Our Guest: Kelly Wilkerson
Kelly Wilkerson is Vice President of World Challenge where she serves along with her husband Gary Wilkerson (President). She has a passion for leading worship and songwriting. Kelly lives in Colorado with her husband and currently has 12 grandchildren. Gary and Kelly have been married for 47 years.
Key Thoughts and Scriptures:
“If you don’t worship, you’ll never experience God.” – David Jeremiah
- True worship is far more than a moment of music. It’s a way of life.
Romans 12:1-2 NLT And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
- The heart of worship is not just an expression; it’s a transformation.
- When we offer our lives fully to God, He reshapes us from the inside out.
- For when we stop chasing what the world says is valuable, we start discovering God’s perfect will for our lives.
- God uses everything to shape us and form us.
- Kelly and her husband learned to rely on the Lord and on each other.
- God knew all that was to come and their need for a solid foundation of prayer and reading the Word together and being one in Christ.
- Kelly had opened herself up to a stronghold of fear that was crippling.
God wanted to set Kelly free from fear.
- First, she repented of opening herself up to fear.
- Then she learned about her spiritual inheritance and the weapons of warfare that God has given to us.
Ephesians 6:12 NKJV For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood…
2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
2 Corinthians 10:5 NKJV Casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ
- So you replace those thoughts with God’s thoughts and His Word.
John 16:33 NKJV These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.
- Repent, renounce, then rebuke the fear.
- Then you ask the Holy Spirit to come and fill those places and keep moving forward with the presence of Christ.
Even when Kelly was operating in fear, God was so gracious and gentle to her.
Isaiah 41:13 NRSVA For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Do not fear, I will help you.
- God lovingly confronts our wrong beliefs and expectations so that we grow into His image. He wants us to be His representation on earth.
Revelation 1:18 NKJV …And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.
Jeremiah 17:9 NKJV The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked…
- Very mercifully, God let Kelly see her anger so she could repent.
Proverbs 3:5-6 NKJV Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.
- God does bring restoration when we allow Him to do that in our lives. And sometimes it’s a real struggle.
- We have to keep laying down those things that become little gods in our life.
- Through another painful journey, God gave Kelly a deeper understanding of worship.
- While leading people in ministering to the poor, God told her, “You are leading all of these people in worship.”
- It was a completely different side of worship. Where you can show people the redeeming parts of God and let them join you in that. Pouring your life out for others, this is an act of sacrifice to God.
James 1:27 NIV Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
- “I want to lead you in a worship like that. Not something that’s going to glorify me. We’re supposed to be focused on Jesus.”
“Obedience is the highest form of worship.” – Doug Stringer
Kelly discovered that being a mom can have joyful seasons and painful seasons.
- ‘God in His love for me and for them, bolstered me to believe prayers.”
1 John 5:14 NKJV Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
- There’s no better way to be established in God’s will, then to pray scripture.
Daniel 1:4 KJV Children in whom was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom…
Isaiah 54:13 AMPC And all your [spiritual] children shall be disciples [taught by the Lord and obedient to His will], and great shall be the peace and undisturbed composure of your children.
- Kelly learned through her experiences that God didn’t say to lean on her own understanding.
- And that’s the lie of the enemy, to try to derail us from our prayers and from actually trusting in God and having that faith to know that He’s hearing us when we’re crying out.
God spoke to Kelly saying, “My kids, Adam and Eve, they brought sin into the entire world.”
Luke 11:11 NKJV If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish?
- If there’s something that comes to mind that we failed our children in, we want to be quick to answer and make restoration.
Psalm 136:1 NKJV Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.
2 Chronicles 20:1-30 NKJV …“A great multitude is coming against you…”
- When you are battling powers of darkness for your children and for their souls, the front line is everywhere. It surrounds you.
- Kelly told God, “I will not let go of this.”
Colossians 1:13 NKJV He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.
- “I just encourage parents to just give thanks to God, give thanks to God for He’s good and His mercy endures forever.”
The Shunammite Woman
- The Shunammite and her husband didn’t have children, but they were doing fine.
- Elijah kept coming through and she made space for him.
- She’s welcoming God into her home. To be taught the things of the Lord. She wants to bring honor to God.
- The son God has given her falls ill and dies.
- She knows so thoroughly, so trustingly who God is that her response again and again is “All is well.”
- Kelly prays that whatever the storm is, whatever the trial, whatever the sorrow, even whatever the joys are, she can still say ‘All is well.’
- The Shunammite made room for God’s presence in her home.
- I’m sure that the others were watching her. And that made them curious, like, why would you do that? Then all of those conversations that she had.
- And God gave her something she didn’t even ask for.
- When we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, that’s worship. And when we do that, God transforms us.
It’s so freeing, knowing God’s will and walking in step with Him.
John 17:23 NKJV …You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
John 14:26 NKJV But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.
Matthew 10:30 NKJV …The very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Psalm 3:3 AMPC But You, O Lord, are a shield for me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.
Psalm 61:2 NKJV …When my heart is overwhelmed; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
Psalms 32:7 NKJV You are my hiding place; …preserve me from trouble; …surround me with songs of deliverance.
Isaiah 40:4 NKJV Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth
Psalm 143:12 NIV In your unfailing love, silence my enemies…
2 Corinthians 12:9 NLT Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.
- Keep trusting God because He’s still writing your story.
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