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Proof Series
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No weapon that is formed against you will prosper, and every tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their vindication is from me, declares the Lord.
This passage has become increasingly meaningful as I've grown older. The key insight is this: the enemy fights anointed people differently.
When you're anointed, you're not just dealing with obstacles—you're dealing with opposition. The greater your calling, the more strategic the attack becomes.
The enemy doesn't use the same tactics on everyone. He tailors his attacks based on your gifts, purpose, and weaknesses. Your attack was crafted specifically for you. This is why you can't compare your battle to someone else's.
Your fight is different because your future is different. The devil looks into your future and realizes, "If I don't stop them in March, by November I won't be able to do anything with them." This is why you must stop allowing people to convince you that something's wrong with you. Sometimes you catch hell not because something is wrong with you, but because something's right with you.
My future just took a radical shift because I made a decision in my present to stop running from what He called me to kill. I can't ask you to celebrate with me on this particular point because I'm not sure you're willing to do what I'm currently doing.
We need to understand spiritual intelligence—not street smarts, not book smarts, but spiritual intelligence. The devil will put things in your life that school didn't teach you, and he will take you through situations that the streets can't fix.
A lack of spiritual intelligence will cause you to confuse obstacles with opposition. This confusion leads to either unnecessary frustration or wasted energy.
Not everything in your way is the enemy. Some things are meant to develop you, while others are designed to destroy you. If you don't have spiritual intelligence, you'll spend your whole week calling something a devil that's really development. You'll call someone a hater who's really a helper. You'll call something an attack that's really an assignment.
I don't want to hit something I should have held on to. I don't want to hold on to something I should have beaten up.
Definition: Challenges that test your ability to persist, grow, and develop.
Definition: Attacks specifically designed to stop or derail you from fulfilling your purpose.
If you call an obstacle opposition, you're going to be fighting against God—because God sends obstacles, and the enemy sends opposition.
Consider Jonah: he prayed to God to remove the storm, but God wouldn't stop it because the storm was an obstacle, not opposition. God sent it. Why would He remove something He placed in your life if He's trying to get something better out of you?
God will never take you out of something that He can develop you in.
Opposition is opposition to where you're going. If it's an obstacle, it came from somebody who's on your team. If it's opposition, it came from somebody you have to defeat.
David killed the lion and the bear—those were obstacles. But everyone celebrates him killing Goliath—that was opposition. We become so addicted to celebrating our opposition that we don't realize: had it not been for your obstacles, you never would have overcome your opposition.
God says, "I sent obstacles to your life because there's a part of you that is underdeveloped. I know what your next level looks like, so I'm going to put something in your present that's going to develop you for your future."
But if you don't have spiritual intelligence, you're going to think it's a problem, not a present.
If you're gifted, sometimes the gifted gets gifts that don't make sense. You have an entrepreneurial gift? God gifts you with a nasty boss so you can see in the future what you should never be. Sometimes God gifts you with an absent father to show you the type of parent you need to be. Sometimes God gifts you with poverty so you'll know how to manage your prosperity.
You are misdiagnosing your gift.
God gifted me with denial. I tried to get a building over by West Side High School—it didn't work. I tried to get a building where E's Brothers used to be—it didn't work. I went and prayed on the doorsteps, preached in it with a hole in the ceiling, brought all my people—still didn't work.
God gifted me with failure when I tried to buy the strip mall next to Forestdale. We had the keys, stood in church with them—it failed every inspection possible. I lost every dime I had on my earnest money.
When I got Central Park, they told me it was a blessing, but it ended up being the biggest nightmare I've had. Everything that could go wrong in that building went wrong.
I didn't know it was a gift till He came to negotiate. Now I'm sitting in the room with confidence, talking about inspections, escrow, amortization sheets. They looked at me like, "What school did you go to?" I went to the School of Hard Knocks, majored in Hell, trials, and tribulation, but graduated summa cum laude because I knew God.
I got spiritual intelligence to discern an obstacle from opposition.
Obstacles are placed before you as part of the process to strengthen you. Think about what you're going through right now. Based on what we've discussed, is it an obstacle or opposition?
If it's opposition: "Devil, get out of my life." If it's an obstacle: "Lord, whatever You're doing, I'm leaning in."
Obstacles are tests of your ability, endurance, and faithfulness.
When I started, my first service at the Fairfield Civic Center had 12 people. I want whoever touches this stage to know: don't overlook the obstacle. I put out 1,200 chairs and 12 people showed up.
God gifted me with an empty room to develop my motives and build my character. When you watch old sermons from back then with no beard and nobody in the church, it's the same Pastor Mike—because I realized if I quit over the obstacle, I'll never make it to the opposition.
Obstacles are tests; opposition is warfare.
Here's a spiritual IQ move: before you complain about what's hard, ask God, "Is this training or an attack?"
