A Different Look At Sin

Posted on June 29, 2015

Youth Devotion Teen Devotion on SinWe’ve all done it. We’ve all messed up. We told a lie, cheated on a math test, were mean to your brother, or any number of other things. At some point or another in life, we all sin. We chose to follow something other than what the Bible says.

When we sin, what we’re saying is that Jesus isn’t our Lord in that area. We might love Jesus, but if we don’t obey Him, we’re essentially saying He’s not our Lord in that area. For example, if we steal, we say that Jesus isn’t our Lord in the area of stealing in our lives.

Any time we choose to do something else over what God says in the Bible we are sinning. It might be something big, or it might be something small, but its sin nonetheless.

As Christians, we’re encouraged to live lives that are committed to God and what His word says. We should be wanting to do what’s right.

The eyes of the LORD search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.
 – 2 Chronicles 16:9

As a Christian, we should want to do things that are in line with God’s word. We should be committed and sold out to Jesus. We should put aside what we want in order to follow Him. If we are to be followers of Jesus, we should be following Him in every area of our lives, not just the ones that are convenient.

So chose to get sold out for Jesus. Let His words become a part of who you are rather than just picking and choosing the ones that you like. Choose to follow after Him in every area of your life.

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What History Tests Teach About Tough Times

Posted on June 24, 2015

Teen and Youth Devotion on Tough TimesTaking tests are never fun. Usually the night before a big history test is filled with lots of cramming and memorizing all the key facts in hopes of getting a good grade. Many times, studying involves staying up really late, hoping that by looking at your book a few million times those facts will stick in your head.

Then comes the moment of truth. On the day of the test, you find out if all your studying paid off. Tests like these aren’t easy. Each test comes with its set of facts, terms, battles, or important events. Its when you’re in the moment of taking the test, you really see if all your hard work studying paid off, or if you should have invested more time. On a test, you either know the answer or you don’t. There’s not really a middle ground. You either know the answers or you don’t. Its in the tests that you find out if you put in enough preparation. Like it or not, the time you spend studying before the test and memorizing the facts and terms makes a big difference in your test results.

Tests however, aren’t just something that happen in History class. They come to us in life too. Life hands us lots of tests. Sometimes they’re easy, but other times they’re really difficult. However, just like taking your history test, your preparation before the test makes all the difference. So what does preparing for a test in life look like?

Most of your preparation for life’s tests is by spending time reading your Bible and getting God’s word in your heart. God’s word is what will keep you anchored when things get rough.

I have treasured Your word in my heart so that I may not sin against You. – Psalm 119:11 (HSCB)

Making sure that you’ve got God’s word in your heart will help you when things get tough. When you study for a history test, you’re putting the answers in your head. Then when its time to take the test, you just have to recall what you studied. The same is true in the tests of life. Putting God’s word into your heart gives you answers to draw on when you’re faced with a difficult situation.

Tests and trials come to us all, but its what you’ve studied and learned before the test that keeps you going in the test. So don’t show up to the tests of life unprepared. Take some time to get God’s word into your heart. When you do, you’ll find that you’re ready to face anything that comes your way.

 Knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. – James 1:3

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5 Ways to Lose Friends

Posted on June 22, 2015

Teen Devotion on ways to lose friends

Getting along with people isn’t easy. As a teenager, you face lots of situations where your people skills are challenged. We’ve got a list of things in this devotion that are sure ways to lose friends.

  1. Mean Words – This is a big one. Its easy to let mean words slip out…especially in those heated moments while fighting with your brother or your mom. However, the Bible encourages us to think of others and to think before we speak.
    James 1:9 – “Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.” – NLT
    Begin to think about what you say and also think about the consequences of what you say. Your words can cut deeper than you realize, so decide speak words that build others up.
  2. Lack of discipline – developing discipline is hard. Its way easier to do just what feels good and not set any boundaries in your life, but discipline is important.
    A good way to grow in discipline is to find habits that you admire in others and learn from them. Decide to grow in discipline daily. Another good thing to do is to think about how you conduct yourself. The things you do now and how you treat others will effect what you’re doing five years from now.
  3. Disloyalty – No one likes someone that is two faced. If you’re acting one way around some people and the bad mouthing them behind their backs, you’re not being loyal. Choose to be loyal to your friends, family and authority figures. Don’t talk about people behind their back and choose to be loyal no matter what.
  4. Lack of tact – You can probably think of that person you know that just seems to have no filter on what they do and say. They don’t seem to know when to say things and when to hold back.
    Tact is important, so when you’re not sure why a person is acting a certain way, put yourself in their shoes. How would you feel if you had the same experiences that they had?
    Also realize that you need to have a relationship with someone to speak into their life. Don’t just start pointing out all their character flaws. Use tact when dealing with awkward situations.
  5. Lack of confidence – Many teenagers deal with low self-esteem. The thing to remember is that most of life isn’t all about you. You aren’t expected to be able to do everything well or have all the right things to say.
    Lacking confidence can really kill your friendships, it can cause people to not want to be around you or avoid you. Choose to believe what God says about you.
    Psalm 139:14 – “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complext! Your workmanship is marvelous – how well I know it!” (NLT)

 

These are just five ways that you can lose friends. If you’re guilty of one of them, ask God for His help in overcoming in that area. He can give you great ideas to help you kick the habit. Remember, God’s there to help you live your life each day, so go to Him to get the help you need to win in these areas.

