Owning Your Weakness

thanks for checking out this week's podcast from Center Street Church we pray it blesses encourages and inspires you I was 17 years old athletic took a dive and bang I can't use my hands I can't move my legs everything's paralyzed I'm a quadriplegic the doctor announced that I had severed my spinal cord at the fourth cervical level that I never used my hands or my legs for the rest of my life and he walked out of the door I can't live like this and I just sank into depression a Christian friend shared with me Johnny God permits what he hates to accomplish that which he loves I realize God takes no pleasure in my spinal cord injury but he loves the way he is changing me in it and encouraging others through it Psalm 10 says that God hears the cry of the afflicted his heart goes out to those with disabilities he's the with compassion for those with special needs I'm Johnny Erickson tada I'm a Christian author speaker advocate painter oh my goodness I can't believe I do all those things but I'm doing because what people don't know the God that I love I would not trade this intimacy with God this sweetness this nearness this tenderness this preciousness of of faith come alive in my life I wouldn't trade it for any amount of walking there are 1 billion people with disabilities in the world 80% of who live in developing nations that is to me overwhelming I want to do everything I can to make the difference in their lives I think God is using people with disabilities to wake up the church God is up to something big the SME libro me Astoria see it is to save the earth outwardly our bodies are wasting away but inwardly we are being renewed day by day that looks as though the foot petals need to come up just a little bit certainly you know D and then my husband Ken and I love doing Johnny and friends together whether it's going to a family retreat and hang out with other couples whether it's delivering wheelchairs and Bibles in the Bible in the Spanish language yeah I found my sympathetic is one of you here we want to get a word out God has not abandoned those with disabilities no he is working through them God's power always shows up best the weakness the Bible says speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves defend the rights of the weak and the needy and we do that at Johnny and Friends to our Christian is to disability we are advocates we are championing the disabled whether it's right to life end-of-life issues position assistance suicide euthanasia we speak God's truth Johnny and Friends stands for the spark that started the movement to take the gospel where the world is bleeding out of control I want to be I've got a message to share I would rather be in this wheelchair knowing him then on my feet without him and that is worth living for coppy worship service everyone and thank you for that warm welcome and I'm so grateful to Pastor Shore and especially to Dallas Frank's director of special needs ministry here at Center Street Church you friends this church are so well known not only in Canada but across North America for what you're doing to advance the love of Christ among special needs family and I'm honored to be with you and get involved consider volunteering support the work of the special-needs outreach here at Center Street Church because you guys are making the gospel famous maybe you saw me maybe you did not but I was dancing with Tim down here in the front hallelujah hallelujah your love makes me sing and I just have to sing I love to sing but I'll tell you one thing I sing because I have to I think back on much darker days when I wanted to cry sitting in the hospital lying in that hospital bed depressed despairing being told I was a quadriplegic after having had that diving accident I'd never use my hands my legs I wanted so much to cry but instead I was sniff back the tears and I held on to the only thing I knew hymns and often tonight I would sing Jesus Jesus hear my humble cry while on others thou art calling do not pass me by the song reflected a favorite portion of Scripture a scripture that when people would come to visit me in the hospital and asked if I wanted to hear anything out of the Bible I would always ask them to turn to John chapter 5 let me read it for you now and I think you'll understand why because there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep gate a pool which is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades here a great number of disabled people used to lie the blind the lame the paralyzed one it was there had been an envelope for 38 years when she's assault him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time he asked him do you want to get well then jesus said to him get up and walk I cannot tell you how many times at 2:00 a.m. when visiting hours were over and it was dark and my roommates were asleep I would picture myself by the Pool of Bethesda I saw myself paralyzed maybe lying on a straw mat next to that man who was also disabled and I'd be anxiously waiting for Jesus in my mind's eye to walk into the five covered colonnades and come near me and and I would beg him plead him to touch me heal me Jesus Jesus heal my heal heal me hear my humble cry well when others are calling don't pass me by but after nearly two years in that institution it seemed my hands and