Live a Bold Legacy

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Reading from Psalm 46, verse 10, Be still and know that I am God. That's Psalm 46, verse 10.

O magnify the Lord with me, let us exalt his name together. It's Wednesday, October 7th, 2026, and welcome to Mark & Friends. Today we're continuing a message from entrepreneur and author Jeff Reeter, recorded at the Pinnacle Forum National Conference in Arizona this past April.

Yesterday Jeff challenged us not merely to leave a legacy someday, but to live a legacy today, an extraordinary life centered upon Jesus Christ and poured into others. And Jeff gave us four words for pursuing our best life, balance, excellence, service, and trust. Today he moves into another four, be, own, love, and do.

We'll hear about being still before God, taking personal responsibility, allowing love to motivate us, doing hard things, and ultimately walking so closely with God that we learn to follow in his footsteps. If you missed yesterday's program, you can listen anytime under the Mark & Friends tab at GreatNewsRadio.org or WLUJ.org. Now let's return to Jeff Reeter and his challenge to live a bold life. Y'all, we've come through a period of relativism, and we're moving to a period of AI.

So relativism said, I know the truth. The truth, I know my truth. Here's my truth.

I got sent to some high-level thing where I learned, by the way, I'll just cut out of the bag, woke high-level thing, where I learned that whatever somebody says to you is their truth, so you treat it as truth. I mean, that was training by a $300 billion company, Fortune 100 company. Whoa! And I'm, like, in the room going, okay, hang in there.

Just don't lose it immediately. You know, be strategic in how you offset this. Did you guys see the movie A Few Good Men? Do you remember Tom Cruise's famous line? I want the truth! Do we? Do we want the truth? Do we want the truth in the areas of our life where the truth is difficult or concerning or uncomfortable? And then there's Colonel Jessup and Jack Nicholson.

You can't handle the truth! Can we handle the truth? Do we want the truth, and can we handle the truth? And how deep into the truth are we going? And how important is this book to us? Like, are we staking our life on this book? Because if we are, we ought to be spending a little time in it. This is God's love letter to us. How often are we going to read it? And then the movie Liar Liar by Jim Carrey.

And the truth will set you free! Okay, Jim Carrey gets it right. That's kind of crazy, isn't it? The liar gets it right. Y'all, truth is huge.

The pursuit of truth leads to character, and tough times are coming. This is Houston, Texas, Hurricane Harvey. That's my office, office building, three floors up, completely underwater on that office building.

It was so amazing to watch that firm of people come together for each other and then reach out from there. Count it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you experience trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith will produce, and the first word is perseverance, and then it goes all the way out to what? Godly character. How cool is it to be pursuing godly character by counting it all joy when we experience trials of many kinds? Okay, so best life, balance, excellence, service, and truth.

Bold life. Are we going to be bold? Are we going to pursue a bold life? Be, own, love, do. Be before do.

Be still. Be still and know who is God and who isn't God. Y'all, I'm going to share this.

I kind of went back and forth on whether I'm going to do it, and I'm going to do it. I'm a little strange. You kind of figured that out already, I know, but I'm a 4.44 a.m. guy, and at 4.44 a.m., I am on my knees for a few minutes focused on being still and knowing He is God and putting myself in a position where it's really clear to me that God is God and I'm not when I've got people around me that are overly kind often, which isn't great for my ego.

So I really want to challenge you with this be word. Be, become. Being in truth is the key key to pursuing an extraordinary life.

The Bible is truth. Psalm 42, as a deer panteth after water, so my soul pants after you. It takes self-discipline in this book daily, in my opinion, early in the morning to get to the place where we are like that deer that pants after water, that where we're jumping out of bed to go spend time in His Word.

When my dad died, by the way, my mom and dad both passed, I had this season, Calvin, of time, thank you for your incredible comments on that, where I said, no regrets with mom and dad. And so anything I thought up to do, I did. I challenge you with that for your aging parents.

Okay, this book, this crazy life book that I kind of do life in, this is a page, it's got like 35 things on it, JDR, I believe, 10 things of those. I'm going to read you 10 things from JDR, I believe. I believe in living life at the heart of the fire.

That speaks to being. I believe in always being enthusiastic, especially about the success of others. I believe that I should exemplify power, love, and discipline and overcome fear in my life.

I believe in developing love, happiness, and loyalty in my home, in my family, and acknowledge that no success in the world can compensate for failure in my home. I believe that what is possible is beyond what I could ask or imagine. I believe my past, both good and bad, is part of my legacy, that my legacy is foundational to my destiny, and that providence, the providence of God, is always at work for more.

I believe that persecution, if I live my life well, is part of life, be a sheep in wolf's clothing. I believe that joy is my secret sauce, walking with God, the joy of the Lord is my strength. I believe in myself, but most importantly, I believe in God.