Pray: God I thank you for your word. I ask you for your help in becoming better at dealing with other people. I know with your help I can become great at dealing with others. I ask for your wisdom and creative ideas for improving my people skills.

Listen: We Can Change the World – by Hawk Nelson

How To Be A Good Friend

Posted on June 17, 2015

Teen Devotion and Bible Study Lesson on Friendship

Being a good friend doesn’t always come easily. It can be easy to get wrapped up in life that we forget to touch base with a friend, or leave a friend out because we want to hang out with a new friend we made. Friendships aren’t always easy, and not all of them will last forever, but let’s look at the friendship of David and Jonathan in the Bible and see what the two of them can teach us about real friendship.

As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. – 1 Samuel 18:1

We can see from this verse that true friendship is loving the other person like ourselves. Jonathan loved David and would do anything for him. He was loyal and would help David whenever he needed it. Jonathan paints a picture of what true friendship looks like, its simply loving your friend like you would love yourself.

Another thing we can learn about friendship from Jonathan is that friendship isn’t jealous. Jonathan should have been in line to be king. His father was the king, and Jonathan was royalty. However, God had anointed David to be king instead. Jonathan could have been jealous of David. Instead, Jonathan did everything he could to help David succeed.

Then Jonathan told David, “I promise by the LORD, the God of Israel, that by this time tomorrow, or the next day at the latest, I will talk to my father and let you know at once how he feels about you. If he speaks favorably about you, I will let you know.
 – 1 Samuel 20:12

Here we see that Jonathan goes and finds out how his father feels about David. Jonathan protected David. He warned David that his father wanted to kill him. Jonathan showed true friendship by protecting David from harm.

How I weep for you, my brother Jonathan! Oh, how much I loved you! And your love for me was deep, deeper than the love of women! – 2 Samuel 1:26

When Jonathan died, David was very sad. David’s words about Jonathan show how much his friendship meant to David. He said that he loved his friend.

The story of Jonathan and David can show us a lot about being a good friend. Many times our relationships are based on what we can get out of the relationship. You might be friends with someone because they have a car and can drive you places. Or perhaps they have a lot of money and so you hang out with them for what they can give you. The story of David and Jonathan shows us that there is a deeper type of friendship. A friendship that is not based on what you can get from a person but out of love for that person.

Challenge yourself to not be a taker in relationships, but to love others for who they are and be a good friend!

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Surviving Summer Vacation

Posted on June 15, 2015

Teen Devotion on Surviving Summer Vacation

Summer vacation can be a little rough at times. Perhaps you’re crammed into a car with your brothers and sisters and have to drive half-way across the country to see some old monument that you could honestly care less about. Or perhaps, you’re stuck driving your little brother to all his baseball games, when you’d rather just be hanging out with your friends. Whatever the case may be, we know that summer vacation can feel long, boring, and less than awesome at times, so we’ve put together a few tips to help you survive summer vacation.

  1. Pay attention to what you say.
    It can be easy to get mad at  your brother or sister because of something they did. You can want to lash out at them and call them a horrible name or tell them you hate them. However, your words are really powerful. They can cause hurts that you never intended. So spend a little extra time thinking about the words that you speak.

    The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences. – Proverbs18:21

  2. Have a good attitude.
    There may be times during summer vacation that you are forced to do something that you’d rather not do. In those times, you can choose the attitude you will have. So choose to be happy!

    Rejoice in the Lord always- delight, gladden yourselves in Him: again I say, rejoice! – Philippians 4:6

  3. Get creative.
    You might be stuck at home or bored out of your mind. Use the time to find something creative to do. Build your little brother a fort out of cardboard boxes. Try baking something new. Invite your friends over for a water balloon fight. Just get creative and find out of the box ways to keep yourself entertained.
  4. Spend some extra time in Bible study and prayer.
    If you’re bored in a car, at your house or at your brother’s baseball game, spend the extra time reading your Bible. Download an app for your phone, or use the good old fashioned paper Bible. Whatever works for you, just spend some time reading the Bible and getting excited to know God deeper.

