KEVIN ELWORTH LIVE

Had the opportunity last night to preach at a little church in Jerez, Mexico. Awesome opportunity, I really enjoyed it. I preached on Mark 2 where Jesus healed the paralytic of his physical ailment as well as his more important heart ailment. The main point of the sermon was that we’ve got to be willing to do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus. That’s what these guys did. They were willing to tear the roof off of someone else’s house just to get their friend to Jesus! That’s what we’ve got to be willing to do- whatever it takes to get people to Christ.
Couple thoughts about it:

• There’s a world out there that need to see the love of Jesus more than just the words He said or the words we think they need to hear. They need to see what Jesus can do for them and that means we need to get a bit uncomfortable in our approach to reach people
• Jesus is not obligated to heal our ailments as soon as we ask. He’s much more concerned about our greatest need which is the condition of our heart. Check out Mark 2.5. They never asked Jesus to forgive his sins, in their minds it was obvious what they wanted but Jesus looked right past they guys legs and saw his heart.
  Jesus is not obligated to heal our defects!
• There are so many critics that sit around today and judge what churches are doing wrong instead of standing up saying, Hey we might not agree with everything, but God is obviously at work in this and we want to get involved however we can. You can see that in verse 6
• I’m torn up by the thought of being willing to do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus Christ. There’s not much time left in this world and everyday we come in contact with people who need to love, forgiveness and healing power to Jesus offers
• Had a good time with the kids of Casa Betania
• My wife started her own blog, it’s called Your Little Nest. You should check it out, she’s got some fabulous design advice
• My little boy turned 3 this week
• I started taking classes online at Liberty University this week and it’s stretching me a lot! Probably because it’s been 6 years since I was in school.
• I’m more excited than ever to see what God has in store for me and my family

When I was a kid I, like most kids, played baseball for a season. It was a lot of fun and I still remember a lot about it. I played for the Mustangs, I was an outfielder and I SUCKED at hitting the ball, but oddly enough only when we played games. In practice I could KILL the ball. My coach was nice about it, although I’m sure it frustrated him to no end knowing what I could do but wouldn’t in a game, but he was patient and never pushed me or scolded me. I’m thankful for that, but what I wish I did have was someone to tell me that it was okay to strike out trying. Don’t get me wrong, I struck out A LOT! But only because the pitcher knew I wasn’t going to swing. I got walked a lot too mostly from just luck. Most of this had to do with my personality type. When I was a kid I was the shyest person in our church. There was a guy in our church who was known as the candy man, and although I knew if I stuck out my hand he’d give me a piece of candy, I was terrified to stick out my hand. I still got a lot of candy, but only because the guy was nice enough to hand it to my dad and dad would give it to me. Strange to think that now I’ve spoken to churches and audiences that range from as small as 5 up to over 1000. That has to be all God!

Oddly enough there’s a very valid spiritual lesson here. If someone would have told me that it was okay to strike out trying and I did so the odds are eventually I would have accidently connected with the ball and gotten a base hit. That would have built my confidence and the thrill of the hit would have given me enough courage to swing the bat again the next time.
So many times we shy away from sharing the gospel with someone in a word or in an act because we’re afraid we might miss the ball and say or do something wrong. Do you really think that what Jesus cares about, that we say and do everything perfect? Something tells me that He doesn’t care if we get it perfect every time, because we’re not going to get it perfect ever. If we never swing the bat we’re never going to hit the ball and if we never say a word they are never going to hear anything.

What can you do today to take a risk and swing the bat. You might miss! But you might get a base hit too.

Joshua is one of my favorite characters in the bible. One of the true hero’s of Bible history and also a prime example of leadership. But there came a day when God would test Joshua’s ability to trust and believe a Crazy God in the way he led those people into the promised land. I preached a sermon once called fighting giants about Joshua and the people of Israel how they had to not only go into the land and claim it but they would also have to fight off people groups that already lived in the land. It’s so funny how that they seemed to think that God was going to give them the land and they wouldn’t have to fight for it at all!

So Joshua 6- the famous battle of Jericho. How crazy did they think that God was when He told them to march around that city for 7 days and then on the 7th, to march around it 7 times. (How cool would that have been if it was actually in Joshua chapter 7. Not only that but check out v4)

We know the story. They did, the walls came down, they go in do the bloody deed and they are safe, God is more famous. But think about it this way in terms of strategy- how many times throughout the bible and all the many cites that future kings would take over did God tell them to use this exact strategy? Only for the battle of Jericho! Not one other time did they ever walk around a city to see it’s destruction. Not only do we have a crazy God, but He’s very creative too. Beyond that, He’s far more concerned that He gets the glory from it all than how it’s done.

What’s your dream look like? The unique vision that God has given you? You’re afraid that the people you need to pitch it to are going to think you’re off the wall! (And they might be right) But remember this, God uses pretty unique strategies to accomplish His greatest work. They might think it’s crazy, but God may be leading you to accomplish the next greatest breakthrough for His kingdom.

The past couple weeks have been brutal on us. We’re learning a lot about God right now and we’re learning a lot about ourselves. If you’ve read over the past few days you’ll know we’ve been dealing with our own crisis of belief and I hope that might help you as you go through your own.

In preparing for our ministry here in Zacatecas God gave me some crazy thoughts about how He has worked throughout the centuries. A couple weeks ago I mentioned Mark 2. Today lets look a little farther back, that all the way to Genesis. By chapter 7 over a thousand years have already elapsed since God created the earth and already man has done enough damage to warrant it’s destruction. Pretty crazy thought about how foolish and stupid we are. You know the cool thing about it, that God had a plan to show Himself strong, Holy and Faithful through all of it.

So the command is given to Noah when he’s a young 500 or so years old to build an ark for the pending flood. The funny part though, there had never been a flood before, never even a drop of rain had ever fallen on the earth. Imagine how dumb Noah must have looked! For the next 120 years Noah worked away at creating the first boat ever. Think of how often he must have been mocked. Hey Noah, whatcha buildin? I’m building an ark Frank. Awesome Noah, what are you going to do with it? Load a lot of animals and my family into it to save them from the coming flood? Wow Noah that’s quite an ambitious move, by the way what’s a flood?
Can you imagine how discouraged it must have been for him after the first year of working on this boat, let alone the first hundred? Do you think he ever went through a crisis of belief? Do you think he ever wanted to give up? Do you think he ever questioned his calling? I would think so!

Either way God still did something that was incredibly crazy to the people around Noah that was ultimately going to glorify Him and save the human race.

What would God have from you that seems incredibly crazy right now? And what do you need to do to see it come to reality?

More tomorrow

Final thought today. If you’re going to get through this crisis of belief no matter how great or how small it is, you’ve got to trust God completely with it. Another verse that God recently brought to my mind was Romans 8.28. If we allow Him to, God is going to receive all the glory through whatever your situation is. In thinking about this verse, I thought you know it says that all things will work together for good but what it doesn’t say is for whose good all things are working together for. I mean think about it, all things didn’t work together for the good of Peter when he was nailed upside down to a cross for failing to turn from his faith. But what it did work together for good was for the glory of God. He received immense glory through Peter’s faith and His kingdom was advanced. You know in the end it may very well work together for your good, you may come through your crisis and God will bless just like He did to Job when he walked through such an intense fire. The bible says that God blessed Job with twice what he had before. Either way you’ve got to make a decision, why are you in this? Is it really worth the fight? and If you start the fight will you be able to finish it?