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Discipleship

Daily Bible Verse and Devotion – Romans 5:18

Yes, Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. – Romans 5:18 (NLT)

The gospel is good news for us all. But how do we really take that good news and apply it to our lives? How does it help you get through the uncertainty our world is facing right now, the troubles you’re having with your friends, and all the things happening in the world around us?

One of the best things to know in times of uncertainty is that you have a right relationship with Jesus. What that means is that when you don’t know what to do, you can go to Jesus.

Maybe you’re facing a difficult situation with a friend. You don’t know what to say to them or how to deal with it. Because of what Jesus did, you can go to Him and get help.

Jesus is all the wisdom you’ll need for any situation you face. So go to Him. Involve Him in your trouble and ask Him for help. He can show you something helpful to say, or something you can do to help.

Stand in your right relationship with God. Go to Him when you need help and realize that He is there for you, no matter what!

Daily Bible Verse and Devotion – 1 Corinthians 6:17

Daily Bible Verse and Devotion on Identity in Christ

But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. – 1 Cor 6:17 (NIV)

Imagine for a moment that someone stole your library card. That person is checking out books in your name and racking up some huge library fines. What would you do?

If you’re like most people, you’d tell someone. You’d let the Library know, get a new card, and try to track down the person who was stealing from you.

None of us like being stolen from. But often, in our lives we let the devil steal from us. He tries to get us to question our identity. Often, we allow him to lie to us and tell us we’re not worthy, that we don’t have what it takes, or that we’re unloveable.

The truth is, if we let them, those lies will keep us from doing what God wants for our lives.

Today’s Challenge:  Practice Identity

Today’s Bible verse tells you that you have an identity in Christ. Your worth and value come when you identify yourself in Christ.

You might look in the mirror and see all the imperfections and the ways you might not measure up. However, that’s not what God sees when He looks at you. He sees someone valuable. He sees someone worth dying for.

So today, practice identifying yourself with Jesus. Choose to see who you are through Jesus, not what you are on your own. As you do, you can begin to stop believing the lies the devil tries to tell you. You begin to see that you’re worth it and your life matters.


Read the Other Challenges

  1. Day 1 – Challenge: Practice Quiet
  2. Day 2 – Challenge: Practice Generosity
  3. Day 3 – Challenge: Practice Community
  4. Day 4 – Challenge: Practice Thankfulness
  5. Day 5 – Challenge:  Practice Identity

Teen Devotion - Growing in GodIf you’d like a PDF copy of this 5-day challenge as well as some bonus content for further study, feel free to download Every Teenager’s Guide to Growing in God. 

Daily Bible Verse and Devotion – Psalm 69:30

Daily Bible Verse and Devotion on Thanksgiving for Teens

I will praise God’s name in song
and glorify him with thanksgiving. – Psalm 69:30 (NIV)

When you’re stressed out, it’s hard to be thankful. Maybe the pressures from your parents or friends seem overwhelming and it makes you want to give up. When you start to feel like that, one of the best things you can do is to start being thankful.

Thankfulness has a strange way of helping you. When you begin to be thankful, it makes you feel better. You begin to realize that even though you’re going through some tough things, there are still things to thank God for.

Today’s Challenge: Practice Thankfulness

What can you do today to be thankful? Could you take a moment and journal a list of things that are good in your life?

Taking time to practice thankfulness helps you. It makes you aware that God is working in your life. It keeps your attitude good too. You begin to realize that you have so many things to thank God for.

So today, if you’ve been guilty of being unhappy or stressed out about something, take some time to practice thankfulness. Choose to see the good things in your life and take time to thank God for them. Know that God loves you and is working mightily on your behalf.


Read the Other Challenges

  1. Day 1 – Challenge: Practice Quiet
  2. Day 2 – Challenge: Practice Generosity
  3. Day 3 – Challenge: Practice Community
  4. Day 4 – Challenge: Practice Thankfulness
  5. Day 5 – Challenge:  Practice Identity

Teen Devotion - Growing in GodIf you’d like a PDF copy of this 5-day challenge as well as some bonus content for further study, feel free to download Every Teenager’s Guide to Growing in God. 

