Dharius Daniels - I Need It Back

Now, one of my favorite Psalms says, «Great is the Lord, and He is to be praised greatly.» Here’s the principle: my praise should be a reflection of my revelation of God’s greatness. If He’s okay, He gets okay praise; if He’s good, He gets good praise. But if He’s great and if He’s amazing, if He’s incredible, if He’s phenomenal, let me hear how great your God is by how great your praises are. Make some noise in the house of victory! So, Father, tonight I thank You that victory isn’t just a name; it is a prophetic intention. It is Your intended outcome for Your people. Victory, thank You for a conference that reminds us of that, empowers us, and equips us for that. I also thank You for the part You’ve given me to play, the contribution I am to make. Now, I pray for the anointing of Your Holy Spirit to empower me to speak what You’ve burdened my heart with, and I pray that that same anointing would prepare the soil of the hearts of Your people to receive the seed of Your Word. We thank You for the outcomes we anticipate as a result of this gathering tonight: minds shifted, hope restored, strongholds broken, limitations removed, possibilities increased, and Your name glorified. We ask this in the name of the only one who gives us access to Your ear. We ask it in the name of our Lion and our Lamb, the immutable One. His name is Jesus. It’s in His name we pray. Amen. I feel another praise in the house! Let’s give it to Him! You can be seated.

It’s my honor to be here, and first of all, to witness such amazing and incredible people of God, a move of God, a house of God. I give honor, show deference, appreciation, and respect to the amazing legacy of leadership. The two incredible founders of this remarkable work! I had the precious privilege to meet one of them just a second ago. God bless this incredible legacy, this Doherty legacy, and how God has used it. There are truly no words. I was thinking about Paul earlier today. I think we met a couple of years ago, or a year ago; I can’t remember. Just his undeniable favor of God that is on his life, along with the genuineness and sincerity that reveals a heart God can trust with elevation. I just believe the sky is the limit for you, for your leadership, for this house, and for all that God is doing. It’s in your bones; it’s in your DNA. You have no choice but to be all that God has called you to be. Thank you for allowing me to participate in this amazing conference. Can you praise God for a great church, great leadership, and a great legacy?

So there’s something on my heart I’d like to share, and it’s found in the Gospel of Matthew, the ninth chapter. Matthew! I like that. My church is going to have to do that next Sunday. Brandon, write that down: next Sunday! Matthew chapter 9, verse 27. I’ll read from the New International Version of the Scriptures. I was a bit conflicted about whether or not to go this way tonight and wrestled with it a bit, but I really feel it’s the contribution I’m meant to make. My commitment is to do my best to let God use me at His discretion. So let’s see what the Holy Spirit has to say to us from Matthew chapter 9, verse 27. It says this: «Jesus went on from there, and two blind men followed Him, calling out, 'Have mercy on us, Son of David.' And when He had gone indoors, the blind men came to Him, and He asked them, 'Do you believe that I am able to do this? ' 'Yes, Lord, ’ they replied. Then He touched their eyes and said, 'According to your faith, let it be done to you.'» And verse 30 says these words, «And their sight was restored.» The word «restored» is the operative word.

I want to talk from this subject tonight: «I Need It Back.» I’ve been wrestling over the past month or so with this concept I’m calling a theology of achievement, and it really rests and is rooted in the revelation that God not only wants us to steward our time and our treasure, but He also wants us to steward our talents. In other words, it is His intention that we make full use of the gifts, abilities, and acquired skills that we have obtained by His grace. To not do so is to say to God, «You should have taken all this potential You’ve given me and given it to someone else who would do more with it.» I want to argue, family, that the graveyard is not just filled with tombs; it is filled with unfulfilled potential. You see, the potential God has given us is for the purpose to which God has assigned us, and purpose is always an answer to a problem. So when I don’t reach my potential, I’m not fulfilling my purpose, and when I don’t fulfill my purpose, I’m leaving the earth with some problems God wanted me to solve. There are some Goliaths still walking that God intended for others to knock down. When a person lives within the dimensions of this degree of existence, then it’s really called settling. It’s what we’re doing—it’s settling. Settling is placing a period where God wants to put a comma. Settling is dictating your own destiny; settling is allowing your «good enough» to supersede God’s «good enough.» Settling robs the world of God’s best through us. As I’ve been thinking about this…