I want to start this personally. J1 has grown my community in a genuine way because of our Christian shirts. How, you may ask? Just around school, when I wear one of my Joshua1 Christian shirts, I find a community of Jesus lovers in a place where it can be hard to trust God. When I find that community, it reminds me of ways I can love people and even more, love God. He gave us a community for a reason after all. I hope that, as you read this, you can ask yourself the questions, “Are you surrounding yourself with the right people?” and if not, “In what ways can I find people who just Love Jesus?”
Are you surrounded by Jesus?
It’s important to know who you’re surrounding yourself with. Are your friends spending the weekends sleeping around and drinking? Or are they spending their time in prayer? Do they smoke and make life altering decisions everyday for the worse? Or do they read their Bible everyday and work on growing their relationship with God? See my point? It was really difficult in highschool. There’s a lot of people who really hate Jesus and really didn’t like me because I love Him. Something I found to be surprisingly effective was wearing my Y'all Need Jesus Christian shirt to school as much as I could. I got a lot of comments but it gave me a ton of opportunities to spread the word. But what was more effective was my community. That’s why community is so important. I have a great group of friends that I could walk with when the times got tough and we could be strong together.
Influence vs. Influenced
This is HUGE today. Are you leading people or are they leading you? Are you being a sheep? It’s so easy to feel like you need to fit in anywhere and everywhere you go. One of the hardest things to do is be a follower of Christ nowadays but that’s the best influence that you can be. When you love people unconditionally and believe that God has you in his hands, people will notice the joy and peace that you have and will want that too. When you have a good group of friends who do that together, people will see that and desire to be part of it. Don’t fall into worldly things because they can’t satisfy you. Only the King of kings can do that.
My experience
Recently, I had been blessed enough to go camping with my Christ centered friends. Because of the community I had around me, it was the best trip I’ve ever been on. God was moving through each and every one of them and it was the greatest thing I ever got to witness. It was super cool too because a lot of them were wearing Joshua1 Christian shirts and Christian Hoodies like our yellow Jesus fish hoodie and Jesus. Hoodie. Together, we could be vulnerable and be there for each other. We could pray for each other in the moment and know that we were there for each other. We could look at each other and know that we cared about one another because God gave us each other for a reason. To walk with those people during that short time was eye opening to say the least and I just pray that you can find the same. Plus, It’s gotten to where I work with one of my best friends now!
By: Tyler Dixon
