You Are Made For More: Embrace Your Potential

Jul 12, 2026

Devotional

Sermon Summary

Bible Study Guide

Sermon Clips

47s
#StepIntoYourCalling
“``Maybe you're letting fear stop you from taking that next step. Maybe you need to remember who god says you are, or maybe you're just afraid to trust him. You know what you're supposed to do, but you don't wanna take that step because it's a little scary. It's a little uncomfortable. God wants you to know something if that's you. You are not overlooked. You are not disqualified. You are not forgotten. He's still working in you. You are not finished. He is not calling you to be like every single person around you, but he's calling you to be exactly who he created you to be.”
72s
#CallingOverFear
“But here's the thing I've realized. Most people don't miss their calling because the lack of ability. They don't miss their calling because the lack of potential. People miss their calling because they let fear convince them not to step out. Amen. convinces them right as they're about to step you're stepping down saying, you're not good enough. And then you go to step again. Someone else could do that. Step back again. It says, you're not qualified. It says, you're gonna step. Oh, you're gonna fail. Fear tells you to stay comfortable and play it safe. And, man, let me tell you, we are not supposed to stay comfortable. so that brings me to point three. Fear cannot cannot be louder than the calling. Fear cannot stop us. Fear does not have a say.”
44s
#SpeakFaithOverFear
“So this is what I would do. I would say, god, you haven't given me a spirit of fear. You've given me power. And I would physically say it out loud, I'd show off my muscles. I'd say, you've given me power. You've given me love and a sound mind. So with this power, I tell fear to leave. It has no right. So with the power you've given me, I say go. And instead, I receive your love and your sound mind. I receive your peace right now. I receive your love right now. This fear has no say in my life. And it changed how I fought the enemy. Not just fear. It it changed how I fought him in general because now I can take his word and I can say, uh-uh. This is my weapon. Yeah. And”
61s
#ListenToGodNotFear
“here's my next question for you to write down. Are you going to listen to fear, or are you going to listen to what god says about you? Are you gonna listen to fear, or are you gonna trust God? Because fear may be loud in a moment, but you have authority over it. Fear may speak, but it doesn't have to have a say. God has equipped you. He's for you, and you don't have to let the fear control you. I'm not gonna tell you how the movie ends. You're gonna have to come back and watch it. But, ultimately, in the finale, realizes something. She had nothing to prove. She simply had to walk in what was already inside of her.”
50s
#TrainYourFaith
“I still do this today, and the fear doesn't always go away right away, so I do it again and again because that's that discipline. Right? But here's the thing, instead of focusing on the fear, I focus on his word and what he's already given me the tool that I can use to stop it. Instead of agreeing what I'm feeling, I agree with what god's word says. And it changed how I fought the enemy. Because did you know if you say it over and over enough, your your body and your mind's gonna line up with it eventually, but you gotta keep doing it. You have to remember your training and not let fear hold you back. Because with God, you're stronger. He's equipped you. He's for you. And with him, all things are possible.”
64s
#CharacterOverTalent
“Wake up call, it's not about you. We just sang about that, about our life being on the altar. It's not about us. It isn't. But what we're supposed to do is take up his cross, expressing a willingness to endure whatever may come because things will come. But we follow him. That's the whole purpose. We have to make a choice to do what needs to be done when god places something on our hearts to do it. We've got to put the work in. Because here's the thing, your gift could open a door, but your character and your disciplines are gonna determine how far you go. Because that door might open and you might step into it, but if your character's not good and you haven't made the disciplines, you're gonna fail. Or maybe you're gonna do it and you're gonna have to run really hard and you're gonna burn out. If you're not prepared, it's gonna be hard. It's not gonna be easy.”
57s
#GodSeesPotential
“See, I wonder how many of us have ever felt like David, overlooked, underestimated. Maybe people made assumptions like his family made assumptions about him because of where he'd come from or where you've come from, where what you've done, the mistakes you've made. But aren't you thankful that god doesn't evaluate us the way people do? people define us by our past, but god calls us according to his purpose. People see limitations or put limitations on us when god sees our potential. People see who we are today, but god sees who we can become when we surrender fully to him and we say yes. Yes. That's who he sees. He sees the potential.”
58s
#CommunityMatters
“Nothing changed about who Aquila was. Right? What changed was the people around her were coming to help her. She had her teacher, her professor, her coach, her friends, her family. People just in the community were coming to encourage her and challenge her, refusing to let her quit. Because sometimes god gives us a gift, it's not always about the gift. It's about the people that help you succeed in using that gift. The people around us are gonna help us. In the same way, god never intended us to walk alone. We need people to pray with us, to encourage us, to challenge us when we drift because we're gonna drift. We need people to remind us who god says we are when all the voices start trying to cloud our judgment.”
