A Turn of the Page

I write this as I sit in my college dorm, looking over the campus. I’ve been here since Monday, and the week has been full of highs and lows – mostly highs – a lot of information thrown at me, seeing old friends, and making new ones.

It’s also been a time of rejuvenation. Coming from Boston, I was very spiritually dry. My faith felt like it was summed up in works, and I can assure you, it’s a very dissatisfying feeling to realize that your entire relationship with the God of the universe is based on your performance review.

It’s like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13. “If I speak with the tongue of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong, or a clanging cymbals. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all the mysteries and all knowledge and I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (1 Cor. 13:1-3)

This love, whether it’s for people around us or for the God of the universe, has to be supernatural. Which means that we love others with the love of God, and we love God with the love that He’s given us.

But if God is giving it to us, that means we need to know him. So, all the good things I did, they were out of love. But near the end of the four weeks, it was so easy to lose sight of my love of Christ and focus on convincing people of the Gospel.

Yes, convincing people of the Gospel is good, and God can use even the most unloving of messages to proclaim His truth. But there is no benefit for the one preaching the Gospel. At the end of the day, the conversation is about how you did, how you convinced someone of what the Bible says, instead of going and thanking God for how he blessed you with conversation after conversation with those who do not know Him.

I arrived at Liberty very aware of what I was grappling with. I knew that I was focusing on the works side of faith, and that I had been focusing on it for so long that I had lost my connection with God. And I missed that communion I used to have with him.

The way I compared it is when you’re dating someone (or even when you’re married – I’ve never experienced it). But in the first weeks and months, there are those moments when you know your boyfriend or girlfriend is interested in you, but you don’t feel it. Cognitively, you’re aware of their love, and how much they want to be in the relationship. But emotionally, you just don’t feel it.

It was like that for me and God. I knew He loved me – more than anyone in this world could – but I couldn’t feel that love. I couldn’t enter into His presence and truly feel the peace He freely gives.

Even now, I’m still working on it. But it’s leaps and bounds from where I was. This week, being back at Liberty, a campus dedicated to serving God, I can feel the truth of the things that I know. God has been talking to me for a very long time, but I’m finally opening my ears and listening.

Many people might call this the start of a new chapter in my life. After all, it’s a new semester, with a new roommate, new RA’s and RS’s on the hall. But I don’t think we get chapters in life. If we did, it’s a new one every morning.

No, this, returning to Liberty and getting back in touch with God, is just turning a page. The growing and changing in my life are just part of this entire chapter that encompasses my time here at Liberty.

As the page turns from summer to school, I’m looking forward to it. God has put in a lot of our hearts that this year is going to be one of revival. But all revival is an inward, individual revival. Just like the song “Man in the Mirror,” you need to take a look at yourself and make the change. If you don’t change, the world won’t.

I remember last week, when we had a family discussion about Josh Harris’s declaration that he no longer believed and trusted Christianity, which was followed by Marty Sampson’s similar declaration. There’s been a lot of talk about it (and if you want some really good thoughts on it, read Skillet band member John Cooper’s response), but my dad explained it really well.

He told us that we couldn’t get caught up in our actions, whether it’s giving talks about courting, or writing music, or even preaching the Gospel. That doesn’t make you a Christian. What makes you a Christian is getting into a relationship with God, which means you need to know him, and need to be known by Him. And you need to constantly be checking yourself that you’re not just a checklist Christian, marking the box every time you go to church or pray.

While I was talking with my former quadmate on Monday, he reminded me to listen to God. But to follow up the cliche, he told me to ask God to speak in whatever way I heard him best. After that night, I started to regain my desire for reading the Bible.

And that’s the clincher. Revival can come to our college, our city, our nation, our world. But unless we, as an individual person, begin to seek after God with all our hearts, all we’ll be doing is riding another Christian high. If we want to see revival, we need to buckle down and pursue God.

Maybe that means you need to put something else to the side, in order that you can focus on Him before all else. Maybe it means you need to wake up earlier. But, over all, pray for a desire to get to know God. Get back into the Bible, and read to understand, not to check it off the list.

Revival can come. Revival will come. But if each person doesn’t make a personal choice to seek after God and His kingdom, nothing will happen.

If you would, pray for me, and all of Liberty. I do believe that God wants to bring about a change like never before, and I know that, on my own, I am not sufficient. All the combined human power on this campus is not enough to change it. Only God is. Therefore, pray that we will step to the side and let Him lead. If that happens, then stand back and watch God sweep through this world through the fire of revival.