Priscilla Shirer tells Homecoming Convocation crowd to live ‘right-side up’ in their faith

Christian media personality and actress Priscilla Shirer was Liberty University’s featured speaker during Friday’s Homecoming Convocation held in the Vines Center, where she reminded students, alumni, and their families of God’s patience while they seek to live well for Him.

“I’m excited to do what I love to do, and that’s share God’s Word with you,” said Shirer, who is a Liberty parent. “I believe in the power of the Word of God, and I hope you do too, and I’m excited to share a few thoughts from the Scriptures that I hope will encourage you.”

Shirer told a story about going fishing with her sons and borrowing a neighbor’s rowboat, which they discovered stored upside down, creating the perfect dark, damp environment for snakes and other animals to dwell. Shirer compared this to our spiritual lives when we do not live “right-side up” for the Lord and instead settle for “upside down living.”

“Upside down living is living that is out of alignment with the truth of God,” she said. “Right-side up living positions you for the sunlight of God’s favor, for God’s grace, for God’s blessing to be poured out on your life.”

When Christians are living in the darkness, they are creating an environment where Satan can more easily find a foothold, she said.

“(Satan can) cause jealousy, or a lack of peace of mind or of heart, where he stirs up division in our relationships and causes angst and anxiety in our relationships and in our own lives.”

Shirer said that no matter how spiritually broken people can become, no one is too far gone from where the Lord cannot intervene and redeem.

“I just want to remind and encourage you today that God’s grace is sufficient for you,” she said. “That He Himself, by His Spirit, will help you to turn that boat right-side up so the sunlight of His favor can be all over your life.”

Though the enemy will try and entice believers into thinking that the Lord is not patient with them, Shirer said God’s Word says otherwise.

“Condemnation (which is the voice of the enemy) says that not only what you did is wrong, but condemnation says that you are wrong (and) that there is no hope for turning your boat right-side up,” she said. “Honestly, I think that in all the links of the chain that make up the character of our God, the most central and important one is (patience).”

Shirer said that if God wasn’t patient with us, we wouldn’t exist long enough to experience His other attributes. She encouraged students to read 1 Timothy 1, where the Apostle Paul tells young Timothy about God’s “perfect patience” that was powerfully displayed in his own life, from being a persecutor of Christians to becoming one of the boldest followers of Christ the world has ever known. Paul even mentions what Shirer called his “sin resume,” understanding that the Lord’s patience, grace, and mercy can be displayed through the weakness of men.

“There is nothing diminished or weak about our God’s patience,” Shirer said. “It cannot be diminished; it cannot run out. There’s always an opportunity, because our God is so merciful, to get (our lives) right-side up so that we can have God’s grace poured out on our life.”

She explained that once one begins walking with the Lord, Christians can look at their past with peace, recognizing that they can boast in what Christ has done in them so that He can ultimately be glorified through their new life in Him.

“You can look back and say, ‘That’s who I was but that’s not who I am anymore,’” she said.

Homecoming festivities continued on Friday with a Homecoming luncheon with Flames Football Head Coach Hugh Freeze. An alumni reunion dinner is planned in the Montview Alumni Ballroom, and the annual Homecoming Concert will take place at the Center for Music and the Worship Arts, Concert Hall. Saturday’s events include a Homecoming Parade along University Boulevard, Alumni Tailgate, and Flames Fan Fest before the 3:30 p.m. football game against Gardner-Webb. Visit Liberty.edu/Homecoming for more information.