DO YOU LOVE SPORTS?
This is one of my favourite sports ads. In fact, it is probably one of my favourite ads of ANY industry! It tells the story of BECOMING. I really love this message. Discipline. Hard work. Faith. Sound familiar?
I love sports. The players! The coaches! The fans! The community! The passion! Do you?
Today, I want to use some iconic sports personalities to help me explain a dilemma. By the way, you’ll need a pen and paper for this exercise!
Please answer these three questions.
A. When you think of the following sports persons, what comes to your mind?
B. What makes each of these accomplished athletes famous? In other words, how did each one of them make their mark in their chosen sport or in the world?
C. If you had to describe each athlete using just ONE word, could you do it? I’ll start you off with five suggestions.
1. Michael Jordan-
2. Tiger Woods
3. Roger Federer- ELEGANCE
4. Cristiano Ronaldo
5. Serena Williams
6. Greg Norman
7. Steffi Graf
8. LeBron James- COMMUNITY
9. Michael Phelps
10. Simone Biles
11. Ramy Ashour- UNORTHODOX
12. MS Dhoni- LEADERSHIP
13. Rafa Nadal- TENACIOUS
14. Jack Nicklaus
15. David Beckham
16. Brian Lara
17. Arnold Palmer
18. John McEnroe
19. Lionel Messi
20. Phil Mickelson
So now, if someone asks you to describe the qualities of an iconic sports personality, you can do it! You have created a perfect COMPOSITE picture of what iconic sporting excellence looks like- on and off the field of play. And, if you ever find yourself coaching young children in sports, now you will have a blueprint of the qualities that you need to introduce to them. These twenty qualities are ESSENTIAL for sporting excellence.
What you will also realise as you go through this exercise is that all twenty descriptions can be applied to EACH athlete! What do I mean? Consider this. Yes, Roger Federer is best known for his elegant movement on the tennis court. He’s truly amazing! But for many years, he had no team. No coach. Just Mirka (his wife) and himself. That’s it! In this regard, he was totally unorthodox! Remember, the athlete whom I believe best symbolises the quality of being unorthodox is Ramy Ashour. He is famous for his unorthodox shot selections. All of these twenty athletes are tenacious. And all of them give back to their communities. You understand what I’m trying to say. You need to possess ALL twenty qualities to become iconic.
Now, I want you to do the same exercise for God’s remnant. That’s right!
Identify 20 people, and they don’t even have to be famous people, whom you think are great representatives of God’s remnant. It was easy to choose 20 iconic athletes, right? And both of us know that we could easily have listed the names of 100 athletes! So I hope that it will be easy for you to choose 20 people whom you believe represent God’s remnant.
But, before you start writing, remember what we have already learned, from earlier posts, about membership in God’s remnant. A member of God’s remnant MUST:
1. Worship God and not Christ
2. Keep sabbath on Saturday
3. Have (embrace) the testimony of Jesus Christ (i.e. the Apostolic Scriptures)
4. Accept Christ’s ‘gospel of the kingdom’ as the MAIN take-away message of the New Testament.
(a) God’s remnant people understand that the ‘kingdom of God’ and the ‘kingdom of heaven’ are two separate but related core elements of the ‘gospel of the kingdom’ message.
(b) God’s remnant people also understand that Christ’s ‘gospel of the kingdom’ message is completely opposite to Paul’s main message (i.e. the ‘gospel of Christ’).
Ahhh, it’s not so easy to do now- getting your list of twenty people!
AND THIS IS OUR PROBLEM!!! THIS IS OUR DILEMMA.
If you don’t know and I don’t know the names of twenty people or ten people who have these qualities, then how is the world supposed to learn what to believe and how to behave as members of God's remnant? If names don’t come tripping off our tongues with ease, then we have a problem!!!
Imagine, I can name Christ’s Twelve Apostles, who lived two thousand years ago, but I cannot name twelve modern day representatives of God’s remnant! This doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. Far from it! It just means that not enough of them are willing to stand up and be counted.
So do you know another thing that ALL those sporting icons have in common? They didn’t just play in their back yard or at the local club. Oh no! They fought for the chance to show the WORLD what they had inside! They stood up and were counted and their contributions have been duly recognised. And, most importantly, ALL of these athletes have inspired us to reach a little higher and try a little harder. What a gift!
I would love to see the members of God’s remnant stand up and be counted too! Be brave enough and committed enough to tell the world who you are, what you believe and what you are doing for the kingdom of God!
How are we supposed to teach our children about God's remnant and become their role models, if we don’t stand up? It’s time for a change!
So please re-read our previous posts. In upcoming posts, we will continue putting the pieces of this puzzle together! So that when we have finished, we will have developed a clear picture of what it means to be a member of God’s remnant.
We are all on a journey of BECOMING our best selves for the kingdom of God.
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‘HARVEST TIME Prophecies’ is the blog post site of TNG Academy. Our blog post site gets its name from Matthew 13:30- i.e. the separation of wheat and tares that will occur at harvest time (i.e. the endtimes). Remember, the ‘wheat’ symbolises Godly things and the ‘tares’ symbolise things of the devil.
The purpose of these blog posts is twofold. Firstly, they are written to encourage more focus on Christ’s core message- i.e. the ‘gospel of the kingdom’. And second, they are written as an aid for our discipleship journey- i.e. improving our understanding of God’s expectations of us. I hope, these posts assist you on your journey of ‘becoming’!
Visit our website- WWW.TNGACADEMY.ORG, to get copies of our Bible study books. Which books would I recommend for you to read first? Start with these three-
- WHAT IS THE KINGDOM OF GOD?
- MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN!
- THE APOSTOLIC SCRIPTURES.
#theapostolicscriptures
#gospelofthekingdom
#Remnant
#endtimes
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