 college, higher education, the big leagues, papers, assignments, late nights, early classes, and coffee addictions. Going to school can often be a mixed bag of enlightening, stressful, interesting, exciting, and discouraging. But even in the midst of this proverbial roller coaster. You didn't think that was in my vocabulary, did you? Well, I didn't either. Even in the midst of this proverbial roller coaster, as Christians were trying to figure out what it means to live for Jesus on campus. In this video, I'm going to share my experience at school and three ways that you can be bold for Jesus and thrive at school. But first, I want to give a huge shout out to my patrons on Patreon. You guys are fantastic, thank you for supporting this ministry and becoming gospel partners on Patreon.com slash daily underscore disciple. To become a gospel partner, here, I'm going to come up a little bit here, okay, we go. To become a gospel partner, head on over to Patreon.com slash daily underscore disciple. Link in description. Anyway, on to the video. My name is Isaac and this is the Daily Disciple where I help you follow Jesus daily. Okay, so I want to begin by sharing my story at university. So that means it's story time with Isaac. Story time. Okay, so when I went to university, you know, I was a homeschool kid, so I did not go to school at all. This is my first experience really being at school, at real school. So there's different kinds of homeschoolers, you know, all homeschoolers are different. There were definitely the homeschoolers that were like this. Oh yes, I've made it to the academic institution. I've been preparing my whole life for this. This is going to be a wonderful opportunity to hone my skills that I've been festering. It was a lot less like that and more like this. What the? I get a locker? Oh my goodness. Wait a minute, I have to go to class? As I began my term at university, the stress and anxiety began to kind of take a little bit of a hold on me, having so many assignments and papers pile up all at once. That was pretty scary, you know, but it wasn't all stressful, you know, here in Winnipeg we often have a nice snowfall during the winter time, which is pretty much the whole school season and I went around with one of my friends and we built snowmen all across campus because we didn't want to study and that's how good of a person I am. But one of the great things about university is you get to meet a lot of different kinds of people with a lot of different beliefs and I think that's one of the huge things that I'm going to touch on in this video about not wasting this opportunity of getting to talk to so many different people. So as I was in the midst of all this kind of craziness of papers and assignments and tests and all this kind of thing and you have this in your mind that you're just trying to figure out how this is all supposed to work together and how you're supposed to manage and get everything done and also have a social life, there's also this piece of how do I be bold for Jesus on campus and there were a couple of things that I came across just in my, you know, experience at university that helped me and also things that as I look back I wish I would have done. So these are just some things for you, some ways to be bold for Jesus and thrive on campus. So the first way to be bold for Jesus on campus is to help people around you gain perspective and purpose. You know in my time at university I could honestly feel this as well but a lot of people around there it's often kind of a sad and depressing place. I don't know why that is, maybe it's just in this state you know everyone's kind of young and trying to figure out things and there's assignments and there's stressful things but it often could be a sad and depressing place where people are complaining and no no no no why why do I have three assignments to do all at once why god why no no no no no no no only for class again I forgot to study why god why you see we lose perspective of the full picture when our attention is only on us if we can take a step back we can actually see the greater picture that god is making we're one piece in that puzzle and when we can see that when we can see yeah we're here to glorify god we're here to image him on this earth we're here to use our gifts for his glory and whatever kind of vocation he's you know moving us to and directing us to when we can see that's that's our puzzle piece right there that gives us a sense of purpose right this is where I'm going into this is where I am you know filling this piece in God's greater picture I am a piece in God's greater picture and that really can bring excitement and joy and a new kind of vigor to our studies so the second way to be bold for Jesus on campus and survive university as a Christian is to not cower in class it's important and it's it's important to understand that look we're gonna have different perspectives than professors and other classmates it's just gonna happen we're gonna have different beliefs and as a Christian going on to campus whether it's a Christian campus or not you're gonna have different perspectives but I want to encourage you to not let the fact that maybe the professor may have different beliefs in you or other people discourage you from making your beliefs heard don't let it discourage you from answering a question honestly and verbalizing your own values and your beliefs and your convictions in God's word by being bold and and actually stating