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

I started this year on a trek through the bible. The Lord put it on my heart to really dive in deep to His word this year, so I started by reading it in the first 100 days of the year. Awesome thing to do, if you’ve never done something like that you should. Check out youversion.com for help with organizing a structured read like that. After my 100 day read I was going to read the New Testament every 30 days for the rest of the year, but that never happened. It’s funny how we schedule things like that and then find that it’s not exactly what we need.

So to change pace and to be more fitting to some of our current situation, I started reading through Joshua last week. By far one of my favorite books in the bible. I read chapter 3 last Friday which talks about when the Israelites crossed the Jordan river and I came across this verse, “When you see the Levitical priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD your God, follow them. Since you have never traveled this way before, they will guide you”
I’d never noticed that verse before. Man can you imagine what it would have looked like if the Israelites decided to protect the Ark and make it follow them? What a disaster that would have happened.

How often is it that even though we’ve never been this way before that we take it into our own hands and lead the way? And then I wonder what would happen if we truly allowed God to lead the way as He wants to in our lives, what would be different and how much more would be and He be blessed?
We’ve got to let God be God and lead us into places we’ve never been. Like where we need faith that we’ve never had to have before. And when we need to depend on Him like never before. There are a lot of “like never befores” that are going to happen in our lives if we are going to follow Him, but that’s just it, if we follow Him, He’ll lead us exactly where we need to be.

Cris and I watched Invictus the other night. We had already planned on renting it, and then someone at Starbucks told me how great of a movie it was so I rented it that very night. Great story, very motivational, and I love movies that are based on true stories. Throughout the movie you keep hearing Morgan Freeman, who plays Nelson Mandela, quote parts of the poem Invictus. The last two lines of the poem are I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.

I was thinking to myself, man those are good lines, very motivation, and encouraging to keep at it. No matter what people put in my way, I am the master of my fate and the captain of my soul. But as I kept thinking about it, that is completely wrong and I would have to say that we are neither master nor captain of anything about our lives. Paul wrote in 1Cor6:19-20 that we have been bought with a price, a very high price and we do not belong to ourselves, we are Gods! (I realize that these verses are talking more about sexual immorality, but the precept still applies we are not our own)

In case your interested, here is the poem, read it yourself, let me know what you think.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

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