Pastor Joel Osteen of Lakewood Church truly practices what he preaches. Osteen always tells his congregation to think positively and break the barriers of pain and worries, and he does the same every time he gets swamped with criticism.
Osteen appeared on "The T.D. Jakes Show" on Tuesday and told Bishop T.D. Jakes that he would never have reached his current level of success if he allowed other people's negativity to affect him.
Osteen started his ministry after his father died. The Texas megachurch pastor said it was daunting taking over his father's place, but he did not let fears stop him. "When I stepped up for my dad, thoughts told me that, 'You know what, Joel? You're not going to know what to say. Nobody's going to listen to you,'" he recalled.
"The church had 6,000 people when my dad died, and so I was getting up there in front of, you know, all these people, never having ministered before," he continued. "If I continued to dwell on those kinds of thoughts, I would have never moved forward. I've learned this, Bishop: You can either talk yourself into your dreams or you can talk yourself out of your dreams."
Part of himself told him that he will never be as good as his dad, while the other half said otherwise. Osteen said he was already feeling insecure, but he decided to rise above his feelings.
"I'm not going to let those labels, I'm not going to let those thoughts play in my mind. I've heard you talk on it. You've got to hit the delete button. When things get in there, you got to delete it out of there and say what God says about you," he said.
Osteen is currently promoting his most recent book "Think Better, Live Better: A Victorious Life Begins in Your Mind." It was published in October, and promises to offer "a simple yet life-changing strategy for erasing the thoughts that keep you down and reprogramming your mind with positive thinking to reach a new level of victory."