what you believe and it's a lot harder than you think if you've ever been in that situation you're actually helping other people around you other Christians that may not feel like they can verbalize and vocalize their own values beliefs because they may be seen as you know intolerant or bigoted just because it doesn't fit into the current cultural moral you know convictions that the culture has just because it doesn't fall into that but you're helping other people around you also feel confident to vocalize a lot of their own beliefs and values that they once felt too shy or or too you know ashamed of to vocalize I want to read a verse here from 2nd Corinthians 3 12 so if the old way which has been replaced was glorious how much more glorious is the new which reigns forever since the new way gives us such confidence we can be very bold because of Christ and our faith in him we can now come boldly and confidently into Christ's presence because of the gospel because Jesus came to this earth fully God and fully man died on the cross taking the penalty for our sin rose again on the third day defeating death forgiving of us of our sins and reconciling us to God the father being that mediator between us and God and establishing that new relationship with him and a new identity within us because all that is true right we can have great confidence and boldness knowing that we are fully accepted by God we're fully loved and accepted by him so we're not out here trying to get the approval of others we're not just here trying to get accepted by others so then we can just you know please them say whatever the whatever they believe we believe too just because we want to gain that acceptance and love no we already have found that in Christ so now when we're in university when we're you know facing this kind of this pressure to conform into whatever everyone else believes when a professor believes something other than what you believe you can be bold and say hey you know what I have a different perspective this is what God says this is what the Bible says this is where my convictions are at that is an awesome thing we can be bold about that so along with that I just want to bring out this point that no school subject is neutral so by that I mean you know you might think oh history it's just a bunch of facts and there's just a bunch of you know stuff you know atheists could teach history or christian and there would really be no difference that's totally unfortunately like I hate to praise you but it's totally wrong like every school subject whether you are in you know history or sociology or psychology or especially theology obviously you're going to get these different perspectives and biases impacting these school subjects so when people are just saying oh I'm just objectively teaching this no no no no school subject is neutral their worldview is always going to seep through and they're always going to be teaching it from that perspective so if they're you know a liberal christian if they're an atheist if they're a buddhist if they're a Mormon whoever it is their worldview their set of convictions is always going to seep through into whatever they're teaching you even if it's not necessarily directly related to that right I'm not just talking about theology class I'm talking about economics I'm talking about sociology psychology even statistics okay I was in a statistics class one time and it went a little something like this okay everyone um come on in uh yeah take a seat um we're gonna talk a little bit about something to just open it up you know just to keep it fresh type thing sounds good okay this is gonna be interesting okay okay okay so you know I just wanted to talk a little bit I know it's a statistics class but I wanted to talk a little bit about you know global warming we know it's a scientific fact we know that the world is gonna end in eight years what based on global warming projected all the prophecies all that kind of stuff and I also wanted to talk a little bit about why children by having children you're actually killing the planet so don't have children um yeah I had three myself I know a little bit of a hypocrite but we all make mistakes um yeah sorry Terrence sorry about that I kid you not this dude's kid was in the class and he literally said something to the effect of you know we you know kids are killing the planet and we all make mistakes as if that kid was a mistake and he shouldn't have had it because he's killing there worldview matters people your worldview what you believe about god what you believe about the world all this kind of thing it impacts every area of study so be on alert okay I have a quick announcement okay so you know this book I've been talking about it it's my new book a letter to my father what your son wants to tell you but doesn't for fathers for mothers for everybody read this book um you can get it for free now actually so um if you go to dailydisciple.ca you can click partner with us and if you partner with us become a silver or gold tier gospel partner I'm gonna send you this book full free that's right full free if I feel like I'm doing it infomercial but I'm excited about it if you become a gold or silver tier gospel partner on patreon I'm gonna send you this book for free and I know there's a bunch of people that live in you know different countries around the world whatever I'll figure out a way to get this book to you if you become a gospel partner that would be amazing and you