By Rick Vacek
GCU News Bureau
“When God is in us, there is no limit to what He can do through us.”
Grand Canyon University President Brian Mueller said it several times Monday morning in his traditional semester-opening Chapel address, once again before a packed-in crowd in GCU Arena.
Every Bible verse he cited, every anecdote he shared, every observation he made kept coming back to it. A passionate man spoke as passionately as he ever has about GCU’s mission.
“We have a very powerful Christian community here,” he said. “We have thousands of students who have God in them, and God is using them in very powerful ways on this campus and in this neighborhood.”
Mueller began by disclosing his curiosity about the way things work – or too often don’t work – in the world. Marriages. Families. Companies. Countries.
“When things work, why do they work?” he asked.
The answer: God’s transformative power. But then there’s the flip side. He noted how Genesis tells us that everything was perfect in the Garden of Eden until Satan got involved, a lesson that still resonates.
Satan convinced Adam and Eve that they should be worshipped and try to become equals of God. “That’s the big lie that existed then, it’s the big lie that exists now,” Mueller said.
He built his talk around John 13:1-17, which describes the things Jesus did during His last night on Earth – most significantly, washing the apostles’ feet.
“Do you understand what I have done for you?” Jesus asked them when He was done. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.”
Mueller pointed to examples down through the years of people showing extraordinary forgiveness, such as these two:
- A Rwandan woman who made dinner for a neighbor who had brutally killed her husband and children during the country’s civil war. Asked why she did that, she responded, “I’m a Christian, and I pray a lot.”
- The members of a Charleston, S.C., church who immediately forgave the man who murdered nine of their friends and family members in cold blood. “That’s God’s kingdom,” Mueller said.
God’s kingdom also is in west Phoenix, and Mueller has seen how powerful it can be.
“This is a community of believers that God is working in, and as a result of that there is nothing that God can’t do through us,” he said. “As this year begins, I know that there will be students on this campus who will be impacted in powerful ways by God’s transformative power, and He will be working through you to do this.
“I also know that as this year moves on this place will be an incredible blessing to this neighborhood where we’ve got a lot of need.”
Mueller used the last few minutes of his talk to address an inappropriate comment made by a GCU professor that led to representatives of Black Lives Matter making derogatory comments about the University.
He saved his most passionate comments of all for the end:
“We’ve now got to redouble our efforts. We’ve got to believe that, in spite of this, if God is in us there is no limit to what He can do through us. ... We will take this and we will turn it into something positive for people.”
● For a replay of Monday’s Chapel, including the band’s performance, click here.
● Next week: No Chapel (Labor Day holiday)
Contact Rick Vacek at (602) 639-8203 or [email protected].