Summer vacation can sometimes feel like its not going your way. You might feel like you’re not able to do all the things you want to do. Don’t spend too much time getting sad or upset. Rather, focus on keeping a good attitude and choosing to be happy regardless of what is going on around you.

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Why Should You Guard Your Heart

Posted on June 10, 2015

Devotion on Why You Should Guard Your HeartWe put a lot of emphasis on guarding our bodies. We buy shin guards in soccer, mouth guards for football. We wear helmets when riding our bikes. We do everything we can to keep our bodies safe and healthy. We spend tons of money every year for things that keep us safe. However, many times we give very little thought to guarding our heart.

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. – Proverbs 4:23

This verse tells us to guard our heart above all else. That means we should make it more important. It should be more important than guarding our body. Guarding your heart means protecting it and not giving it away too easily.

A few years ago I was on a missions trip and I carried a large amount of money and my passport everywhere I went in a secret pouch under my clothes. I always knew where that money was because it was important to me and I was guarding it. When you guard something you take care of it. You know its important and you don’t want anything to happen to it.

Many times in dating relationships we don’t guard our hearts. We give away too much of our heart to someone we don’t know that well, and don’t have any safeguards in place to keep our hearts from being hurt. Your heart is an important part of you, and its too valuable to get destroyed by relationships that aren’t right. So here are a few safeguards to put into place in your relationships.

  1. Guard your words. – Pay attention to what you say. Don’t promise too much or say things that you aren’t going to carry through on. You can hurt your heart and the heart of others by the words you speak. Choose to speak words of life to others.
    “Those who love to talk will experience the consequences, for the tongue can kill or nourish life. ” (NLT) – Proverbs 18:21
  2. Guard your imagination. Its easy to get carried away in a dating relationship. You might go on three dates and think you’ve found the ‘one’. In your imagination, you’ve named your first three kids and have decided what your house will look like. However, this isn’t healthy. Its not good to spend lots of time imaging a relationship and where its going. You can set yourself up for heartbreak if you don’t guard what you allow yourself to dwell on.
  3. Guard who you date. Don’t just date anyone. Make sure their values line up with yours. Make sure they feel like you do about important issues. Don’t just date someone because they like you. Make sure you have common ground.
  4. Guard your purity. Don’t give this away. Wait until you’re married. Giving up your purity is a great way for you to experience heartbreak.

Make sure you put some safe guards on your heart. Don’t give your heart away too easily to someone. Be sure that you’ve taken the time to get to know them and that you’ve prayed about the relationship. The more effort you put into guarding your heart and making wise decisions in your dating choices, the less heartbreak failed relationships will bring.

If you need some encouragement from God when it comes to your relationships, we’ve put together an awesome set devotions to strengthen your walk with God. You can download them below.

 

What a Yo-Yo Can Teach You About Your Relationship With God

Posted on June 8, 2015

What a yo yo can teach you about your relationship with GodJune 6th was a holiday called national yo-yo day. If you’re like most people, June 6th probably came and went for you without a lot of celebration for the little known holiday. However, we’d like to shed some light on this under appreciated holiday and show how it can influence your relationship with God.

The day is celebrated on the birthday of Donald Duncan from Duncan Toys who was responsible for helping the yo-yo gain much of its popularity.

If you’ve ever used a yo-yo, you know its not always as easy as it looks. I remember trying and trying to get mine to go down and come up right. With some practice I actually got the hang of it, and experimented with some tricks.

I think a lot of times in our walks with God, it can often feel like a yo-yo. We have a good day when we read the Bible and get a lot out of it. Then a few days later we read and can’t even remember what we read. Or maybe we go to a youth camp and get really excited about God, but when we get home, we start getting involved with our friends and what’s going on, and we start to forget about God. Simply put, it can feel lots of times like your relationship with God is like a yo-yo. There’s lots of ups and downs.

Here’s something to think about if you feel like you’re in an up or down swing in your relationship with God. Here’s a great secret: to have a successful relationship with God you can’t let emotions be your indicator. You might feel goosebumps when you read the Bible one day and absolutely nothing the next. This doesn’t mean that God has left or that there is something wrong with you.

Indeed, our lives are guided by faith, not by sight. – 2 Cor 5:7

We are encouraged to not walk by what we see or feel but to walk by faith. So if there’s a day when you don’t feel excited about reading your Bible, or that you got much out of it, don’t get discouraged and give up. Rather continue to walk by faith and not be moved by what you see or your feelings.

What a Thrown Away Apple Computer Can Teach Us About Value

Posted on June 3, 2015

Devotion on self-esteem from apple 1 computer

Image Credit: Ed Uthman Wikimedia Commons

If you’ve been watching the news recently, you’ve seen some talk about an Apple computer that someone threw away. The crazy thing about the computer was that it was worth about $200,000. The computer the person threw away was one of the first Apple computers made and only about 50 of original computers exist still today.

