Well, we’ve reached the final part in my blog series, The 5 Things a Christian College Student Should Never Do. I’m hopeful that these five recommendations have been both helpful and challenging to you, regardless of what year you might be in school.
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Thanks for your willingness to read this kind of stuff. It shows a lot of maturity and character to be willing to let someone challenge you and raise the bar in your life. So with that, here’s the last thing you should never do as a Christian college student:
5. Ignore the Great Commission.
I really like quotes. Quick, pithy one-liners that inspire me to think about a certain subject from an interesting perspective make me extremely happy and motivated.
For example, I ran across this quote that you’ve probably heard at some point, or perhaps even seen stitched onto a decorative pillow at your grandmother’s house the last time you visited her:
Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love. -Mother Teresa
Great little nuggets of wisdom like this are always encouraging and helpful when the difficulties of life begin to weigh me down. Mother Teresa was a rock star.
Anyway, back to my original thought process. There are movie quotes, lines from songs, and random sitcom dialogue crowding up the space in my brain right now that would better be used for Scripture memory or maybe even Jeopardy! gameshow facts. And while I don’t take a lot of pride in that reality, not every bit of my cognitive memory is occupied by such frivolous material. Truth be told, I have a few gems of wisdom rolling around up in my head that push me in the proper direction when I need some honest and healthy inspiration.
One of my favorites is from Tim Keller, author and pastor of Redeemer Church in New York City. Keller has been called the C.S. Lewis of our time and I’m sure that’s in no small part due to the fact that he’s brilliant and can rifle off one-liners with eloquence that make everyone listening want to take notes. Here’s the quote I was referring to:
“You are never drawn in by God without being sent out by Him.”
Pretty good, huh? Every follower of Jesus Christ has been drawn into a relationship with God, and every one of us is being sent out by Him. No exceptions, and it’s not really a choice. The missionary mindset of being sent out by God should be on the heart of every believer, regardless of age, vocation, or socioeconomic status.
I know a lot of college students who don’t consider the call of being sent by God because they think, “That’s the kind of stuff that we’ll leave for the missionaries to handle.” But according to Keller, (and more importantly, according to the Bible) every Christian is given the high calling of evangelism and making disciples. Here’s what I mean:
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:18-20)
This piece of Scripture is commonly called “The Great Commission.” The commission (or command) given by Jesus here at the end of the book of Matthew is to “go.” It doesn’t say, “If you feel like it, go” or “If you’re a full-time missionary, go” or “If it’s convenient for you, go” or “If you feel called, go.” No—it simply says, “Go.”
Now, there’s the one-liner of all one-liners:
“Go.” –Jesus Christ
It’s pretty basic, but also quite powerful. Making disciples looks like a lot of things, of course, but it starts with us having a willingness to be used by God to talk with others about Him, obeying the call of the Great Commission…even when we are full-time students in college.
In order to become a multiplying disciple, it’s important to understand that we must be obedient to our Master’s call when He says, “Go.” We must open our mouths and say something in order to make this happen. We must act with intentionality and pour our lives into others who will in turn open their mouths and pour out their lives. As a student, it can be so easy to turn a deaf ear to the Great Commission and wave it away with the notion that it’s not important to you now because you have so many other things going on in college. Classes, studying, exams, social life, personal growth, working out, and having a lot of fun are all elements that can often push things like the Great Commission to the back-burner in life.
But to allow that to happen when you’re in college is a colossal mistake.
Contrary to what you might believe, life doesn’t calm down after graduation, and even if it did, would “not having enough time” really be a legitimate excuse were the Creator of the universe to ask you why you neglected His call to go and make disciples? For nearly two years when I was a student, I ignored God’s call in my life to make disciples. Sure, I was involved in my local Cru ministry, but if I’m honest, I was mostly doing it for me, not God. But after my sophomore year, Jesus captured my heart in a way that I simply had to talk about Him with others. Even though I was still in school, I needed to “go.”
I lived more intentionally as a student, and my last two years at college were by far better than the first two. Why? Because I was doing what I was made for.
Christian college students, you were made for the Great Commission. Don’t make the mistake of ignoring who you are by neglecting to talk about Jesus and make disciples.
Re-read Matthew 28:18-20 and reflect on the fact that Jesus is speaking to you personally as His follower.
You can find the other parts of The 5 Things a Christian College Student Should Never Do here:
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