S4 | 22: Why You Must Pursue a Just Cause
Money is important. But this is what should own your heart.
I’m not surprised that I’m moved to write on this particular topic today.
For a while now, I have made a deliberate decision to dedicate my weekends to pursuing my highest purpose. I scarcely touch paid work. Instead, I pour myself solely into what God has placed deepest in my heart for the nations of the world.
You see…
I do three things well in this life:
I teach personal growth to help people build a lasting growth culture.
I do content marketing for high-net-worth individuals, DeFi projects, and info-marketing brands.
I teach and disciple believers to walk effectively in the things of the Spirit.
I make money from the second one—it’s my profitable skill. But I honestly can’t remember the last time chasing money kept me awake for long hours. I can’t recall crying over a lost client or lying restless at night because a financial deal fell through.
Don’t get me wrong.
Money matters. I work diligently to pay bills, care for loved ones, and open new streams of income. As long as I breathe in this world, money remains an essential tool. But it has never owned my heart. It has never been the fire that consumes me.
The Night That Still Brings Tears
2024.
The night before the biggest event of my life: Growth Masterclass.
I had poured everything into it—every kobo, every ounce of risk, every favour I could call in. My team and I stood on the edge of something monumental.
That night, sleep evaded me. I watched team members still working in the hall—some laboured until dawn broke. Their sacrifice pierced me. I could never thank them enough for believing in the vision, for giving their time, energy, and sleep when they had families waiting at home.
At 2 a.m., I finally dragged myself upstairs to the hotel room I had booked for proximity. I set an alarm for 5 a.m., hoping for a few hours of rest.
By 5 a.m., I was back in the hall. I climbed the empty stage where I would teach in just hours, and I prayed. My heart felt heavy, my eyes filled with tears. I lifted my voice to the God who birthed this vision inside me.
These were my exact words:
“God, I’ve done all I can. My team has done all they can. It’s your turn now. Show up for us and honour Your name at this Masterclass.”
Then I prayed in tongues on that stage for the next hour. When I finished, a deep relief washed over me—as the burden had shifted to stronger shoulders.
I sat down and made one final social media post inviting people. These were the exact words:
“Dear Ones....
𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐞𝐧
𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝗜 𝗮𝗺 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗜 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘁.
I haven’t been able to sleep well for days.
I was up early this morning praying that as you come to Growth Masterclass, you will catch the same fire in my heart.
I call it the “Spirit of the Awakening”.
The idea is that “when one man wakes up, he has to wake another”.
It’s the theme song of the Masterclass.
It’s the idea behind the vision of helping people cultivate a Growth Culture that helps them thrive.
I keep saying that this is NOT an ambition.
In all honesty and truthfulness, it is GOD who inspires my heart.
Not for fame
Not for name
Not for claimBut that God is glorified in my actions and that many people will be transformed by the actions of my life.
Growth Masterclass is a sacrifice.
Blood is dripping.
My blood has gushed out.
My team’s blood is overflowing.This is the life we have chosen.
That as ONE MAN WAKES, HE MUST WAKE ANOTHER.
Please, I beg you:
Come and be inspired at Growth Masterclass, Uyo, Nigeria.
My Name Is John Gospel.”
Your Brother.
The comments flooded in—prayers, encouragement, tears, testimonies of how the post moved people. Many promised to attend (and they did). Some simply said, “Thank you for sacrificing.”
As I write this now, two years later, tears still fill my eyes. I feel the same goosebumps from that dawn on the stage. That event remains the greatest sacrifice I have ever made for a just cause God planted in my soul. And in the years ahead, I know He will call me to greater ones—bigger platforms, deeper investments, more costly obedience.
What a Just Cause Really Is
Most people never grasp that one of the greatest drivers of true, lasting success is a selfless life—a life devoted to impacting the world beyond personal gain.
Look at the men and women you admire most. Study the businesses scaling to insane revenue while actually improving lives. Consider the most influential spiritual leaders across history and today.
They share one common thread: they serve. They make other lives better.
Billionaires often build empires by solving real human problems at scale. Spiritual fathers and mothers draw from divine wells to give people what the natural world cannot provide—hope, healing, transformation.
Earl Nightingale captured it perfectly:
“Our rewards in life are in exact proportion to our contribution and our service.”
What we receive—money, respect, influence, fulfilment—flows directly from what we give to others.
A just cause, then, is your unique contribution to humanity, whether paid or not. It is the highest calling you can answer to discover true meaning.
