Published on August 27th, 2010 | Articles, Guest Posts

This guest post comes to us from Paul Keith Davis at White Dove Ministries.

Secretariat

By Paul Keith Davis

In 1973 Secretariat rose out of obscurity to become recognized as one of the greatest racing horses in history. At that time interest in horse racing was at an all-time low in the United States, but this exceptional horse changed all that. Because of Secretariat’s prior history, no one thought he had much of a chance at the Kentucky Derby. Experts believed that the race’s distance or field offered little chance for a record-setting performance. Yet, to the surprise of everyone, Secretariat ran the first quarter-mile of this prestigious race in slightly more than twenty-five seconds, setting a new world-record pace. But could such a large and broad-shouldered horse maintain that stride and pace for another mile? Everyone wondered.

Surprisingly, Secretariat did better than just sustain that pace. He increased it with each quarter of the race, finishing the one-and-a-quarter mile distance in less than two minutes—an achievement unmatched before or since.

Suddenly a media frenzy began to flourish around this beautiful red horse. Observers described him as “truly magnificent.” He graced the covers of Time, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated. A champion had been born!

The Preakness

Excitement began to build as the Preakness, the second race in the coveted Triple Crown, approached. The nation’s attention was turned to this beautiful horse, about whose attributes commentators struggled to find appropriate adjectives. One announcer claimed that in human vernacular Secretariat would be a Heisman Trophy winner, a Rhodes Scholar, and Miss America all in one stunning, awe-inspiring being.

In a unique way Secretariat’s performance at the Preakness was even more brilliant than his victory at the Kentucky Derby. Secretariat was in last position out of the starting gate but still did something unprecedented in this historic race: He sprinted full-bore around the first bend, and by the time he turned onto the back side, he was racing to the lead. Now, the turns on this track are tight, and horse-racing aficionados considered it suicidal to take the first bend too fast. Nevertheless, Secretariat did the extraordinary in his second of three monumental races. Veteran racing experts were awestruck, declaring, “Horses don’t do what he did here today. They just don’t do that!”

As he had at the Kentucky Derby, Secretariat won the Preakness by two-and-a-half lengths. Many believe the pace of this race was also record-setting, but because of a controversy over the time clock, the speed was never verified.

With two victories under his belt all that stood between Secretariat and the Triple Crown was the Belmont Stakes. One journalist said that if Secretariat were to lose the Belmont, “the country may turn sullen and mutinous.” World attention was focused on this single race, which some would later describe as “the greatest race ever run.”

The Greatest Race

On the morning of the Belmont Stakes Secretariat awoke with a seemingly mystical determination. His trainers later told reporters that he was “rearing and bucking, flaring his nostrils and rolling his eyes.” He was somehow filled with anticipation for the race. Reportedly “he burst from the barn like a studhorse going to the breeding shed and walked around the outdoor ring on his hind legs, pawing at the sky in a magical, unforgettable instant, now frozen in time.”

Secretariat totally intimidated his competition approaching the starting gate; a supernatural atmosphere appeared to surround him. He did not merely walk to the gate—he romped to his position.

The Belmont was the longest of the three races. After the starter’s gun had sounded, initially a horse named Sham gave Secretariat a formidable challenge. The first six furlongs were run in a staggering seventy seconds, with Sham incredibly keeping abreast of Secretariat. However, the pace proved more than Sham could sustain, and the challenger injured himself in the last race he would ever run.

Meanwhile, Secretariat continued to command the lead during the second half of the race. As one commentator put it, “It was as though he were running on the wind.” Midway through the race it was clear Secretariat would win the Belmont and become the first new Triple Crown winner in twenty-five years. Yet, even more astonishingly, instead of coasting to a safe victory, Secretariat maintained the same record-setting pace; he did not merely want to win—he intended to run the greatest race ever.

Certain no horse could maintain this pace for so long, many observers and journalists felt jockey Ron Turcotte was foolish to continue to push Secretariat at this tempo and risk collapse and the loss of the Triple Crown victory. But the jockey had little to do with it: Secretariat was running at his own pleasure. This was a day of destiny. Turcotte later commented that Secretariat had a mind of his own for this race, and he [Turcotte] simply held on and enjoyed the ride.

As the last quarter of the race lay before Secretariat, every fan, journalist, and observer grew mesmerized by the fortitude and sheer talent of this amazing horse, whose victory turned out to be one of the greatest events in sports history. His Triple Crown performance is unmatched in U.S. horse-racing history. It was the greatest single performance he had ever witnessed in a sporting event, recalls legendary golf champion Jack Nicklaus. When this mythic race was over, Secretariat had defeated his closest competition by thirty-one lengths and set an all-time record of 2:24, a feat previously considered impossible.

The Secret of Secretariat’s Success

What a great champion God created for us to learn from! Secretariat had a secret, which was only discovered at his death. During an autopsy, medical examiners found that Secretariat had a perfectly healthy heart that was almost two-and-a-half times larger than an average horse’s heart. Secretariat’s heart weighed a staggering twenty-two pounds, whereas an average horse’s heart weighs about eight-and-a-half pounds.

