At the time of this writing, the student ministry just returned from another week at camp. And what an awesome week it was! We had another record high, 65 students joined us for the week, and seven fearless leaders helped me lead and care for these students well. And now, I report to you, that I am incredibly thankful for all the work the Lord did in that week. This week we heard from 12 seniors who gave some words of
wisdom or gave their testimonies, and this time really left a mark with the rest of the group. I’m very proud of them, every single one of them pointed their life back to the Gospel and to the faithfulness of God, truly some inspiring stuff.
We also heard some great preaching from the camp pastor of the week. When you couple the great preaching with the senior speeches, you’ll see that the Lord did some incredible work everywhere else. You can ask some students if you want, I think we would agree we felt the Lord moving that week. This was also evident by several students wanting to talk to leaders about stuff pressing in on their lives. I personally spoke with three students about the Gospel and how the Gospel needed to apply to their lives. Praise God!
Being the leader of the student ministry that week was a very humbling experience. I’m already very thankful for the position I’m in to steward these students, leaders, and ministry. But this week led me to praising God every hour I was awake. This week, the Lord felt so close, so near and dear, and that was really great. I was so humbled that week because I was reminded of the overwhelmingly amount of grace and love Jesus and God the Father has for me. Not because I am the student ministry director or because of anything else. It was solely because I am a child of God, a child of the King. God wants to be near to us and wants to pour out His love to us. There are just sometimes where He is extra close. And I believe most of us at camp felt that, and we are very thankful.
So, camp was really great this year. All I can say is I’m thankful for that and praise God for what He did that week. I want to leave you with one illustration from the camp speaker that really resonated with me. In his sermon, he was explaining what it is like or what it feels like to be saved and secured in Jesus. To have the Gospel applied to you, essentially. He explained it as an overwhelming peace. The story he shared is one of his favorite things to do at home is put on a basketball game of his favorite team. Specifically, one from the past and one that he knows his team already won. He enjoys rewatching the game and knowing they will win in the end. This makes him so comfortable, so at peace, that many times he will fall asleep and take a nap. This even happens where in the game, his team will be down by like 30 points. Usually, if your team is down by that much, you would be freaking out or be a nervous wreck figuring out how your team will pull this off. But he’s watching a rerun of the game. The game is already over, his team won. So, when he sits down to watch the rerun of the game, he never has to worry. No matter how bad it looks at the time, he knows EXACTLY how the game ends. There’s never a question about it. His team wins. He can even take a nap during the game because he knows the future of the game. He has such an overwhelming peace watching it.
Beloved, this is the future and security we have in the Gospel. If you are in Christ, you are a new creation and held securely in the hands of the Savior. You can have an overwhelming, otherworldly level of peace that is given through Jesus. You are His. And you cannot be taken from Him. Rest in that and rest in Him.
His Glory Alone.