If you have lived only for yourself up to this point, you have not yet truly lived. If your existence does not lift someone else, you have not yet tasted a life of deep worth and eternal essence.
This is not condemnation—it is an invitation upward.
Those Who Went Before Us
History echoes with voices who lived exactly this way. Their words still burn because they paid the price.
The apostle Paul, beaten, shipwrecked, imprisoned, wrote from a Roman cell:
“I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.” (Acts 20:24)
Paul did not count comfort or safety. He counted the cause everything.
Jim Elliot, a young missionary, poured his life into reaching an unreached tribe in Ecuador. He and four friends were speared to death in 1956. Years earlier he had written in his journal:
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”
Elliot saw clearly: money, reputation, even life itself—we cannot keep them. But souls awakened to Christ? That treasure is eternal.
C.T. Studd gave up fame as a world-class cricketer and a large inheritance to serve in China, India, and Africa. He penned the lines that still challenge comfortable Christians:
“Only one life, ‘twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.”
David Livingstone spent decades mapping Africa, fighting the slave trade, and preaching the gospel. Separated from family, ravaged by disease, he once reflected:
“I never made a sacrifice.”
Compared to what Christ gave up—leaving heaven’s throne to die for us—Livingstone saw his hardships as a privilege, not a loss.
Mother Teresa left a comfortable teaching post to serve the dying on Calcutta’s streets. She said:
“A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, and must empty ourselves.”
She knew love is not sentiment. Love is an action that bleeds.
These people were not superhuman. They were ordinary men and women who caught a vision bigger than themselves and said yes. Their sleepless nights were not over quarterly reports but over lost souls, broken systems, and unreached people.
And every one of them would tell you: the joy on the other side of sacrifice far outweighs the cost.
My Just Cause: The Vision of the Awakening
Early 2024, during one of my free classes—packed with value, no sponsors, fully self-funded—a lady asked:
“Sir, why are you doing this? What are you benefiting?”
My eyes grew heavy. Tears formed.
I paused, then answered from the depths.
I told her about the burning vision God placed in me:
“As One Man Wakes, He Wakes Another.”
This vision guides nearly every decision. It fuels selfless acts that sometimes scare even me. It supplies energy when my body wants to quit.
It is not ambition. It is a divine assignment.
When I finally answered her, she called me “special” and “kind-hearted.”
I smiled, but inside I knew the truth:
𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐧𝐨 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐘𝐎𝐔.
Catch the same vision, pursue it with the same abandon, and people will say the same about you.
The difference is not personality. It is surrender.
Here’s a testimony a dear one sent me two years after the event. I need you to read this:
An Invitation
Hey, YOU… 🫵
Does something burn in your heart like molten lava? Is there a dream, a burden, a holy discontent that keeps you awake—not for personal gain, but for the transformation of others?
Do you have a plan you would pour your life into, even if no one ever pays you for it?
I pray you catch such a fire today.
More than that, I pray you join one already burning.
Because when one man wakes, he must wake another.
And the world is waiting for you to rise.
This Is Your Arena
Day 22 Of 100 Hours Of Personal Growth
PS: As I remember this sacrifice, I want to (again) specially appreciate my team members for the sacrifices they made alongside me.
THANK YOU: (left) Tems, Emem, Aimah, Grace, Gifted, Aniebiet, Vee, Isaiah and Blessing (to right). 👇
No days off. Stay strong.
— Multidimensionally yours, JG
The power of deep passion, vision and burning desire to see others become.
Thank you for the sacrife you paid, Sir.
I was also at the Growth Masterclass and I also caught real fire. It was more than a masterclass, it was a clarity and refining retreat for men.
Another thing that built my journey from the conference was the creativity and excellence especially in the media (videos). I reached out to her, Veronica.
When I was later appointed as the Video team lead for a conference in Ebonyi State; her guidance was everything about helping me gain clarity on how to lead the team. This compounded to my leadership as the media and publicity team lead, for The Purpose Discovery Conference held last year in Uyo, which you were part of the fireside chat speakers.
Lord, please plant a burning desire in me, and help me pursue a just cause above money, personal gain and pleasures.
I'll always say partaking in 100HPG is not a coincidence, it's a divine direction.
I know in few years to come, I'll read h out to you and tell you that this challenge was the stepping stone to my greatness.
Thank you for pushing this vision.
Thank you for allowing God use you to help lives.