Listen to this report. The words are straight from the Bible.

Twelve men have just returned from spying out the land God promised them, and they hold the proof in their hands.

"Then they [12 spies] told him, and said: 'We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.'" (Numbers 13:27)

Four verses earlier, it says that they found one cluster of grapes on a vine so big, that it took two soldiers to carry it. "This is its fruit!"

This is the report of the spies... and it's so exciting. For one fleeting moment, they believe that future abundance is real! The potential is massive! The promise is not a fantasy!

God's vision for their Future Selves was not just a place, but a new identity.

God gave them a line that he repeated over and over: "A land flowing with milk and honey" (Exodus 3:8, Leviticus 20:24, Numbers 13:27, Deuteronomy 6:3). This wasn't just poetry.

Milk represented abundance, prosperity, and life. It spoke of lush pastures and healthy livestock. It was the picture of stable prosperity.

Honey represented sweetness, delight, and natural blessing. It was the picture of a land so fertile and good that joy dripped from the trees.

Then God filled in the picture with rich detail. It was...

A "good and spacious land" (Exodus 3:8) — a direct contrast to their cramped slavery back in Egypt.

A land of ownership and rest, where they would have their own homes, vineyards, and wells (Deuteronomy 6:10-11) — a contrast to their homelessness of their slavery and their wanderings.

A land of incredible variety and fruitfulness: "a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey" (Deuteronomy 8:8).

God was painting a picture of them as Heirs of a kingdom. Not dependents. Not victims. Not slaves. But possessors of riches above all they could ask or think.

But then comes the pivot. The voice of four hundred years of slavery comes roaring back, and it always starts with one word: "BUT."

"BUT the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak [giants] there." (Numbers 13:28)

That sound you hear is the sound of a future self drowning and fighting to stay afloat.

It is the voice that acknowledges heaven's promise, but bows before earth's problem.

It's the voice that says, "Yes, God's future is beautiful, BUT earth's giants are just too big."

And it culminates in the most tragic, soul-crushing self-portrait ever painted. Listen to their confession:

"There we saw the giants... and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight." (Numbers 13:33)

STOP. Do you hear that? That is the lie that locks a person in a wilderness. That is the curse you put on yourself to forfeit a future. They looked at the giants, and instead of saying, Oh, a giant? That just makes them bigger targets for God!

Instead of that, they said, we are just too small.

Grasshoppers. That was their identity. And therefore, that was their destiny. Because don't you know that your identity shapes your destiny. To embrace the label of grasshopper is to embrace the destiny of a desert.

There are three voices speaking into every human soul. They're speaking to your soul right now, today. These are the voices of...

Your Past Self is whispering the grasshopper story in your ear, pointing to the giants of your addiction, your fear, your inadequacy, your traumas, heartbreaks, losses, and failures.

But your Future Self is describing a very different possibility. Your future self can see on the horizon your very own Promised Land.

Abundance, prosperity, and life. Sweetness, delight, and natural blessing. A life so good that joy drips from the trees.

Your Future self is designed for this land.

Your Father in heaven adds his own voice, and he declares over YOU today: This is how I see you, he says. A God-blessed life. An abundant life.

This is your victory, your glory, your destiny, your story, your hope. This is your massive potential as a child of God, a child of heaven, a child of mine. And your future self is saying, yes, please, that's for me.

Your Past Self is whispering the grasshopper story in your ear, pointing to the giants of your addiction, your fear, your inadequacy. Those Jews in those days had four hundred years of slavery baked into the mindset of their collective Past Self. That's hard to rise above.

So all there is now is your Present Self. And the choice for you to make today is whether your Present Self chooses to listen to your Past Self or your Future Self. Your past self dragging you back, slowing you down, over-cautious, over-vigilant, overly afraid. Or your future self, full of hope and faith and the cry, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

So there they are, 2 million people at the edge of the promised land. They get recon from their spies: this place is awesome. This place is also infested with giants.

Two voices. Two orientations. Two destinies.

"Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, 'Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.' But the [spies] who had gone up with him said, 'We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.'" (Numbers 13:30-31)

Two voices. Two orientations. Two destinies hanging in the balance.

Your Future Self (freedom and abundance) or your Past Self (slavery and scarcity).

The umpire is your Present Self. Here today, you choose. You decide. You determine whether you go in circles in the wilderness of your past or conquer the glories of the territory of your future.

What did that generation choose?

"So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night." (Numbers 14:1)

And they blamed God for trying to kill them. And they blamed their leaders for lying to them. And they said:

"So they said to one another, 'Let us select a leader and return to Egypt.'" (Numbers 14:4)

And you read that and you say... why on earth would anybody ever choose to go back into slavery.

And my message today is that some of you are doing that exact same thing today... BUT

...but you don't have to. There is another way.

