Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Preparing For Reign

Last night my wife and I watched yet again one of our favorite movies, “Facing the Giants” which was a low budget highly successful Christian movie. As always it moved me. There are many great point in the movie, but two I would like to address here. The first is when the older gentleman that prayed for the students everyday approached the coach with a message from God. His final words were about two farmers that prayed for a much needed rain (not reign), but only one prepared his fields for it. He then asked the coach where he thought God sent the rain, and which sort of man the coach was. I have changed the word from “rain” to “reign” in the title of this writing because I believe it applies. Revival struck the school in the movie because they were prepared for the rain of reign.

We then watched the features at the end of the film. The making of the film was an amazing story. God was moving on Alex Kindrick to create such films. He wanted to point out that we all have giants in our lives, but with God they can be overcome. There are many stories about giants as a source of opposition in scripture. Most likely think of David and Goliath. However, long before David, there is a story of giants that applies here.

Numbers 13:1 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
2 Send thou men, that they may search the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel: of every tribe of their fathers shall ye send a man, every one a ruler among them.
3 And Moses by the commandment of the Lord sent them from the wilderness of Paran: all those men were heads of the children of Israel.
17 And Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said unto them, Get you up this way southward, and go up into the mountain:
18 And see the land, what it is; and the people that dwelleth therein, whether they be strong or weak, few or many;

Moses sent the men as God had commanded to scout out the land. They found it to be very fruitful, with grape clusters so big it took two men to carry one! But there were two different reports that came back.

Numbers 13:30 And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.
31 But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.
32 And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature.
33 And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.

Caleb (and Joshua) wanted to go take on the people, the giants, and possess the land. But the other men said the giants were too big. In saying this they were supporting the giants over God. It was like saying God was not big enough, and it scared the people. Then came a different response.

Numbers 14:6 And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes:
7 And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land.
8 If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey.
9 Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the Lord is with us: fear them not.
10 But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel.
11 And the Lord said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them?

Joshua stood up and said God is with us, do not rebel against Him. The people stood up to stone them. God showed up and was displeased. God set things right.

I tell this story because it turns out that in the making of “Facing the Giants”, Alex was prepared to leave his church. He felt the call from God to promote the kingdom, but that the church he was at did not do that type of thing. The pastor decided they would do the movie. The entire church prayed, the movie was done with only five professionals and the rest were volunteers. The movie cost $100,000 to make and grossed $10,000,000. More importantly it has touched and continues to touch thousands of lives. They prepared for reign. Let me now tell you another story.

A couple years ago a friend of mine went to church every day and prayed for revival in the churches sanctuary. God did a miracle and gave him and another of my friends many songs, day after day. Though he did not consider himself a song writer at the time, God was sending the reign. Unfortunately this story does not have a similar ending to date. Instead of using what God was providing to bring revival, the church leaders black balled my friend by name and would not allow the songs they had created to be played. And, as you may have guessed, no revival. So why tell these stories and what can be learned from this?

In the story from Numbers 13-14 we see that some speak for God and some speak for the giants. It is important to never give up, to realize that God will always defeat the giants. Perhaps the question we should all ask ourselves is, who do we speak for – God or the giants?

Prayer
Father, we praise and exalt You. You alone are worthy of praise. We love and exalt You above the giants in our lives. At some point we all give in and/or speak for the giants. Please forgive us when we do. We want to promote Your kingdom. We want You to rain your reign on us and this world. Please send us You abundant healing, deliverance, and provision. In Jesus’ (Yeshua’s) name. Amen.