Why Am I So Passionate About Christ?

People often ask me why I am so hyped up about Jesus. People often ask me why I am so crazy about life, and why am I so joyful all the time. People ask me why am I so passionate about the Gospel even though it seems dead and irrelevant to this day and age. What is it that makes me enjoy life?

My passion is to see Lost people become saved. To give hope to the hopeless, to give strength to the weak. To seek out lost, lonely and broken people and show them Love of Christ. Why? Because I know a Savior who has redeemed me. I know a Savior who has given me life. I use to go through life hating my self and trying to live up to the standards of the world. I use to feel as if I had to fit in. I thought that if I had sex I would fit in more with my friends. I thought that if I got plastered, then I would fit in. I thought that if I smoked a few joints here and there I would be cool. On the outside, I was cool, very cool in fact. But on the inside, I was so hollow. The more I did those things, more lonely I felt. I found out that all my friends were lonely as well.

I just want people to find hope. I just want people to come into an intimate relationship with Jesus in order that they can be set free. I have been set free. I have a Savior who died on a cross for my sins and who rose from the grave in order that I may be able to have a relationship with Him. I want to see people healed. This Savior loves me freely, unconditionally. If I can love people the way Christ loves me, then I can sow seeds and help to point people to a better life. I want to see a generation, specifically my generation raised up and become great leaders. I want so see an army of people sold out for Christ and who can show Christ's love to a lost and broken world. I ask my friends to come to Church because I see them suffering from the weight of sin. I see them hurt, lost, lonely and broken. They are carrying around so much baggage and it hurts me to see them struggle to try to fix it themselves. I don't ask them to come to Church because I am judging them. I want them to come to Church so that Jesus can save them, and give them a life that they can enjoy. A life where they can live out their full potential, the potential that Christ put in them before the universe was formed. I don't see junk, I see potential. I don't see dimly lit coals, I see burning flames. I don't see followers, I see leaders.

I am so excited that I serve a Church that gets it. I serve a Church who would pay to have college kids picked up at their school by party buses. The same buses that take them to the clubs and back during the week are going to take them to and from Church in the morning without judging them. I go to a Church that is not ashamed to say, Church is a party. A party that does not leave you hung over, but a party that motivates you to seek Christ more and more each day. Elevation Church has been called many things, but one thing it is not is afraid. My friends who party hard, and I mean hard say that the Party Bus is an awesome idea. They are actually thinking about riding the bus and giving Church a try. Why? Because someone actually gets the fact that they want to change their lives and is providing a really cool way to do so. And you know what... we are not going to play just Christian music, but secular music in order to make them feel comfortable and that we care about them. I have been praying about this for over two years, and now we have the means to show them Christ's love in a radical way.

And the best part is that I do not get credit for any of this. Christ, and Christ alone gets the glory, and I am so fired up about that fact. How awesome is it that J.R. Hopson, a freshman, is heading up this project. Praise God for raising up the next generation to boldly advance His kingdom.

"Makes me wanna STOMP!"