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Part 16 of 16
Devo Energy // with Pastor Mike Jr
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Before we step into a new year, I want us to step into a new mindset. Not hype, not emotion, but . That's what's important here.
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Last year, we embraced the word thrive—to remain focused, faithful, and fruitful in spite of our circumstances. That was powerful.
But I want to give you a shift that the Lord showed me going into 2026. Bishop Jake said something this morning that really blessed my life: "Back in the day, I thought we were blessed because of the in spite of. But now in this season of my life, I believe we're blessed because of because of."
It wasn't just that we endured the pain. The pain itself made us who we are. When I look back over my life, it was the hurt, the betrayal, the mistakes, the bad decisions—these things made us who we are. Although I prayed saying, "God, I'm going to thrive in spite of," I believe God is so calculated that He understands: You won't even realize it's a 'because of' until you get a mindset that says 'I'm going to do it in spite of.'
The word for 2026 is Become.
I believe what the Lord is doing in our lives is tantamount to what He has done. And here's why that matters: as we become—and this is critical—God has placed us in a season where we have to evolve over exist. Too many people are just existing. It's our season to evolve.
When we hear "evolve over exist," it speaks to a refusal to settle. Many people, if they're not evolving, they're not truly living. God did not call us to simply be birthed on this earth and exist. He called us to live and have life more abundantly.
Here's something powerful: we idolize achieving, and if we're not careful, we focus so much on what we want to achieve that we abandon who God is calling us to become. People can take what you achieve. They can diminish your achievements and say you didn't earn it, that you were given it. But they can never take who you become.
God is not blessing the version of you that you're trying to revive. He's shaping the version of you that you're becoming. This is not a season of recycling. I'm not telling you to go back and get the version of yourself that you liked. I'm telling you right now: God's not blessing the version you're trying to revive. He's shaping the version you're becoming.
Becoming starts with surrender. It requires discipline. It reveals purpose. It develops spiritual endurance. And becoming brings transformation, not modification.
Step into this year ready to be shaped, not entertained. God is forming something in you that the world cannot take away.
When Paul says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind," he's not telling us to try harder. He's telling us to think differently.
Many people are exhausted by February, by March, because they step into a new year trying harder but thinking the same. Your transformation isn't going to happen solely because of effort. It's going to happen because of a cognitive disposition—a decision to think yourself forward instead of trying to work yourself out.
You cannot evolve while maintaining the same patterns that kept you in survival mode. Too many people are living in survival mode. When I say "evolve over exist," I'm saying we need to break free from survival.
Surrender means doing less so that God could do more. It's giving up so God can give in.
I think of the great wrestling stars and their signature submission moves. When they execute that move, the opponent must tap out for victory to happen. In 2026, if we're going to become who God has called us to be, we're going to allow ourselves to start tapping out.
John Cena just retired after a 30-year career built on the motto "Never quit." But in his final match, caught in a submission move from Gunther, he put a smile on his face and tapped out. It was so poetic—him saying, "I could keep fighting, but I've come to the realization that this is over."
Many of us are exhausted because God is saying: I know what I could do with you, but it's My way, My thoughts, and what I desire. In this season, if we're going to become, we must anchor our whole year on identity, not image.
Who I've been speaks to history, patterns, habits, wounds, wins, and labels. Who God always knew I could be speaks to design, destiny, and divine intervention.
Many of us live by image—our patterns, history, wounds, perception. But God is telling us to live by identity—who we were destined to be, who He called us to be. God's not going to bless who you pretend to be. That's critical.
Becoming requires discipline, and discipline is the renewal that gets us there.
Think of calling your children to come to you. Sometimes you want them to teleport there, but it takes time. As long as you see movement and footsteps getting there, that's what matters. Transformation doesn't start with arrival. It starts with movement. It doesn't start with hype. It starts with rhythms.
When I hear the word "discipline," I think "disciple." In order to be disciplined, you have to be a disciple. If I'm going to get my body right, I have to become a disciple to a trainer. I have to surrender my will to somebody who knows what I can look like. They look at me and see the potential—the six-pack under the flab. The question isn't "Is it in there?" The question is: Will you surrender? Can you be disciplined?