Daily Bible Verse and Devotion – Proverbs 27:17

Daily Bible Verse and Devotion on Community

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. – Proverbs 27:17 (NIV)

Take a minute and think about your closest friends. Who are they? What do they believe?

The Bible challenges us to hang out with people of like faith. Why? Because they challenge us. They keep us sharp and growing in our walk with God.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t hang out with people that aren’t Christians. You need to do that too. However, you need to make times to be with people of faith like you. This will challenge you and keep you sharp in your walk with God.

Today’s Challenge: Practice Community

Do you have a community? That is a group of people who are challenging you in your walk with God. A group of people who will come along with you when things are tough and help you grow and know God.

A good way to find this is to get plugged into a youth group. Find a youth group if you don’t have one and get involved. Go each week to services and meetings. Let the friendships you develop there challenge you to do more for God.

When you’re there, take time to listen to others and don’t be afraid to talk about your struggles. A community of Christian friends will help you through when things are tough.


Read the Other Challenges

  1. Day 1 – Challenge: Practice Quiet
  2. Day 2 – Challenge: Practice Generosity
  3. Day 3 – Challenge: Practice Community
  4. Day 4 – Challenge: Practice Thankfulness
  5. Day 5 – Challenge:  Practice Identity

Teen Devotion - Growing in GodIf you’d like a PDF copy of this 5-day challenge as well as some bonus content for further study, feel free to download Every Teenager’s Guide to Growing in God. 

Daily Bible Verse and Devotion – Luke 6:38

Teen Devotion and Bible Verse on Generosity

Give generously and generous gifts will be given back to you, shaken down to make room for more. Abundant gifts will pour out upon you with such an overflowing measure that it will run over the top! Your measurement of generosity becomes the measurement of your return.” – Luke 6:38 (TPT)

As a teenager, God wants you blessed. God’s desire is that you’re blessed because He knows that if your needs are met, you’ll be able to look out for the needs of others.

God wants you to be able to buy a friend that is down Starbucks to encourage them. He wants you to be able to give to support the missionary that visits your church. God wants you blessed so that you can go out and be a blessing to those hurting around you.

Today’s Challenge: Practice Generosity

So today’s challenge is for you to practice generosity. Spend some time today thinking about what you could do to help someone else. Could you hang out with your grandpa who is lonely? Maybe you could give some time and volunteer at your church.

You could bake cookies and sell them to raise money for a missionary. There are so many opportunities to practice generosity if you’ll begin to look for them.

If you’ll begin to look, God will show you ways to be generous and to help others.

Many times it’s easy to become so internally focused that we forget to help others around us. We focus on our problems and it blinds us to the needs around us. So today challenge yourself to not be only internally focused. Look around you and see what needs God would want you to meet today.


Read the Other Challenges

  1. Day 1 – Challenge: Practice Quiet
  2. Day 2 – Challenge: Practice Generosity
  3. Day 3 – Challenge: Practice Community
  4. Day 4 – Challenge: Practice Thankfulness
  5. Day 5 – Challenge:  Practice Identity

Teen Devotion - Growing in GodIf you’d like a PDF copy of this 5-day challenge as well as some bonus content for further study, feel free to download Every Teenager’s Guide to Growing in God. 

Daily Bible Verse and Devotion – Luke 5:16

Daily Bible Verse and Devotion on Practicing Quiet And Hearing God speakBut Jesus often slipped away from them and went into the wilderness to pray. – Luke 5:16 (TPT)

What do you do when you’re bored? Do you run to YouTube for something to do? Maybe you like to open Snapchat or fill boredom with TV. And don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of a funny or interesting YouTube video. However, it’s easy to often fill every moment of our lives with something so that we never get a chance to hear God speak. I believe, if we’re being really honest, we simply don’t like being bored.

If you want to grow in your relationship with God, however, you’ve got to learn to practice being quiet. If you’re always filling up the silence in your life with other things, how will you hear God speak? In order to know God better, you’ve got to listen to what He says.

