As a new semester flies forward at Hillsdale College, there is a fresh excitement about the place. It is a spiritual energy, a sense of hope and faith. It is a cause that would grow with the prayers of Christians around the nation.
This old college is special because its students are a vanguard. They will go on from here to advance conservative ideas in every arena.
TRENDING: To DEI for
This semester, the great movement on campus is a movement for Christ. That movement is not a phenomenon of meetings and activities and a slice of the campus some often perceived as a "Christian clique." In fact, InterVarsity and Greek Christian Fellowship united with Athletes in Action this year to become Hillsdale Christian Fellowship. The Hillsdale Christian Fellowship theme verse is Isaiah 43:19, "Behold, I will do a new thing."
The new thing is about relationships. It is about the friendships that our generation has come to long for. Ultimately, it is about friendship with Jesus Christ. Christians at Hillsdale are responding to the call in one part of the campus or another, not to pummel their peers with the Bible, but simply to love. And love, we might recall, is the point of the Bible.
The call is not to force a motion, but to forge a relationship. It is not to despise a sinner, but to prize a soul. It is not to construct an organization, but to build the Kingdom. It is a Kingdom "not of this world."
And we need an awakening here. To tell the truth, we need an awakening across our generation. We need to surrender the vanities that keep us from living. Without faith, we are as good as dead.
About 130 years ago, a man named Judson Van Deventer graduated from Hillsdale College. He went to work as an art teacher in Pennsylvania. Yet he was conflicted about how to serve the Lord with his life; he wanted to be a better artist, but he struggled against yielding his will to God's. Friends saw special talents for ministry in Van Deventer – perhaps nurtured while he was a student at Hillsdale – and they encouraged him to dedicate himself to the work of evangelism. For five years, Van Deventer was indecisive.
One day, while sitting in a meeting at the home of the evangelist George Sebring in Ohio, Judson Van Deventer decided to lay everything on the line and give everything over to the Lord.
"At last the pivotal hour of my life came," he later wrote, "and I surrendered all. A new day was ushered into my life. I became an evangelist and discovered deep down in my soul a talent hitherto unknown to me. God had hidden a song in my heart, and touching a tender chord, He caused me to sing."
The song that Judson Van Deventer sang has become one of the most popular American hymns.
All to Jesus I surrender
All to Him I freely give
I will ever love and trust Him
In His presence daily live.I surrender all, I surrender all
All to Thee my precious Savior
I surrender all.
Van Deventer traveled through America, England and Scotland preaching God's Word. Later in his life, he worked at the Florida Bible Institute. There he became a friend and mentor to a man who later described Van Deventer as a "kind, deeply spiritual gentleman" who "influenced my early preaching." That man was Billy Graham.
God called one Hillsdale College graduate to impact this nation.
Doubtless He can do it again, a thousand-fold. And let it begin here. Please join the hundreds across the country already praying for an awakening at Hillsdale College.