I need your help. I just had one of those “get smacked in the face by the Holy Spirit” moments and I have tons of things to talk about. So I’m going to ask for your help and then explain the situation.
I need you to pray. I need you to pray in faith and believing for the Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) and Phi Delta Theta fraternity houses at Oklahoma State University. These are two fraternity houses that have very few guys truly walking with the Lord. In fact, in their entire existence, the two fraternities have been places where the enemy has ruled and hundreds, possibly thousands, of men have been seduced by the flesh. The light of the Gospel has been covered for far too long, and too many of God’s children have been kidnapped by the enemy. We must fight back, and we will fight with prayer. The only way things will change is if God’s Holy Spirit comes in a mighty way. Things will only change if He convicts hearts and leads them to repentance. As I was just reading the Bible, my heart broke for my fraternity brothers. How they do not have a relationship with the God that loves them…with the Savior that died for them. They have never experienced true life.
But…Christ has ALREADY WON. Satan has already been defeated. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has conquered sin and death and now He lives inside of us. Therefore, God says that we are more than conquerors! There is nothing from the pit of hell that can stop His Kingdom from advancing. I refuse to believe the enemy anymore. He no longer has a hold on my fraternity house. The SAE house will now be a holy place, a place where men can come into a relationship with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We will win this battle through prayer and trusting in God Almighty. We will fall to our knees and plead with the Holy Spirit for a supernatural outpouring. So I need you. I need you to pray. Please, help release the love of God onto these two fraternity houses. Pray for the salvation of everyman in these two houses. Pray that God would cause ears to hear and eyes to see! That those who have been blind, can now comprehend the beauty, and transformative power of the Gospel. Pray for revival. I know it is possible. I know God can move mountains, and NOTHING is impossible with Him. So pray. Pray for me to lead these men well and to preach “nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified”. Pray that “my speech and my message is not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that their faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Cor 2:2-5). Pray the God would demonstrate His power by transforming wicked sinners into men reflecting the image of Christ. God desires the salvation of ALL His children, and He wants to save the men of these two fraternity houses. It will happen if we trust, if we believe, and if the trust and believing results in prayer. THAT is faith in action.
Okay, so that kinda just exploded out of me. One of those intense overflows of the Holy Spirit. Seriously, it was so overwhelming I had to let it out. I have a feeling that’s how we should be most of the time…when we are so enraptured by the Gospel that we cannot hold it in. That our service and evangelism is just an overflow from the bursting love we have for God. I have a feeling that very few people live this way, but I think that’s what God wants for us. Oh boy…always finding new ways to grow.
Anyway, here’s the background of why I’m calling for corporate prayer over these two fraternity houses. As most of you know, I am heading out for the World Race on January 1st. However, that left me about 5 months to kill before I head out. So instead of just wasting time just dreaming about going to Thailand, I decided to spend these months back at Stillwater, OK (home of Oklahoma State University) investing in young fraternity men. While I was in college, God gave me the incredible ministry of sharing the Gospel to men in my fraternity. When I came to SAE there was not a single person interested in truly walking with the Lord. Over the past four years, I have seen God do incredible things in my house. Just last year we had five freshmen come to Christ! Along with those five, there were also some other men who truly desired a close relationship with the Father. And those men are why I decided to come back to Stillwater. All of these men are now sophomores and relatively young in their faith. My hope and prayer is to impart unto them all of which I have also received from the Lord Jesus. I desire them to be true disciple makers so that spiritual multiplication can happen. I’ve seen a worksheet describing spiritual multiplication, and the gist of it is this:
If one person trains and equips two people to be disciple makers, and then those two train and equip two more, and then those four train and equip two apiece, and etc. Then after 30 years the result would be over 1 BILLION disciples of Christ! That blows me away! And that’s what I earnestly desire, to see these men not only grow in their personal walks with the Lord, but that they would understand Christ’s command to make disciples of all nations, and be burdened to share the gospel to all who do not know Him. Now you can see why I am asking for so much prayer!
Front Row (L to R) – Ryan Williams, Aaron Taylor, John Crank
Back Row (L to R) – Hunter Gossett, Josh Harris, Me
Too often we look at our circumstances and think, “there’s no way this can happen.” But then God reminds me of the Israelites. How many times did He provide for them? How many times did He fight for them? How many times would he protect them? Yet, they would forget His goodness and fall into unbelief. That’s why they ended up wandering the desert of so many years. We read these stories and think, “what’s wrong with these people?? God just made food fall from the sky!! God just PARTED the Red Sea!! Jeez these people are stupid. How could you not trust Him after that?” Yet is the God who parted the Red Sea still the same God today? Of course, He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. But it’s so much easier to point the finger at others ask why do you not trust him? Yet, we completely ignore our own lives and how we do not trust God in finances, relationships, careers…ministry. We tend to (and when I say “we” I really mean “I”) limit the ability of God to work in our lives. So no more. I want to believe and trust God for huge things. It’s time to dream and pray big. God has not changed. He is still just as powerful now as He was when 3000 Jewish man trusted in Christ as savior on the day of Pentacost. He desires salvation for all of His children just as much now as He did in the New Testament. So lets believe and pray together for revival at Oklahoma State and specifically in the SAE and Phi Delt fraternity house. What a “demonstration of the Spirit and of the power” of God that it would be ; )
So you can pray for them by name, the six men I am discipling are:
- Josh Harris
- Austin Lafferty
- Ryan Williams
- John Crank
- Barrett Reed
- Hunter Gossett
Thanks for all of your prayers, I can’t wait to see what God will do this semester!
“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. For it is the POWER of God unto SALVATION to all who believe.” Romans 1:16
