Dharius Daniels - Are You Living Your Best Life for God?

So, I want to ask you a question: if you had a cure for cancer, how many people would you try to get it to? You would try to get it to as many people as possible. I would say it’s unethical to have a cure for cancer and not attempt to share it with as many people as possible. Well, you may not literally have a cure for cancer, but you possess a remedy for the types of cancers that people are dealing with in their lives—those issues that are eating away at them and inhibiting them from experiencing life as God intended. You have the cure for that. God is glorified through our greatness; I’m going to say that again: God is glorified through our greatness. What does greatness mean? Greatness is optimization. What does that mean? Does it mean you’re perfect? No. Does it mean you do everything to the maximum of your capability? No, that’s impossible. But does it mean that, generally speaking, you are properly stewarding the natural abilities, acquired skills, and spiritual gifts that you’ve been given? Yes, that is optimization. Family, that is meeting the divine expectations of your Creator. It is your Creator making deposits into you in terms of natural abilities, acquired skills, and spiritual gifts, and expecting you to steward those gifts to the maximum of your potential. That produces the fruit of greatness, and God is glorified through that.

Now, let me make a distinction here, and this distinction is between great and famous. You can be famous and not be great; you can be great and not be famous; and you can be both famous and great. What should be prioritized, though, is greatness. Why, Darius? Because greatness produces influence. And, Daniels, come on, that’s what we are. Daniels understand the importance of influence. This is something that I want you to be comfortable saying because you understand the difference between influence and fame. Fame is about notoriety, and a person can have increased notoriety without any significant impact at all. Listen, when you get better spiritually, everything gets better. Spiritual life is not the only important part of your life; it is the most important part. See, it affects every other aspect, which is crucial, but you don’t get stronger spiritually by accident. It takes intentionality. You need to be fed and learn how to interpret, apply, and explain the Bible. The Bible is the blueprint to your best life, and I’m going to tell you: Sunday is not enough to equip you with the tools you need to improve your understanding of the Bible. I want you to join me in my community called BibleU, where I help you take your understanding, application, and explanation of the Bible to another level.

We live in an era in human history where we’re fortunate to have access to many digital platforms where people can gain recognition. We can be famous; we can go viral for all sorts of things. I’m not against that; I’m not criticizing it. That’s just not what I’m discussing here. Influence is something different; it refers to your ability to impact people and the number of individuals you are able to affect. So, I want to ask you a question: if you had a cure for cancer, how many people would you try to get it to? You would try to get it to as many people as possible. I would say it’s unethical to have a cure for cancer and not attempt to share it widely. Well, you may not literally have a cure for cancer, but you have a remedy for the types of cancers that people are dealing with in their lives—those things that are eating away at their lives and preventing them from experiencing life as God intended. You have the cure for that, and it’s in your natural abilities, acquired skills, and spiritual gifts. The posture of your heart should be, «I want to reach as many people as possible.» I want to maximize my Metron. I taught you that your Metron, right? That’s all I want to do—I want to maximize my Metron. The potential influence I can have is the influence that I aim to achieve, and that happens through greatness, which is optimization. It is meeting divine expectations.

So, this is key; this is important because this is how we occupy seats of influence as Daniels. It is also how we truly improve the quality of our own lives. And here’s why this character module is important: when people often think about greatness, they think about competencies. We’re going to discuss competencies next month in our next module. We’re going to talk about the competency of communication, and later we’ll cover the competency of coaching. I think all of that is important, but what is key, critical, and often overlooked is character. When we talk about character here in the den, we’re not just referring to ethics or morals—we assume you understand the importance of that. We’re talking about traits. It is possible to be moral and miserable without developing certain character traits. What is a character trait, Darius? It is the individual qualities or attributes that make up who a person is and what they do.