right now, in the world we live in, everybody apparently gets an opinion about you and can comment on some platform to let you know what their opinion is. Then the fourth place these opinions are coming from is inside our heads. In other words, the opinions we have formed about ourselves, the opinions we’ve formed about our lives and about our purpose—oftentimes, those opinions are contrary to God’s thoughts about our lives as well. He says to the enemy, your inner circle, the court of public opinion, and what’s coming from your own thoughts, «Guard your heart and make sure only the things that align with God’s purpose and God’s will get through to you.»
And so that’s what we’re going to talk about for a moment: taking back the mic and making sure the message on the mic is the voice of God. Honestly, making sure that if I get on the mic, I’m repeating the voice of God that’s been on the mic. How do you do that? Well, I’m going to give you a couple of practical ways. And if you’re leading an organization, this is also a really, really good way to lead a meeting. Not a meeting of six people, but if you’ve got a team meeting or a meeting with 40, 50, 60, or a thousand people, this is the way I always would organize a team meeting, including practical steps about how to fight against these lies or opinions that are always wanting to get in the story.
The first thing I do in a team meeting is the first thing we want to do on a Thursday: we want to open our story by planting a powerful story. In other words, when you walk into a meeting, you don’t go, «Hey, everybody! How’s everyone feeling? Anyone got anything they’d like to say?» That’s not how you start a meeting. You start a meeting with, «Hello everyone! I’m glad you’re here today! We’re going to talk about X, Y, and Z, and I’m going to open it up for some people to share. Would anybody like to share?» «Oh yes, you’re going to share!» Why? Because I picked you before the meeting! Why did I pick you before the meeting? Because I heard, through someone on our team, about a phenomenal story you were involved in that will benefit our entire team. When I heard it, I said I want the whole team to hear that, and I decided you would go first in the meeting today. Because before some other joker got on the mic, you were going to get on the mic. Before somebody else set the tone, you were going to set the tone. «Does anybody like to open?» «Yes, you would like to open!» Thank you! Then they say, «Yes, we have an amazing story on our team in Cleveland:» blah, blah, blah, blah, blah happened last month, and all of a sudden this week everyone says, «Wow, that’s amazing!»
The first thing you’ve got to do as a leader is set the tone. You’re not making stuff up; you’re not planting false stories; you’re simply identifying the right stories and putting them at the lead of the pack. And so you pre-plan. What does that mean about Thursday? It means on Thursday, you don’t wake up and just turn on the mic. On Thursday, you plan and plant a story of opinion on the mic of your life that you know is a God story and a good story. A story that’s going to lead you to life and not death, that’s going to give you meaning and purpose for that day. You don’t just wake up and say, «Well, I’ll turn on the radio on the way to work,» or «I’ll turn on the radio while I’m in the shower,» or «I’ll listen to the news while we’re having breakfast and just see what opinions are flying around today.» You start and plan with a great story.
The second thing you do in a great team meeting is let people share; you want to hear other stories. You want people to feel like they have a voice, so you say, «Would anybody else like to share?» But when you do that, you always do it with boundaries. You say, «Hey, we’re going to open it up for anybody to share, but please limit it to two minutes, or please limit it to a minute.» What are you doing? You’re just putting a boundary there; you’re trying to say, «I’m interested to hear all kinds of stories from our organization, but nobody is going to do an hour-long presentation if that’s what you were thinking, because this isn’t the place or time for that.» So I’m going to put a boundary. Everybody gets a couple of minutes.
Here’s the thing about guarding your heart: to guard your heart, you have to create and understand the power of boundaries. You have to take charge of the boundary, because other people are not going to care or respect what you feel is the right intake for your heart. So you’re going to have to decide: where is the boundary line? And you’re going to have to feel empowered to do it. A friend of mine has a big public persona, and 2020 was a year when everybody decided to go berserk on social media. It was a scary place to be for a minute, and this person finally just wrote a little memo and put it right in their feed. They said, «Hey, happy to have anybody comment on my feed and my platform,"—that was underlined—"but there are a few simple rules.» I thought, «Man, I’m already interested in this!» Keep it on subject, keep it short, and keep it civil. In other words, «This post isn’t about that, so thank you, but don’t comment about that here. This post is not about that.» If you want to comment, that’s great, but we’re not looking for books and publishing material here. It’s social media, and keep it civil.
He said, «Oh, by the way, if you can’t do that, I’ll happily block you.» You know what I felt when I read that, even though I respect this person a lot and want to adopt all of that? I thought, «Ooh! Block you? Oh, what a bad guy! Oh, you’re afraid of anybody? You’re going to block somebody?» I thought, «Where did that come from?» Do you know what the block button is? It’s a boundary. It’s saying to people, «I’m taking charge of the intake of my life, and this is my platform, not your platform. On my platform, I’m guarding my heart, and I’m doing the best I can to guard the hearts of all the other people who might travel through here.» Because God is guarding me, but He’s giving me the stewardship of guarding my heart.
