Being Wide Open Throttle Means Being Committed.

Mike Hosey

Being Wide Open Throttle means taking a risk. If you twist that throttle all the way around, or if you press that pedal all the way to the floor then you are going to take off, go fast, and feel some power. It’s risky business. In order to “safely” go Wide Open Throttle, you have to be committed to the risk, the speed, and the excitement. If you’re not committed, then you’ll second guess at the wrong time, and that can be quite dangerous.

John the Baptist had the right kind of commitment to live Wide Open Throttle, and that’s exactly what he did! It had been prophesied that he would herald Jesus into his ministry (Matthew 3:3). John lived that prophesy out (Matthew 3:1-16)! He lived in the wilderness eating locusts and wild honey, and dressed in coarse robes of camel hair and a leather belt. He probably looked like something out of The Hobbit, or some other fantasy movie. He baptized those who came to him and confessed their sins. When the religious leaders of the day came to watch him baptize those people, he chastised them. He called them a brood of vipers -- which would would have been akin to a number of modern profane insults. Talk about taking a risk. Then after calling them such a derogatory name, he schooled them on how being a child of Abraham wasn’t measured by bloodlines, but by behavior. He then indirectly referenced Jesus, and hinted to those religious leaders that they may be burned up like worthless chaff.

John the Baptist didn’t pull any punches. He twisted the throttle all the way the way for the kingdom of God. So much so that Jesus referenced him as the greatest prophet (Matthew 11:9-11). Imagine Jesus calling you the greatest prophet of anyone before you!

John kept the throttle wide open all the way to his death. In his last days, his life had intersected with the life of Herod, the king of Galilee. Herod had been flirting and dabbling with incestuous ideas and relationships. John warned him that this was against the law of God. This angered Herod, who had him imprisoned, and then later beheaded (Matthew 14:1-12). You don’t get any more wide open throttle than that.

So in your Christian walk, what is the last risk you took? When were you last wide open throttle? When was the last time you were half throttle?

Are Your Wheels Connected to Your Throttle?

Mike Hosey

Being Wide Open Throttle is about going places. You twist the throttle or press the pedal and your vehicle is put in motion toward a goal. But there’s something really obvious about that vehicle that we usually overlook.  It is a complex machine that is made up of many moving parts that are all very, very different, but still work together toward the common aim of moving you and your stuff safely down the road. Those different parts are so intertwined, and so interdependent, and so good at working together that we view the car as a seamless, single object rather than as a bunch of different parts.

The Christian walk is very much like this. You can twist your throttle all you want, but if you haven’t bound yourself to your bike, and your bike to your wheels, then you aren’t going anywhere.  Binding yourself to other Christians, who are different than you, but who also are united to you in common purpose is invaluable to that walk. Paul talks about this in depth where he argues that a body needs it’s different parts, but then argues that each of those parts make up the same body (1 Corinthians 12:12-31).

One great illustration of this is found in the story of three Jews with the Babylonian names of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (Daniel 3:1-30). They resisted a king who had required them by law to bow down and worship a giant idol.  If they did not worship as he had decreed they would be thrown into a deadly heated furnace. All three men were unique individuals. And all three men were able to bind together and withstand the King’s evil requirement. They were able to do this because they were united in their love, respect, honor, fear and trust for the one true God. The king did, indeed, have them thrown into the furnace.  Miraculously, God protected them. But it is interesting to note that they were willing to go into the furnace and stand up for their God even if he chose not to save them (Daniel 3:16-18). It’s unlikely that they could have made such a resistance without being bound to each other and to their common God. They demonstrated with perfection Solomon’s wisdom that when three separate cords are woven together into a single strand, they become very hard to break (Ecclesiastes 4:12).

Are you Wide Open Throttle?  Have you bound yourself to others who are different from you, but united with you in purpose? Your Wide Open Throttle can’t take you anywhere if you aren’t.

