Searching For Answers?

As a young Christian in college I learned first hand the challenges of living for Christ on a secular campus.  I had become a Christian only a few weeks into my freshman year at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale when I first faced the challenge of defending my faith to others who did not believe.  I remember the first evangelical visit I went on with my freshman friend, Darrell Opper.

We knocked on a dormitory door and a young college student came to the door.  After we mentioned that we were from the Baptist Collegiate Ministry group on campus, the student interrupted and asked some very embarrassing questions.  “How do you know the Bible is true?  How do you know Jesus rose from the dead?”

            Since I had only been a Christian about two weeks, I looked at my friend who had grown up in a Baptist church, hoping he had the answers.  He didn’t.  The student politely excused himself and shut the door.  Darrell and I began what was a very long walk back across campus.  It was on that walk that I began to think, “I have just given my life to Jesus and I do not know anything about Him.  Is it possible I have been deceived?  Is it possible I have just followed some peer pressure to trust in Christ, since I am now living in a Christian dormitory?

I decided right then that I had better study this Christian faith to make sure it was right.  I had enough self-respect not to give myself to something that was wrong.

The next night I attended the first Bible study in my life.  It was during this Bible study that Larry Shacklee, my campus minister, began to demonstrate the complete trustworthiness of Scripture.

        What began that night is continuing to this day. I am still pursuing the God who has revealed himself through the Bible.  With every conversation I have with students and every question they ask me, I find more reasons to trust the God of the Scriptures.

As a young believer, I was privileged to be included in a weekly discipleship group where we were held accountable for sharing Christ in every class we attended.  Whether it was a small class in interpersonal communications, a freshman chemistry class, or an interpretive reading class, we were assigned the task of finding a way to make Jesus known in every class.  These challenges presented a tremendous encouragement to many of us who were young Christians.  As we committed ourselves to making Christ known in every one of our classes, we began to see the Spirit of God move in our fellow students’ and professors’ lives.

        As we continued to make Christ known, I found a new passion for learning and study.  I went from being a mediocre student to one who could not read enough, who could not study enough. My passion for learning took on a whole new dimension.  I now had a reason to study and prepare for my classes.  My reason was to glorify God and make Him known to my classmates.  As I have continued to share Christ with students across this country and even across the oceans, I am still in love with learning and pursuing the knowledge of the God who had pursued me for all these years.

        I have witnessed God open up entire lecture halls to hear the claims of Christ.  I have seen secular professors stunned with the truth of the gospel.  I believe the best place to declare the glory of God is in your college classrooms to those students and professors that you see very day.
        To be honest, I discovered that the people that help you grow in your faith the best are the ones that are the most hostile to it.  I had several friends in college that were not the least bit interested in Christ.  Every time we met together to study and I shared Christ with them, they were always faithful to present some challenging question about the Christian faith that I had not considered.  They thought they were undermining my faith, when, in reality, God was using these very students to cause me to pursue Him even more.  When I graduated from college, I took the opportunity to thank many of these friends who had yet to trust Christ because of the impact they had made on my life through their challenges.

        My hope for you as you read this resource is that you will discover the same thing I have been discovering for all these years.  “As you communicate your faith you will come to understand every good thing you have in Christ.” (Philemon 6).
        May the God who has called you to know Him, deepen your passion for Him as you share your undying love for Christ with your friends on your campus. 

        I present these answers as a means of encouraging your continued pursuit of the great God who has called you to know Him. Welcome to the journey of being ready always to give an answer to everyone who asks of you for the reason of the hope that is within you.

 Click on "Messages" and then "Searching For Answers" to view additional topics.