know I hope you enjoy the book so the last point we've made it so far we're gonna survive university we're gonna survive universe let me just get my reading glasses here what's number three here look for opportunities one on one let's sure let's your words be an outflowing of your heart so I know for the other ones it wasn't specifically evangelism focus you know we talked about um being able to help other people gain perspective and purpose and just kind of a better picture of what they're they're doing at university you know we also talked about not cowering and being you know holding on to your convictions in class the last thing is more evangelism focus but also just kind of an encouragement focus um you're gonna get opportunities to talk one-on-one with people you're gonna meet new people with different beliefs from different religions you're gonna get opportunities to talk with these people and you can also be intentional about making opportunities where you're just kind of having a conversation with someone and I want to just kind of encourage you and this is something that I try to do is very scary sometimes but if you can let kind of your own you know heart in terms of your relationship with Jesus you know let this be an outflowing of your heart into conversation so I'm not saying oh go up to somebody and say hey you know the gospel of Jesus Christ because they might confuse you for a Mormon but I want to encourage you to just be natural about what you believe similar to in class not cowering to other people you know just because they believe something different than you but being okay with saying hey yeah this is who I am yeah I'm a Christian yeah do you know about Christianity you have any questions about it do you know what it's all about and for me I had a really good conversation literally just talking to someone at a Christian university and kind of asking them hey do you know what Christianity is all about and just being able to share with them the gospel being able to share with them you know my heart for them and that I was just sharing this out of love for them because if the gospel if the Bible is true and I wouldn't share with them right if I were to keep that to myself that wouldn't be loving actually that would be hateful because I know based on the fact that he doesn't know the gospel because he like everyone else has fallen short of the glory of God he's destined for hell but I love him enough to share the gospel with him and I can just share that with him that's my heart I'm not just trying to shove something down his throat and there's more planes but but I but I love him and so I shared that with him and you know I don't know if he ended up you know becoming a Christian but I do know that those opportunities at university are important and I don't know I just encourage you to take them so some scripture here from 1 Peter 3 15 but in your hearts revere Christ as Lord always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asked you to give the reason for the hope that you have but do this with gentleness and respect I think for some of us we can we can you know fall in this ditch of not wanting to talk at all and just being really timid and you know maybe conforming our convictions a little bit to seem less extreme to maybe people that aren't Christians or or are you know very secular so we try to kind of you know mold our convictions and our perspectives a little bit just to fit in a little bit more and others of us might just be a bull in the china shop just knocking over things just going crazy like yeah this is what I believe this is why I believe it and this is why you're wrong both need some adjusting both need some perspective just like this verse says we should always be ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within us but we should do it with gentleness and respect so you have those two sides of that coin the truth and love right if we don't have the truth if we're going to cower if we're going to change our if our beliefs if we're going to compromise what we believe you know based on what other people believe just to kind of fit in it's not going to be powerful it's not going to be effective and if we have that truth and yet just started that bull in a china shop mentality then we're just going to scare people off make people angry get into arguments it's not going to be beneficial to anybody but having this truth and love being ready to give an answer but also in with kindness and gentleness well guys that's today's video those are three ways that you can be bold for Jesus and thrive on campus as a Christian I know a lot of you are in university or college right now so I want to continue to make content that kind of caters to your circumstance and helps you live for Jesus and follow Jesus in university if you haven't already you can follow me on instagram at daily disciple ministry I post there like pretty much every day and you get all the exclusive bonus content from the videos I often do polls and ask questions relating to the topic of each video and it's a pretty good time also I post personal stuff so if you want to know anything about me then you can go cat oh I hate that so much you can go check me out on instagram thank you for watching the program give the video a little bit of a like down below subscribe hit the bell notification I don't know what accent this is but that's okay I love these glasses thanks for watching guys and I'll see you next time see you later