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After the death of Moses, the servant of God, God spoke to Joshua. This is the foundation text for everything we're building today. Look at somebody and say, "Don't bring anything into this year that God didn't ordain. If it's not God, it's over."
Our word for this year is Become. By definition, becoming is the intentional evolution of spirit, character, and calling. This is not a season of randomness—not bumping into blessings or getting better just because you got older. This will be the year where you are intentional.
One of the most beautiful words in our definition is intentional. You must be intentional about how you read God's Word, what you feed your spirit, and what you allow into your life. You can't look at everything. You can't listen to everything.
Throughout nature and science, we see evolution—transformation. I remember in first grade when my teacher, Miss McGru, taught us about giraffes. She asked, "Michael, how did giraffes get long necks?" I said, "They were born that way." She laughed and told me that giraffes originally had short necks like horses, but they ran out of food and had to evolve.
So I'm asking you: Are you going to starve or evolve? Are you going to become stagnant or evolve? Some of you should shout, "Stick close to me because I'm getting ready to evolve. There's so much more in me than you see."
Becoming is the journey from who you have been to who God already sees.
I want to ask you a question that I ask every first Sunday of every year, and I'll be asking it until God calls me to glory: What's your mission and what's your vision?
Every person should have a personal mission statement:
Put this in your notes: My mission is who I'm becoming. My vision is what I'm pursuing.
You need to know your mission. Do you know why? Too many people fail year after year because they're so caught up in what they're trying to get instead of who they need to become.
If your whole life is about what you're trying to get, once you get it, it will change you—because you never discovered who you really were. The reason people can't figure you out is because you're so focused on getting that you walk like you've got it even when you haven't.
But here's the truth: If you become before you pursue, when you pursue, it won't change you because you already know who you are. That's why with or without money, I can walk in the room bold. That's why people ask you questions like you're the boss even though you're not. The way you carry yourself says you know what you're doing.
Folks see you and judge you, even have an attitude with you—then they get to know you and end up apologizing because they mistook your boldness for arrogance. I'm not arrogant. I'm not mean. I'm not nasty, but you're not going to convince me I'm not what God called me to be.
I'm preaching to people who can testify: "I may not have what I want yet, but I am becoming who God called me to be right now."
Here's my mission statement: I, Michael McClure, choose to love God, love people, and make a difference.
At the core, everything I pursue is filtered through my mission. Did you catch that? If it doesn't match my mission, I can't do it. That's why certain decisions aren't even hard for me. I can tell you right now—the answer is going to be no. Why? It doesn't fit the mission.
But it's paying such-and-such? That's cool, but making money isn't my mission. Making a difference is. Which is why there will be seasons of my life where I don't get paid for what I do. But I know that if I stay true to what God called me, what God gives me will be greater than what anyone could have given me.
Why? You don't abandon mission to chase vision. You fulfill vision by staying faithful to the mission.
In Joshua chapter 1, God speaks to Joshua and says, "Moses, my servant, is dead." Put this in your notes: God makes it very clear to him before he gives him his assignment.
Joshua is hurting. Joshua is tripping. He needs affirmation. What Joshua needs is an angel to tell him, "It's going to be okay." But God doesn't explain the loss. God simply acknowledges it.
Many of you are stuck because you're waiting on God to give you an explanation. God said, "I don't explain dead stuff. I move on from them." You're so busy trying to ask God why when God is waiting on you to ask Him what's next.
God is telling Joshua, "That chapter is dead. The chapter of your life with Moses is closed. You can keep reading it, but I'm on chapter 12."
Henry Cloud says in Necessary Endings: "The inability to end something that is over is the number one reason people stay stuck." Let that sit with you.
Growth always requires an ending. Be careful what you say this week. When you say, "I've got to grow this year," what you're really saying is, "God, what do I need to end?"
In order for something to live, something has to die. You believe God's going to grow you to be a wife? God may say, "I need your season of dating to end first. In the state you're in, you're not ready." You're believing for promotion? God may say, "I need your ambition to die right now. Sit still and let me work."
Delayed endings create prolonged dysfunction. I can put my own business out there: the places in my life that are dysfunctional exist because I wasn't quite ready to close certain doors yet.
Many of us don't want to end things because we think of it as a loss. We don't want people to think we lost, because if they think we lost, they'll think we're losing, which makes us feel like a loser. So we fake like a winner when we're actually losing, when the real win would have been detachment.
Please put this in your notes: Endings are not about loss.
Endings are not about loss. They are about capacity. God says, "I don't end stuff so you can lose. I end stuff so I can make room to give you more."
I'm preaching to people who lost some stuff and you're still trying to wrap your mind around how they could leave or how you could lose this—when God is telling you, "You don't even see I'm making capacity. I'm getting ready to send you so much, but there was certain stuff I couldn't send you as long as there was too much crowded space in your life."
