SAN JOSE- Some 16,500 youths from the San Francisco Bay Area attended the second night of the Harvest Crusade, receiving the life-changing message of the love of Christ.
At the San Jose HP Pavilion, with the casual evening of upbeat music and genuine worship, the atmosphere has designed to appeal to youth. The world’s top Christian artists Jeremy Camp, Kutless, Seventh Day Slumber, touched the hearts of many youth as they passionately testified about the work of the Lord in their lives through their music.
Pastor Greg Laurie delivered the keynote message for the evening, centering on the meaning and purpose of life. Laurie begun with his self story from how he tried to use drugs to fulfill the emptiness in his lives to how he reborn in Christ and found the meaning of life. He brought out the message "Jesus is watching over you", testifying that God uses all kinds of ways to guide those went astray.
Laurie went on speaking about the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15. He urged the audience to come to the Lord today with faith in God’s absolute love though they may have so many problems and sins.
"Come as you are to God. Don’t wait until you clean up your life before coming to him," Laurie said. "Come with your addictions and problems. God will accept you as you are, but he doesn’t want to leave you that way. You just need to accept Him and turn away from your sin."
Laurie once again reminded the youth the fact that the precious son Jesus Christ has died for all men on the cross to redeem their sins.
"Jesus died for you because you have owed a debt that you cannot pay," he added.
At the end of the message, Laurie called from the altar to those who have decided to accept Jesus as well as those who will rededicate their lives: "You have to let Jesus come in your life, and you have to let him in your house. And you must do it now, another person says ‘Do it tomorrow, not tonight’, but you have to get right with God."
Later, around a thousand people responded, some volunteers later approached them to provide follow-up guidance, and making sure the new believers were guided to attend a church.
The gathering saw the huge attendance of Spanish, Chinese and Korean youth, so foreign language translation was provided. Saturday afternoon also featured Harvest Crusade’s first-ever Spanish language matinee, which drew 2,600.
So far drawing more than 30,000 this weekend, the Greater Silicon Valley Harvest with Greg Laurie will conclude its three-day evangelistic outreach on Sunday night.
