“But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Messiah. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Messiah Yahushua my Master: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Messiah, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Messiah, the righteousness which is of Elohim by faith: That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.”
–Philippians 3:7-11
Yesterday, friends of ours showed us a little scene in a video clip of the Christian movie, “Facing the Giants”. The scene in the movie was the death crawl, in which the underdog football coach asks the team’s leader, Brock, to give his absolute best as he carried another football player ON HIS BACK down the football field. The hefty football player, Brock, didn’t believe he could go even 20 yards down the football field, carrying the weight of another player on his back. The coach wanted to prove him wrong.
But why make an example of the team’s leader like this? What was the coach trying to do? You see, Brock carried the team in his attitude, and by his attitude of defeat, his team was also destined to lose the next game. At the end of this blog, I want to share with you the video clip we saw and I pray that it will impact (and stir) you as it did Rivkah and I.
In the movie, Brock’s defeated attitude WAS his limitation. This is why he believed that he could only make it 20 yards with the player on his back. When we do not have an attitude to win, we have already admitted defeat. What kind of message was Brock sending to the other players on the team? What was he telling his coach? What kind of limitations do we put on our fellow brothers and sisters, the team of the body of Messiah, when we place limitations upon our own selves? An attitude of defeat is contagious.
It may seem easy to quit when we think we are the only ones running the race…except the matter of the fact is this: We are all part of one team, one body in Messiah. We are responsible for others on our team! Though we have an individual goal of finishing our course, our course will not be finished without the help of others on our team.
“And let us be concerned for one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging, and so much more as you see the Day coming near.”—Hebrews 10:24,25
Well…the day of Yahuweh is coming near. We must realize that though our race is our own race, so many of the members of His body are watching us, cheering us on as we are all looking for His glorious soon return. We must all work together, helping one another reach the finish line, and achieve the great reward – the reward laid up for those who are willing to go beyond their own limitations.
Messiah came to destroy the limitations of the flesh IF we would only pick up His stake upon our backs and carry it down the “football field” called life. Not only did He destroy our limitation to achieve eternal life, but He sent His Father’s Spirit as the Coach to push us on to achieve what seems to be impossible at times—the willingness to get back up and continue towards the goal. But the only way we will ever achieve the impossible, is to first trust the One who is pushing us on towards the excellence of achieving the prize! And trusting Him comes only by knowing Him.
To know Him is to begin to see how He reveals Himself to us each and every day. To know Him is to experience first hand, the revelation of Himself in our lives. Moses knew Him by the works of deliverance He performed for the children of Israel. Yahuweh knew they could never truly know Him if they never saw Him—yet no one can see Him and live. So how does One who exists alone in Light, allow Himself to be known intimately to a people who sat in the darkness of slavery? How did He reveal Himself to a people who only knew of gods they could see and touch?
The deeds Yahuweh performs are designed to drive us back to Him so that we will begin to understand that His faithfulness to do all that He said He would do, lays the very foundation upon which we learn to trust Him, and know Him. What kind of limitations did Enoch have when He really began to know Yahuweh? Not only was his fleshy limitations dissolved, but the dimensional limitations of dwelling in this earth were released. Enoch traveled with Yahuweh. Enoch knew Him. Enoch was limitless because he knew the Limitless!
Yahuweh knew He would never achieve the end time goal of receiving a people back unto Himself, a people in fellowship with Him, a people who really knew Him, without sending first, One who knew no limitations—His only Son Messiah Yahushua. Yahuweh knew that a team that would win back the earth for Him would never be formed if He did not first choose the players on that team. You see, we are a chosen people, a chosen team, called for this last hour to go out in victory over the enemy, facing the giants of our very souls, and destroying them with His limitless power!
Though David knew his own limitations when he went to face Goliath, he did not allow his small stature and inability to function in the armor of King Saul distract him from what He knew he had to do. David’s confidence was backed by what His Elohim already did for him in helping him to kill the lion and the bear. David knew Yahuweh because of His previous faithfulness to give him the strength to overcome. David went forth knowing that his own limitations were swallowed up in the limitlessness of the strength of the Elohim of the armies of Israel. David faced his giant and overcame. We must face our giants and overcome!
