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I made a promise this year that I wouldn't allow myself to settle for anything less than God's best. In Ecclesiastes 9:10, it says:
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all of your might.
You'll be surprised how many people settle right before God is getting ready to take things to another level. I've learned that it's possible to be better, but not at your best. Many of us are guilty of settling for better because best puts a demand on areas of our lives that we may be uncomfortable with changing.
Who can admit that you feel better? But who also can admit there may be another level inside of you? Most of us settle for better and do not strive for best because best puts an uncomfortable demand on our spirit to go harder.
This often leads us to what I call the sin of settling. God does not only want to deliver us from sin, but God wants to also deliver us from settling. Because I refuse to settle, I put a demand on the people around me not to settle.
In order to remind ourselves to never settle before serving others, the phrase I want to put in your spirit for the rest of this year is simple: Out the gate.
Out the gate is a state of mind that understands the assignment, demands your best from start to finish, and refuses to settle for anything less.
Let me break this down. It is a state of mind. It understands the assignment.
Some of us are not going to be great because we don't understand the assignment. You think you're going to work to get a paycheck. I'm going to work to get a check that's going to help me invest in what I really want to do so in the future I can do what nobody else can do. You don't understand the assignment.
I'm trying to be everything that God called me to be. This is why I'm trying to communicate more clearly with those around me because we're going into rooms now and people are happy to be in the room. I'm trying to own it.
Our assignments may not be the same. If we don't end up being friends, that's cool with me because I'm not trying to make friends. I'm trying to get partners who believe that what God has for me is for me, and I believe what God has for you is for you.
I don't have time to sit around and talk about people who don't fit the assignment. I don't have time to complain about what I don't have. That doesn't fit the assignment. I don't have time to sit on the phone reminiscing about years that felt good but really weren't good to me.
I understand the assignment. The assignment is for my bloodline to be blessed.
My son doesn't even like talking in front of people. He doesn't even like being around folk. But my baby boy grabbed the mic because he said, "You know what? I may have some anxiety, but the assignment is I just need seven folk." Push the person in front of you and shout:
Don't get mad. I'm pushing you into your assignment. Your assignment is to be the head and not the tail. Lift and not borrow. Above and not beneath. Blessed and highly favored. Blessed going in and blessed coming out.
Don't let folk at work get you out of order. No, if I were you, I would go in there and tell them how I feel. Nuh-uh. That ain't the assignment. I'm going to walk in there, put this on, make everybody think I'm good. They don't know in six months I'm deucing to anybody.
This is why every week I come back. I barely have a voice. I'm exhausted because I don't just go in the back and wait till it's time to perform. I'm on assignment. The concert doesn't start till 7. I don't perform until 9:15. At 5:30, I'm out there in the front of the building hugging people and taking pictures. I'm loving on folk, praying with folk. Then I meet other people and love on them. Then I wait on my turn to perform. I don't get out until about 10:30. Then when I get out at 10:30, there are kids waiting on me. I pray with them and talk with them.
By the end of the night, I'm exhausted. I don't have any energy. People tell me, "You've got to pace yourself. You've got 30 more cities." But they'll be cool. Whether it was two or three people or 4,000, I'm not impressed by quantity. Sometimes it ain't about quantity.
The assignment is to enter into His gates with thanksgiving. Out the gate. It is a state of mind that understands the assignment. Listen to me. The assignment demands your best from start to finish.
This is why I have to be careful who I love. This is why I have to be careful who I'm friends with. This is why lately I haven't been answering the phone. I had to check myself because whatever I get into, I only know how to bring my best with me. So if you're playing with me, I have to be careful. Because if you tell me your vision, I'll be at home thinking about your vision while you're out here playing with other people. All of a sudden, I've spent three days of my life planning it, finding a budget for it, looking for buildings, dreaming about it. Only for you to come back and say, "I don't want to do that anymore."
Because when I say out the gate, it understands that the assignment demands the best from start to finish.
I never forget when Gotti's baby boy was growing up. He told his baby boy, "Boy, you can have whatever you want. Daddy loves you. I'll do whatever it takes." And then out of nowhere, Aiden said something that stuck with us: "Nothing but the best. Nothing."
And that may sound arrogant to some of you, but you ain't never gave your best to people who gave you less. I speak over your life. Three of you are going to receive this this year. Nothing but the best.
In 2 Kings 7:3, a famine has struck the land. But God didn't cause it. That's critical. Throughout the Bible, we see where there were famines in the land that God caused. But in this particular text, God didn't cause this famine.
Why is that critical? The famine is here because the Syrian army developed a blockade.
What's a blockade? They were too afraid to fight and literally had nowhere to run, so they had to settle. Let me make it make sense. Imagine your enemies are outside your house. Your enemies and their enemies have hooked up. They're all outside. Now you're in the house.