I’m therefore going to have to create a boundary. Why? Because other people don’t care about boundaries. They don’t care about your heart; they don’t care about the intake stream; they don’t care about the tone; they don’t care about the tenor. They’re not going to be rolling in saying, «I should probably think about some boundaries here because I’m an adult talking in a public space.» No, they don’t think that way. So you have to create the boundary, and it’s not just something like my friend did here. For some of you, in your inner circle, you’re going to have to decide, in 2021, there’s going to need to be more margin here and more space here. You were in my inner four, but now you’re going to move to my outer nine. You were in my outer nine, but in 2021, you’re not going to be in any of my circles. You are related to me, but we’re going to limit our dialogue, because I love you, but I’m also guarding my heart, and I’m going to have to create a boundary here.
This is what every leader would do in a meeting. Starting over, it seems simple now: everyone can talk, but you get one minute. It’s taking that principle and expanding it to say, «If I’m going to guard my heart, there have to be boundaries that I set for myself and boundaries that I establish for other people in my life.»
The third thing we always laugh about in meetings here is that, when you do open up the floor and you say everyone can share, you also have a rule: never let go of the mic. Do you know that rule? It’s like, «Oh, you’d like to share? Great! Come!» And as soon as the person comes, you know, most likely, they’re trying to get hold of that microphone. That’s fine; you can hold it, and I can hold it, but we’re both going to hold it. What does that mean? It just means that sometimes people will have a tendency, without knowing it, to take the two-minute boundary we had so we could have a healthy meeting and turn it into a 26-minute story, and then we’ve lost all the atmosphere, direction, and focus. So you keep your hand on the mic, so that when the appropriate moment comes, you can say, «Wow, that is so great! Can we all thank Shirley for that brilliant insight?» Then you wrap it up, «Does anyone else have something they’d like to share? Remember we’re trying to keep our stories to two minutes?» Great! Awesome! I’m holding the mic. Why? Because I’m guarding my heart.
So take it out of the meeting for a minute. Translate it into your life—how do you hold the mic? Well, Jesus gave us a pretty amazing picture of this, and he’s such a good role model because he knew what God wanted him to be about, but Jesus himself had to constantly guard His heart, especially from the opinions of other people, because every one of His days was talk radio. He had to make sure He kept control of the mic. I love this story in Matthew 16. Peter has been a hero, beginning in verse 13; he knows the right answer. «Who do people say that I am?» Then he said to his followers, «But who do you say that I am?» Peter said, «You’re the Christ, the Son of the living God.» And Jesus affirmed that. «You know, flesh and blood didn’t reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven.» «And you’re Peter, and on this rock, I’ll build my church, and the gates of Hades won’t prevail against it.»
Beautiful story; Peter feels good, and everyone’s excited. Jesus is affirming, «You’re one of my guys! I’ve got 12 guys; you’re one of my three guys! You’re in my inner circle, so you’re close by, and I’m counting on you.» But the very next verse, the very next phrase says, «From that time on, Jesus began to explain to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law; that He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.»
Now, you and I think that’s a great plan. Thank you, Jesus; that was the plan. Peter saw it differently. Verse 22: «Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him. 'Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you! '» And then one of our all-time favorite verses: verse 23. «Jesus turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me. Why? Because you do not have in mind the things of God but the things of men.'» What He was really saying was, «Your opinion is different than God’s agenda. Therefore, you’re going to have to get in the back, and I’m not suggesting that you start making a habit out of telling your friends tomorrow, 'Get behind me, Bob.'»
But I am suggesting that the opinion of man has to get behind the opinion of God, and that happens when you never let go of the mic. You say, «Thank you for that; I appreciate that. Thank you so much for calling, texting, coming by my office, or sending me that note; that was awesome and amazing; thank you so much!» «I’ve still got the mic; can we all thank Peter for that brilliant insight?» Now you’re going to have to get to the back, because everything that’s not God’s agenda goes in the back, and God’s agenda for my life—Jesus was saying—stays in the front. He was guarding His heart.
The last thing you do in a great meeting after you’ve done all that, of course, you’ve done some other things and cast some vision, explained some things, gone over some reports, blah, blah, blah, but you wrap up with a positive and inspiring landing. You save the best for last. That’s what you’ve got to do on Thursday. You’ve got to start with a plan and a plant. You’re going to start with something positive today, you’re going to set boundaries, and you’re going to keep hold of the mic. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to end your story with something positive that God has spoken over your life.