Secretariat had been given a supernatural heart. Almighty God, the Creator, had given this horse a special endowment and greater capacity than any other race-horse in recorded history.

When I asked the Lord why he gave Secretariat such a large heart, he replied quickly and concisely: “Because it pleased Me to do so.” No matter what veterinarians’ conjecture or animal-biologists’ suppositions might attest, God had simply decided to create a great champion. As Isaiah 42:5-6 declares:

Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out,
Who spread out the earth and its offspring, Who gives breath to the people on
it And spirit to those who walk in it, I am the LORD, I have called You in
righteousness, I will also hold You by the hand and watch over you,
And I will appoint You as a covenant to the people, As a light to the nations . . .

So in this generation of prophetic destiny, at a unique time in human history, the Lord Jesus will demonstrate divine power and Kingdom virtue through obscure champions with “supernatural hearts.” These champions’ hearts will be enlarged with passion and desire for the Redeemer and with Heaven’s compassion, which they will be able to transmit to a needy generation. Many, like Secretariat, will arise from obscurity to run some of the greatest races ever run.

Isaiah 22:22

In a prophetically symbolic way, Secretariat’s twenty-two pound heart could represent the generation soon to emerge with a commissioning from Isaiah 22:22:

Then I will set the key of the house of David on his shoulder, When he opens
no one will shut, When he shuts no one will open.

The key to the house of David signifies a governmental people who, like King David, will be anointed as both worshipers and warriors. David is regarded in Scripture as a man after God’s own heart. He possessed a special capacity in his heart for God and His Kingdom revelation. So shall the emerging generation of radical worshipers and warriors, who in a day unprecedented in history will champion fresh standards of excellence and victory.

David’s heart prophetically portrays the nature of the champions of the Lord’s army. They are dreaded by the forces of darkness, who will recognize Christ’s victory that they convey. As the Psalmist recorded:

Once you spoke in vision to Your godly ones, And said, “I have given help to
one who is mighty; I have exalted one chosen from the people. I have found
David My servant; With My holy oil I have anointed him.” —Psalm 89:19-20

God gave David the power to become a champion of Israel and God exalted him as a hero chosen from among His people and anointed him with holy oil. David was a champion of Israel foreseen and identified by the prophetic voice of that day.

There have been forerunners and prototypes in years past but now an entire body of people is being groomed for this lofty purpose. This great and weighty mystery is the hidden truth of godliness. In the Lord Jesus, God was made visible in human flesh and vindicated through the Holy Spirit and preached among the nations. The Living Word or Bread of life once again desires to be made flesh through a body of people joined with Him in a holy consummation. As we live not by natural bread alone but by the living Word proceeding from the mouth of God, the bread of abundant life, even so the hidden truth of godliness will become part of our spiritual DNA.

Eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, nor has yet entered into the human heart, the great blueprint of Heaven, the Lord desires to reveal to His people. Mysteries reserved deep in the heart of the Father, locked away in the mind of Christ, and dispersed by the Spirit who searches the deep things, await the passionate embrace of a latter-day company of overcoming, holy, victorious ones. Abba, His Spirit, and the Bridegroom say, “Come.”

Published on August 7th, 2010 | Articles, Guest Posts

This guest post comes to us from Francis Frangipane at Francis Frangipane Ministries.

Breaking The Bondage Of A Passive Spirit

Francis Frangipane

The Spirit of God does not want us merely to tolerate oppression; He desires we conquer it. He has not called us to passivity; He has called us to war! God has anointed us with the power of His Holy Spirit and Jesus has given us His authority over all the power of the enemy (see Luke 10:19).

This authority of the Lord is not just for guard duty or defensive maneuvers. The Holy Spirit desires that, as we follow Christ, we take the battle to the enemy as well. When David sings in Psalm 18 that, under God’s anointing, he can “bend a bow of bronze,” he also states: “I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and I did not turn back until they were consumed” (Psalm 18:37).

Let’s make this clear: David was first a worshiper of God. He did not pursue his enemies without first pursuing God. But when the Lord led him into war, he thoroughly defeated his foes.

I will tell you a solemn truth: Either we pursue our enemies or our enemies will pursue us. We must develop Christ’s attitude toward evil. He came “to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3 8). The Bible says, “Hate evil, you who love the Lord” (Psalm 97:10). The Holy Spirit is looking for determination in us so that, like David, we will pursue our enemies until they are consumed. It is, in fact, this aggressive attitude of heart that causes us to grow into mature Christlikeness.

Jesus could live with and forgive human failure, but He never allowed evil spirits to control Him. He was aggressive toward His spiritual enemies. There is no neutral ground. There is no room for a passive spirit in God’s army.

