It’s all about who we are.
“Miracle on Ice” movie was a very moving,exciting, rush of emotions for everyone involved in it and for the United States people. It is must watch movie for alot of reasons. I strongly suggest you check it out sometime.
movie was the story of the U.S. going about getting a team together for the olympics for the Winter of 1980. This time things were going to be different in alot of ways. A new coach. New players. A new strategy,A new mindset.
It started when the picking the new coach, it was not going to be a Professional Hockey coach, for which He would have years of experience of coaching experienced players of professional ranks. It would be a college coach of hockey. Along with a pro coach would come the pro players for the team. This was in demand to keep up with the Soviets, who had a long standing coach of many years and the same players for every olympics working together knowing what each player was known for. It was a complete team, a tenured coach, a tenured team. It was a brick wall.
It was when Herb Brooks, a college coach, played by Kurt Russell in the movie, stood his ground on his way of doing things, and I mean everything. A committee of advisors would usually advise the olympic coach on who would be good for the olympic teams as a rule, but it was not to be so this time. Kurt Russell being the coach, told the committee that he would pick his own team. and He did.
Kurt picked guys that he had personally seen in action in the college arena that he knew their strengths and weaknesses, He knew his own team personnel and he knew every other team as well. He was the master evaluator of the players personal and work ethics. He picked his team.
It is now that I would like to bring out my amazing point. Remember now that the coach picked his team, some from his own team, but alot of guys from other teams, sort of a mixed bag of candy to work with.
A new coach, new players, new strategy, what could go wrong?
Herb was smart. He knew it wasn’t about getting the players to know the plays, but it was about getting them on the right page. So he started.
It was all about getting all the players in knowing who they were playing for.
Herb went around the rink asking the players who they were and who they played for. It was moment to shine for the players in their own way. It was a moment.
It was then that all Hell broke loose, in metaphor and in reality.
A normal practice drill is for strengthening endurance which was to go from the end line of the rink to the blue line then to the mid court line then to the opposite end line, multiple times for practice in a normal day. But this wasn’t a normal practice. It was going to be life changing!
Herb utilized this drill to extreme. It was something deeper for herb that he was going for. It was the reality for all the players to figure out who they were. So, herb started this drill of skating the arena, three times,5 times,10 times, maybe 20 times before the reality of one brave soul caught on the intention of herb, it was who they are and who they play for!
This was a momentous moment in the unity of the team, they weren’t joe from this university, or jack from this university. No, they were a united team that was from the united states, and they were representing the United States in the Olympics.
They had an ‘identity’.
I believe that this is the situation of the body of Christ. We have no identity. We saying we are the church, but we don’t act like it. We are not ‘in’ or ‘of’ Christ.
There is a misunderstanding of what this is. If we are ‘in’ Christ, we must realize that this is in a different realm of things, it is not of the human ways, it is God’s ways, it is a spiritual one. The paradigm of God is one that is way beyond our reasoning and wisdom. It is when we are ‘in’ Christ that we are different. In Every Way! This is a different Realm, a different reality. It is God’s reality. Not ours.
God’s eternal purpose is intentional, it is planned. God’s eternal life is in His Life. This is what makes it eternal. Our lives although was sacred in the making in the Garden of Eden, was still ‘of this world’, we were made from the clay of this earth. God’s rectifying all the previous issues of the world, it is when God fulfills his wisdom and gives us the complete package of salvation from this world that we are ‘in’ and of Christ. We are different. We are of Christ. We have the qualities of Christ. Not of this world.
Our identity is ‘In Christ’.
The Eternal Purpose 