That other way is the way of the Apostle Paul.

Paul was a man who knew a thing or two about giants.

He was a man with a past so powerful it could have crushed him. But he refused to live like a grasshopper.

From a Roman prison cell, he wrote a letter soaked in defiant joy, a letter that serves as the foundation for our whole series. That is this letter in the Bible called Philippians. We are listening to God's voice through this letter week by week, and going verse by verse.

The series is called: Quit Telling Yourself I Can't.

And his message to you today is part 15 in this series. I hope it becomes the daily marching orders for your Present Self:

Let's define the prize.

I want this to become a furnace, forging a new, white-hot vision of the future in your heart.

So what is this "prize" Paul is running for?

The word in the original Greek is brabeion, and you need to understand, this is no plastic trophy on a dusty shelf. This word is packed with fire and glory.

To a citizen of the Roman Empire, a brabeion could be an honor bestowed by the Emperor himself! It was a mark of imperial favor, a declaration from the most powerful man in the world that you were valued, chosen, and set apart.

In a court of law, the brabeion was the verdict of vindication! It was the moment the judge slammed the gavel and declared you innocent, righteous, and free. Your prize is the final, public declaration from the Judge of all creation that because of Jesus, the giants of your past have no legal claim on you. You are NOT GUILTY! You are VINDICATED!

The philosophers of Paul's day saw the prize as a state of inner peace. In this sense, the prize is the vibrant, pulsating, joyful life of God Himself filling your soul!

So what is this prize? Here's my definition:

It is you becoming all that you can be.

It is you exploiting your God-given rights, using your God-given privileges, spending your God-given treasures, employing your God-given powers, rising up to your God-given identity, and living your God-given dreams. That's the prize.

The prize is you becoming the person Christ saw when He laid hold of you.

For short: The PRIZE is a Future Self, fully and gloriously alive.

THAT is the prize. Not half-hearted. Not settling. Not full of regrets. And not ever seeing yourself as a grasshopper.

Let's pull back the curtain on the massive, latent potential that is your birthright as a child of the King.

I want to give you a biblical and a prophetic declaration of the person you were created to become.

The prize is a MIND AT PEACE. It is you, waking up in the morning and the first thing you feel is not the familiar, crushing weight of anxiety, but a deep, quiet stillness in your soul. It is the end of the war in your head. It is the silencing of the inner critic that has tormented you for years. It is the eviction of depression's dark shadow and the dawning of a deep, resilient joy that does not need perfect circumstances to shine. It is the silencing of the voices, the quelling of the fears, and ousting of the lies that dark forces are pressing on you your whole life long. Philippians 4:7 "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

The prize is a PSYCHOLOGY MADE WHOLE. It is the final, definitive end of the constant thought of ending it all. It is the severing of those obsessions with people who hurt you or owe you... no more checking their social media, just a heart that is moving on and ready to love from a place of strength, not desperation. It is the end of you being dominated by guilt and shame. It is you, walking with your head held high, forgiven, provisioned, enriched, accepted, empowered, and triumphant, living with the profound freedom of a clear conscience. Romans 8:1 "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

The prize is a HEART THAT RADIATES LIFE & LOVE. It is you, becoming a source of supernatural love for your family and your friends. You no longer just reacting to the drama, but setting a new atmosphere of grace, forgiveness, and peace. You are the safe harbor. You are the one whose presence brings calm to the chaos. You show up, and the demons flee, and the love of God prevails. "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." (John 7:38)

The prize is a SPIRIT OF ABUNDANCE. It is the death of the grasshopper's scarcity and the birth of the heir's confidence, knowing your Father owns the riches of the cosmos, and he delights to provide for His children. It is a life of divine supply, where your needs are met, your generosity overflows, and you are a conduit for His blessing to the world. "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." (John 10:10)

The prize is a A GOOD NEWS LIFE-PURPOSE, so that you will not rest until everyone you know comes to find the same incredible treasure that you found when you found Christ. "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." (Acts 1:8)

THIS is the prize. A sound mind. A whole heart. A life-giving spirit. A destiny of abundance. Love, joy, peace. THIS is the Future Self calling your name. THIS is the person you were born to be.

And if you think that's too big, too out of reach, and too ambitious, then (a) you're still listening your Past Self which is your Overbearing Inner Nanny determined to keep you sucking a binky forever... and (b) you don't believe even 50 percent of Ephesians 3:20:

"Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us," (Ephesians 3:20)

And even less of Phil 4:13:

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:13)

Christian you need to dream bigger, because when it comes to your future self, you have a Father who has ordained that when your future self reaches for the stars, the stars themselves will reach down to you. And that is not just poetry.

That is the second part of Paul's secret. Because this prize is not something you achieve by gritting your teeth and trying harder. This prize is the result of a supernatural force pulling you forward. Paul calls it "the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."