Attack and Counterattack

Let’s take a classic example of our need to act aggressively against our enemy: the battle for the mind. If you are frustrated repeatedly by fear, self-pity, anger, immoral thoughts or fleshly lusts, you know that these ideas and feelings will not go away by themselves. Your mind must be renewed through repentance and the knowledge of God’s Word. And if there is demonic activity exploiting your sin nature, that enemy must be confronted in the authority of Jesus’ name. Whether you are fighting fear, lust, anger or any other sin, you are in a war for your soul.

Some people respond to this by saying: “I don’t have a problem with an evil spirit; my battle is with the flesh.” I agree. Frequent failure in a particular area might genuinely be rooted in the carnal attitudes of our old nature. But if you have repented repeatedly and still cannot find lasting freedom, perhaps the issue is a combination of sin and the devil’s manipulation of that sin. The real power behind recurring failure may well be demonic.

Yet, even if you confront that demonic entity in the authority of Christ, your fight is not over. The enemy will wait until you relax your guard and try to reenter your life. Recall Jesus’ warning: “Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came’” (Matthew 12:43-44).

Jesus explains that even if you have had a genuine deliverance from the hand of God, a time may still come when that “unclean spirit” seeks to return to the “house from which” it came. The house it seeks to reenter is the darkness created in your soul by your pre-repentant thought-life. The way it seeks access is to masquerade as your own thoughts. Jesus warns that if the unclean spirit returns and finds your soul unguarded, it brings “seven other spirits more wicked than itself” (Matthew 12:45).

You must discern this counterattack. The enemy will try to infiltrate your mind, seeking to plant a thought or sow a sinful idea in your soul. Then he will attempt to water that seed with corresponding temptation. Beloved, we must capture those initial, invasive thoughts. We must be vigilant to recognize and conquer the oppression before it leads us back into sin. We must take authority over it before it can multiply. If we fail to use our authority, though, the enemy will attempt a full-scale invasion. Jesus says that “the last state of that man becomes worse than the first” (verse 45).

Thus, we must be aggressive in our prayers and actions! Satan will attack and counterattack. To win, in the midst of everything else we do, we must guard our hearts and minds. To do this we must exercise spiritual authority aggressively.

Present Attitudes and Future Victories

An Old Testament story captures well my concern with the effects of a passive spirit. Elisha the prophet was about to die and Joash, king of Israel, in an unusual show of affection, wept over the man of God. Yet a test remained. After promising victory to the king over Aram, Elisha told Joash to take the arrows and “strike the ground,” but Joash struck the ground just three times and stopped. At this the prophet became angry and said, “You should have struck five or six times, then you would have struck Aram until you would have destroyed it. But now you shall strike Aram only three times” (2 Kings 13:18-19).

Elisha was angered by the passive spirit in King Joash. He saw that the king did not possess the perseverance to pursue his enemies until he fully conquered them.

What does this mean for us? The prophet’s anger actually mirrors the Lord’s displeasure toward the passiveness or laziness of His people today. Is it hard to believe that Jesus would actually be angry with His Church? Then consider the Lord’s word to the church in Laodicea, a church that was overly concerned with its own comfort and passive in its attitude toward spiritual realities. Jesus said, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were either cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth” (Revelation 3:15-16).

Jesus would rather we were hot or cold than lukewarm. Does He still love those He rebukes? Of course, but He calls us to change our attitudes. It is not that passivity or laziness is such terrible sin, like murder or adultery. It is simply that such attitudes create a psychological prison around believers that actually holds us hostage to our other sins.

The Lord is not pleased with the spiritual passivity and indifference so prevalent among His people. We are aware daily that terrorists could attack with massive destruction, or we watch the advance of perversion in our cultures, yet many Christians remain prayerless and inactive. This is in spite of the Lord’s promise that if we will come before Him, humbling ourselves in earnest prayer, He will empower us to pursue our enemies and defeat them. But instead of seeking God’s face on behalf of the lost, too many of us are immobilized by the grip of a passive spirit.

I am not talking about the level of energy in our bodies, but the level of fire in our obedience. Elisha could see that King Joash was a quitter by the passive way he struck the arrows. Beloved, God has given us authority and He has given us spiritual weapons of our warfare to help us, but we need to get up and fight. We need to repent of a passive spirit and stand with Christ’s authority in this day of battle. For if we fail to do either — pray or act — we might actually lose the soul of our nation. Our defeat might come, not because God’s help was not available but because we saw the advance of evil and did nothing.

For maximum benefit, pray this prayer out loud:
Lord God, I thank You that You have given me authority over all the power of the enemy. Forgive me for allowing my voice to remain silent and my will immobilized by a passive spirit. I realize that to be an overcomer I must pursue my enemy until he is consumed. You have given me authority over the plans and works of evil. You have created me to be a minister of Your righteousness. You have filled me with Your Holy Spirit and with fire. This day I confront, renounce and take authority over the power of the enemy. I break the bondage of a passive spirit. In Jesus’ name, Amen.