I speak capacity over your life. God said, "I'm making room. If they don't call back, don't call them. I'm making room."
Get rid of that attitude. Lose the attitude so you can get some peace. Lose the pain so you can get some joy. Lose the frustration so you can finally see my vision.
You think you're going through a losing season. God said, "Baby, I'm just making room because I'm getting ready to send something greater than you've ever seen."
You're over here crying about who left—stop in a minute and realize you got more money now because you were paying for them. You're talking about, "I can't believe they fired me"? You didn't like that job in the first place. God knew you'd never quit, so God made them leave you so you could finally see He's up to something in your life.
Ending the wrong thing creates room for the right thing.
Joshua could never become Joshua while trying to be a continuation of Moses. Joshua couldn't be Joshua as long as he was running behind Moses.
I'll share my own story. I was so happy being my dad's praise and worship leader. Then they gave me a youth ministry. My youth ministry was incredible. I walked into my dad's office and asked if I could get one row for all the young people. Three months later, I had the whole left side of the church. We were so fired up. I didn't just do praise and worship—I had dancers on stage. We'd sing "Lord, You're Good" with full choreography. People from every nation and tongue would worship together. It was a move of God.
Then I came to my dad and said, "Dad, I think the Lord's calling me to start a church." My dad never said, "No, I need you to be my youth guy." He understood: I would never be me as long as I was in his shadow.
Put this in your notes: Becoming demands separation. Many of you are so clingy you can't become.
Who wants their child to become smarter? You send them to school and detach. Who wants their child to cheer or play sports? You let somebody else coach them. But in your personal life, you try to be everything to a person.
When we lose somebody, we make them either a god or a devil. We either deify or demonize. When they're good to us, we make them a god. When they're bad to us, we make them a devil.
But let me tell you this: Some separations aren't evil. I have friends I haven't spoken to in over three years because I realized it wasn't a sin to be friends with them—they just made the parts of me that were dysfunctional feel comfortable.
There are certain friends in my life I had to detach from because they made it comfortable for me to complain, to never deal with my weight, to be a version of myself I didn't need to be. It wasn't sinful; we didn't do anything wrong. They just enabled my dysfunction.
So I had to be honest and say, "Hey, man. I love you all. You may not hear from me as much. I'm just working on me in some areas." And if they really love you, they respect it. Only people who like the dysfunctional you make you feel guilty for trying to be a better version. How are you going to guilt trip me for trying to be what God called me to be? Because now it forces you to deal with the fact that you ain't who God called you to be either.
Most of us don't want detachment because we don't want to deal with rejection. This is critical. Let me speak something over your life:
What you think is rejection is really projection.
Every mother who gave birth—your baby didn't want to come out. Your baby was floating in water with all their food brought to them, completely comfortable and protected. Your baby didn't say, "I'm ready." Your body did. Your baby got here because your body rejected your baby. The rejection of your baby is the birth.
If you were birthed through rejection, what makes you think their rejection is going to kill you?
When you go through rejection in your life, instead of asking, "What's wrong with me?" ask, "God, what are You getting ready to birth in me?" When people don't like you, that must mean you're on a level they can't comprehend yet. God's getting ready to birth something new in you.
Activation is critical to moving forward. Have you ever received a new debit card, went to use it, and it wouldn't work? The reason: you never activated it. Some of the problems in your personal life stem from trying to draw from people who haven't been activated. Some of the losses you've experienced happened because you were doing things God didn't activate you for.
In 2026, the enemy should have killed you when it had the chance, because now you are activated. When you lay hands on things, they will be healed. When you pray, things will shift. When you speak those things that are not, they will be. This is your season.
God told Joshua, "Moses, my servant, is dead. Therefore, arise." The Hebrew word kufam means to stand up. But here's what you must realize: God wasn't asking Joshua to stand up physically. His issue wasn't that Joshua was laying on the ground physically. God's issue was that Joshua was down spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.
Arise implies that something shifted internally before it ever showed up externally. You don't arise because conditions change. You arise because your calling has been activated. Not being activated will never be your excuse again. Every gift in this room is activated. Let everything God put in you rise right now.
Arise is the hinge between the promise and possession. It is the space between what God promised you and the day God gave it to you. Most people settle because they don't know how to deal with the space in the middle.
Consider David: God told him in his daddy's backyard that he would be the next king. But then he was left in the backyard without a crown, without security, still nothing to his family. There was a space between God prophesying it and it manifesting. Be careful—there are people who will love you when it's prophesied but will try to kill you when it manifests. People don't mind being your friend when everyone is shouting about what you're going to do. It's hard to be your friend when you get it before they do.
This is your season to assume responsibility.
Where do you want to be in three years? What are your ultimate dreams? How do you get there? This year is about assuming responsibility for your direction and for those in your circle.