my feet never got the message when I got out of the hospital my sister JK invited me to come and live with her on the Maryland farm and I'll never forget one morning she was getting me up out of bed and we happened to flick on Christian television and there was an advertisement about a famous faith healer who was going to be coming to town well I got very excited and so she did she did she and so next Friday night when the faith healing service was about to start we were there the ushers escorted us into this big Ballroom in the Washington DC Hilton Hotel and they took us over to the wheelchair section where I was seated with maybe I don't know 50 75 other people with disabilities like me all coming waiting hoping to experience a healing the faith healer walked onto the stage and the lights came up and music played and testimonies were given scriptures were read and then the spotlight kind of shifted over to the corner of the ballroom and it seemed as though way over there there were healings happening people were clapping and applauding and getting so excited and and then the faith healer prayed more prayers and the spotlight shifted again this time to the other side of the ballroom more applause more cheers and I'm thinking to myself hey spotlight hey Holy Spirit come over here in the wheelchair section where all the hard cases are but the spotlight never made it to the wheelchair section and the ushers came to escort us out early and there I was number 15 in a long line of people with disabilities waiting at the elevator and I could hear the music still playing on the other side of the wall and I could still hear the applause and cheers and I look up and down this long line of people all of them disappointed like me and I thought to myself something's wrong with this picture what kind of Savior what kind of rescuer what kind of deliverer what kind of healer would refuse the prayers of an earnest and sincere paralytic and I thought to myself okay if I'm not going to be healed then I'm not just gonna live this way I'm not gonna live this way and soon a bitter root a real spirit of complaining began to take hold and nothing that anybody did for me was good enough every hurdle I faced became a reason to feel sorry for myself and most of all Jesus so far and distant and if I could not be healed then I told my sister j-just close the drapes turn out the light shut the door and leave me alone I don't want to get up this morning a week two weeks went by and I simply laid in a dark bedroom day after day but finally something in me just couldn't live this way anymore and another Kim surfaced to my heart abide with me fast Falls the Eventide when darkness deepens Lord with me abide when other helpers fail and comforts flee help of the helpless o abide with me and it was my first plea for help and I cried out to God o Lord Jesus if I can't die then please show me how to live it was my first honest-to-goodness prayer not for healing necessarily but for help from God and those were days when in the morning my sister would come in the bedroom and I would then ask her to draw the drapes turn on the light put on some music put me through my bed bath routines my range of motion exercises get me up my wheelchair because I want to live I don't know how I'm going to do it but I want to live those were also mornings when she after breakfast would push me into the living room and sit me in front of a music stand much like this one and plop my big Bible on it and put my mouth stick in my mouth and since my fingers and hands don't work I would furiously turn flip pages this way Matt desperately hoping looking for answers trying to make sense of it all of course I was still very interested in what the Bible had to say about healing and I found out in the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark because we see there Jesus performing all kinds of healings all throughout the day and long past sunset the next morning the crowds return Simon and his companions search for Jesus but he is nowhere to be found he had gotten up early and gone to a solitary place to pray finally they locate him and they tell him about this crowd of disabled people diseased and sick people at the bottom of the hill all of them looking to be healed but Jesus replies to them in the thirty eighth verse he says this let's go somewhere else to the nearby villages so I can preach there also for this is why I have come and that's what it hit me it's not that Jesus did not care about all those people at the bottom of the hill looking to be healed it's just that their physical problems weren't his main focus the gospel was the gospel that says sin kills hell is real but God is merciful his kingdom can change you and Jesus is your passport and whenever people miss this whenever they only came to the Savior just to get their problems and pains fixed the Savior would always back away no wonder I've been so depressed I was mainly into Jesus to get my problems and my pain and paralysis fixed yes Jesus cares about suffering and he spent most of his time on earth relieving it but the Gospel of Mark showed me his priorities because the same son of man who healed withered hands and opened blind eyes is the same man who said if that hand causes a sin cut it off if that I lead you to stray gouge it out I got the picture