A few years ago, I was rushing to Panera to study for the CPA on a hot summer afternoon. I had a list of to-do’s in my head and a lot of financial information to memorize. As I drove past the mall, I saw a man on the corner with a sign, asking for money for food. I thought to myself, “gee, I hope someone helps him,” but decided I just didn’t have time. I ordered my food and met my friend, but I still couldn’t get him out of my head. So I bought a $10 gift card and walked out to the corner of the highway to talk to him, and that’s when I met Percy. Percy had been in a work accident that affected his ability to work. He was currently couch surfing at friend’s houses, trying to stay afloat. While I was talking to Percy, Dallas PD drove up to give him a ticket for panhandling; it was time for him to move on. So there I was, a college student standing on the side of Central Expressway for the first time with a man who was very down on his luck. What did I have to offer him? Was my $10 gift card going to change his world? Was the fact that maybe I wasn’t getting the whole truth of how he ended up there reason enough not to help?
Homelessness is an issue that causes me a lot of pause. Maybe it’s something God has specifically called me to. Maybe it’s fear that someday that will be me. Maybe it’s that I grew up in suburbia and never saw homelessness until college. The truth is, I have a lot of trouble driving past the homeless and not doing something. I came to a point where I could no longer reconcile a man on the street corner, hungry with no place to go, with being a Christ follower who just drove past, grateful it wasn’t me. I could no longer ignore verses like 1 John 3:17, “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” This gospel discomfort has led me under highway overpasses and on hot street corners, engaging with the homeless and trying to be a voice calling them to freedom. Each time after engaging with a homeless person, walking away knowing that in spite of me stopping, they were still going to spend the night on the street, I have wrestled with God about what it means to truly help.
What do I have to offer the world that is going to change anything? What do I have to offer that is going to help the many homeless I have met who are being owned by addictions? Furthermore, as I head out on The World Race with just a backpack and not a ton of money to my name, how am I going to change anything? How am I going to change anything for the impoverished in India when I couldn’t tell you where is (or if there is) a homeless shelter? How am I going to help the orphaned in Swaziland or the woman caught in prostitution in Thailand? As I pondered these questions prior to going, a friend challenged me to think of what I will get back to when times are tough.
The thought that came to mind is the truth that The Gospel Changes Everything.
As someone who has experienced the transforming love of Christ, I contain the key to life change for everyone! For the homeless man on the corner, the gospel changes that. Meet Freddie, a man who was addicted to heroin for decades, which drove him to be homeless, and was introduced to Jesus in a hospital room and it changed everything. For those caught in other world religions, the gospel changes everything. Meet Sheetal, one of my best friends who grew up in a Hindu household and searched for significance in success, but who now finds her worth in Christ alone. Meet any of the wonderful women that I have had the honor to call community over the past few years and you will find people whose lives have been radically changed by the gospel. I have seen it time and time again, firsthand, how the gospel changes everything. The gospel changed me from an anxious person seeking to have a ton of back up plans to one who can be leveraged to trust God in everything.
The gospel tells us that Jesus can rewrite years of damage we have done to ourselves because that’s exactly what He died for. The gospel tells us this life isn’t all there is, so we don’t have to search for significance and security in stuff, people, or titles. The gospel tells us we don’t have to do work to be “good enough,” Jesus made us new and because of that we get to work as an out flow of love for our creator. The gospel guarantees that we will spend eternity in heaven if we would just accept that “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” but that all “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23-24). The gospel invites us to lay down our way of life in order to live for something greater. To gospel gives us a chance to live a life here on earth that means something and then spend an eternity in heaven with a God who loves us enough to send His only son. The gospel changes people, neighborhoods, cities, and the world. The gospel gives us the ultimate second chance. In the end, it’s all that matters.
So that is what I am choosing to go to the World Race knowing. I am choosing to trust that sharing the gospel is more enough to change lives. I am choosing “to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2). Twelve men changed the world over 2,000 years ago by preaching the gospel, and we still talk about it today. Will you join me in proclaiming that the gospel changes everything?
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