KEVIN ELWORTH LIVE

Listened to a sermon yesterday by Clayton King about the urgency of getting to gospel out. He focused on Mark 2 where the paralytic man was taken by his four friends to see Jesus to hopefully be healed. Notice how urgent it was for them to see Jesus. Jesus had returned to Capernaum. They had to have thought, He may never come back here again, we’ve got to get him to see Jesus now! So they went, and when they found they couldn’t get inside their alternative was to seek and destroy. They sought Jesus so intensely they would destroy even the house to get their friend to Christ.

The Bible says that when Jesus saw their faith and that of the paralytic He forgave him of his sins. The men had said nothing about getting the guys sins forgiven, they wanted to see the guy walk again. Sometimes Jesus may not answer the way we want, but will give us exactly what we need! (Jesus did later on heal the man of his ailment, but not first)

My point is this, we’ve got to take some risks to ensure the gospel gets into the hands of those that need it. We’ve got to get a little crazy about it. What are you going to do about it? How could you live a little bit more foolish about how you live in order to get the gospel into someones hands?

Just a quick thought about miracles. In reading through the New Testament recently you can see how frequently Jesus healed people time and time again and diseases that in those days were incurable or even raising people from the dead. I was thinking the other day as I was driving have we replaced the word miracle for medical phenomenon? and if so how dare we do so. For example, it’s not uncommon for a persons heart to stop beating in our days and through the use of CPR that heart can start beating again. Now isn’t a person dead if their heart is no longer beating? and isn’t it by the grace of God that it started again? Maybe I’m stretching this to far, either way think about it. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do we simply see regular occurrences of medical phenomenon or are we actually seeing God work through miracles?

Yesterday was a rough day all around. There is no easy way to deal with death ever. Some may have more experience than others comforting those that hurt, being their as a shoulder to cry on, praying with. The bible talks a lot about death and it’s just never an easy subject to deal with at all, especially when you talking about somebodies child. The son of a family our coworkers have been working with for about a year now was found to have leukemia about nine months ago. Yesterday they buried their 10 year old son. Since our coworkers had to leave town for a while they asked us to be ready for the funeral that was imminent. In the morning we went to the funeral home where they had the viewing and we talked with Mari, the mother for a few minutes. It was wonderful to see her almost melt when she saw us. Mari and her son Cesar who died are the only people in her family who have accepted Christ. So when we walked in she immediately had two advocates on her side that could talk about and understand the peace of God that passes all understanding that guards our hearts and minds in Christ. I read with her 2Cor5:6-9 that talks about us being away from this body and at home with our Lord. I chocked back tears as I envisioned this little 10 year old sitting at Jesus feet at that moment now free from pain and trouble, and in complete peace. Mari had that peace too. It’s sad and difficult that although Christ can give her strength to get through this rough time, she will always have lost a son and nothing will ever be able to take that away. The hardest part of the entire day was watching Cesar’s friends who attended the funeral cling the Mari’s next and shed tears that just couldn’t be held back. The next hardest part was watching all the catholic traditions that go into a funeral. It’s incredibly sad to watch them as they wonder where is this little boy now and will he ever reach heaven. Thankfully we know that he did!

Praise God for the Salvation He freely gives

Ever had something you wanted just because you thought it was cool? You really have no immediate need of it, you just want to have one? I do. I’ve wanted an iPhone since they came out. Do I need one? Not really, but I think it’d be cool to have one!

What about you, what’s your frivolous desire?

Two weeks ago I wrote about what’s next for us here in Zacatecas and I asked you all to join with me in prayer as I seek God regarding His direction for this ministry here. God blessed that time and I’m really grateful that I did it. I fasted for part of it, prayed a ton, and read a lot of Bible. If you’ll remember I asked you to pray for several specific things like crystal clear direction about this, provision of the necessary resources, God preparing the lives of the people we’re hear to minister to, ect you can reread the post here if you’d like.

I’d like to follow up and just let you know how God has already answered some of those specific prayer requests. I sort of pulled a Gideon if you know what I mean, by asking Him for perfect direction in this and He gave it to me not only twice as with the example of Gideon but three time He affirmed His direction in this. On three separate occasions three different people came to us and in detail talked about an idea for ministry here that was identical to what we plan to do. Each time I was blown away that God was approving plans for our future ministry here.  The thing that scares me the most about this is that it is way over our heads and I have to keep reminding myself about that when Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1 about weakness he was including me and that God delights in using people who are weak.

I can’t begin to describe how excited I am about what we’re up against and how I think God is going to something amazing through it. Why do I believe that? Because that’s what I’m asking Him to do!