to me Healing had always been the big deal but to Jesus the bigger deal was a deeper healing and that's when I started searching I started searching for a deeper deeper kind of healing a Psalm 139 kind of healing that says search me O God and try me and test me and see if there be some wicked way in me cleanse me from every sin and said me free and for the last forty nine years of my wheelchair God has been doing exactly that he's been answering he's been squeezing the lemon so to speak exposing sin exposing self-centeredness exposing selfishness in my life things in my heart from which I really do need to be healed peevish attitude sour dispositions doubting complaining worry anxiety fears of the future things from which I need to be healed and I am so far from finished God is always searching always testing and he keeps using my weakness my weakness as though it were a lemon squeezing but not so pretty stuff of which I made and exposing the sour disposition that I can sometimes have because we are all not the Paragons of virtue that we'd like to think we are are we sadly most Christians myself included often do not appreciate the sanctifying effect of weakness we try to ignore it those lemons in our life that God squeezes hard to expose the stuff of which we're made really made we are embarrassed by our weaknesses we mitigate them we minimize them hide them we certainly don't want to talk about them we're ashamed of them but listen to what Andrew Murray explains about it he shares their value so well when he says quote the Christian often tries to forget his weakness but God wants us to remember it and to feel it deeply the Christian wants to conquer his weakness and to be freed from it to be done with it but God wants us to rest and even rejoice in it the Christian mourns over his weakness but Christ teaches his servant to say I take pleasure in infirmities and most gladly will I glory in them the Christian thinks that his greatest hindrance is his weakness but God tells us that is the secret of strength and success it is our weakness heartily accepted and embraced and continually realized not just occasionally but continually realized that gives our claim and access to the strength of him who said my power is made perfect in your weakness and so I thank God for the Lemon of my quadriplegia I thank God six years ago when I had stage three cancer I thank God that daily yes I even have to thank him for this daily I live with chronic pain because these things press me they push me and shove me up against the breast of my Savior Jesus where otherwise I'm not be humanely inclined to go my suffering your suffering is like a sheepdog snarling and snapping at our heels driving us down the road to Calvary where otherwise we might not go and friends I experienced it every morning please don't be think that thinking that almost 50 years in this wheelchair makes me an expert I'm no professional at this I'm no veteran at this no every morning I wake up and it is hard often my head is on the pillow my eyes are closed ken my husband is off running errands and I can hear my friends in the kitchen running water for coffee and and I'm lying there with my eyes closed thinking oh god I am so tired of this quadriplegia I don't think I can tolerate somebody coming into this bedroom again to put me through this two-hour routine of bed baths and range of motion exercises and doing my twirling routine and wiping my backside and getting me dressed and strapping on my corset and putting in my wheelchair and pushing me to the bathroom and brushing my teeth brushing my hair blowing my nose oh Jesus I'm so tired my eyes aren't even open yet and I'm still thinking that's right isn't it interesting that babbles for the day or fought and they're often won or lost in those few seconds right after you wake up and your eyes are still closed but then I open them and I say to Jesus I can't do quadriplegia I can't but I can do all things through you as you strengthen me Jesus I have no resources for the day but you do I have no energy for the day but you do I have no small for these girlfriends are going to come in here in a minute and get me up in my wheelchair but you do please may I borrow your smile and I tell you what by 7:30 5:00 in the morning he gives me his smile and I have joy hard fought for and sent straight from heaven and maybe the really handicapped ones are those who when their alarm clock goes off they go back the covers jump out of bed scarf down breakfast perhaps give God a speedy tip of the head of a quiet time for ten minutes and then they zoom out the front door on automatic cruise control did you know that if you live life that way God resists you in James chapter four verse 6 it says that God resists the proud who are the proud whether often Christians Christians who think to themselves you know I got saved ten fifteen twenty years ago thirty and I've been to lots of Bible studies and I attend prayer meeting and I pretty much got the lay of the land of this Christian thing so god I'm going to go out the front door and live my day as I think I can live it and if anything arises or crops up that requires your attention I'll be certain to check in with you but you know what Jesus I kind of got it from here I can do this thing God resists people like that but he gives grace grace