Today’s Challenge: Practice Quiet

This week, we’re making five challenges to help you grow in your relationship with God. Today’s challenge is for you to practice being quiet. What do you think would happen in your life if you spent a few minutes each day this week practicing being quiet with God?

What if you unplugged for five minutes a day, turned off your iPod or phone and just spent time listening to God speak into your life?

What would that look like? How might your life be different?

[Tweet “To hear from God, you’ve got to practice being quiet – @studentdevos”]

For you to grow in your relationship with God, you’re going to have to give God times to speak to you. So today, find a place you can be quiet. It might be in the bathroom when you wake up. Maybe in your bed right before sleeping. Wherever it is, choose today to take some time to unplug and let God speak to you.


Read the Other Challenges

  1. Day 2 – Challenge: Practice Generosity
  2. Day 3 – Challenge: Practice Community
  3. Day 4 – Challenge: Practice Thankfulness
  4. Day 5 – Challenge:  Practice Identity

Teen Devotion - Growing in GodIf you’d like a PDF copy of this 5-day challenge as well as some bonus content for further study, feel free to download Every Teenager’s Guide to Growing in God. 

What’s So Great About Eternal Life?

Track 1 (Lesson #1) – What’s So Great About Eternal Life?

Have you ever wondered what eternal life is? Ever wondered why people always make such a big deal about it at church? This lesson will help you answer some questions about what eternal life really is.

Main Points

  • God wants a relationship with you!
  • Eternal Life starts with a friendship with God.
  • So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God—all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of God.” – Romans 5:11 (NLT)

Growth Scriptures

Growth Scriptures are designed to kick-start your relationship with God by getting the Word of God into your heart. The Word of God planted in your heart will help you grow up spiritually. Read and think about these scriptures and begin growing in your walk with God.

Click Here to Go To The Next Discipleship Lesson

Discipleship Track 1 – You Didn’t Measure Up

Discipleship Track 1 (Lesson #2) – You Didn’t Measure Up

These growth tools are powerful. They provide scriptures and great resources so that you can cement the truths of the Word of God into your heart and grow!

Growth Points

  • No amount of good deeds will help you get into heaven.
  • You needed a savior, Jesus to pay the price for your sins.
  • “Everyone has sinned and is far away from God’s saving presence.” – Romans 3:23 (TEV)

discipleship-youth-track-pdf

Growth Questions

Growth Questions are designed for you to get the word of God down inside your heart. If you download the PDF and answer the questions, it will help you meditate on what God has done for you!
Download Your Growth Questions : Lesson # 2 – You Didn’t Measure Up

 

 

Growth Scriptures

Growth Scriptures are designed to kick-start your relationship with God by getting the Word of God into your heart. The Word of God planted in your heart will help you grow up spiritually. Read and think about these scriptures and begin growing in your walk with God.

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Track 1 – Is Good Enough?

Discipleship Track 1 (Lesson #3) – Is Good Enough?

Knowing that we have been made clean from sin is a powerful truth. These growth tools will help you establish exactly how God sees you, clean from sin!

Growth Points

  • If you say you haven’t messed up or sinned, you’re fooling yourself.
  • If you ask God’s forgiveness, you’re free from sin’s power.
  • “If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth.” – 1 John 1:8 (NLT)

discipleship-youth-track-pdf

Growth Questions

Download this great PDF that will help challenge you in your walk with God.
Download Your Growth Questions : Lesson # 3 – Is Good Enough?

Growth Scriptures

Take these scriptures and spend time to get them into your heart. These scriptures will help encourage you and help you understand what God did for you.

Track 1 – The Exchange

Track 1 (Lesson #4) – The Exchange

Knowing that Jesus exchanged all He was for all you are is a powerful truth. When you know that truth it will change the way you see yourself and others too!

Main Points

  • Jesus exchanged all He is for all you are!
  • You’ve got a new nature in Christ
  • “Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! ” – Romans 5:18 (Message)

discipleship-youth-track-pdf

Growth Questions

These questions will help reinforce the truths in this lesson.
Download Your Growth Questions : Lesson # 4 – The Great Exchange

Growth Scriptures

Reading these scriptures will help you get excited about what Jesus did for you in the great exchange!