The lady who threw the computer away didn’t realize the value of the computer. She thought it looked like junk and she discarded it. She had no idea she was getting rid of a $200,000 computer. View Article.

Lots of times this is a lot like how we view ourselves. We often get down on ourselves because of something dumb we said or did. We might not feel that we look the right way or have the right friends. This leads us to want to treat ourselves like junk, instead of realizing the true value we have.

See our value isn’t in what we do, what we wear or who we hang out with. Our true value comes when we realize what we’re worth. We find that worth in what the Bible says about us.

It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. – 2 Cor 3:5 (NLT)

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. – Eph 2:10

The Bible has lots of great things to say about your value. You’re important and created to do good things. So when the feelings come that say you’re not worth much or that you’re junk, remember that to God you have great value.

 

What a cat on a diving board can teach us about obeying Jesus

Posted on June 1, 2015

devotion for teens cat on a diving boardMost cats hate getting wet. If a cat was out on a diving board, it was most likely forced to be there. Have you ever felt like that cat when you’ve been challenged with something that Jesus asked you to do? You wanted to do it, but felt stuck, not moving forward? Do you currently feel like a cat on the edge of a diving board afraid to leap off into the unknown?

Many times, when we are challenged with something Jesus asks us to do, it can seem scary. However, if Jesus is asking us to do something, its for our good.

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In John 2, there is a story that talks about Jesus at a wedding. The workers at the wedding were challenged by Jesus’ mother to do whatever He told them to do.

His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” – John 2:5

Those workers probably felt a lot like that cat on the diving board. They weren’t sure they wanted to move forward with what Jesus asked them to do. It seemed like a lot of work, and it really didn’t make any sense to them. They needed some encouragement from Jesus’ mom to move forward and take that leap.

That’s true a lot of times in our lives. Sometimes the things that Jesus asks us to do seem like a lot of work or like they don’t make sense. However, if we just believe and take the leap, we’ll experience a miracle.

The guys at the wedding experienced a miracle. They saw water turn into wine. In the same way, God has miracles and great things for you to experience in your life. They key to experiencing those things is to take that first step and do what it is that Jesus is asking you to do.

So challenge yourself to not sit at the end of the diving board, but to dive right in. God’s got good things waiting for you when you do.

 

CLOSED for now (a lesson on abstinence)

Posted on May 26, 2015

Devotion for teens on abstinence

I can remember it clearly. I was eleven years old riding in the passenger seat with my mom. I thought I was helping her get the weekly groceries, but to my surprise it became a discussion that was both embarrassing and eye opening. My mom gave me the ‘sex talk’. I tried to change the subject and told my mom that she didn’t need to explain anything to me because I already heard it before. What I didn’t realize was that I hadn’t heard the talk from a positive, Godly perspective. My whole perspective of sex took a different focus when I heard how wonderful sex could be and how it wasn’t something that God had intended to be negative or dirty.

My mom’s sex talk changed my focus from wanting to have sex as soon as possible to waiting until God brought the right person into my life. Here are a few of the things that stood out to me from my talk that day.

1. God created sex and intended for it to be good

Sex is not something that man made up, God did. He knew what He was doing and intended for a man and a women to enjoy sex in the context of marriage.

Let your fountain be blessed, and take pleasure in the wife of your youth. -Proverbs 5:18

Hearing this really helped me believe that God had good plans for my marriage and sex in marriage. If learned that if I could just wait for marriage, I could then have a lifetime of great sex and still know that I was being pleasing to God at the same time. How cool is that?

I held on to this hope for 22 years until I finally got married at age 33. There were a few times I struggled and was about to give up on my commitment to be sexually pure until marriage. However, it was this truth that one day it would all be worth it that kept me focused all those years on my goal.

2. When you have sex, you become one

Another point that my mom brought to my attention during the car ride was that when two people have sex, they become one.

And don’t you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, “The two are united into one.” – 1 Corinthains 6:16

When you have sex with someone you join your soul, mind and spirit to the other person. This can open up doors to the enemy that God never intended for you to deal with.

The talk I had that day with my mom in the car was pretty awkward for a pre-teen like myself, but it turned out to be a very positive motivator. It was at that moment I decided that I wanted to wait to have sex until I got married so that I could share that gift of with my wife alone.

Believe me, I was a normal hormonal teenager. So this decision wasn’t easy at times. But, looking back I’m very glad I did. I got to experience sex the way God intended it, just with my wife.

God created sex and intends for it to be great. However, this plan is accomplished by keeping it in marriage. Whether you had sex in the past or waited up to this point, choose to not have sex until marriage. You’re CLOSED for now.