Wednesday, August 31, 2011

It HAPPENED!!!

I was absolutely BLOWN AWAY last night up here at Hume.  Last night I preached on the crucifixion of Christ, explaining what Jesus endured for us physically, emotionally, and spiritually on the cross.  I explained that Jesus completely paid in full the payment required for the sin of the world, and that we could receive forgiveness and right standing with God by his grace, surrendering to his Lordship.  It was a powerful time in his word.

I then called everyone there (students, teachers, Hume Lake staff, people just visiting chapel who were at the camp, everyone) to do one of the following, if they needed to:

1.  To surrender to Christ's Lordship and to receive his gift of salvation (i.e. to be saved).
2.  To return to Jesus, after having wandered away as one of the prodigals of history.
3.  To confess that they had been acting like a religious legalist (i.e. like the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son) and to return to God's grace instead of living in legalistic religion.

I invited students to stay if they were making one of those three decisions.  There are 90 students up here at this camp.  If my count was right, there were 36 students that stayed behind making one of those decisions mentioned above.  OVER ONE-THIRD of the school stayed back to make a decision for Jesus.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I was blown away.  The teachers were blown away.  It was absolutely incredible!

And we are not done yet.  It is only Wednesday afternoon.  We leave on Friday.  God is still on the move.  And what's beautiful is this: I'm sitting at a picnic table writing this blog, and within earshot I am listening to a teacher explaining to Maddie (a young lady who surrendered to Jesus last night at the worship service) what this relationship with Jesus, that she entered into last night, really looks like.  It is absolutely beautiful to listen to.

I am blown away.  I am blessed.  And I'm convinced that Jesus is not even close to being finished yet.

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