If you’ve talked to me for more than 10 minutes, you’ve probably heard me mention something about Young Life. So, take a minute and appreciate with me a couple of ways that Young Life changed my life.
Yesterday, I came across the passage that I used when I gave my first Young Life “club talk.” Young Life has a different way of doing everything, so when it was time to give my first YL club talk, I was still trying to figure everything out. Thankfully, there were some incredible Starkville Area Staff (shout out to you Holt Williamson!!) who were willing to share with me some incredible ways of communicating God’s Word. The approach that Holt shared with me was so simple and so effective. To help me plan out my club talk, he asked me simple questions like these:
What’s your favorite part of this passage?
What’s significant about it?
Why is that important to you?
What do you want people to take away from that?
What makes you excited about that?
Being prompted by these questions, I started to seriously consider what my very favorite part of the Gospel was and why. Right off the bat, I decided that I loved the way that Jesus came to us. He did not ask us to come to him or to make us pay anything. He gave up being with our and His Father to come down to Earth and to live with sinners. He did not come for righteous people. He came for the farthest out, the “biggest” sinners, and the people no one notices.
“But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” Romans 5:8 // “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” Luke 15:7
HOW COOL IS THAT.
He came to hang out with people like me and to share his life and love and wisdom with people like me. He sweated, cried, laughed, ate, and drank. He got dirty, sad, and excited. He came to live with us and be with us for all of the good and all of the bad. Jesus loves us so much! He came down to us to change the whole world FOREVER. He stopped at nothing to love the least of these and the ones that “are not” and the lowly of the world. He stopped at nothing to love His people. And when I was thinking back about this club talk, it hit me – that’s what the World Race is. That’s why I have fallen in love with this whole thing. The race is a way for me to walk out my favorite part of the Gospel. I get to go out to the least of these and share the Good News with them. I get to go to the places that have been deemed as “less than,” and I get to tell them that Jesus came for them just like He came to me.
So, I want to challenge you to think about your favorite part of the Gospel. Read a passage, and think about why it makes you excited! Let me know what it is! I want to hear your perspective and what makes you excited! God is so good to me and He is so good to you too. Let’s get a snow cone or coffee before I launch in less than FIVE WEEKS. Wow.
Much love,
Alexis