Friedrich Nietzsche said, "Become who you are." At first glance, it seems contradictory—how can you become who you already are? But there's something deeply spiritual in this.
We have a divine blueprint. God has already encoded in us who we're supposed to be. But through trauma, adversity, challenges, culture, and influences, we become somebody different. Becoming is about returning to who God designed us to be from the beginning.
Friedrich Nietzsche said, "Become who you are." At first glance, it seems contradictory—how can you become who you already are? But there's something deeply spiritual in this. We have a divine blueprint. God has already encoded in us who we're supposed to be. But through trauma, adversity, challenges, culture, and influences, we become somebody different. We survive and adapt to our circumstances, to our environment, and lose that original intent and original design.
When we think about purpose, it is becoming who God always intended for us to be. That purpose was in us when God said in Jeremiah, "Before you were in the womb, I knew you." When we step into purpose, it is really about remembering and uncovering—almost excavating. You're digging underneath all of those layers to uncover the real you that got buried beneath all of the things you had to survive through just to exist.
Becoming is going from that existence to the excavation part where you're digging away all of those layers, and then you evolve. That's where you can build on the foundation and step fully into that purpose. We are already designed for something great. We are already purposed. We are already known. Becoming is closing the distance between that original blueprint that God has had for us and the edited version that life actually produced.
Identity starts before activity. Everybody's ready to do, but nobody's ready to settle in being.
When we think about spiritual endurance, it's about embodiment—the idea of actually living into what God has called you to do. God is saying, "You've always known it. You've always felt it. You've always seen these glimpses of greatness. Now it's time for you to actually embrace it."
It's about being held and being secure in who you are and what God has called you to be, and being sustained in that. Hebrews 12:1 tells us: > Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
Yes, you're going to have trials and situations, but those are the things that make us. It's that moment in time when you look back and say, "Yeah, this was really hard. This was awful," but in that you learned something—and taking that and applying it into what you're becoming.
The key is: become, but don't lose your thrive.
Modification is a minor change. Transformation is a drastic or total change. What's amazing is that when Romans 12:2 uses the word "transformed," it's metamorphal in the Greek—where we get our English word metamorphosis. That's the process where a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. It's not something that happens minor; it's something that happens drastically. Nobody has to tell the caterpillar when it's time. Something in that caterpillar knows to change.
Many of us fail because we think we can make minor modifications when God wants major changes. We change our hair but don't change our mind. We make surface-level tweaks when God is saying, "I want your heart this year. Not just your activity. I need your attention. I'm not sure if I'm in your heart."
Become. This is so important because what we need is to evolve over exist. When we evolve over exist, that means to stop living off muscle memory and start living off spiritual intention.
We're coming off autopilot. Many of us are living spiritually the same way we drive to and from work—on autopilot. You know the route you're going to take. You already know where you're going to stop and get your Starbucks. The Lord is saying, "No, I want you to evolve." The scripture never calls us to be on autopilot faith. The scripture calls us to be intentional about our transformation.
Samson is the perfect example of someone who lived off muscle memory. God gifted him with strength, but he stopped living with intention. The text says: > He did not know the Lord had departed from him.
How do you not know? He was in autopilot in such a way that he didn't even realize God wasn't with him. He could sing so well that he didn't realize God wasn't in the song anymore. He preached and performed so well he couldn't even tell that the power of the Holy Spirit was gone. He kept shaking himself expecting old results from old habits. That's existing.
Samson had a calling, but he never cultivated it. The scripture says he awoke from his sleep. Samson was asleep—literally asleep in Delilah's lap. He had gotten comfortable in a place he was never intended to be and had fallen asleep. When he awoke, he did not know that the Lord had departed.
Stop. Wake up. Too many people are asleep. We're sleepwalking in the spirit. We're sleepwalking in our homes. When's the last time you checked on your child's room and saw what was going on? When's the last time you sat down with your spouse and asked, "Are we good? How do we feel? How are we doing?"
We sleepwalk thinking our church is so great we don't have to pray about it. We sleepwalk thinking "whatever I put out is going to hit." That's existing, not evolving.