You've given everybody in your circle six years to be what they said they were going to be. Now you have to wake up and say, "Hey, I love you all. If we're going to be friends in 2026, here's the plan. We're not doing this. We're not doing that. If we're going to do something, we're going to do it this way." If people aren't serious about the direction, remove yourself from that space. You refuse to be where you are this year, next year.
When your children were younger, you used one strategy: "Stop doing that. Don't make me tell you again." But as they mature, your strategy must change. When they become young adults, the strategy becomes entirely different. Every answer might be yes, but with guidance: "Do your thing. Let me know when you get there."
You can't give immaturity mature access. The strategy that works for one person won't work for another, even if they're close in age. Adjust your approach based on where people actually are and where they're heading.
Moses represents dead strategies. This doesn't mean Moses was evil—his time was simply up. What delivered you may not develop you. What Moses did helped get the people out of Egypt, but it wouldn't get the Egypt out of people. You can take a person out of bondage, but you can't take the bondage out of the person through the same method.
You've made a list of goals wrapped around old strategies. The strategy is different because the season is different. Moses' strategy in front of the Red Sea was perfect for deliverance. God asked him, "What's in your hand?" He stretched out his rod, and the Red Sea parted.
But Joshua faced a different challenge. In front of the Jordan River, Joshua didn't have Moses' strategy. God said, "But you have the ark of the covenant." So Joshua had his leaders grab the ark and step into the water. Same result, different strategy.
Stop mimicking what people do and ask God, "Is that what you want me to do?" Just because it worked for them doesn't mean it's anointed to work for you in your season.
Moses and his generation were incredible. They marched, they lived out their calling faithfully. But if that same strategy were applied today, it wouldn't work. The circumstances have changed. We're not as united. We see what happens in other countries and don't even bat an eye because we're comfortable in our own space.
Deliverance removes external bondages. Development confronts internal bondages. You're free externally. What you need God to heal you from is internal.
Moses represents a dead season. The greatest weapon the enemy uses to stall us is unprocessed grief. The enemy has us hurt for so long that we don't know how to move forward.
There are some things in your life you're going to have to feel. Some things you're going to have to process. Create a list—call it what you want, but put in it the painful things that happened during the year. Go through the list one by one. Why? If you don't process it, you'll always carry it. What doesn't get healed gets handed down.
Don't bleed on your children. Don't pass your unprocessed pain to the next generation. Deal with your grief so that you can move into your new season whole.
The pain of performing strength becomes a burden we carry alone. When we're always trying to be strong, we're left silently asking for help while maintaining a facade. If you don't process it, you'll always carry it. One practical approach is to create what you might call a "pain list"—write down the painful things that happened during the year, then work through them one by one.
What doesn't get healed gets handed down.
This is critical for parents and leaders. When we don't deal with our own grief, we bleed it onto our children. A father unwilling to process his pain might teach his son, "Don't trust anybody," passing his wounds to the next generation. The goal is to develop them whole, not to hand them your unhealed hurt.
Deliverance is loud. Development is soft. They represent two different seasons of life and require different approaches. When you're in a season of development, the loud voice of deliverance is out of place. A man might need to speak gently to his wife: "Hey babe, I just want to share my heart. When you say this to me, it makes me feel like..." Screaming at someone in a development season shuts down the very connection you're trying to build.
Parents must understand this distinction. When your children reach young adulthood, hollering and demanding obedience may no longer be effective. Instead, you shape them through consistent expectation and modeling. You're not giving them permission to remain dependent; you're pushing them toward independence.
The challenge many parents face is this: you're giving them everything you never had, but you're also not giving them what made you. There must be balance. If you remove all struggle and responsibility, you remove the hunger that drives growth.
A young man approaching adulthood needs to know: don't ask your mother for money—come talk to your father. This isn't harshness; it's redirection. It creates a pathway for real conversation and teaches him to take initiative. When he must approach you directly rather than defaulting to an easier source, it produces the hunger to go out and get for himself.
For those in intense seasons of development—like a young athlete preparing for college—the approach must be firm and immediate. If expectations aren't met, consequences follow swiftly and without negotiation. There's no mattress to sleep on. There's no comfort. This is the work of making a man.
I'll never arrive at the right place while holding on to the wrong people. This is one of the hardest truths about growth and transition. As you move into new seasons, some relationships cannot make the journey with you.
Dead seasons require dead strategies. Dead squads require dead circles. The people around you in one chapter may not belong in the next one. This doesn't make them bad people—it makes them incompatible with where God is taking you.
God is opening doors in 2026. Not all of them are doors you knocked on. Some are doors you've prayed about for years. And some are doors for opportunities you never even dreamed of. The question isn't whether God will open them—the question is whether you will change when you get in the room.
Before you step into what God has prepared, you must be internally ready. You must have processed your pain. You must have released the wrong people. You must understand which season you're in and lead accordingly. Only then will you be positioned to walk through the doors God is opening and become everything He called you to be.