40s
#BiblicalCommunitySpeaksTruth
“And that's the thing is biblical community doesn't tell us what we want to hear because a lot of times we wanna hear what we wanna hear. We'll even phrase our question in the way where they have to say it, like, what we want to hear. Biblical community tells us what we need to hear even if it hurts. And we've gotta be okay to hear the hard things. You've got to have some trusted people in your life that can you allow to say the hard things that know that you might get mad in the moment, but then you're gonna come back and you're gonna follow-up after you've calmed down and recognize that truth.”
77s
#RecognizeGodsVoice
“we cannot let fear hold us back, and that's what many believers get stuck on. As you do the work, you prepare, but then when it comes to taking that step, you let fear convince you and say, start talking louder than god's word saying, you're not good enough. You can't do it. Don't step out. Stay comfortable. Do this. Do that. Do that. Whatever. It gets really loud. It's chaotic. But then you had god's voice in the midst of that voice that is still and quiet but it's powerful And god's voice is saying, you're strong enough. You're prepared. I've equipped you. I've called you. I'm with you and will be with you the whole time. Amen. That's what god's saying, but he's not gonna scream it at you because, again, with those disciplines that you created, you should know his voice. Just like a mama calls your son, you always know when your mama calls you. Even if it's loud. You know your mom's voice. We have to know god's voice just like we know our mom's voice.”
70s
#GrowWhatsInsideYou
“And so I have three questions that I'm gonna give you guys at each point, and I want you to write it down. And I wanna encourage you this week to ask God these questions. In your quiet time, ask questions. So this question is what is inside of you that God wants you to begin growing and stepping into? Because there's something there. What is inside of you that God wants you to begin growing and stepping into? And with that, it brings me to my second point. Number two is growth requires discipline and community. Something we're gonna have to recognize is that gifting alone is not enough. We might have talents and giftings, but alone, we're not gonna accomplish what we need to do. We're not gonna accomplish what we need to do if we're not putting in the work. Gifting alone is not enough.”
70s
#DisciplinesBuildDestiny
“We're gonna have to create disciplines. We're gonna have to do training. We're gonna need correction. Oh, we're gonna need community, people to hold us accountable because here's the thing, when we decide to step out in faith and pursue what god's calling us to, we're gonna have to recognize something. Growth requires effort. I don't know if you've ever tried to do something. You're like, I can do this easy. Uh-uh. Like, if I wanted to, like, go build something, there's no way I could do it without some help or some training. But it all starts with our relationship with god. We have to create disciplines to get to know him better so our faith is strengthened. So then when we go to use those gifts, we can be used to our full potential. We've gotta spend time in his word. We've got to spend time praying and talking to him. We need to worship him. We need to be obedient, and most of all, we've got to be consistent because we don't like to be consistent, but that's how disciplines are created. And you're probably like, Lauren, disciplines, I hate that word. Well, guess what? I get it.”
76s
#IntentionalMorningRoutine
“The the little decisions we decide to make every day prepare us for the bigger opportunities God's gonna place in front of us. But if we're not being responsible with our time, our thoughts, our emotions, the things that we're doing every day, like how many times you pick your phone up or how many times you go to the fridge and open the door and there's no food so you just close it, You might not be ready when the door opens. We have to create habits that help us to accomplish the task that god sets before us. For me, it starts with my relationship with him. every morning when I get up, one of the first few things I do is I read my bible. I did it this morning. I read my bible after I let the dog out. I sat down and read my bible. And then I usually put worship music on, and sometimes I worship, sometimes I just pray, and then I start getting ready. And I even have this thing where I don't usually listen to to anything besides worship music until after lunch, because I wanna intentionally create my work environment and my my spirit to be ready for whatever might come. I wanna be intentional.”
72s
#WordsHavePower
“Yes. Words have power. And most of us have been shaped by the words that were spoken over us, either by people or by ourselves because who knows? We could be our worst critic. Many of us have heard things like, you're great. That you're not great. We've heard you're smart. We've heard you're qualified or you're disqualified for that. We've heard all kind of things said about us. Right? Right? And if I'm being very honest, a lot of those words that have been spoken to us that we have heard and we've received aren't the good words. They're the bad ones, And those are the ones that create doubt. Creates confusion, distractions. It tears us down. Like I said, the most important word that's ever spoken over us isn't about what others have said. Right? Right. It's about what god has said about us, and he has said so many things about who we are. But that's challenging. Right? Right. It can be difficult.”
84s
#BelieveYourCalling
