He had grown up in a Christian home and accepted Jesus as his savior when he was a young boy. However, as a teenager he rebelled against the faith, adopted a defiant attitude toward his parents and had to be forced to go to church.
His parents finally got to the point where they told him that the only college they would pay for was a Christian college. He would rather have gone to a secular university, but having no money, he grudgingly went off to the Christian school.
The young man went to class and chapel and all the required activities, but it was quite obvious to everyone that he was just going through the motions. They knew that he didn’t want to be there and that he professed not to share their beliefs.
A wise professor asked the boy to meet with him in his office. He said to the young man, “I hear that you have renounced your faith. Is that true?”
“Yes”, he replied.
“Then I have a challenge for you. Why don’t you go stand in front of the statue of Jesus at the entrance to our campus and declare, “Jesus, you died for me and I don’t care.”
The boy accepted the challenge. He went to the bigger-than-life statue and looked up into the eyes of Jesus. Thinking to himself that he could do this he started, “Jesus, you died…”
At that point, something got caught in his throat, so he tried again. “Jesus, you died ….” Again the young man encountered difficulty with his speech, and this time his eyes were tearing up.
In the end, the only part of the phrase the young man could utter was—“Jesus, you died for me!” From that point on, he lived like he believed it.
Jesus died for you. Do you care?