upon grace to the humble who are the humble they are the ones who own their weakness who own it who embrace it in order to find the power and the strength and the beauty of the Savior who also was made powerful through his own weakness I'll never forget being in Africa delivering wheelchairs our Ministry of Johnny and Friends delivers thousands of wheelchairs around the world and I was with one team in Africa and we were setting up the wheelchair distribution and I noticed coming early before things got started was an African man dragging himself on the floor by his hands with his paralyzed legs being drugged behind him and when he saw me he recognized me and he leaned back on his haunches and you've spread up and open wide his arms and said Oh Johnny welcome to our country where God is so much bigger and he's bigger because we need him more God always seems bigger to those who need him most and God always seems very small to those who need him little but the ones who own their weakness the ones who push through the pain they are the ones as it says in 2nd Corinthians chapter 6 verse 10 they are the ones who are sorrowful yet always rejoicing having nothing but yet possessing everything being poor but making many many rich Jesus is ecstasy beyond compare and it is worth anything anything to be his friend so don't be ashamed of the weakness don't be embarrassed don't hide it don't minimize it no boast in your weakness the Apostle Paul says glory in your infirmities delight in the limitations for then you know God's power rests on you and now now I don't sing because I have to I think because I want to I cannot help but sing because I'm happy I sing because I'm free if his eyes on the sparrow I know he watches me and it's why I am so looking forward so looking forward to heaven oh my goodness there will be praise songs there for all of eternity and so until I get there oh my goodness I'm not going to waste one day of my suffering I'm not going to waste it and I don't want you to either I'm not gonna waste my weakness down here on earth if God permits Lemmons in my life I am going to partner with His Holy Spirit to make it lemonade and I'll give you the recipe for lemonade it's in Philippians chapter 2 verse 14 quote do everything without complaining can we do it it's it possible well the Apostle Paul seems to think it is and I ventured to say so does the Holy Spirit we don't need to live on our peevish attitudes when we wake up in the morning with a sour disposition let that sour disposition drive you into the arms of Jesus confess before him there Jesus I'm just full of rotten lemons I've got such a awful disposition about this day I can't do life on my own I require you are gently please show up in my life I tell you that's the Christian way to wake up in the morning that's the biblical way to wake up that that's the only way to wake up in the morning if you're feeling sour and peevish if you're feeling grumbly and full of complaints let those things drive you to the throne of God where first you'll receive mercy and cleansing and then grace to help you in your time of need and I want to put every sin that I possibly can behind me there's lots more in my life that needs to be exposed there's lots more that I need to confess our whole adventure in life is to strive to be holy as he is holy and in order to do that we've got to discover what we're made of and suffering is the textbook that teaches us who we really are and so don't waste it let those weaknesses expose what needs to be confessed before God because heaven is coming heaven is coming and it's a holy habitation that has been prepared for people who with the Holy Spirit's help have made themselves holy having this coming and I'm going to have a new heart people often think that I'm most excited about having a new body in heaven but no way sure I'm going to enjoy jumping up dancing and kicking and doing aerobics and Tim and I are actually going to stand up on legs that are walk right Tim and we're going to really dance together right guy but I venture to say that Tim would agree with me we're not looking for the new body I want a new heart heart a heart that no longer twists the truth a heart that no longer feels trapped by my circumstances a heart that no longer resist God or looks for an escape a heart that doesn't wake up with a peevish attitude or a sour disposition a heart that will not get defeated by chronic pain a heart that is no longer anxious or worrisome or fearful about the future oh my goodness that is gonna be heaven for me oh that will be glory for me glory for me glory for me when by His grace I shall look on his face that will be glory big be glory for me and on that day God is gonna close the curtain be peace on sin and suffering and Satan and he'll lift the veil when our five senses and we will see the whole universe in plain sight and at that point something so grand and glorious is going to happen that it will suffice for all of our wounds and hurts and disappointments something so grand and glorious is going to occur that it will atone for every painful weakness and hard hit suffering that we've had to endure and I can't wait for that day oh my goodness I'm gonna I'm gonna have my body then and new lungs that work better and I'm going to stand up when resurrected legs and I can't wait