WOW!!!!
Today was such an amazing, wonderful, enjoyable, tiring, and rewarding day in Austin. We started off the day with students from our sister club at Cal State Fullerton, who were also visiting Austin, enjoying a sweet time of fellowship with them, singing, and praying. In the singing time, I think we particularly enjoyed a song that had the lines “Christ has come to be life…and I’ve (and you’ve! And we’ve!) got rivers of life flowing out of our innermost being!” The life of Christ that we enjoyed together really flowed out in the rest of our fellowship time, which included reports from each respective campus on how the clubs have been doing to bring in new members and introduce friends to the Jesus that we love! This time ended in encouraging prayers for each other’s campus.
We also took a tour of UT Austin’s campus with the Christian students at UT, which was quite beautiful and fun. However, the highlight of the time probably was the gospel time, in which we paired up and just had a short time to talk to people about their faith, and their lives at UT. I particularly enjoyed talking to a freshman named Andrew, who had grown up in a Christian household but didn’t have the time yet to seek Christian fellowship. My gospel partner and I mentioned how, for both of us, we found it so vital and helpful to be surrounded in a community of Jesus-lovers, and I think all of us were quite encouraged by this conversation.
—Freeman C.
I can’t believe another day of the spring break trip has passed. It seems impossible to fit the plethora events we have every day in just 24 hours, and today was no different.
The day began with a foggy drive to the meeting hall in Austin, where we met and blended with the college students visiting from Fullerton (my hometown!). Then, we drove to UT Austin, where we had a tour. Many of us were entranced by the beautiful campus, seeing everything from the elegant engineering building to an absurd statue made of tons of metal canoes. We even saw UT’s copy of the original Gutenberg Bible, one of the nineteen that remain in the world.
After lunch, we joined CSOC’s (Christian Students on Campus) gospel time, and I was impressed by how open the students were. We played some Frisbee and headed over to CSOC’s weekly ministry series meeting. We ended the day with two rounds of laser tag at the local arena—the largest in Texas! Everyone had fun running around with silly nicknames, shooting each other with beams of light.
I’ve just realized that, in less than two days, we will be leaving the great state of Texas. Throughout this trip, I have been touched by the receiving of the brothers and sisters—especially the hosts and the college students.
—Bell W.
Praise the Lord for another day of the trip! We spent the majority of our day at the University of Texas, Austin campus. A particular highlight of my day was with our sister club’s weekly Thursday night gatherings, called “ministry meetings.” Taking place in a lecture hall, after eating dinner together, the students listen to a message given by a staff member of the club. The club here has been covering a study of the book of Leviticus in these past weeks. The book of Leviticus presents five major offerings: the burnt, the meal, the peace, the sin, and the trespass offerings. Though they were physically offered in the Old Testament, as New Testament believers, these offerings actually have much spiritual application to us. They all typify Christ in different aspects and how He has met all of our needs and problems with God.
This week, the topic was on the trespass offering, an offering to address “what we do,” that is our trespasses. To trespass simply means to step too far, whether it’s our thoughts, our actions, our attitude, or any other aspect. It doesn’t even have to be an evil sin, but simply a trespass. For such trespasses, we need Christ as our real trespass offering!
One of the points covered was that Jesus is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29)! Up until this moment in time in the Bible, sin was never taken away. In the Old Testament, by the offerings offered up, God only passed over the sins. The Israelites’ sins were merely covered (Psalm 32:1). But they were not fully taken away and removed. But Jesus, as the Lamb of God, has taken away our sins! Romans 4:8 even says “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall by no means account sin.” As Jesus took away the sin of the world, when we confess our sins and take Him as our trespass offering, God doesn’t even account our sins anymore! They’ve been fully, thoroughly taken away! What a blessing it is that Jesus is our real trespass offering! And being much more effective than the Old Testament offerings, He takes away our sin! In our daily Christian life, we can confess our sins and immediately, they are forgiven and they are removed from us! We are cleansed from all unrighteousness!
Praise the Lord and thank the Lord that He came as the Lamb of God, slain and offered as our trespass offering, whom we can experience in a very real way today, to have our sins forgiven and fully taken away!
—Philip L.