Daniel shows us what evolution looks like. Daniel lived with intention in a culture designed to dilute him. Samson shows us what it means to sleepwalk. Daniel shows us what it means to live with intention.
Daniel was in a culture where it would have been easy to settle, because while everybody else was being ridiculed, he was favored. Many of us let favor fail us. Favor can make you comfortable. "I'm out of shape because I'm favored. God has His hand on me. I can get it together."
When they tried to feed him the king's food, he resolved to not defile himself. When they outlawed prayer, Daniel opened his window and still prayed. He didn't drift into his devotion. He decided his way into devotion. That is a decision that you make. I decided. I decided.
Paul isn't telling us to try harder. Paul is telling us to think differently. Transformation does not begin with effort. It begins with renewal.
Listen to this: the effort that you're putting in is null and void if you don't renew your mind. You cannot evolve while maintaining the same patterns that kept you in survival mode. Evolve over exist. Stop living off muscle memory and start living with spiritual intention.
Most of us end up plateauing because we never keep pursuing renewal. We settle for relief instead of renewal. Relief is when we have the mindset of "God, just get me out of it." Renewal is "God, equip me to have strength to be able to be all you've called and equipped me to be while I'm in it."
If we're going to become who God has called us to be, we have to let go of who we used to be. You cannot become all of who God has called you to be while holding on to the old you. Paul says in 2 Corinthians: > If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone and the new is here.
We can't say we're excited about a new year while holding on to old habits.
Most people plateau without realizing it. They hit their ceiling without knowing it. This is the danger of becoming comfortable with a version of yourself God never intended to be the final version.
Plateaus are subtle. They feel like peace, but they're really a pause. It's so easy for us to plateau. We've got three services that are filled. Church is great. And we think, "What's better than this?" Then we settle. But you can like the level five version that you are when God is saying, "You know what? There are seven more levels in you. There are seven more levels in you."
When Israel wandered in the wilderness, they were moving but not progressing. They walked in circles for 40 years. Their feet were active but their faith was neutral. Neutrality is when your life is in a gear but your spirit is not engaged.
You still come to church. You still believe, but your hunger is gone. Your expectation is low. You maintain instead of maturing. The Bible uses a word to describe being neutral: lukewarm.
Jesus literally says: > I wish you were hot or cold, but because you're lukewarm, I spit you out my mouth.
He's saying, "I can deal with someone who's on fire for me. I can even deal with someone who may be backsliding, going the wrong way. I have grace for that. But when you choose to stay stuck in the middle—not even pursuing going in the direction, or having no actual movement with no improvement—I can't even taste this. I'd rather spit you out of my mouth."
Paul tells the church at Galatia in Galatians 5:7: > You did run well, but who hindered you that you should not obey the truth?
They had fallen away from the faith and become comfortable in what was blessing them in that corner.
When the scripture speaks of being lukewarm, it describes a condition that looks stable on the outside but carries no power on the inside. It is the spiritual temperature of someone who has settled into neutral without noticing it. They are neither cold enough to recognize God nor hot enough to pursue him with passion.
Most people plateau without realizing it and settle into spiritual, emotional, and professional neutrality. But at Rock City, we're speaking by faith that that season is over. We're going to become. This year, become is our word. Most people plateau without realizing it and they settle.
When scripture speaks of being lukewarm, it describes a condition that looks stable on the outside but carries no power on the inside. It is the spiritual temperature of someone who has settled into neutral without noticing it. They are neither cold enough to recognize God nor hot enough to pursue him with passion.
Lukewarmness is not rebellion—that's why you don't know you're lukewarm. Lukewarmness is something more subtle. Lukewarmness is what happens when your spiritual life becomes a habit instead of a hunger. It's when you sing in a choir or on a praise team and that's just what you do, but you don't really talk to God anymore.
Being neutral is existence without intention. For many of us, neutral feels very safe because movement requires risk. Excavation means confronting what's buried—areas of our lives and past hurts we don't want to revisit. Evolution means becoming something, growing into something we haven't yet seen, and that might not be accepted by others. We worry about how people will perceive us if we show up differently.