Challenging Your Culture Is Wide Open Throttle.

Living your life Wide Open Throttle means allowing the maximum amount of fuel from God’s word to run into your engine, then burning that fuel with the maximum amount of air from prayer and the Holy Spirit. But you can’t live life Wide Open Throttle until you put that engine into gear and do something with all of that power. If your engine is just idling with the throttle wide open, then you’re just wasting fuel. Interestingly, if you’re in gear, but your throttle isn’t open, then your engine will die from lack of fuel and air, and you won’t go anywhere either.

Mike Hosey, An Elder

The prophet Elijah is a great example of how a person can throttle up and win for the Kingdom of God. He is also an example of how a person can choke the power of God by taking a hand off of the throttle and letting an engine sputter out. Consider his victory at Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:21-29). The evil King Ahab of Israel had allowed the people to worship pagan Gods. Elijah challenged the king at the top of Mount Carmel to follow a real God.  Then in a true display of God’s power, he vanquished 450 prophets of Baal when he called down fire on an altar. But only after he had dared them to call down fire from their false God. They didn’t succeed. The people saw Elijah's demonstration of power, and then at his command killed all the evil prophets. Elijah had understood the word of God. He believed it’s power, he spoke to God regularly, and he acted on that word! He was wide open throttle!

But just one chapter over (1 Kings 19:1-18), Ahab’s queen, Jezebel, hears of Elijah’s victory. In her anger over the deaths of her false prophets, she vows to kill Elijah. Elijah, the man who had just called down fire from heaven, becomes afraid of a pagan woman who worships an impotent God who could not display any power at all when called upon by 450 prophets. She was an evil woman who did not love or know God! Elijah forgot about God’s power, and his own status as a prophet. He forgot to pray for the fuel of God’s word, or a renewal of his spirit, and instead retreats into the wilderness, and prays a whiney prayer asking to die. He had cut off his throttle, and he had taken himself out of gear. His engine was sputtering instead of roaring. Thankfully, at the top of Mount Horeb, God breaks Elijah’s self focus and restores his fuel and spirit.

What areas in your life are open throttle? What areas aren’t? When was the last time you refueled? When was the last time you prayed a prayer to throttle up? When was the last time you challenged a pagan world with the fire of God?

Wide Open Throttles

Mike Hosey, An Elder

There’s a saying in the biker culture that goes something like this: “Some pop pills, others tilt bottles, but we solve our problems with wide open throttles.” A throttle is the  human/machine interface on an engine that governs the flow of fuel and air. When a throttle is wide open, say on a motorcycle, or when the pedal is to the metal in an automobile, the greatest amount of air and fuel possible flow into the engine, and it performs at peak. The engine will produce maximum output, and the vehicle will assume maximum speed for the gear that it happens to be in. When bikers cite this bit of wisdom, they are proclaiming that the dismal problems of the world pale in comparison to the exhilaration they experience when they fully commit themselves and their machines to the open road. There’s no doubt that this principle is true across several life areas. Consider the drug addict who

commits his life completely to his habit. When he opens the throttle wide open, the responsible world is drowned out. It pales in comparison (he thinks) to the pleasures of his drugs. The business woman who commits herself fully to her endeavors experiences a ride that drowns out the distractions of all other potential roads. When she opens the throttle wide open, she may end up building an organization that reshapes her economy, and perhaps the economies of multitudes of others.

The bible is full of men and women who lived wide-open-throttle lives. People like Daniel, or John the Baptist, or Paul, or Jesus. Their lives, quite literally changed the world. If you are reading this, you have benefitted -- even if you are not a believer -- from how they lived their lives with throttles wide open. Consider how Paul, the apostle, boasts of his strivings for Christ in 2 Corinthians 11:23-28 where he shares, “Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. 24 Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food,[b] in cold and exposure.”

His wide open throttle life gave us most of the New Testament, and modeled for us how we can change from something old, to something much better. How open is your throttle?