So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! – Hebrews 10:35 (NLT)

Have you ever accidentally thrown something important away? Maybe you had some history homework that you’d completed and were ready to turn it into school the next day. As you were getting ready for school in the morning, you realized it wasn’t in your backpack like you thought it was.

After a lot of hunting, you found it….IN THE TRASH! You realized that you had accidentally put it in there with a bunch of other things you were throwing away.

Today’s Truth: Confidence in God Has Great Reward

It’s easy to accidentally throw something away. However, we want to make sure that we don’t do that to our confidence in God. When bad things happen to you in life you can want to throw away your confidence in God. When you get busy focusing on friends and relationships it’s easy to throw away your confidence in God.

So today, determine that you’re going to make God a priority in your life. Don’t let circumstances and things stop you from putting your confidence in God. As you do, you’ll realize that confidence in God has great rewards!

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” – Matthew 11:30 (NIV)

Do you ever feel like if you choose to follow after God it will make things more difficult? Maybe you think that your friends will stop liking you. Or that you’ll have to stand up for God when He’s being made fun of at your school. And you don’t really want to do that, so you choose to live your life on the fence.

Now God didn’t promise in His word that He’d keep you from persecution. However, knowing God and standing up for Him is rewarding. It’s not easy, but it is worth it.

Today’s Truth: Standing Up For God Isn’t Always Easy, BUT it is Always Worth it.

God’s burdens are lighter than doing life by yourself in your own strength. When you try to do things in your own strength and your own ability, you’re often left feeling disappointed and upset. If you want true contentment, it’s found in chasing after God.

Taking God’s burden and yoke isn’t always fun, but it is more fulfilling and easier than doing things alone in your own strength. So today, choose to chase after God. Get to know Him and realize that His burden is easy and His yoke is light!

The LORD says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you. – Psalm 32:8

It can be easy to think that God doesn’t really have your best interests at heart. You might find it hard to trust Him because you worry that if you totally submit your future to Him, He will make you do something you don’t want to do. So instead, you look to friends for validation and for your future.

However, today’s verse tells us something interesting. It tells us that God wants to lead you along the best pathway for your life. God doesn’t want to make you do something you don’t want to do or make you give up something. Instead, He wants to advise you and watch over you.

Today’s Truth: God Wants to Help You Make the Best Choices

God wants to help you make the best choices. He wants to keep you on track and help you avoid heartache. So today, choose to follow after Him. Don’t look to friends for validation and making choices for the future. Instead, look to God. He wants to lead you into the best decisions and the best path for your life!

For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. – Romans 1:20 (NLT)

Often in life, we chase after things. We chase after friendships, popularity, or possessions. The things that we chase sometimes consume us to where it’s really all we can think about.

However, if we want affirmation that truly lasts the test of time, we’ve got to chase affirmation in something that doesn’t change. And that something is God. God created the world, He created you, and He loves you. From the beginning of time until now, He’s been chasing you because He wants to know you.

Today’s Truth: Chase Contentment Found in Your Creator

So instead of chasing things that change and chasing things that won’t stand the test of time, consider chasing something else. Chase after God. Chase your creator, get to know Him, and realize that He will give you the validation and fulfillment that you truly crave.

Don’t let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator. Honor him in your youth before you grow old and say, “Life is not pleasant anymore.” – Ecclesiastes 12:1 (NLT)

The day I turned 16 and got my driver’s license was a great day! I was so excited to finally be driving. I remember sitting alone behind the steering wheel of my vehicle feeling both a little scared and also really excited. Learning how to drive, like many experiences you have as a teenager can be really exciting.

However, today’s Bible verse tells us in the middle of those exciting experiences to not forget God. That means we’re to draw close to God at all times, in the good, bad, and even normal times of your life.

It’s easy to forget about God as you’re going about your daily life. Remembering God takes work. However, putting God first in your decisions and experiences will pay off in the end. When you put God first, you will avoid a lot of heartbreak and failure. So even though it takes some effort, including God in your daily life is worth it in the long run.

Today choose to put God first in your decisions, relationships, and experiences. Choose to step out of what is easy and do what is right. Determine to pursue God in all you do.

For every house has a builder, but the one who built everything is God. – Hebrews 3:4 (NLT)

You might have a textbook or seen a book that promotes evolution and states how man and the world around us evolved into what it is today.