Neutrality lets you avoid all of that. But safety and wholeness are two different things. If you don't move, there's no risk of getting hurt, of hurting someone else, or of disappointing somebody. The problem is that many of us have passion problems, not people problems. We can do something for so long that we lose passion for it.
God speaks in Revelation about those who are doing the work with no passion. He'll remove that candle and give it to someone who is on fire for what He's calling them to do. Neutrality is not rebellion—it's subtle. You can still be doing the same thing but not doing it the same way. You can be active but not intimate. Present in body but not in spirit.
This principle applies even to our most intimate relationships. After twenty years of marriage, God revealed that we must constantly evolve in our love for our spouses. Things that mattered when we were young don't matter now. As we grow and change, we have to constantly ask: What do I need to put aside? What do I need to change? What do I need to tweak?
It's the same with our relationship with God. We can't rest on our résumé. God isn't asking what you did six years ago—He's asking what you're doing now. You can't get into heaven simply off your past. You have to keep living and evolving and become.
Become is the intentional evolution of spirit, character, and calling. It is the process of stepping out of who you were and aligning with who God already sees.
Becoming is not behavior modification. Becoming is spiritual transformation. You are not here just to improve the old you. You are stepping into the designed you. God never speaks to you based on your past—He speaks to you based on your potential.
When we see God speak to individuals in Scripture, He doesn't speak to who they were. He speaks to who they're becoming. When He called Gideon a mighty warrior, Gideon was hiding. When He called Abram a father of many nations, he had no children. Becoming means you stop arguing with who you used to be and start agreeing with who God already knows you are.
Many of you are in a negotiation session trying to convince God to let pieces of who you were into who you're about to be. But who you were is going to hinder who you're about to be.
Modification changes habits. Transformation changes heart. Modification focuses on what you do. Transformation focuses on who you're becoming. This is why Jesus did not come to make people better versions of their old self. He came to make them new.
Ephesians 2 says you are His workmanship. Jeremiah 1 says before you were formed, He knew you. Alignment is the key word. You cannot become who God sees while staying attached to everything that shaped who you were.
Becoming demands a shift in perspective, habits, relationships, and identity. When you become, it requires a location change. Jesus looked at a blind man, took him by the hand, and led him out of the village. Jesus said, in effect, "I can't introduce you to who you're becoming in the old place. I can't introduce you to who you're becoming in the place where you have become comfortable being blind."
Your village will affect your vision. If we're not careful, our vision will always reflect the village that we're surrounding ourselves with. Sometimes God has to remove you from the village to increase your vision. Some of us have the wrong village.
Ephesians 4:22-24 says, "Put off your old self to be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self created to be like God." God doesn't want to renovate an old you. He wants to reveal the version of you He authored. Becoming is not polishing up your old behaviors. It is stepping into a new identity.
We need to make drastic changes. Whether we know it or not, we're drifting. Small compromises add up. A tire can lose 2 PSI and seem fine, but if you keep driving, the rim ends up on the ground. You don't have to hit something major to find yourself in trouble—the damage comes from things you didn't even notice.
When we're stubborn about figuring everything out alone, we lose time. We know what we need, but we can't figure it out. Sometimes we need to ask for help, to find somebody who can help us become. Becoming is not behavior modification or spiritual transformation alone. Modification changes habits. Transformation changes heart.
The old you surviving means you're just surviving. Becoming is designed so you can truly thrive. This is why Jesus did not come to make people better versions of their old self. He came to make them new.
God has started something in us as a church, and now He's calling us to corporate work with Him. Philippians 1:6 says, "He who began a good work in you will complete it."
Becoming always requires breaking patterns that kept us comfortable. There are so many people who need Jesus that won't get Him if you won't become. It's not just being comfortable saying, "Will I usher?" If there's an evangelistic anointing on you, don't just stay comfortable in the choir. Become is not just a word for the year. It is our formation assignment.
Am I coasting or becoming? There is no neutrality in Christianity. You're either getting better or you're getting worse. There's no such thing as just maintaining. If you cannot definitively say you got better in 2025, by default, you got worse.