And finally, I believe that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and I will pursue him as such. So I want to challenge you. I kind of know this group a little bit.

I know most of you have a daily quiet time, but if you aren't, I want you to choose a commitment today. I want you to make a commitment this morning that for the next, this is the hard part, for the next 365 days, you will read one verse. One.

Every day for the next 365 days. By the way, the shortest one is Jesus wept. If you read it, you get credit.

Now you say, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Well, there's a method to my madness, and I've done this with, I don't know, I know hundreds, probably thousands of people now. What do you think? When I get the letter from them at the end of the year that they did it, what did they say? I read way more than one verse.

The first few days, I just kind of barely got my one verse, but then as time went by, it became a habit. Aristotle, we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, comes in the form of a habit.

Habit. Okay, but that's, so that the one verse, if you're not having a daily time with Lord, one verse a day, 365 days, I want you to commit to that this morning. And then my wife, Cindy, gave me a kitchen pass on this one.

Have you ever read through the Bible in a year? Because some of you guys spend some time. And so if you would commit today to read through the Bible in a year, Cindy and I, my wife, who's amazing, would like to send you the Bible. Okay, so there's a daily walk, walk through the Bible.

We sort of know how to pick the translation. It's actually a new living version that we would put people in when they're going to read through this crazy book in a year. It takes about three chapters.

It takes about, really, 15, 20 minutes a day, really. But anyway, I used to sometimes in my firm, we've done this forever. We call it Project Truth.

We love to give Bibles that way. But in my firm, I would tell them, you know, you commit, and then if you haven't read it for a week, you must come bring it back and present it back to me. And of course, that just freaks them out.

So that's highly motivational. You guys don't have to present it back if you don't, if it's been a week. All right, be, own.

Own everything. Accept personal responsibility. Own the failures.

Defer the victories. Own the complexity. I've been in Washington, D.C. One of the problems I'm having with the church at Philadelphia is literally this week, Wednesday, I was at the White House in a room full of people that I just couldn't believe I was in and I kept, I just couldn't get past this.

Why am I in this room? I shouldn't be in this room. I think Ann told me last night that God's got me in the room. That sort of helped and then it sort of didn't.

It drives me nuts that politicians don't own nothing. They're supposed to be the leaders and they don't own anything. At Pinnacle Forum, you guys own everything.

You own things with people. Are you ready? You own things with God. God knows our heart.

So it's just good for us to pour out our heart to God. What's real? Quick story on leading the firm. As managing partner, I get calls from people that are angry.

Can you imagine that? Our firm has a 96.73% client retention and so this is somewhere in the 3% realm evidently and this person is yelling at me. They're often cussing at me. Whenever they get a breath, whenever they take a breath, I say, I am so sorry.

This is completely my fault. You deserve better. I can't tell you how sorry I am.

And this person on the other end of the phone that just cussed me out is now trying to determine what they should do because what happens when you own the issue is that they, because they're expecting you to say, well, that wasn't our fault. That wasn't my fault. Right? So then they start saying, well, no, no, I'm not saying it was your fault.

Sure. I'm sorry, but it was my fault. I'm the managing partner of this firm.

I own this firm. It's my fault. Anything that happens that makes you this angry is absolutely my fault.

Yeah, but Bob did it. Well, Bob is somebody that I love and I trained and I've developed and it sounds like he might have made a mistake. And so then the person says, well, but I sort of also made a mistake.

And so they go now, they start owning because owning things allows us to own things. And then this is a kind of a funny thing for you business people. That's my desk in Houston.

It's a partner's desk, really fun. And there's nothing on it. There's never anything on it.

My advisors say it's because he doesn't work. But what I want you to see is the hanging files. Hanging files have stuff in it.

Over the last 30 some years, all the stuff hadn't been that fun. Some of it has been kind of horrible. There was some extreme woke attacks.

I can tell you attorneys and insanity. And so when those files come, I draw God's hands on the outside. If that file is open on my desk, then I'm working on it.

But that's not the best work. The best work is when that file gets closed up and placed in the hands of God, back in that credenza. God does the best work.

And so I really want to challenge you because our future is going to get more complex. And I want to challenge you to visibly see the hands of God at work. Own everything.

Love. Now these abide, faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Faith, hope, and love. Love is the greatest. God is love.

Are we motivated by love? It's the most powerful motivation that exists on the planet. What's the most common? Fear is the most common. And then finally, do.

Seek to wrap up here. Do. I want to challenge this group to do awesome things.

I'm 64 1⁄2 years old. When I turned 60, I spent some real time praying through that turning of the page. And I felt prompted with this really strange thought.

And by the way, I have these accountability partners that are amazing. I've had them for like 40 years, and they're big-time people in my life. I shared this with them.

I said, I think God's calling me to run after doubling the impact I've had in the world between ages 60 and 70. So my accountability partner says, Well, your body of work up to now gives it a little hope. I was like, Unbelievable.

