Wednesday Bible Blurb Are You Willing 1 14 2026
What are you willing to do for the gospel?
It was July 1968 when we first spent time at our property in Montana. Nestled along a small river we had found our family paradise. No electricity, no water well, just land, a river and the beauty of Montana mountains with trout in the stream. The first item of business was to bring in the newly built outhouse and dig a deep hole for the future contents. After the hole was dug and the outhouse was set in place my dad accidently dropped a tool down into the outhouse hole. Tools are expensive and there was no way he was going to leave the tool at the bottom of the pit.
Dad took a long look at me and my friend Jon; we were both nine years old. Fortunately for me, Jon was thinner than I was and so he was chosen for the unenviable job of being let down into the newly placed never yet used outhouse pit to grab the dropped tool. He was thin enough to fit through the toilet seat hole and was able to be dropped down into the pit. Then dad walked away and left poor Jon in the outhouse hole. All in good fun, he went right back and pulled him out, tool and all. It is a fun story to tell the day my friend was put down the outhouse hole.
What does any of this have to do with preaching and living the gospel of Jesus Christ and His coming Kingdom of God? Simple, Jon willingly went down the outhouse hole to do the mission he had been asked to do. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen.” (Matt.28:19-20 [NKJV]). Are we willing to do the mission Jesus has asked us to do? What are you willing to do for the gospel?
Isaiah the prophet who so amazingly foretells the beauty of the future literal kingdom of God on earth was told by God to walk and preach NAKED for three full years. (Isaiah 20). Wow, maybe going down a newly built outhouse pit was not so bad?
To warn and mimic the idolatrous sins of ancient Israel, Hosea was told to go and marry a prostitute. (Hosea 1:2-3). It did not turn out so well as she played the harlot on Hosea as Israel had towards God.
Steven was a newly appointed deacon in the very early years of the New Covenant Church of God. Being full of the Holy Spirit, inspired and charged with the powerful energy of God he preached Jesus to the stunned Pharisees. These were the same people who previously had crucified Jesus, God in the flesh, the Messiah. The faith of Steven becomes over whelming for us as we read of his death. He was so faithful, even as the stones hit him he prayed the sin would not be laid to their charge. As he suffered and was about to die, he looked up into the heavens and saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. (Acts 6:5-15; 7:1-60 vs 55-56).
James and John, sons of Zebedee whom Jesus called the “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17) were two of the closest disciples of Jesus. When Jesus had something special to say he took James, John and Peter with Him and was transfigured before their eyes. James was close with Jesus, John and Peter. He would have done anything to further the gospel for Jesus. Just a few years after the beginnings of the Church of God, James was killed by Herod Agrippa I by a sword. (Acts 12:1-2).
Saul, who organized and consented to the murder of the deacon Steven was walking along the road to Damascus where he was going to harass, imprison and torture the new converts who were following Jesus. It was time for God to do something about this fanatical Pharisee who so hurt and endangered the new Church of God. BAM, like a lightning strike along the road to Damascus, Saul is blinded and he hears the voice of Jesus calling him to a new life. Blind and having to be led to Damascus he repents, is baptized and immediately preaches Jesus. Saul had hurt the people of God, yet Jesus said to Ananias to go to Saul, “for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, Kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.” (Acts 9:15-16). Saul was going to have to suffer for what he had done while in service to Jesus.
Years later, Saul now named called Paul recounts what he was willing to do for the gospel. “Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. 23 Are they ministers of Christ?—I speak as a fool—I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. 24 From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; 26 in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; 27 in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness— 28 besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation?” (II Cor. 11:22-29).
What are you willing to do for the gospel of Jesus Christ and His coming kingdom? Are you truly committed to preaching, teaching and living the gospel we were all called into? Are we Sabbath only Christians? Do we exude and live the gospel all week long like Isaiah, Hosea, Steven, James and Paul? Are we actively participating and willing to “go preach the gospel” as Jesus told us to do? Have we lost our first love and sit around thinking we are saved as we go about OUR business rather than the business of God? Our examples were willing to take on the pressure of going forth. What are you willing to do for the gospel? How much of your life are you willing to give up doing for what Jesus told us to do? Have we become complacent and resting in our own private outhouse of thoughts?
Judah was on the verge of collapse and being decimated by the Babylonians. Jeremiah was sent by God to warn King Zedekiah of Judah to repent and change his ways. This was not the message the king wanted to hear so he had Jeremiah tortured, not with direct death but something even worse. Jeremiah was sent to the prison dungeon where he was let down by ropes into the mire (Jere. 38:6). Where would the prisoners have relieved themselves? Where would this dungeon refuse flow to? Like my friend Jon, Jeremiah was put in the pit. Jeremiah, the prophet of God was allowed to sink into this mire, suffer without any fresh water or food and was about to die before he was rescued. What was Jeremiah willing to do for the gospel?
Both Jon and Jeremiah were rescued from the pit. Both accomplished the mission they were sent to do. Jesus told us to “go preach the gospel…”
What are you willing to do for the gospel?
