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Student Ministry

Posted on March 14, 2008 ...

      I have been thinking recently about why it's easier for some people to reach out to others while for some it seems like an impossible task. It may be hard for some of you to imagine this, but in middle school and high school I was a very shy and awkward kid around anyone but my family. I didn't have a huge circle of friends and my best friends were my cousins. It wasn't until my senior year that I really allowed God to consume my life.
    Over the next couple of years as I dug deep into God's Word and began communicating with Him in prayer I started to change. I remember people saying things like "You're really coming out of your shell." At the time all I knew was that Jesus Christ had changed me and I wanted others to know He could do the same thing for them.
     Fast-forward to now, almost 8 years later. God has allowed me to continue working with students (something I have been passionate about since I was a student). And yet it has taken almost 8 years for me to realize something about myself. In looking back to when I was the person who thought it was impossible to reach out to someone for Christ and now being the type person who can talk to anyone about anything, I realized what the difference was. I realized that I hadn't received a personality transplant when God consumed my life, it wasn't even that I was filled with a "Holy Boldness" to proclaim Jesus (although that's something I have prayed for). The simple truth is that I understood God's Love for me. I understood how much Jesus Christ loved me to give His life for mine. So what is it? What's my big revelation... It's Love. The thing that changed in me was that I gained a sincere love for people. 1 Corinthians chapter 13 talks a lot about what love is and what it isn't, and it ends with "But the greatest of these is love." Last week while reading through Romans I read, "Love must be sincere." If we want to begin to reach others for Christ, I believe that before anything else, before meeting physical needs, or talking about their spiritual needs, before any of that they must sense our sincere love for them. I mean, isn't that what Jesus did? Love, I get that - I understand it and so many people we meet each day are searching for it. So let's focus less on having or not having super energetic, eccentric, outgoing personalities that enable us to reach others, but rather focus on becoming a group of people with unconditional love for others. Much Love, Nathan