perhaps even to take my wheelchair with me to heaven who knows because if I can I'll put it right over there and then I'm going to be standing next to my Savior and I'll hold onto his hand and I'll know who recognized me as the one who came often to him every morning running to the inner sanctum of the Fellowship of sharing in his sufferings needing His mercy requiring His grace and I will say to him oh Jesus you were right when you said that in this world we would have trouble that thing was a lot of trouble but Jesus the weaker I wasn't that thing the harder I leaned on you and the harder I leaned on you the stronger I discovered you to be thank you Jesus thank you and now if you want you can send that wheelchair to hell if you wish actually no I have thought lately that perhaps maybe I do want my wheelchair in heaven as a constant eternal reminder of the Blessed occasion that it we gave me of needing Jesus desperately some time ago my husband Ken and I had a chance to visit the Holy Land oh it was wonderful it was so great my husband arranged the whole itinerary and I really didn't know what was coming next but on the morning that we woke up to go into the old city of Jerusalem he put me in my manual push chair and he pushed me through the Jaffa Gate and then we bumpity bump bump bump down the cobblestone steps of the Via Dolorosa bumpity bump bump past the Arab bazaars smelling the wonderful spices and hearing that exotic music and we bumpity-bump further down the cobblestone street and there on the right was the Temple Mount we made a left-hand turn past st. Ann's Church and then oh my goodness oh my goodness would you look at that Ken it's the palapa Festa we had the whole place to ourselves all the Benny Hinn tour buses must have been down at the Red Sea can-can you would not believe how often when I was in the hospital so many many years ago I used to imagine myself right here right right right right here at that point can pole vault it over the guardrail to the ruins and began running down into the cisterns to find water to see if there really was anything the left on the Bulova Thesz de but i sat there alone huge tears rolling down my cheeks and in that on that dry dusty afternoon i blubbered my thanks to Jesus and I said old Jesus I cannot believe that you have waited almost 38 years to bring me here as long as that man was paralyzed by the pool but you brought me here to thank you because I begged you to help me get out of this wheelchair and be healed but you you knew that a no answer to that prayer would purge sin from my life and make me more holy you knew that it would increase my compassion for others who hurt you knew that it would put complaining behind me you knew that it would stretch my hope push me to give thanks in times of sorrow and increase my faith and make me love you more thank you Jesus perhaps tonight you see yourself at the Pool of Bethesda number 15 in a long line of people waiting to get your problems fixed well God may remove your suffering and if he does that will be great cause for rejoicing but if not he will use it to remove anything and everything in your life that stands in the way of his sanctifying work in your heart so do as William law told the church centuries ago receive every inward and outward trouble every disappointment darkness and desolation with both your hands as a blessed occasion of dying to yourself and entering into a fuller fellowship with your Savior look at no inward or outward trouble in any other view reject every other thought about it and then every kind of trial and distress will become the blessed day of your spiritual prosperity and that's the truth if you want to experience that I invite you to pray with me right now and I want you to do so by singing with me as I so loved it saying I love singing hymns I'll sing with anybody anywhere any hymn but sing this hymn as your prayer to God to put the complaining behind you and partner with this holy spirit and let again squeeze you show the stuff of what you're made confess it to God and move forward and a fuller richer more joyful fellowship with your Savior so sing this prayer with me have I known way more would have I known way the pot - I am the clay mold me and may me after thy will while I am waiting yielded and still a little louder sing it from your heart have I known way nor have I no way hold or my be absolute sway fill with thy spirit till up shall see Christ only always living in me sing that last part again fill with I speak read till all shall see Christ only always living in me god bless you thank you for listening thanks for listening we hope this message has impacted you we'd like to challenge you to take it one step further and get connected for any questions or prayer please visit our website at si s Church CA you can also like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter

Channel: mycschurch

Views: 37,862

Rating: 4.8884463 out of 5

Keywords: Centre Street Church, Centre, Street, Church, Calgary, Calgary Church, CSC, Central Campus, cschurch, mycschurch, Christian, Faith, Jesus, holiness, suffering, complaining

Id: VO5hchi_kD8

Length: 38min 38sec (2318 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 06 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/christnmusicreleases]

She has the singing voice of an angel.