If you aren’t a somebody, you’re a nobody.
Our Western culture spews out this mindset on so many levels. In public schools, students too often are bullied by their peers into thinking they are hopeless and irrelevant. Book and movie plots expose how some employees are demeaned by words of condemnation and rejection in the workplace. Some parents wound their children with words like, “You’ll never make it in the world,” or, “You won’t amount to much.” Some marriage partners choose to direct similar language at their spouses.
Lots of hurt out there. And many different responses. Some go off the edge with hurtful behavior toward others. Some cower in isolation. Others pick up their gaming devices and find relief in a fantasy world. Others use rejection as a tool to excuse their chronic workaholic tendencies.
The secret to being somebody is about perspective. People are thrilled when they’re accepted and smitten by the thought someone loves them just as they are. If we shift the perspective toward the divine, we find in Scripture that God views His children with amazing, eternal acceptance and worth.
Check out the amazing promises of the God, who spoke the universe into existence and who knows us so well, He knows our thoughts long before we formulate them. In Ephesians 1:2-6, Paul writes that God chose us before the foundation of the world. Why? So that we “would be holy and blameless in love before Him.”
Think of a pleased father standing on the porch, watching his children play on the lawn. Active, growing, learning, engaging children. Of course, our Heavenly Father made us for His purposes and not our own. As we mature, He lavishes His grace on us at the pleasure of His will. When we participate, how can we not be somebody?
Ephesians 3:16-18 reads: “I pray that … He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.”
Can you imagine how much of a somebody you are to God, who reigns over all? By faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are citizens of His kingdom – not just any citizens but royal children of Almighty God. Our passion for life is to spend our days humbly making much of our Heavenly Father, who loves us with infinite love.
If God thinks so highly of His children (and He does), that is certainly great news!
How do we equip and engage the next generation with this truth? How do we help them understand that what God says is weightier than the words of any peer? In Christ, you are special.
We train the next generation to talk about Jesus, not just through social media, but face-to-face. That’s what students did earlier this month at the MBC Youth Evangelism Conference in Jefferson City. Pastor Anthony Stephens (FBC Fulton) offered his perspective:
“This past weekend, middle school and high school students from our church joined others from across our state for a Youth Evangelism Conference (YEC). It was exciting to hear about what took place as over 460 people from 45 different churches gathered together for worship, encouragement, and training.
“As I thought about the weekend, I was taken back to the days when the Lord had me in student ministry…. I remember taking groups to Youth Evangelism Conferences as well. It was a good time to gather students together and have them hear the gospel clearly. I remember feeling that there was always something missing to these YECs. The preaching was typically good. The musical worship was good. Yet there was still something that seemed to be missing from the whole deal.
“I think the student ministry leadership at the Missouri Baptist Convention has found the missing piece I have been looking for all those years.
“While the students and leaders in Jefferson City this year had the opportunity to hear good preaching and musical worship, it didn’t stop there. On the last day, those who had experienced all this goodness at YEC were given the opportunity to break into groups and put it into action. They would go out in the neighborhoods of the area they were in and do what they had been talking about.
“While I always seemed to have a good time taking students and other leaders to YEC in the past, the missing piece was that we never had the opportunity to put what we heard to work immediately.
“I’m already hearing about conversations of students involved this weekend, pondering ways they can put into practice what they were doing at this event. I am excited to see what spark just might have been lit within our students.”
Thanks Pastor Stephens. Let’s be somebody. Tell someone about Jesus.