I shouldn't be apologizing for the length of this, but I feel I need to say "sorry" to those of you who read blogs like I do...for entertainment...for a quick and inspiring read. If that's what you're looking for today...it may be a good idea to go ahead and go to the next blog, because this is a bit long and involved, and it certainly doesn't "tickle the flesh"

During our RUF intern training this summer, we heard over and over again that before we ever begin to minister to students...we must first "understand our demographic". For the blogging public out there who may be unfamiliar with the RUF parlance, this basically means that in order to minister the Gospel to a person, you need to understand where that person is coming from. For instance, Paul cared about the demographic of the audiences to whom he preached. At the Areopagus in Athens, he preached the Gospel through the lens of philosophy. But when he was back in Israel and his audience was Jewish, he preached Christ as the fulfillment of all of the Old Testament prophesies. So in short, we've got to think about our audience before we think about our delivery of God's message of salvation.

What would move me to muse about such a dense subject at 9:12am on a Friday morning you ask? To be honest, it's because until yesterday afternoon I had (literally and figuratively) forgotten about the power of sin, the ruin it foments, the destruction it brings with it, the confusion it feeds. It scares me to own up to this...but for the past I don't know how long (read: a really long time), I've seen my sin and others' merely as an inconvenient nusiance. I saw it as more of a head cold than a brain tumor. I have been lulled to sleep. I've believed the lies sin whispered in my ear...the siren songs it sang to me. I swallowed the bait, hook...line...and sinker. I really did believe (not confessionally, but practically) the lie of all lies...the Original Lie: if you eat of this fruit, surely you will not die.

From the first days in the Garden, evil has always used the same spin..."this isn't as bad as you think"..."the pleasure is worth the pain"..."God won't care if you do it"..."I can give you meaning and control and entertainment"...etc. The first shot of the death cocktail that sin injects is always anesthesia. It knocks out our ability to recognize it before it does anything else, that way it can kill and destroy without us feeling much pain. The Bible calls this potent anesthesia a "hardening heart". Of course, for the sake of illustration I am personifying sin here. But in Reality, evil isn't some esoteric concept. Evil has a name. And it's shockingly similar to my name and your name. So our problem is not the concept of sin, our problem is our sin. You see the difference?

So back to the demographic thing...if we are to minister to those God has providentially placed in our lives, HOW are we to minister to them? Well, we must begin by asking the simple questions: "Who are they; where are they; how are they; why are they?" Let me make an attempt at defining my demographic (the people I am dealing with primarily for the next two years, Lord-willing): college students.

-they hide from Reality, from Truth, from themselves, from rebuke
-they are pretenders, confessing things they don’t truly live
-they would rather die than confess their secret sins to the world and risk humiliation and ridicule before men
-they don’t understand the depth of their sin problem because they don’t think about their sin problem that much
-they are truth polishers, they usually think they are more in control than they really are
-they are idol worshipers who are blind to their idols' impotence and deceitfulness
-they are often sexually perverted and are far more influenced by our "sex culture" than they admit to or are aware of
-they have hedonistic inclinations and yearn to be the center of “their own story”
-when they sin, they tend to run and hide instead of kneel and call out for help
-they are scared of change and resist things that challenge or threaten their expectation of comfort and security
-their pursuit of holiness falls flat on its face daily and they become quickly discouraged, forgetting who and whose they are
-their hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked above all things
-THEY ARE ME…and more than any other thing this life has to give us, they...and I need the person of Jesus Christ, the Friend of Sinners, who came to do this for the helpless and hopeless who long for redemption:

"...to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the
day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor."
(Isaiah 61: 1-3)

Believer in Jesus, we are a broken people. I had forgotten that. Have you? Has your sin left you confused again...hidden again..hard again? If it has, rejoice even still! Rejoice as the reformers rejoiced: "Simul iustus et peccator!" We are "simultaneously JUSTIFIED and sinful". We have a Hope who is as tangible as the flesh He dwells in. We have not been left alone to work out our own sanctification. Christ dispatched to our very hearts His Spirit, who is very really and effectually putting our sin to death with us. He is restoring us to Eden and even better! Praise God for humbling Himself, for taking on the flesh of a baby and the cross of criminal to redeem the "poor...the captives...the brokenhearted...the prisoners".

Thank you, Ben - thank you.