You’ve got to guard your heart, but the second word is garner. What are we garnering? We’re garnering God’s opinion of us. You’ve got to take the time to immerse yourself in God’s agenda for your life and the attitude of God about who you are. Otherwise, you could live your whole life on one sentence from somebody else.
I’ve told this story many times here at Passion City Church, but I can’t get into any message around opinion without coming back to this moment. I was around 30 years old, maybe 31. Shelley and I were living in Texas at the time; we had a campus ministry that was sweeping across a college campus there, and I’d gone to speak at a youth event not that far from our house, maybe just an hour away. There were several thousand teenagers there. I was just finding my voice as a communicator. I’d spoken in the morning session, and we were having lunch afterward with some of the leaders of the camp—the conference—and some of the other speakers. We were sitting; I just remember sitting at a picnic table. It was me there, a guy there, a guy there, and a guy there. That’s what I remember. I can’t remember any of the people’s names, and who they were; I’m sorry if you remember that you were there at the picnic table; it was a long time ago.
I just remember we were in the middle of eating, and this guy over here says to me, «So Louis, what do you see yourself doing in 10 years from now?» I didn’t have an answer to that, so I was thinking about it for a second before I could come up with some response. And before I could even formulate three thoughts in my mind about what I might say, this guy across from me answers the guy and says, «Well, I’ll tell you what he’s not going to be doing in 10 years from now.» I was like, «Oh, okay; this is going to be helpful information. I’ve been asking the Lord for guidance, and maybe I’m about to get it right here through this guy.»
So this guy says back to this guy, «Well, what’s he not going to be doing in 10 years?» «Well, I’ll tell you one thing: he’s not going to be pastoring a local church.» I was like, «Hmm, okay, that doesn’t bother me. I don’t know what you were going to say, but that didn’t really freak me out too much because I’m not pastoring a local church right now. Sheila and I are part of a growing movement, and we sort of have an entrepreneurial spirit.» My best friend growing up, his dad was a pastor of a local church, and so, even though he was a mentor and I respected him, I also saw what he had to deal with up close on a daily basis because I was in and out of their house a lot, and I knew what pastoring a local church was all about. So I was like, «Okay, that felt pretty good.»
By now, the guy says back to him, «Well, why don’t you think he’s going to be pastoring a local church?» So they’re having a conversation about my future at this point. I’ve decided I’m just going to kind of listen and eat because I’m hungry. So I’m eating my lunch while listening to these guys talk. The guy says, «Well, I’ll tell you why he’s not going to be a pastor of a local church. Because nobody would want to hear a guy like him preach every single week.» I was like, «Wow, man, I’m not great, but I’m not terrible.» And the guy says, «Well, what do you mean by that?» He says, «Well, he just comes in and tells it like it is and drops the mic, and people don’t want to hear that every week. Nobody would put up with that every single week.» And he was right. At that point in time, I didn’t know how to steward my gift, and I didn’t have enough brokenness in my life and enough humility in my life to really steward my gift well at that season, and so he kind of was right in a way.
But the other guy said, «Yeah, I can kind of see that he probably never will be the pastor of a local church.» They had the most robust conversation about me over lunch. We left lunch, and I didn’t think about it again because I thought, «No skin off my back. I’m just going to go right back to our campus ministry, and we’re going to plow more and more years into seeing a campus change,» which morphed into us moving to Atlanta and Passion Conferences starting. I didn’t really think much about that guy until about 15 years later when God started nudging my heart with a call: «I want you to invest your life in leading and planting a local church.» I was like, «No, I’m not able to do that; thank you, but now I won’t be doing that.»
Why? I’ll tell you. «One thing, he’s not going to do it.» Fortunately, God was greater. Shocker, huh? Oh man, I had matured a lot in time, but not so much so that it didn’t take about two or three years for God to peel the layers off of that moment at that picnic table so that I could finally say out loud, «God is calling us to plant and lead a local church.» The deal-breaker or the game-changer in the court of public opinion was when God finally got through to me and spoke into my heart, «Louis, that guy said that about you; I never said that about you.»
I just want to encourage us today: as much as we’ve got to guard, yes, guard against the enemy; yes, absolutely guard against our inner circle people; yes, for sure guard against that guy in the court of public opinion; and yes, guard against our own thoughts that don’t match up with God’s thoughts. But to do that, we have to garner, which means to gather and store up what is God saying and thinking about me. For the psalmist said in Psalm 36:9, «For with you is the fountain of life, and in your light we see light.»
