Thank you so much for inviting Mariah and I to be here. I love your focus and your theme that there are dreams inside of everyone that’s waiting to be released and that becomes the beauty of our lives.


We all know about the extraordinary nature of God, but I want to talk to you about the extraordinary nature of all things human---that every human being is created in the image and likeness of God.


All of us were not born ordinary – we were born extraordinary! But even so most of us will die tragically ordinary, because most of us, as we grow up, we embrace the average, the mundane, the ordinary, rather than embrace the extraordinary potential with which we were all born. But somewhere along the way, life, the world, your experiences, your tragedies, your failures, maybe all the people that have spoken to you in your life have beaten the extraordinary out of you. And what are left are the most ordinary versions of you.

On the contrary, when you were born you were no ordinary child. Under all the layers of the ordinary there is an extraordinary person waiting to be awakened. There are things inside all of us that will remain tragically asleep and undeveloped and unreleased because of the fears that hold us back from being our most extraordinary self.


Shakespeare said that some men are born great, others attain greatness and others have greatness thrust upon them. But I knew that I was not born great. After high school, I did not even apply for college because I already knew that I would not make it. What could God do with a wretch like me? But if you also feel that way, remember it is not over yet!  

What Shakespeare meant is that some are not kings, nobility, royalty, or lords. Some do not attain greatness in the normal course of greatness, but there are those moments in history, moments in time where the situation becomes so perilous, the moment becomes so critical, there is crisis and challenges, obstacles and opposition, and that moment demands a human being, even perhaps an ordinary human being, to rise up with nobility, honor, and courage, to step up and take on themselves the servanthood to others, to sacrifice of themselves for the good of the world, and in that moment greatness is thrust upon them.

I identify with Moses. We both had similar confusing childhoods and have identity issues. My name “Erwin McManus” is an alias. I’m actually Latino but my stepfather had my name changed in one of his many illegal scams.  As a child, I never really knew my real father. I was the least favorite in the family and mom always used to say I looked like a rat as a baby. But Moses has me beat though. His Israelite parents threw him into the river as a baby! And he got to be raised by their enemies, the Egyptians!

In Acts 7:20 it says that when Moses was born he was no ordinary child, but there was no proof of the extraordinary for a long, long time. Because of his past, the fact that Moses was born an Israelite and not an Egyptian though reared as an Egyptian, he lacked an identity, and sought desperately to understand the Israelites. He even intervened when he saw an Egyptian beating an Israelite and killed the Egyptian. Moses thought that now the Israelites would accept him as their own. But the next day as he tried to stop two Israelites in a fight one of them said, “Will you kill me like you killed the Egyptian?” At this Moses became fearful and fled the city and made a home in another town and remained there for 40 years living an ordinary life. But there was a day when he wandered across the wilderness and saw this burning bush and only his curiosity drove him closer.

He heard a voice of God tell him to take off his sandals because he was now on Holy ground. God said that He had heard the cries of His people and the oppression by Egypt and so He was going to send Moses to lead the Israelites.

In that moment when Moses encountered God, greatness was thrust upon him. Likewise, the moment you allow God to unleash in you that which he put in there, in that moment when you live your life encountered by Him, greatness is thrust upon you. Once I took that step of Faith, it was easy.

In John chapter 2, Jesus turned water into wine and it was declared the best wine! He does not make bad or mediocre wine! Only the best! So when Jesus made you, He made you the best! We may not know how Godly we are but God does!

There is something waiting inside of you that the world desperately needs for you to give. No matter what your past says about you, no matter what your inner narrative may be, no matter how many people have said to you that you have no value, no worth, no potential, no talent, you may not have been born great, you may not have attained greatness, but it’s not over yet.

I was shopping one day and I overheard a very sad conversation in which an elderly lady customer did not have enough money to buy a coffee maker. As the conversation painfully continued, it was obvious that she desperately needed that coffee maker and the cashier was being rude to her. I ended up arguing with the cashier on her behalf when he refused to let me make the purchase for her. But eventually the good guys won and she got her coffee maker. Afterwards, the elderly lady explained that her old coffee maker had almost burned her daughter’s house down. The lady kept repeating to my wife, “God Bless you, God Bless you.”


When you were born you were no ordinary child and you may have lost yourself to your most ordinary self. You may have forgotten that you were born to live a heroic life. You may have forgotten that the world needs you to live your most extraordinary life so always remember, every moment of every day someone needs you to be God for them, to be Jesus for them, to be present for them.

Maybe you will never conquer some empire; maybe there will never be a movie made of your life; but I have a feeling that we can change the course of the human story just by living up to the person God created you to be.

Study Suggestions

1. In whose image are we created? What does that mean to you?

2. How can you be more of your extraordinary self?

3. What does that Shakespeare quote mean to you?

4. Who needs you to be an expression of God?

5. What are some of things that prevent you from being the person God created you to be?