Thank you very much. God makes a point. Exceedingly, abundantly, above or beyond anything or everything we would ask or think, according to the power.

Power. What's that word in the Greek? Dunamis. You got it.

Superabounding power, energy, and or ability that only comes from God and only comes through His Holy Spirit. Do hard things. Become comfortable being uncomfortable.

Hard things daily leads to an easier life. Can that be true? Hard things daily leads to an easier life, a better life, an extraordinary life. So last September, I went on this insane hunting trip, y'all.

Northern Alaska. Two weeks, a guide and me sleeping on the ground. Temperatures at freezing or below got down to zero most nights.

We're in a two-man tent, and I've got a bow and arrow and my horse. On the third day, Kira, my horse there, stepped in a hole while we were crossing a river, and she and I fell in. Game changer, because getting warm wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

Frankly, I was cold for two weeks and probably would have been either way, but being wet was not the thing, and my boots filling was not good. They actually talked about taking me out. They were just like, well, you know, you can't do this.

Let's get you back, and it'll take two or three days, and we'll dry you out, and then you come back. We got this. Okay, that guy, wow.

What an amazing, epic adventure. I was hunting moose, caribou, and grizzly bear with a bow and arrow. Three grizzly bear stocks.

Unbelievable. That's my guide, QT, and there we are in the little two-man tent. That's a zero-degree sleeping bag.

It's crazy to sleep with a hat on, and when QT says it's getting cold, it means it's getting cold. The last few days of this hunt came a blizzard. The temperatures dropped, and it was crazy.

You got the pack string back there with the caribou on it. It is September 24th, and winter has happened over the last couple days here. We were packing out, and he did that video.

We got all the way out, and this young man, I was unsettling my horse, who, by the way, I fell in love with, and this young man said, we've got the heater on in the truck, and it was like a startling thing. We hadn't had heaters for two weeks, and so I went and sat down in this truck where the heater was on. It was unbelievable.

I was sitting there going, this is incredible, and then I saw there was like a visor mirror. I took that picture of myself, God as my guide, my hunting guide QT and I were in that tent together. For two weeks, we were thick as thieves.

When QT took a step, I would step in his footprint so that we could be a little more stealthy and quiet. When you're hunting grizzly bears with a bow and arrow, meaning you have to be 50 yards from them, you stay close to your guide. So for two weeks, I'm walking to high places of the earth with God, read Amos 4.13, and for two weeks, I said, God, why don't I walk as closely with you as I do my Alaskan hunting guide? Walk in his steps closely, life adventure with God as my guide, run after extraordinary, pursue a legacy life, not leaving a legacy, but living a legacy, not about me, but about we with abundance, exceedingly abundantly above or beyond everything we could ask or think, dedicated to help, helping others pursue extraordinary.

And this last slide is my blessing to you. I know that's a little bit weird, but it's biblical for me to bless you. There's a guy named King David.

This Psalm was written for him, but I rewrote it for you. I want you to pay some attention to this. I'd actually like for you to memorize it.

I believe it's what's possible for each of us as we help others pursue extraordinary. You ready? From me to you, gird your sword upon your side, almighty warrior, clothe yourself in splendor and majesty. In God's majesty, ride forth victoriously in the cause of truth, humility, and righteousness.

Let your right hand achieve awesome deeds. May your arrows pierce the hearts of God's enemies. Thank you.

And listening friend, that scripture Jeff just shared comes from Psalm 45, particularly verse 3 through the first part of verse 5. One clarification that may help you as you study it later, Psalm 45 is attributed to the sons of Korah. It's a royal wedding Psalm originally written concerning the king, and portions of that Psalm are later quoted in Hebrews chapter 1, verses 8 and 9, and applied directly to Jesus. And maybe that makes Jeff's challenge even more meaningful.

Live boldly, but keep Jesus at the center. Be still before him. Own what he has entrusted to you.

Love the people he's placed around you, and do what he's calling you to do. I especially appreciated Jeff's picture from Alaska. When you're hunting grizzly bear with a bow and arrow, you stay pretty close to your guide.

And Jeff found himself asking God, why don't I walk as closely with you as I do my Alaskan hunting guide? That's a question worth taking home. Listening friend, let's walk closely with God. Step where he steps, follow where he leads, and rather than merely hoping someday to leave a legacy, let's faithfully live one today.

You've been listening to entrepreneur and author Jeff Reeter in a special two-day presentation from the Pinnacle Forum National Conference. Learn more at PinnacleForum.com. And listen again, read the transcript, and explore additional ministry resources under the Mark & Friends tab at GreatNewsRadio.org or WLUJ.org. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being a part of our radio listening family.

This is Mark Burns with the Ministry of Great News Media. God bless you and have a great day and night.