During the closing session of Passion 2023, TV personality and social media influencer Sadie Robertson Huff encouraged attendees to merge their spiritual and personal lives. Huff spoke on December 30 to the audience in Dallas/Fort Worth; other sessions took place last week in Atlanta. Videos from both conference locations are available to watch online.
The 25-year-old former “Duck Dynasty” star, who’s expecting her second child, speaks about “Getting Personal With Jesus.” In a message based on Luke 5, Huff uses Simon’s fishing boat as an example of an everyday space where ministry can occur.
Sadie Robertson Huff: Preach in Your Day-to-Day Life
By getting into Simon’s boat, Jesus is “showing Peter what it looks like to start the church,” says Huff. Likewise, Christians should preach from our day-to-day settings, whether at school or in a profession, because God’s Spirit is always inside us.
“We can’t keep compartmentalizing our spiritual life and our personal life,” Huff says. “We have to get it out of our heads that those…are different things, and they have to become one thing.”
Huff reminds young adults that ministry isn’t “waiting for you on a platform,” in the guise of a job title or role. “Ministry is who you are, and it’s where you are, and it’s what you do,” she says. “Because you are a disciple of Christ, ministry is a full-time thing. Ministry is not a separate thing.”
To illustrate her point, Huff has attendees turn on their phone lights in the darkened auditorium. Then she asks them to turn on their selfie cameras—at which point the phone lights go out. On an iPhone, she notes, the light and camera can’t operate simultaneously. Likewise, “you can’t give the glory [to God] and get the glory at the same time.”
Repentance and Surrender Are Key, Says Huff
If the way you’re living your personal life completely contradicts your spiritual life, Huff warns, then you need to invite Jesus in. We often act as if God doesn’t know what we’re dealing with, she says. But like the Prodigal Son’s father, God will run into our lives so he can intervene. And instead of loving us any less, he’ll offer forgiveness.