One of the greatest weapons in the enemy’s arsenal is deception. Why is it now that he wants the ‘truth tellers’ shut up and his deception to span the globe in these last days? You have the deceivers calling what is truth, lies and what is good, evil. And to the deceivers, the truth tellers, are the ones who are calling evil good and what are lies, the truth. The goal of the enemy is to earn the trust of the people—anyone who will believe the deception.
Pay close attention to what I share with you now…
It is easy to trust in deception – harder to trust in truth
Why? Because often times we are already agreeable to deception because it is what we have already desired. We are already in agreement to what is trying to deceive us. Just like Brock in the movie, he believed in the defeat of his next game, because he believed in the deception of own limitations and that of his team. Like Eve, in the Garden…she already desired what she was not allowed to taste, long before the deceiver came to her. That is why when it came to the decision to sin or not, she readily chose the fruit. Remember, sin begins with a thought. Eve was already in agreement with her deceiver, and the deception came easy.
Deception is readily accepted when we believe it is better for us than the truth we have been told. We will partake of what we love the most. And to a world who is set up for the great deception—the great disclosure…deception is ripe for the taking!
Truth is as Castor oil – good for us, but not so tasteful at times. We give in to deception because deception demands from us no change. Deception carries the greatest promises to those who will only buy into its lies. The small print is never paid much attention, because it takes too long to read. Many sign away their lives just to get what their signing for quicker. They never read the fine print, but only the first line that says, ‘no change required’. And when there is no change demanded, truth is silenced. Truth always demands change!
My friends, truth is always found in the fine print. But most people are too busy to take the time to search it out. For people only have ears to hear what they want to hear and do what is minimally required of them in order to satisfy the desire of getting what they want. If it takes change to satisfy a desire, most people won’t change. I may desire to lose weight but if I will not change my ways to do it, I will remain overweight. People are like electrical current in a circuit–taking the path of least resistance. This is the flesh. The flesh desires to arrive at the destination quicker, but the reward at the end of the destination will never satisfy its lusts. The reward will never be fully appreciated if there is no resistance in attaining it. Resistance, then, is literally, ‘underrated’!
To know Him is a life of sacrifice. A life of obedience. A life lived with the eternal in view at all times. A life realized that resistance achieves for us the perseverance necessary to endure to the end – not just what brings us immediate satisfaction.
We sometimes stop too short of the goal because our eyes are on the wrong goal. If we could only see what He has in store for us, how much harder it would be to quit. To go all the way with Him means that we must be blinded to every distraction that would otherwise hinder our goal of achieving all that He said we could if we only took His yoke upon us. It’s time to step out of who we see ourselves as, and step into who He sees us to be—winners!
As I share the video clip now with you, remember that just as the coach blindfolded Brock so that he would not be distracted of where he was on the field as he carried the player on his back, we too, as blind sheep, must learn to only listen to the voice of the Great Shepherd as He calls to us, and sometimes shouts to us to never give up, never give in, regardless of how much it hurts. He knows what we can do WITH Him and He knows what we cannot do without Him. For we can do NOTHING without Him!
As you watch the clip, think about what kind of limitations (yokes of bondage) you may have placed upon yourself because you failed to realize, through attitudes of defeat, how much you could really do if you could only count all but loss—taking His yoke upon you—all for the excellency of knowing Him.
As Sha’ul said, ‘that I might win Messiah!’ He is the goal! Oh that I might know Him, and the fellowship of His sufferings, to somehow attain what Messiah attained—the resurrection from the dead.
It is through our sufferings for the cause of the stake, with blinders on for the goal set before us, that we should ever think to achieve the greatest reward of all—to see Him face to face!
Shabbat Shalom,
Derek
View the clip <HERE>