When they first show up, you say, "You know what? I ain't tripping. I'm in the house. What are they gonna do to me?" Because you've got groceries. After the first week, you're like, "Cool." About three weeks in, groceries get low. They dig in the ground, find out how to cut off the water in the house. They cut the line and cut the power. So now you're sitting in the house with no water, no power, no food.
You'll be surprised who's convinced themselves with mediocrity that they're good. You'll be surprised how many people view somebody else's life and think it's better than theirs.
I had somebody say to me not too long ago, "Man, I wish I had your life, boy." I said, "No, no. You don't want this. Why? Because what looks good on the outside ain't always what it feels like."
I never forget when I took Miles to the zoo. He loved the lions, the tigers, the bears. Then out of nowhere, he says, "Dad, when we going to go back to the lion's home?" I had to break news to Miles that that lion's home ain't the zoo. Although they feed him, although they keep him safe, although they give him everything he needs, that lion is in what I call beautiful bondage.
He doesn't have to worry about enemies. He doesn't have to hunt. He doesn't have to worry about anything wrong happening. But that ain't how he was built.
You'll be surprised who's listening to me right now—on this stage, in the pew in the back, in the chat—who's in beautiful bondage. Driving a Mercedes, miserable. A whole lot of money in the bank and depressed. Two or three kids and perfect Instagram pictures, but at home about to kill themselves.
Don't ever think stuff is the proof that you've made it. The proof that I made it is when I can say to myself in the mirror: as hard as this is, I choose to get it out the gate.
I'm preaching to three of you. And that's for five of you who can't even say this around your circle because they're so fixated on what you've got that everybody around you thinks you've got it so good. Just because my good may look better than your good doesn't mean my good is my best. Am I preaching to anybody?
Syria has surrounded the city. No one could go out and no resources could get in. This created starvation and a famine inside the city. They blocked it. Nobody could get in. Nobody could get out. The city is under extreme pressure and pain, and they have to make a choice. What are we going to do?
Helplessness breeds hopelessness.
Everybody's scared. What are we going to do? If we go outside, they're going to kill us. If we stay in the house, they're going to kill us. I'm only preaching to three of you who are going to have to pick the worst of both evils at some point. Because if I stay, I'm miserable. If I leave, they're going to talk about me. If I go up, they're going to stay with me. If I go down, it may hurt.
What I discovered is some of you are in a season where helplessness is breeding hopelessness. They don't know what to do. Do I stay? Do I go? Do I fight? Do I live? Do I die?
But here comes Elisha. He prophesies. This is critical. The prophet Elisha prophesies that the blockade is coming to an end and food will be available.
Imagine we're in church. The enemies are outside. We've been stuck in this building. You're sitting here looking cute. Don't act like three years ago you weren't in quarantine, stuck in your house with people you thought you loved. Then you start realizing how much you really didn't like your kids, your husband, your wife. You're sitting like, "Oh my god, I'm tired of looking at them."
Imagine you're stuck in the house. Then out of nowhere, the prophet rolls up and says, "I got a word from the Lord. The blockade is coming to an end."
It's hard to receive a word for your future when you are hellbent on settling in your present. The reason some of us can't get momentum is because you keep settling for bad moments.
When Elisha prophesied God's deliverance, the king's officers said it couldn't happen. They're outside. Elijah says, "I got a word. This is getting ready to come to an end." The people who fight for a living say, "Don't listen to him. He doesn't know what he's talking about." They had no idea that one word from God could flip everything.
Be careful when you become so anxious about your problems that you miss God's promise. Instead of focusing on what's wrong, we should develop an attitude of expectancy for God's word.
I don't know who I'm preaching to, but there are three people in here. I don't know what it is you need God to end. Y'all missed what I just said. You thought I was going to say start because we become a group of people who only want God to start stuff. But some of us mature to a place where we need to say, "God, I need your help to end this."
That debt has ran in my family, and I'm believing God I'mma prosper. But before I prosper, God, I need this to come to an end. Depression had my auntie. Depression had my uncle. Divorce had my grandfather them. Low self-esteem running my bloodline. But I speak by faith. It's coming. It stops today. It stops today.
I don't know what you need God to stop, but I speak by faith that God's giving you a level of peace about your situation.
He says the blockade is coming to an end. Like Elisha, I have come to prophesy and tell you this morning that the blockage and the famine in your life is coming to an end.
I have a cousin who had a heart attack about a week and a half ago. 90% blockage. He's about a year older than me. They had to put a stent in. A stent is like a straw. It helps stuff flow.
You don't even realize when people you love said they can't stand you, what they were really saying is: why you got to be a stent? We're so used to settling right here. Who are you to think you could step into this family and make something different start flowing?