“We struggle sometimes to believe it. There's a difference between knowing something and then actually making it, like, known in your heart. And I think so many times in the world, we spend most of the time focusing on fear versus the potential of what we could do, we all do it. Honest with yourself. We've all done it. We've all been scared. We've all been like, I can't do that. And we live beneath what god has placed within us because we let fear and insecurity in comparison where we came from dictate who we are when that's not who we are. We cannot let the lies of the enemy and the doubt and confusion be louder than who god has called us to be. What we've gotta realize what you have to realize is what has god actually placed in you that's been there the whole time? If what's holding you back isn't the lack of an ability, but the lack and belief of who God has already called you to be, the gifts that he's given you, the things that he's told you that you can do, but you're like, I don't see it. I don't believe it.”
61s
#FaithAndCommunity
“Because here's the thing about stepping out into your gifts and letting god use you is that when you do that, the enemy is not going like it. The enemy is going to try to stop you but you want to know why he's doing that? He's doing that because he sees how many people you can reach, how many people you can bring into the kingdom of god and he says, hey. And by the way, he doesn't have a lot of power. But with the little power that he does have, he says, I'm gonna try to make this not happen. But what's so cool is that with godly disciplines and godly people in your life, it's gonna be really hard for you to be defeated. It's gonna be 10 times harder to be defeated when you've created those self disciplines and you have a godly community surrounding you because if you know his word because you've been grounded in it, you're gonna know what to use against him. If you have people around you, when they see that you're struggling, they're gonna say, hey, stop it. This is who you are. In”
69s
#ArmorOfGodsWord
“So notice what Paul's saying. Fear doesn't come from God. What comes from God is power, love, and a sound mind. So when fear starts to be loud and chaotic and distract us, we have a decision to make. What voice are we gonna listen to? Are we gonna go back to his word and use that to help us? Growing up, I dealt with a lot of fear and anxiety, and this passage was one I held on to tightly. My parents are Charles McGee actually printed it for me, and I had it, like, on my bed and in my binder. Like, I had it all over the place. And then I remember a few years ago, I think it was my grandpa. He told me, you can take god's word and you can, like, put it on like armor. You know how, like, we put the armor of god on? He's like, you can use it because it's a weapon. And so he was like, take it and actually put it on. So this is what I would do. I would say, god, you haven't given me a spirit of fear. You've given me power. And I would physically say it out loud, I'd show off my muscles. I'd say, you've given me power. You've given me love and a sound mind.”
59s
#SeenBeforeYouSee
“See, Akila didn't believe in herself, but somebody else believed in her first. Before she saw the potential, someone else had to show it to her, and that's exactly how god works. God sees potential before we do. There's so many people in the Bible that god used that were like, I can't do that. They wouldn't have even imagined they could do anything, and one of the people that I that comes to mind is king David. Everybody knows who king David is? And so we see the first time we see David is that he's overlooked. His father doesn't see him as important. His brothers, he's not even important enough to, like, be called to come to this important meeting where a huge prophet is coming to talk to his family. Instead, what they see is a shepherd, the youngest son, who doesn't matter a lot, and he's just gonna keep the sheep even though there's this huge family gathering happening, and he's not invited.”
73s
#ChooseGodsPromises
“And so as I wrap up, I wanna give us all an opportunity to respond. Because like I said, our relationship with him, it's a relationship, so it's two sided. So he's been talking and speaking to us the whole time, which means we need to respond back. Right? And so this whole time, we've talked about how people see the potential. Sometimes we even see it. We just start ignoring it. We've talked about how growth requires self discipline and community, and we've talked about how fear is gonna try to stop us and be louder than everything else. And the truth is a lot of us feel that way sometimes. I feel that way this sometimes. And maybe you've spent years focusing on what you lack versus what's inside of you. You've been listening to fear, anxiety, comparison, failure, disappointment. You're limiting yourself and allowing your past to define you versus letting God's promises define you. Maybe you feel overlooked, disqualified because of the mistakes you've made, the where you came from. Maybe you've given up on something God has placed in your heart, a dream.”
57s
#RememberWhoYouAre
“Akila, just so you all know, is at the national spelling bee. This is the biggest one. The pressure's enormous. It's live on television. There's thousands of people watching. It's a bigger stage. The stakes are higher. She has every reason to be afraid, and you see her battle that in that moment at the beginning. She's like, can I do this? And then she sees her coach, and he goes, you got it. See, she made a decision to remember who she was versus let fear have a say in her life. She didn't suddenly become more gifted. She didn't suddenly become smarter. She didn't suddenly learn something new. What changed was she didn't allow fear to stop her. She didn't let the lights and everything happening around her. The chaos stop her.”
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