Mike Todd Says Jesus Didn’t Reach His Potential!

Fight For Truth

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Hey guys, Colin here, and welcome back to the channel where the Bible and critical thinking meet to give you real

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Christian commentary about the things that matter. Thanks so much for watching, let's get into the video. So Mike Todd, pastor of Transformation Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has one of the fastest growing audiences of any pastor anywhere.

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His teaching mirrors that of Stephen Furtick and Joel Osteen, which by the way, those are two men that he's admitted that he looks up to and models his ministry after.

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Of course, he's inherited every bit of the passion and charisma that these two men have, but unfortunately, he's also inherited their horrible theology and preaching as well.

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Today's video is going to show you a great example of that, where Mike Todd says that Jesus didn't accomplish his full potential.

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Watch this. And this is one of the thoughts I want to end with, if it's okay. Jesus never reached his potential.

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Now I know this is messing with a lot of people's theology. Because since I've been young, everybody's like,

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Mike, you need to reach your potential. Everything that God said and put inside of you, it needs to happen. But when

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I studied the scriptures, he never reached his potential. When he died upon the cross, he said three words.

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He said, it is finished. What was finished? Not his potential, because he had the potential to overthrow

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Caesar. He had the potential to be a Roman guard. He had the potential to do all kinds of stuff.

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The thing that was finished was his purpose. And if you don't follow the pace of God, if you don't have perseverance in hard times, if you don't get patient, you spend your life trying to fulfill your potential, and you'll die never reaching your purpose.

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What you just heard was not just an innocent mistake. It was blasphemy against Jesus himself.

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It was a dreadfully irresponsible comment made by someone who calls himself a pastor. So let's talk about this using three biblical points, shall we?

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Number one, we've got to define our terms here. Mike Todd says that Jesus didn't reach his full potential.

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Why? Well, because he had the potential to overthrow Caesar. So by definition, Jesus didn't accomplish his potential because Jesus could have done something other than what he did.

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That's the perspective of Mike Todd, and it's really weird. In order to realize why this is wrong, we need to define our terms.

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What does it mean to reach one's potential in Mike Todd's view? Well, in Mike Todd's view, reaching one's potential means doing the most amazing thing that you're capable of doing.

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Jesus could have done something impressive like overthrow Caesar, but instead he chose to die on the cross. And the problem here is that the very terminology implies that Jesus did something less significant, less impressive, and less amazing than the alternatives that were available to him, because that is by definition what it means to not accomplish your full potential.

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Regardless of the overall point being made, the language being used here is very dangerous and very unbiblical.

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And this is of course simply not true with regards to Jesus. So the first point here is an explanation of Mike Todd's statement.

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His idea behind Jesus not reaching his full potential is that Jesus could have done something more awesome than what he did, but instead he chose to fulfill

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God's purpose for him, which was inevitably to do something lower, namely die on the cross. And this brings me to point number two.

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So the main issue here is that Mike Todd is really belittling what Jesus did on the cross. Mike Todd says that dying on the cross was less than what

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Jesus was capable of. Again, we're talking from a very humanistic mindset here. In fact, this mindset perfectly mirrors that of Jesus' disciples.

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Acts 1, 6 -7 says this, quote, So when they, the apostles, had come together, they asked him, that's

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Jesus, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he, Jesus, said to them, it is not for you to know times or seasons that the

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Father has fixed by his own authority. So it is clear that the disciples thought Jesus had come to restore a powerful political kingdom to Israel.

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That was his full potential, according to their feeble minds. They didn't understand what his mission was.

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But unlike Mike Todd, these apostles had somewhat of an excuse. You see, they did not have a full understanding available to them of the true mission of Jesus.

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After all, these men were confused about Jesus' potential because they were the very first Christians ever.

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They hadn't even received the Holy Spirit yet. But thousands of years later, Mike Todd is apparently just as confused as they were.

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Again, in Mike Todd's view, Jesus had the potential to do something better, like overthrow the Romans, and he chose to do something lesser, like die on the cross.

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And this is fundamentally the problem with Mike's statement. I think that what Jesus did on the cross for us is, in many ways, more spectacular, more transformative, more life -giving than overthrowing

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Caesar. Why should it not be said that Jesus accomplished his entire potential on the cross? Why on earth would we be implying that he accomplished anything less than his complete and total potential in dying for the sins of the world?

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Again, this is the problem with Mike Todd's statement. It is completely irresponsible. The statement looks at the narrative of Jesus' ministry from a very fleshly human perspective.

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You see, to us humans, Jesus could have had the potential to do something awesome, like lead a successful military campaign against the world's greatest empire.

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That's pretty cool. But instead, he chose to die on the cross. Mike Todd, the disciples, and many others are looking at this, though, in the entirely wrong way.

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Rather than suggesting that Jesus could have done something more amazing to reach his potential, we should praise him for the complete awesomeness of his sacrifice for us.

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Dying for the sins of all people, living a sinless life, and changing the world. That doesn't sound at all like falling short of a greater potential.

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In fact, it blows any other potential out of the water. That's what we should say if we really worship

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Jesus and appreciate his work. That's the way Christians should be thinking. And this brings me to point number three.

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Why does Mike Todd say things like this? Well, that's an easy question to answer. Mike says things like this because he wants to blow people's minds.

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It's a very common trend in the modern Church. Pastors try to say something that is as unbiblical as they could possibly make it sound.

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And then they pause while the crowd whispers with anxiety about this seemingly unbiblical statement they've just heard.

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It makes them concerned. It makes them nervous. And the pastors revel in the chaos that they've just made.

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They crave that one moment where everyone is looking straight at them, wondering desperately what they're about to say.

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And then they spend the rest of their time on stage trying to cleverly use the Scriptures to justify the problematic statement that they previously made.

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It's all a tactic to grip people's attention and show them how apparently smart they are that they can say these provocative statements and get away with it theologically.

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But if you use this tactic often enough, you'll find that you run out of insane statements to make. You'll start reaching further and further theologically to justify those statements, and then ultimately you end up like Mike Todd or Stephen Furtick, where you're way more concerned about getting people's attention than you are about the implications of your teaching and your doctrine, and that is a very dangerous place to be.

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Second Timothy 4 .3 talks about these kinds of teachers when it says, quote, For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, end quote.

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That's exactly what we see today. More than anything, people who call themselves Christians want to be entertained.

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They don't care about sound doctrine. That stuff is boring. Give them a passionate speaker who keeps them entertained and interested throughout the sermon.

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And the content of the sermons, the actual teaching, well, that just comes second. Nobody really cares about that anymore.

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People like Mike Todd are a product of this tendency of fallen human beings to get themselves teachers who suit their own passions, and it really shows.

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So in conclusion, Mike Todd says that Jesus didn't accomplish his potential, which is both irresponsible and unbiblical.

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This statement comes from a fleshly human mindset mixed with a desire to entertain man rather than to please

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God. So let's pray for Mike Todd, that he would repent of this falsehood and turn to the truth of God's Word.

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And until next time, fight for truth, never surrender, and keep your eyes open. Thank you and God bless.