I don't know who I'm preaching to, but I prophesy you are a spiritual stent. Whatever's been blocked in your family, it's about to start flowing now.
Peace is getting ready to flow. Joy is getting ready to flow. Favor's getting ready to flow. Finances are getting ready to flow. Ideas and creativity are getting ready to flow.
I'm only preaching to three of you who have a word from the Lord and your reality doesn't look like your prophetic utterance. Who can declare, "God, I'm still holding on. I'm still holding on to what God said"?
But if you're going to get it, you've got to get it out the gate.
Now, there were four men with leprosy. The Bible says that the people of God are locked in. But he says, "Forget them. There were four men with issues."
Four men with leprosy. Leprosy was the most feared disease at the time. The law required that those with leprosy maintain a distance from other people to prevent the disease from spreading.
Leprosy was the most feared disease of the time. The law required those with leprosy to maintain distance from other people to prevent the disease from spreading. Imagine seeing people whose skin was literally boiling, peeling off, with blood everywhere. Whenever someone with leprosy appeared in public, they had to cry out, "Unclean! Unclean!"
One critical aspect of leprosy was severe itching. This itching became outer proof of the disease—even if someone tried to hide their condition and enter the city, they couldn't conceal what they were dealing with. The itch exposed what was hidden.
There are two types of people in every room. Some are going through difficulties but have perfected hiding it. But what do you do when your problem has grown to such a point that it's itching? When something in your spirit won't let you stay quiet, even though you're trying to go along to get along? When you're sitting around people but sensing that God isn't on them anymore?
There were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. Notice it was the entrance—they were positioned to enter, not exit. They said to one another, "Why stay here until we die?"
Think about the military situation: the people of God were locked inside the city, while enemies stood outside threatening death to anyone who came out. Yet the four lepers were at the gate between both groups. If the enemies truly wanted to eliminate the threat, why didn't they kill the lepers?
Sometimes your issue protects you. There were certain people in my life whom others didn't want to fool with, and I used to think that was a disadvantage. But I started hearing horror stories about how people got taken advantage of, didn't get their money, had things go wrong. Then I realized: what I saw as an issue was actually protection.
The lepers reasoned together: "If we say we'll go into the city, the famine is there and we will die. If we stay here, we will die." They faced a situation where both options were detrimental.
What do you do when staying costs you your life, but leaving also costs you your life? If you stay on your job, you can't pay your mortgage. If you quit, you still can't pay your mortgage. When both paths lead to misery, what do you do?
A gate conversation is when you become sick and tired of being sick and tired. It's when you come to the conclusion that settling is not an option.
Notice the progression in the text:
Nowhere in Scripture does it say they announced their decision. They didn't post it on social media. They didn't tweet about starting over. They just started moving.
The Scripture simply says, "At dusk they got up and went to the camp." I don't know if they all got up at once or one at a time, but they got up.
This is the year that everybody connected to you needs to get up. Your money is getting up. Your peace is getting up. Your joy is getting up. Your favor is getting up.
Here's what amazes me: they chose to take their chances with their enemies rather than stay with their people. They had a choice between family, friends, community, and enemies—and they chose their enemies. Not all blood is family. When you're going through something, the people you thought would be there sometimes aren't. Meanwhile, people you never expected show up for you more than your own people do.
As the four lepers walked toward the enemy camp, something remarkable happened. Scripture says: "The Lord caused the Armenians to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army."
Notice: God didn't make the lepers' feet loud. God made their enemies hear something different. When you walk in somewhere, people don't know what to do with you because they heard something. They sensed something about your future, your elevation, your blessing.
The enemy reasoned: "The king of Israel has hired the Hittites and the Egyptian kings." What scared them wasn't Israel alone—it was collaboration. The enemy has a problem with partnership.
You might think, "I don't need anybody. I got this out of the mud. I can do this by myself." But the culture pushes this lie. Here's the truth: you can be a movement by yourself, but you're a force when we collaborate.
Here's the revelation: The king of Israel had favor but no resources. The Hittites had resources but no favor. When you put favor with finances, when you put an idea with a connection, when you put an anointing with a prayer life—it changes everything.
God is going to send you somebody this year who has what you don't have. When you hook up, eyes haven't seen, ears haven't heard what God is getting ready to do. Your next season isn't about you alone—it's about the right collaboration at the right time.
You don't need a whole lot of friends. You just need the Lord to shift the ones you have. You need people who, without even talking about it, are doing the same things you're doing. People who walk in the same direction, not because you announced it, but because you're both locked in.
When you and your neighbor are both committed to getting out of debt, both walking in joy, both walking in purpose—that's when it's on. That's when something is getting ready to happen that neither of you could accomplish alone.
