Hello,
My name is Hunter Clark. I am unbelievably excited and humbled by the opportunity that the Lord has provided through this platform. My vision for R.I.R. is to unite like-minded, mission-driven, and somewhat spontaneous followers of Christ to become a global force for the kingdom of God. Our goal is to see the commands of Christ in Matthew 28:16-20 come to fruition.
For me, this is something that I feel the Lord has called me to. Not necessarily a blog, but much more than that. I hope to see this platform go far beyond what I have in mind. I would eventually love to see Ransomed in Red be able to play a part in training up Christians and sending them out into the world. There is nothing that I would love to see more than R.I.R. helping people who have a heart for the nations understand that calling better and how to execute on that. This is something that I'm passionate about because I feel that I have been called to the nations as well. Therefore, I will better share with you how I experienced that calling and my confidence in that.
Ever since a young kid I had been in church. My parents took me to church, and everyone I knew identified as a "Christian" so for me being as young as I was, I obviously adopted that label as well with little thought. All I really knew was that Jesus is good, He is God, God loves me, and if I believe then I won't go to hell. With me being young and scared of hell it didn't take much convincing to get me to "believe" in God. However, I didn't have a very good grasp on why I was going to hell in the first place.
It was all kind of confusing until I was in the eighth grade at Maryville Junior High. It was a normal day as a young Hunter Clark was going into third-period art as he normally would be. However, this was a very key day for me. My friend James was in the same class as well, but one thing about James was that he went to Foothills Church. Now until then, I had never gone to this church. Partially, because this church was relatively new. Here's what I knew about Foothills, I knew that the prettiest girls in my grade went there on Wednesday night and I also knew a ton of people had been going there recently. The first of the two was good enough for me. With that being said, James didn't have to convince me to go with him very much. Honestly, I was looking forward to hanging out with my friends, and it really didn't matter what was being preached I was just there to have a good time after school. My plan was a success it was really fun so of course, I became a regular rather quickly.
Up until this point, I believed that I was a Christian. Until about four times of being there, I showed up to joke around and hang out with my friends, but God had a different plan that night. For the first time, it really hit me. Greg Gibson was preaching and he gave a clear picture of the gospel. He explained that by human nature at birth we were all under the wrath of God, and that my sin that I usually looked over was destining me for an eternity in a real place called hell completely separated from a holy God. I remember hearing that and my heart just sinking to the ground. It broke my heart for the first time that I have sinned against a holy and righteous God and because of that I deserve eternal damnation and separation from God. Luckily, he kept preaching and told us about the gospel of Jesus Christ. That Jesus Christ being both fully God and Man came to earth, born of a virgin, lived a perfect, sinless, and blameless life, died on the cross for my sins, was buried, resurrected to life on the third day, that He lives today, and now we can have eternal life through Him and His blood!
That was the moment that my life changed forever. It's like a lightbulb went off in my heart. I understood the implications of the cross for the first time. That day I repented of my sin and trusted in my savior Jesus Christ. He took my sin and in exchange gave me His righteousness, it was the greatest exchange throughout all of human history. Since then to the best of my ability, although still on this side of heaven I'm tainted by sin, I have been preaching that truth to others.
Since that day I have known real joy. Not what culture says joy is, but actual joy that only comes from the God of the bible. There's no gift like the one that God has given us through His son Jesus. Instead of being eternally tormented in a real place called hell, I am instead eternally made alive and grateful for a loving, merciful, and gracious God. Therefore, I want the entire world to know that if they believe, repent, and profess the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they to have been Ransomed in Red.
After receiving salvation in Christ life has still been full of highs and lows. However, I have sure confidence that my God is with me through all situations in my life. God has been so gracious to me not only in everyday life but also with the opportunities that He has provided me with. I have been extremely blessed to go on four short-term mission trips with Foothills Church, one mid-term mission trip with the International Mission Board, multiple summer internships with Foothills, and just with the Godly leaders that the Lord has put in my life. I am completely undeserving of every gracious gift that the Lord has provided me with, but I am so thankful for them. Even though all of the bad decisions I have made and still make to this day, the Lord is still faithful to me and He continues to provide me with forgiveness and faithful leaders. Because of these amazing leaders and awesome experiences the Lord has blessed me with He has led me to full-time vocational ministry. Since experiencing that calling I took a five-month mission trip to Lusaka, Zambia to see what it's really like to be a missionary. Unfortunately, that five-month trip got shortened to three months, because of the coronavirus. However, I still learned so much about what it will look like to be in the ministry hands-on. These are experiences that I will never take for granted.
Right now, I am pursuing my calling by going to Boyce College online, in hopes to receive a Biblical and Theological Studies degree. I'm praying that the Lord uses this season of my life to teach me far beyond what I could ever imagine and provide me with opportunities to serve in the ministry while pursuing my education. It is something that I am extremely excited to pursue.
As I am moving forward with my own spiritual journey, I believe that it would be extremely beneficial to document this journey through a blog. I also hope to see the Lord bring like-minded believers together through this community to communicate and grow together in knowledge and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, seeking to glorify our God above all else. I pray that nobody will come to this website and leave without knowing that they have an amazing God and an amazing Savior who has graciously Ransomed them in Red.
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