Sorry it’s been a minute guys! This next piece is a message I gave at Awakening, which is where my squad and T squad gap year came together for two days and were empowered with different messages, worship, and evangelism. As you read this, I encourage you to replace “t squad and o squad” with your name, and make the time relevant to you, i talk about months, but turn that into now.
Do you guys want to know what my heart cry is? My heart cry is the exact heart cry of Elijah in 1 Kings 18: 37 “Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”” But do you know what I struggle with? I struggle with thinking that I am worthy enough to be used by Him. I struggle with thinking that I am pure enough to live for Him. I believe I’m not holy enough. Not righteous enough. Not good enough. But you know the best part about all of that? Is that God makes me all of those things! He makes all of us those things! Not because of what we have done, but because of what He has done! He doesn’t call us because we’re qualified, he qualifies us because we’re called! It’s that simple! One thing I know, and that I’m a 100% certain of, is God loves everyone of us. So much. So much that He sent his son to die for us. And I know I know, we’ve all heard this before. But have you actually heard it?! Do you understand the implications of what it means?! You mom didn’t die for you. Your dad didn’t die for you. Your friends didn’t die for you. But God, yes God, the creator of the universe, sent his son to die for you. To cover your sin! There is no sin the blood of Jesus didn’t cover! The blood of Jesus dealt with your past so stop living like you still have things to be freed of.
Wouldn’t it be sin for us not to believe that His blood is enough? Come on guys, let’s start walking like we’re already in eternity. However, we can’t stop there. We can’t. We are selling ourselves short if we think Jesus blood is just a get into heaven card. There’s a reason we are here. There’s a reason we chose to go on this race. And I’m challenging you guys, O squad, as we go into month 7, and T squad, as you go into month 8, let’s not forget why we’re here! So often we see the race as being halfway over! But what if we saw the race as if it’s still beginning? What if we lived as if we’re still in month 1, with the same excitement and joy we had from training camp?! I can guarantee that not one person in this room is the same person they were at training camp. We have all changed in our own unique beautiful way. Now let’s bring that change with the same joy and excitement into these next couple months! I know recently I’ve gotten in my own head and said things like “dang I miss home, I miss video games, I miss American food”. “Man, I could go for a California burrito or some In-N-Out right now.” I believe California has only a few good things about it, and those are two of them. “Man only five more months until I get to see my friends and family”. I have these thoughts, and I start to think of the end of the race and I get caught up in all these thoughts and emotions. And you know what the Lord says? He says “I still have people that you need to reach. Tomorrow will come, so use today to spread my love as much as you can. There is no chain my love can’t break! There is no wall my love can’t knock down! There is no fire my love can’t quench! There is no storm my love can’t calm! There is no door my love can’t open!” Let’s walk in this love guys! Let’s stop viewing this as the last half of the race and start viewing it as a beginning. A beginning for people to have new life. To feel loved. To share love. To be love.
I wanna share something the Lord has put a lot on my heart recently. I’ve been struggling with this concept and the Lord told me that I needed to talk about it, but I was very hesitant at first because I was like “God, this is kinda harsh. I don’t want people to feel like I’m judging them.” And God said, “they need to hear the truth in love.” So I hope that what you hear when I talk right now is not condemnation but truth hand in hand with love.
Why, why do we walk by so many people and we don’t share the gospel?! We walk right by them and don’t even give them a second glance. Maybe we’re afraid of language barrier. Maybe we’re afraid of people shutting us down. Or maybe we’re not confident we’ll have the right words.
Why is that we go to lunch/dinner at a restartaunt and we don’t ask the waiter or waitress if we can pray for them?! Or we don’t tip?! I’ve been guilty of that! I think “I’m on a missions trip, I’m a missionary, I don’t have a job or income.” You know what God told me through my friend Miguel? These aren’t the exact words but this is what I felt in my heart “You are disillusioned if you think that that money is for you. These servers don’t get paid a lot, and your money goes a lot further than it does back home.” Tips can go such a long way in countries where poverty is a very common factor. Yet my stubborn self saw only my wants. Do you know that people consider “Christians” as some of the worst tippers?! That’s sad! We should be the biggest tippers! Not because we want people to thank us, but because we should want to bless others because God has blessed us!
Why do we let our desires trump the desires of the father?! Ive failed at this a few times on this race! Just the other day my team and I were going to get WiFi at the mall, and I heard the Lord say go evangelize to people, don’t even go to WiFi, and you know what I did? I went to WiFi! Because I wanted to download podcasts. Catch up on Instagram and Facebook and emails. Because I had people back home I wanted to talk to! That are saved! That know the gospel! I walked by at least a 100 people that I could’ve talked to about Jesus! But I didn’t! I chose my selfish desires! I chose to do what I wanted! How often do we do that on this race?! How often are we tired after ministry and we choose to not talk to the person we’re standing behind in line at the grocery store where all we are buying is a water? How often do we go somewhere to get WiFi and we are so consumed with stuff back home that we miss out on the elderly man in the corner whose wife just passed away?! The people we are next to are one word of knowledge, one prophetic word away from heaven! This shouldn’t be pressure, it should be pleasure! Like I said, I’m not trying to condemn us, I’m trying to call us higher!