We used to set up for service every single Sunday morning—unload, put the speakers up, pull out the drums. I would say, "One day we're going to be on tour." I didn't realize some of the stuff I called an attack was really training.
Opposition is warfare designed to break your faith, confidence, or commitment.
God will let you kill Goliath and lose Bathsheba. God will let you conquer Jericho and lose to Ai. He'll let you take Birmingham and lose to someone you should have beaten.
If David had confused his obstacles with opposition, he would have quit before he got to Goliath. He would have said, "Why am I out here fighting lions and bears? My own daddy didn't even invite me in the house. I'm so tired of this family. Every time I turn around, y'all got me out here in the field."
Instead, he understood: the obstacles were developing him for the opposition.
Not everything is spiritual warfare. Some things are just decisions:
We can't pray Alabama Power back on. God can send somebody to pay the bill, but let's not make everything spiritual.
You need all three: EQ (emotional intelligence), IQ (intellectual intelligence), and SQ (spiritual intelligence). I'm just afraid we don't know when to apply them. We're too emotional when it's time to be spiritual, and we don't have enough spirituality when it's time to be intellectual.
There's a critical difference that requires spiritual intelligence (SQ) to navigate: opposition usually intensifies right before breakthrough. This is the moment where you must recognize the difference between a process you need to endure and an attack you need to resist.
The key principle is this: obstacles require strength, but opposition requires strategy. When you're facing an obstacle, you need resilience, patience, and skill. But when you're facing opposition, you need wisdom, spiritual strategy, and discernment.
Not everything that challenges you deserves your energy. This is where spiritual intelligence becomes essential. Opposition is often a sign that what you're doing is a threat to something bigger than you. When the enemy opposes you, it's frequently because your calling threatens his plans.
Consider what happened with Jesus in the wilderness. Satan didn't appear while Jesus was fasting—he appeared while Jesus was at his weakest. The obstacle was the fasting itself: discipline and preparation. The opposition was Satan's temptation to manipulate Jesus into forfeiting his purpose. If Jesus had eaten, he wouldn't have failed because of weakness; he would have failed because he would have abandoned his calling.
The devil is strategic. He doesn't show up randomly. He understood Jesus was hungry after forty days of fasting, so he tempted him with bread. The devil looks at your vulnerabilities and exploits them. Many of us lose to the devil because we don't properly respect his intelligence—he is the best at what he does.
Sometimes opposition isn't about you at all—it's about the anointing on your life and how it threatens others. When opposition isn't personal, it's prophetic.
Joseph's story illustrates this perfectly. When his brothers threw him in the pit, that was an obstacle—something he had to endure as part of his development. But his brothers' hatred for him was the opposition. The obstacle tested whether he could love people who didn't like him. The opposition came from the people who actually didn't like him.
Joseph's mistake was sharing his dream too soon. Not everyone can handle the weight of what God is doing in your life. His brothers hated Joseph not for who he was, but for what he represented. The pit was in front of him; the opposition was coming from those around him.
When you're building something—whether it's a career, organization, or brand—there are two systems: the farm system and the free agency system.
The farm system means you grow it. You don't know superstars; you have to figure things out through trial and error. This requires patience, resilience, and developing skill. Every attempt teaches you something. Some efforts will flop, but over time, your skill develops and you hit.
The free agency system means you can just buy talent because you have the resources. But that's not how growth works when you're developing something authentic.
When you're editing your own content, learning as you go—getting six likes, then twelve, then fifteen—you're developing discernment about timing, presentation, and skill. That takes patience and resilience. *You're not just working; you're learning how to work.
This principle extends to every area of life, including relationships. If last time you tried to talk to someone you ended up fussing, that's an obstacle that requires a different approach. The next time, move slower, be more patient, and develop skill in how you communicate. That's patience, resilience, and developing a skill.
Here's what many people miss: not everything deserves your energy. This is where spiritual wisdom becomes crucial.
Industry leaders once told me that my music was reaching almost a million streams per week—numbers that most gospel albums never achieve. But they said, "We're afraid you're not going to get there," and they wanted me to pursue certain tours and rooms to climb the ladder.
But I'm not trying to build an incredible career for its own sake. I do music because God called me to do it. I use music as an evangelistic tool so people will listen, see the gospel, and let the Word transform their hearts and give their lives to God.
I would love a Grammy, but what I want more than that is to hear: "Well done, my good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a little city I gave you. Now I'm going to make you ruler over much."
Not everything deserves your energy. Some opposition isn't worth engaging. When you understand the difference, you move different.
This is why you must constantly ask God: Is this an obstacle you want to develop me through, or is this opposition because what I'm doing threatens something and the enemy is trying to break it?
If it's an obstacle, endure it. Develop your strength, patience, and skill. If it's opposition, respond with wisdom, strategy, and discernment. Sometimes that means walking away from opportunities that don't align with your calling, even if they look good on the surface.
Recognize when opposition isn't personal—it's prophetic. When you understand this distinction, you move different.
