Grappling with God...Continued from page 4

You see Jesus needed to grapple with God over going to the cross. He needed comfort for what was about to transpire. Jesus knew that when he was on that Cross that he who knew no sin was about to become sin. He knew that for the very first time in his life that his father was going to turn his back on him. He knew that God was going to forsake him on the Cross, and he needed the comfort that could only come from God, so he wrestled with him, he grappled with him.

Luke tells us that in these moments, the sweat poured out of his body in the form of blood. Doctors tell us that when someone is under great stress that sweating blood happens, and that is what was happening to Jesus. What does God do because Jesus grappled with him? He sends an angel to minister to him.

Jesus grappled with God and got what he needed. Have you grappled with God? Have you gotten what you needed?

A friend of mine, Pastor Owen Carr, tells story about his first youth pastor at the Stone Church, a guy named Phil Wiesenan. When Phil first came to the Stone Church he was already a successful youth pastor, and so when he go there he told Pastor Carr what he was going to do because it worked at his last church.

Pastor Carr told Phil that instead of doing what he did at his last church, what Pastor Carr wanted Phil to do was go into the sanctuary and spend time praying there until he felt like he had heard from the Lord. At the time the stone church had a youth group of maybe 30 kids, that were no for nothing but causing trouble. One time during a youth convention the whole Stone Church youth group was sent home because they destroyed a hotel room they were staying at by melting cheese on light bulbs, and throwing hotel furniture out of the windows.

So, reluctantly Phil went into the church sanctuary and started to pray. But why did he need to pray, since he knew what to do already, right? So he spent a week in the sanctuary. He spent two weeks in the sanctuary. By the third week, he was completely frustrated. Then something happened.

One day as Pastor Carr was going to the sanctuary he heard someone weeping before the Lord; it was Phil. Phil spent hours weeping before the Lord. He heard from the Lord, he had grappled with God.

The youth group started to grow. The youth group grew to over 300 kids, and out of that group 25 people went into full time ministry. One of them was a gal named Mary Boyd. Mary grew up in home where her mother literally practiced witchcraft and Buddhism.