However, in the Bible, we see a different story. In the Bible, we see the design of God. We see God’s plan and how He created the world with a purpose. The world is too complex and the organisms in it are too complicated to have just happened due to chance.

Every house and building has a builder. You don’t assume that a house happened by chance. Instead, you know that someone spent time building it and planning it.

The same is true for us. Someone had to put us together. The complexity in each of our cells screams that we are not accidents. We have been created by God and God wants to know us in a deep and real way. So today, challenge yourself to really think about what it means that you’ve been created. That means that someone cared enough about you to put you here in the time in history that you’re at. That someone knew that you had something this world needed and that you have value because He created you.

Don’t believe that you’re not important. Instead realize that you and the people around you are important to God because He took the time to make them so wonderfully complex.

Work with enthusiasm, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. – Ephesians 6:7

It can be really easy to fall into the trap of pleasing others. It’s easy to want to make other people happy and never let them down. However, there’s really only one person you should be trying to please, God. In your work at school or on the job, everything you do, you should be giving it your all.

You should be striving to work with enthusiasm and giving as much as you can. So no matter how much you hate school or your job, remember that you’re working for God. Let Him shine through everything you do. Look for ways to do your best and work hard.

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You’ll be glad you put in the extra effort. Choose today to be a person that works for God, not for men.

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, – Gal 5:22 (NLT)

Have you ever tried to build character in your life, but failed? Maybe you tried really hard to stop being unkind, but the more you focused on trying to not do it, the worse it got, and the more unkind you were.

Trying to do the right thing and build character in your life can be challenging. Even though it’s not always easy to be a person of character, it’s the right thing to do. So how do we go from being unkind to kind? How do we get from being upset to being at peace? How do we let these fruit of the spirit rule our lives?

The answer is in focusing on the Holy Spirit. This verse says that the Holy Spirit produces fruit in our lives. So instead of focusing on how many times you mess up each day by not being patient or kind, focus instead on God. Realize that He has put His Holy Spirit in you and with His help you can work toward being kind. You don’t have to work on being kind on your own, rather you have a helper to partner together to do it.

Choose today to believe that you’ve got what it takes to be a person that is loving, full of joy, and living out the fruit of the spirit. Focus on God and realize that with His help, you can develop godly character!

God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? – Numbers 23:19 (NIV)

Yesterday, we talked about how people can often let us down. Our friends can disappoint us. When friends let us down, it can be really hard. However, we can’t take the let down from friends or other people in our lives and put that onto God. God is not human. He doesn’t change His mind.

God doesn’t one day like you and say you have value, then the next day after you sin big and lie to your mom decide that you’re no longer valuable. No. God always thinks you’re valuable. He always sees your best.

Today’s Truth: God Will Always Come Through For You

God isn’t like a friend or parent who promises something really big and then isn’t able to come through with the promise. God isn’t like that. When you see a promise in God’s word, you can count on that promise coming to pass. God’s word is always truth!

People can let us down. There is no doubt about that. God can’t. He always comes through for His kids. So today, if you’ve questioned the goodness and the dependability of God, know that He cares for you. Boost your confidence in His goodness and His ability to do what He says He will do. God will always come through for you!

As for us, we have all of these great witnesses who encircle us like clouds. So we must let go of every wound that has pierced us and the sin we so easily fall into. Then we will be able to run life’s marathon race with passion and determination, for the path has been already marked out before us. – Hebrews 12:1

Have you ever wanted to do big things for God but were always held back? Sometimes, we let sin, fear, or wounds stop us from doing the things God has called us to do. In today’s Bible verse, we are encouraged to let go of the wounds and sin and to run the race God has set before us.

Many of the heroes in the Bible had to do this. They had to lay aside their fears, sins, and wounds to do the things God had called them to do. This doesn’t mean that they were perfect, but rather that they believed what God said about them.

Today’s Truth: What Do I Need to Let Go Of to Trust God?

In the areas where they felt weak and like they fell short, those Bible heroes trusted God. They knew God was the one to make up the difference. If you’re going to do big things for God, you’re going to have to lay some things aside. Once you stop looking at things other people have said or done to you, it frees you up to run your race for God.