Hey, my name is Tim Specht. I am the Youth Pastor and Outreach Pastor at Bethel Austin. This is God Today and I want to talk to you today about taking risk and the importance of taking risk in your life as a follower of Jesus. John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard Church has a famous quote that goes, “Faith is spelled R I S K.” This is one of my favorite quotes because personally I have come to embrace and I have a personal core value that on a daily basis, I am going to seek to take risk, at least one risk, whatever that might look like. It might look like loving on a homeless person. It might look like giving a prophetic word to the person that’s ringing up my groceries. It might look like praying for someone on crutches or practicing a word of knowledge.
When I’m out in public, it could look like anything, but I’ve come to realize in my own personal life that I have a deep sense of Heavenly alignment when I’m stepping into risk. I believe this is the case because, as believers, we were never meant to stay in our own comfort zone. Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. That means that our comfort zone is not where the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. It means stepping out, beyond yourself and into God’s comfort zone.
One of my favorite stories that displays this in scripture is in Matthew chapter 14, where Jesus is walking on the water. We all know this story. We’ve all heard it preached so many times about Peter ending up on the water, but I want to spin it a little bit differently for you today. The story goes that Jesus walks out on the water late at night. He’s approaching the boat where His disciples are rowing and they look out and they see, they don’t know it’s Him. They see somebody, something, and they think it’s a ghost. So they cry out in fear and worry and Jesus responds back like most of the angels do when people are startled in the scriptures, “Take courage, do not be afraid.” They still don’t know it’s Him. But one of the disciples speaks up with words that are interesting. It’s the disciple Peter, and he cries out and he says, “Jesus, if it is You call me out onto the water.”
Now what’s interesting is that Jesus didn’t call Peter out onto the water to begin with. There was an awareness in Peter that if Jesus was doing it, it’s accessible for me. And if it’s my Rabbi is doing it, then I know that He’ll call me into what is possible for Him. His comfort zone shall become mine. I love Peter because he messed up so much, which encourages me a lot, but he also experienced more breakthrough apparently in the scriptures we see than any other disciple.
This is what we’re called to. We are called to see Jesus in His own comfort zone and the comfort zone and the reality of the Kingdom. We are meant to take risks and to step out and walk into it because whatever is accessible for Jesus, whatever Jesus did, is accessible for the disciple – you and me. I want to encourage you today. If you feel stagnant in your life, if there are areas where you feel like you’re hitting a wall, or there’s a glass ceiling on parts of your life, I believe that breakthroughs on the other side of risk in every single one of those areas. If you want to see financial breakthrough, I encourage you to sow into somebody, even if it’s just a dollar. If it’s areas where you feel like you’re low in your faith, step out in areas that scare you….because even if nothing happens, you’re stepping into the impossible you’re charging towards giants and that is what your destiny is destined for.
I just want to pray for you as we finish up, Lord Jesus, I bless every viewer and I thank You God, for the power of taking risks. I ask that You would light a fire and every single viewer, that would be so big that we would have to do something with it, in Jesus name. Amen.