Dharius Daniels - You Have to Know What to Cut Off

This teaches us that there’s another principle for victory: if we’re going to possess promises, we have to know what to cut off. Did you hear what I said? There are some things you need to cut off in the present so they won’t get a grip on you in the future. I can tell if you really believe God is taking you somewhere tomorrow by what you’re willing to cut off today. In this season, sometimes—and I’m not just talking about positive psychology—I’m talking about biblical principles. There’s some negativity you need to cut off. I can show you in Scripture, in Numbers 13, that Moses’s unwillingness as a leader to minimize the people’s exposure to the negative voices of those 12 spies resulted in a majority report that was damaging. Ten spies came back talking about giants, while only two spoke about God. The Bible says that when they began to give that negative report, the hearts of the people melted like wax, and they said, «We felt like grasshoppers in our own eyes and in their eyes as well.» They didn’t avoid a fight that was fixed not because they didn’t want to, but because of the size of the grasshopper. For some people, your grasshopper is too big because you’re unwilling to cut it off. But Joshua, who wasn’t in senior leadership at that time, observed this. Later, when he prepares to enter the Promised Land in Joshua 1, he takes a completely different approach. Before they walk around Jericho, he says, «Everyone, listen to me! We’re getting ready to walk around this wall once each day for seven days, and on the seventh day, we will walk around seven times. No one is to say anything.» Am I preaching the book, y’all? He instructed them to remain silent until they heard the trumpet blow, and then they could shout. He knew what to cut off. Some people can’t move forward because they don’t know what to eliminate. They have negativity, cynicism, and pessimism, with people reminding them of how big the problem is. You already know how big the problem is; we need to be reminded of how big our God is. We have to know what to cut off. Am I making sense? Yeah, that’s chapter three. In chapter three, they become oppressed by a group of people called the Moabites, led by King Eglon, who has a huge entourage that nobody can approach. But the Bible says that God raises up a judge named Ehud. The Bible gives us peculiar details at times that seem unnecessary, which it doesn’t provide for every biblical character. It mentions that Ehud was from the Tribe of Benjamin, but he was left-handed. I thought, «What does that have to do with anything? Why do I need to know that he’s left-handed?» But upon reflecting on Benjamin’s story, Ehud being left-handed begins to make sense. It’s ironic. The Bible clearly states that Rachel is giving birth, and her experience with Benjamin will ultimately cost her her life due to its pain. She names him Benoni, which means «son of my sorrow, ” because some things people call you stem from their pain. I’ll say that again: some labels that people give you come from their own pain. However, the father walks in the room and says, „What’s your name, baby?“ She named him Benoni, but he said, „No, his name will not be Benoni; his name will be Benjamin, which means ‘son of my right hand.’“ It doesn’t matter what people called you when they were in pain; when your heavenly Father walks into your life, He has the right to overrule and change your name. Is there anybody here or anyone watching who can say, „He changed my name! I’m blessed, not cursed! I’m the head, not the tail! I’m above only, not beneath! I’m the lender, not the borrower! I’m more than a conqueror! I’m blessed in my going in and blessed in my coming out!“ Why? Because my Daddy said so! I just pray that God erases the labels you’ve been carrying that don’t belong to you. So Benjamin, son of my right hand, comes from the tribe, and Ehud is from the tribe of Benjamin. He’s left-handed in a tribe named „son of my right hand.“ Ehud represents those of us who always felt like we didn’t quite fit in. You’re left-handed and it can feel awkward and make you insecure because you might wonder, „Why am I not like everybody else?“ But you have to be willing to endure that season of awkwardness to allow God to reveal the reason for your left-handedness. Just because your uniqueness doesn’t make sense to you now doesn’t mean it won’t later. You have to live long enough for God to show you why He made you that way. The thing that you call awkward in one season may become your anointing in the next. Did you hear what I said? They probably called David awkward when he was sitting around throwing rocks with a slingshot at cans in the backyard of his father’s house, but when he knocked that giant down, they didn’t call him awkward then!