Where have I accepted neutral? One of the first commands to humans was to multiply. To maintain literally is sin, because He commands us to multiply. It's in our DNA to multiply. Management is important, but if the ultimate thing we're doing is just maintaining, we are living out less than what God created and wired us to be.
What habits, relationships, or perspectives need to shift?
Am I ready to leave my village to increase my vision?
What does becoming mean for me corporately as part of Rock City Church?
There is a distinction between maintaining and intentional stillness. You cannot multiply without having a season of maintaining. When you plant a tree, there's a season where you need to till the ground, water the seed, provide sun. Ultimately in time you'll reap a harvest. So maintaining itself isn't anti-multiplication—maintaining with no intent to multiply is the issue.
But we must recognize the difference between passive neutrality and intentional rest. Intentional stillness is when you're very intentional about how you show up in a moment. It doesn't look like activity, but it's deliberate. It's saying, "I've been doing a lot. I've been carrying a lot. This is heavy. I am being very intentional about how I show up right now." That's different from refusing to turn the page, refusing to move.
It's important to recognize the distinction between intentional rest and simply refusing to move forward. Intentional stillness is when you're very deliberate about how you show up in a moment. It doesn't look like activity, but it is deliberate. You might say, "I've been doing a lot. I've been carrying a lot. This is heavy. I am being very intentional about how I show up right now." That's different from refusing to turn the page and refusing to move.
You cannot multiply without having a season of maintaining. When you plant a tree, there's a season where you need to till the ground, water the seed, and provide sun. Ultimately in time you'll reap a harvest. Maintaining with no intent to multiply is the issue—but maintaining itself isn't anti-multiplication. The key is understanding your intention behind the season you're in.
This is a critical question to ask yourself. Evolution happens when we identify the specific areas where growth is necessary. The goal is not to hide these areas or pretend they don't exist, but to name them clearly so you can address them.
When you share your struggles openly, you give others permission to do the same. If a pastor can tell thousands of people what his issue is, then anyone can look in the mirror and tell themselves. This vulnerability is powerful because it breaks down the shame that often keeps people silent. Everyone has places where they can grow.
Some areas of personal growth might include physical discipline—like finding comfort in food when you should be finding strength elsewhere. Others might struggle with procrastination, putting off tasks instead of completing them. Another challenge might be learning to become comfortable in tension rather than running from it.
The point is this: knowing requires a response, and it won't leave you alone. Once you identify what needs to evolve, the conviction keeps coming back. You know you need to lose weight. You know you need to work out. You know you need to stop procrastinating. The awareness itself creates an internal pressure.
It's your village. You need people around you who will speak into your growth. Without a village, you can hide. You can pretend. But with people who know your goals and your struggles, the stakes become real.
When you're accountable to others, you're more likely to follow through—not because you fear disappointing yourself, but because you don't want to disappoint the people who are watching and rooting for you. This is where community becomes extremely important. Often we'll do the hard work just so we're measuring up to the standard we've set in front of other people, because we don't want them to see us failing.
Without a village, procrastination is easy. You can tell yourself you'll do it tomorrow because nobody knows what you committed to. But when you tell your community, "This is what I'm working on," accountability multiplies the conviction.
Beyond physical habits, what beliefs about yourself or others need to shift? One common mindset that needs renewing: if someone complains or brings something to your attention, it doesn't mean there's a problem with you. They might be sharing because they feel comfortable enough to tell you how they feel. They need to get it out. You're their community.
Another mindset shift: when somebody says, "This is wrong," don't hear it as "You are wrong." They have a problem with what's happening, not a problem with you. This distinction changes everything.
This is perhaps the most penetrating question. God sees who you're capable of becoming. What fear is holding you back from that version of yourself? Is it the fear of failure? The fear of success? The fear of what others will think? The fear of being alone?
Identify the fear, name it, and bring it before your village. Because often, the person you're meant to become is on the other side of that fear.
As we enter a new year, these questions aren't just reflective exercises—they're invitations to transformation. The awareness of what needs to evolve, the willingness to be vulnerable about it, and the courage to invite others into that journey is what moves us from maintaining to multiplying.
