Hundreds of thousands of young people across America are heading off to college now or sometime in the next month. And as they go, Satan is wide awake. Satan is looking to feed his bonfire of souls.
He will tempt. He will confuse. He wants to draw young America into nets that we cannot get out of. He wants to cause us to stumble, lose our confidence and despair. Satan is looking for wimps and sellouts.
TRENDING: Jihad against Christians is due to … climate change?
But God is looking for men and women who will give up their pride and self-righteousness, who will lay their sins on the Cross where He bled for us, who will put their entire trust in the highest Reality we can know.
We're in this war against Islamic terrorism. The Muslim religion is attractive because it says, "There's a mission to accomplish. There's a jihad." And however you interpret the tasks of that mission, it's something that one can live for. The English terrorists who plotted the attacks that would have happened two weeks ago were young guys. One of them was a pothead a year ago, and now he's willing to risk his life for a cause.
If it looks like Christianity is wimpy by comparison, it's because we haven't looked at the Great Commission right. The Great Commission says, "Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations."
A friend of mine had to leave college in the middle of last semester because he's getting ready to go to Iraq. He is a U.S. Marine. He once reminded me that we are in a spiritual battle for the survival of our civilization.
And where's the problem? Well, we hear different answers. Some people will say politics, some will say economics, some will say morality. But aside from faith in Jesus Christ, the human condition is overwhelming and it will kill us. And no amount of political reforms or economic advances or even purely moral endeavors can solve our problem.
Our problem is spiritual.
You and I are in a time of life in which we will make spiritual choices and embark down spiritual paths that will either destroy us or lead us to the kingdom of heaven. It is a time for choosing. And if we were left to ourselves, we would make the wrong choice every time.
Because God chooses us, we must choose to be witnesses to hope.
I struggled with very idea of witnessing last year. I realized that I wasn't doing all I ought to do to live out the Great Commission, that in fact I didn't know how. I shared my struggle with some friends, and I began to feel a sense of guilt and pessimism about the whole thing. I just felt like I was incapable of getting out of myself and following the Lord's lead, to share His love with others.
And one day I wrote down a quick little prayer in my notebook: "Lord, send me an opportunity." Moments later, I found myself in the campus cafeteria talking with a friend about the Gospel. Leaving the cafeteria that night, I thanked God for teaching me the secret of witnessing.
I had been correct in thinking that I was incapable of living out the Great Commission on my own. But that was only part of it. It took a prayer, and the grace of God, and the Providential ordering of events and personalities and conversations, to set things in motion.
It's easy enough to be bold and valiant when it comes to speaking out and getting a name for myself. But when it comes to the dirty work of the Great Commission, really acting from love and really loving with action – that will take the Spirit of God.
Our faith is more than an activity. It is more than a program. It is more than a clique of Christians who have nothing better to do than to array their self-righteousness for all the world to see. And if I want to know the joy of humility, it doesn't mean sitting down and watching the world go by. You and I are here for such a time as this to witness to our generation about the hope we have, about the peace that passes understanding, about the love that conquers our worst sins and drives out our darkest fears.
There is a longing everywhere in our generation to give up our useless reliance on self, to give up self and surrender everything for something higher than ourselves.