All we have to do is care! We don’t have to put on a show! We don’t need to walk into a restaurant and yell “I have something to say”. But we do need to walk into that restaurant and realize that Jesus always has an interaction for us. Well what do I say? Hey, hi, how are you? Well what if they don’t want to talk to you? Then say ok well bless you anyways! The only thing you have to lose is dignity and that’s not a fruit of the spirit anyways! A normal Christian isn’t a silent Christian! Come on guys! We can’t keep idly sitting by wasting our time on the sidelines while the war wages around us. We need to be proactive. Matthew 28: 19 isn’t a request! Its a command! Go! Make! Disciples! It’s not hard! But we make it so complicated! We complicate it! This trip wasn’t designed for us! This trip was designed for Jesus to be magnified! Are we magnifying Him? Are we making His name known?! We can’t say “well I didn’t feel led to talk to them”. You’re right you didn’t feel led, you felt scared! We’re called to speak to everyone. Where ever you go, bring Jesus with you! Abnormal christianity is going shopping without Holy Spirit. Abnormal Christianity is going on adventure day not having Holy Spirit at the forefront of your thoughts. Normal Christianity is living every second, every minute, every breath, every heartbeat with Jesus! Jesus chooses to use us, but we don’t choose to use his power inside of us. There is nothing we can do without him! Nothing!
“I never got a word of knowledge.” How many times have you stepped out in faith?
I never saw a deaf ear open. How often have you prayed for one?
What if we asked a waitress if her back is hurting? What if it is and we pray for it, and what if it doesn’t get healed? Is God still good?! Of course He is! “Oh maybe the prayer wasn’t long enough.” It’s not the length of the prayer. It’s not how exquisite the words are! Look what Jesus did throughout all the gospels! He would use simple phrases, like pick up your mat and walk, your faith has made you well, or “Daughter, your faith has healed you, Go in peace.” The prayer doesn’t heal the sick, the name of Jesus heals! We don’t need to be afraid, God will use us, He wants to use us! All we have to do is be obedient! The Bible says we will do more amazing things than Jesus! Do we believe that?! Do we live in that?! The atmosphere should be changed by us because of Holy Spirit inside of us. Holy Spirit doesn’t need to be welcomed if it’s already inside of us. I understand the sentiment of the song, but shouldn’t we be singing Holy Spirit thank you for being here already? There should be a shift in people’s hearts when they see us because Holy Spirit lives in us. There should never be a moment where we do not bring heaven to earth. I’m preaching this to myself as much as I am to you guys. We can’t keep being afraid. The world doesn’t have time for us to be afraid. You know what I’m afraid of? I’m afraid of getting to the line that gets into heaven, the sheep line, glance over at the line going to hell, the goat line, and seeing my father standing there saying “why didn’t you share with me? Why didn’t you love me enough to tell me? Do you know where I am going?”I’m afraid of seeing my friends from high school saying “you knew the truth the whole time, but you never shared it with us. You lived a double life because you wanted what you wanted. Do our lives not matter to you?” That scares me guys. I don’t want to be that person. I can’t afford to be that person. We can’t afford to fear what’s not an option. It’s not an option to be afraid! To many people’s lives hang in the balance!
Every person we come in contact with every day, their lives hang in the balance. It’s easy to share your faith when you know you’re the one Jesus loves. It’s hard to share your faith when you are striving to earn Jesus love! You can’t believe something you’re not living.
This is a little off topic, but I promise it will comeback together. I love lord of the rings. Any lord of the rings fans in here? So one of the characters names is Sméagol/Gollum. He has a split personality where he is constantly arguing with himself. In one scene, “the evil side” is trying to make the “good side” feel bad, but the “good side” tells him “go away and never come back”. For a short time, the “evil side” leaves, but after feeling betrayed by Frodo, the “evil side” comes back. To tie it all together, the whole reason Sméagol/Gollum is with Frodo is because of the one ring. Sméagol calls it “my precious”. This “precious” is something that entices and slowly kills the owner of it. It has so much power that no mortal human can control it, and it slowly takes over the mind of the owner. Sin does the same thing. Sin takes over our lives and creeps in and makes us feel insecure and unworthy. The reason I say this, is this is how a lot of the world feels. Their sin entices them to where they either believe they’re too far gone to be loved by God or their church has hurt them too much to where they turn away to their old self and they blame the church, when in reality they should be blaming sin. I’m afraid one of the biggest reasons people turn away from Jesus or are turned off by Christianity is because so many Christians are hypocrites. They will say one thing, but then do the exact opposite. They go to church on Sunday, ask for forgiveness, and then go sin the next six days, and keep repeating the same cycle. They use Jesus as a get out of jail free card. And so much of the world sees that and they think if they can live like that, why can’t we? And so we have a generation of young people who know all about forgiveness and know nothing about repentance. Repentance is turning our hearts back to God and away from sin. Here’s the deal guys, you can look at your sin, or you can look at Jesus, but you can’t look at both. The more you look at Jesus, the less you see the sin. The more you look at sin, the less you look at Jesus. And I know we are all seeking after Jesus, but the world isn’t. That’s what we’re on this trip for. So for these next two-five months, let’s help point people to Jesus and away from their sin. Let’s be the hands and feet of Jesus. Let’s be his mouthpiece. Let’s love the literal hell out of this world! And let’s call hearts back to God.