So what does God want you to put on the mic? I want to give you seven things. We’ve talked about them in different ways in the past, but I have a feeling one of these is telegraphed to you by the design of God’s Spirit, and this is God’s thinking. I would say it’s God’s opinion, but God’s opinion is higher than opinion. God’s opinion is actually absolute, unchanging truth. And this is what He’s saying about you:
1. I am worth Jesus to God. Is that for anybody in this gathering today? Because what’s been on the mic and has been in the story is that you don’t matter; nobody cares; you’re insignificant; nobody sees you; your life is incidental. You’ve let that voice of opinion domino into your present moment, and underneath it all, you still don’t feel worthy. And God is saying, «I’ve got an opinion that needs to get on the mic. Here’s the opinion: you are worth Jesus to God. There will never be a person, a success, a victory, an opportunity on planet Earth that’s going to top that. God thinks you’re valuable enough that a King came to rescue you.»
2. No harm has been done to me that can’t be overcome by the love God has for me. No wound, and yeah, the wound sliced deep. No words, even though the words pierced and burned. But no harm has been done to me that can’t be overcome by the love God has for me. Yes, it was real; yes, there’s a scar, but God is greater, and the relentless love of God can overcome whatever has been done to me.
3. There’s sin on my record, but my record has been blotted out by His blood. I love this—Isaiah 45:25. A lot of you, the opinion on the mic is your failure: two times strikeout, everybody knows what you did: shame, guilt, condemnation. Your record is your record, but you need to know there’s a new opinion. Heaven has a view, and heaven’s view is yes, for sure, there’s sin on my record, but my record has been blotted out by His blood.
4. If God says, «I can,» say it with me: «I can.» What God says I have, say it with me: «I have.» You’re going to have to get these people off the mic that told you, «Oh, you’ll never be able to do that. You’ll never break free. You’ll never overcome that. You’ll never go to grad school. You’ll never be that. You’ll never break your family’s patterns. You’ll never accomplish more. You’ll never get out of your dad’s shadow.» You need to get that off the mic and get on the mic; He said, «I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.» If God says I can do it, I can do it. If God says I have it, then I have it, and I’m going to operate in the opinion of heaven over my life.
5. I am on an essential assignment from God. Get that opinion on the mic. I want to be, «I’m between jobs.» No, you’re not. Well, technically I am because I’m not working there, and I’m not working here. Okay, great. So technically you are between jobs, but while you’re in between jobs, you’re still on an essential assignment from heaven. «Well, I’m in a weird season right now because, you know, my degree is in electrical engineering, but I’m working at Target.» You may be working at Target, but I promise you, the God of heaven has an essential assignment for you at Target. And while all your friends can talk about is what the last pointless thing they did and what the next pointless thing they want to invite you to do, you’ve got to have in your mind, «I’m guarding my heart.»
And I’m sorry, I’m not going to be able to waste a weekend with you guys because I’m on an essential assignment from God. There’s a reason He created me; there is a purpose spoken over my life; there is a calling on me; there is a gifting in me by Almighty God, and my life matters. Cities depend on my life; nations depend on my life; families depend on my life; the future depends on my life; heaven depends on my life; and God’s glory depends on my life. The plans of God on earth include me. I encourage every 20-year-old to take a deep breath of that. Every 30-something, take a deep breath of that. Your life matters, and it’s not about the next text; it’s about the one you already got from the King of the universe, who said you’re on earth for a purpose.
6. I’m not the sum of my wins and losses. I’m a loved son of the Most High God. I want to keep this in rhyme, or you might want to read it this way: I’m not defined by my best or my worst; I’m a loved daughter of the Most High God. Can I just say, gentlemen, you’re not defined by the last deal you closed or the last one that blew up in your face? You’re defined as a son of God. Get it on the mic!
7. Lastly, here’s an opinion. Do you want an opinion? Do you want to get an opinion on the mic? I get an opinion on the mic. God is greater than my circumstance. You know our circumstance right now, Louis; it’s rough. I don’t, but I know God does, and I know it’s not going to stop Him from loving you, leading you, and using you, and fulfilling His purpose for you. So we need to get the message off the mic that says, «Man, you know, we’d like to serve, but it’s a rough season. We’d like to be more generous, but it’s a rough season. We’d like to believe in God and be a part of His story, but it’s such a rough season.» And the only thing on our storyline right now is the season we’re in, and the only thing that gets the mic right now is the cancer, or the rehab, or the divorce, or the joblessness, or the tension in our family, or the depression. That’s all that gets the mic right now, every time we’re together. That’s all that’s on the mic.
God doesn’t want you to minimize the difficulty you’re walking through right now; He just wants you to maximize your understanding that whatever your circumstances, He is greater. That’s the opinion of heaven. You’re not going to get washed out by the circumstance; God is going to end up using the circumstance to accomplish something great in and through your life because He’s greater.
Guard your heart? That’s up to you. You’ve got to start guarding it well, but garner His opinion of you and get it on the mic.