Trust the Lord completely, and don’t depend on your own knowledge. – Proverbs 3:5 (ERV)
You make tons of decisions everyday. You decide what to eat, what to wear, who you’re going to talk to at school, whether you do your homework or not and the list goes on.
Many times, its easy to simply not include God in the decisions you make. Its not like you don’t care about God, its just that its easy to get busy and distracted and forget how important it is to get God’s advice on things.
To really be a success in life, it requires complete trust in God. You’ve got to trust God’s plan for your life and that it is good. You’ve got to trust that God will bring it to pass in your life. This isn’t always easy, but it will set you up for success in the long run.
So today, choose to include God and get His wisdom when you’re making your decisions, you’ll find you’ll be at more peace as you do.
“Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! – Deut 30:19
It’s easy to not think that much about the choices you make every day. You might not think that choosing to skip practicing your instrument or skip reading your Bible matters that much. The truth is the choices you make each day matter a lot. They set the direction and the course for your life.
This Bible verse challenges you to choose godly things and choose life. If you want to experience the best in life, you need to daily choose to follow after God. Following after God isn’t always the easiest choice, but it’s a choice that doesn’t bring heartbreak or regret.
Today’s Truth: The choices you make each day matter.
Choose today to make God first in your decisions. Choose to develop godly habits and do the things that God would have you to do. Decide today that you’re going to do what this verse says and choose life!
Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4 (NIV)
This verse has often been misunderstood. Many have thought that if they delight themselves in the Lord, every desire they’ve ever had would come to pass. However, this is not what this verse is saying. This is saying that when you delight yourself in the Lord, the things you desire begin to change. God begins to give you new desires.
The great news about getting desires from God is that you know those desires already are something He desires for you. If He gave the desire, He also wills for you to pursue it.
Just like anything, you need to test your desires to see if they are of God. The only way to know what God’s will of something is, is by seeing if it agrees with what the Bible already says on the subject. You might have a desire to go steal something, but you can see in the Bible that it says, “Thou shalt not steal…”. This makes this obvious that it’s not God’s will. However, if a desire is something that lines up with the Bible and the desire came as a result of truly delighting yourself in the Lord, you can trust that it’s a desire from Him. If the more you continue to delight yourself in God and the desire gets stronger, you can begin stepping out in confidence and head in that direction because you know that desire is from God.
Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us – Ephesians 3:20 (Holman)
Can you remember a time when your grandma asked you what you wanted for your birthday? Secretly, you really wanted a new phone, but you knew that was very expensive and there was no way you’d get it. So instead of telling her what you really wanted, you said you wanted a new hat or a shirt or something that cost less. Sometimes there’s a gap between what you ask for and what you think.
When it comes to presents, we ask for a shirt or a hat, but we want a new phone. We don’t want to offend the person asking us what we want, or maybe we know they can’t afford it, so we ask for something less than what we think we actually want.
It’s easy to fall into this trap with God too. Maybe you want to see some things changed in your life or to pray for really big things, but we treat God like we do with our grandma. We’re afraid to ask him and pray for big things. Today’s verse says that God wants to do more than we ask or think in our lives. So don’t be afraid to step out and see God move in big ways in your life.
Today’s Truth: God is able to do more in our lives than we can ask or think!
We have this hope as an anchor for our lives, safe and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain. – Hebrews 6:19 (Holman)
What keeps you steady when things get tough? Where do you turn when life isn’t going like you planned? What keeps you going when you feel like you can’t make it anymore?
That thing that keeps you going when all else seems lost is hope. Hope keeps us going when we feel we can’t make it anymore. Hope keeps us moving forward towards our dreams and calling when we don’t feel like it.
[Tweet “Don’t lose your hope. Hope keeps you going when you feel you can’t make it. – @studentdevos”]
Hope is what keeps us steady. The good news is that as Christians, our hope is in Jesus. If our hope is in Jesus, we know that it can’t be shaken. So no matter how tough what you’re facing might seem, you can take comfort in the fact that your hope is secure. Jesus has your back.
Always set an example for others by doing good actions. Teach with integrity and dignity. – Titus 2:7 (ISV)
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to be lazy? It’s so much fun to sit around, watch tons of Netflix and Snapchat all summer break. However, living your life for only fun and what feels good won’t put you on a path for lasting happiness or success.
One of the best decisions you can make is to daily live your life striving to do your best. Daily try to push yourself to do better. It could be learning something new, reading a book, or helping someone out. When you make doing your best in everything your goal, the other things will follow.
Whatever your dream may be, striving to be an example and the best version of yourself each day will help you get there. Choose today to set laziness aside and you’ll find that you can accomplish something truly great for God.
“Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young, but be an example for the believers in your speech, your conduct, your love, faith, and purity.” – (1 Timothy 4:12 GNT)
I remember the summer after youth camp that I found this Bible verse. It was life-changing for me. I began to see that as a young person, God wanted to use me. I got the revelation that I didn’t have to wait until I was an adult, I could start making a difference in the world right now.
Perhaps you feel like you are too young or don’t know enough to make a difference for God. However, that is not the case. What you know is enough. You are not too young to be used in a big way by God.
Challenge yourself to be a leader this new year. Decide that you’re not going to just sit back and let life happen to you, but that you’re going to stand up and make a difference in the lives of those around you. Choose to be an example of God’s love to the people around you.
If you’d like to read more about leading as a teenager, check out the devotions below!
Have you ever been lost? I remember a time when I got lost on a missions trip with my youth group. Two of my friends and I got into a taxi. Our missionary tried to give our taxi driver the address where we were going, but the taxi driver didn’t want to listen. He insisted he would just follow the taxi in front of him that had the rest of our group. The taxi got going, but as we got to a busy intersection, our taxi driver began following the wrong taxi. He drove us all over town and followed the wrong taxi to a house.
When he stopped, he tried to tell us to get out. We didn’t speak the same language and we kept trying to tell him that we didn’t want to get out, that he had followed the wrong taxi. He just stared at us and looked confused. We kept trying to think of ideas to tell him to take us back to the train station where we had been picked up from. Finally, we all began making train noises, we honked and made choo-choo sounds until at last, he understood.
He took us back to the train station and we waited there until the rest of our youth group came back to find us.
Sometimes the idea of discovering God’s purpose for your life can make you feel lost, just like I was lost on my missions trip. You might feel like you don’t know where to go and you’re afraid to make the wrong turn or follow the wrong taxi. However, following God’s plan for your life doesn’t have to be difficult or confusing. God wants to show you your purpose.
Discovering Purpose Takes Time Alone With God
Proverbs 20:27 – The spirit of a man is the lamp of the lord searching all the inner depths of his heart
God wants to reveal things to you about your future. However, God isn’t going to show you those things using Snapchat, Musical.ly, Instagram or any other social media platform, but wouldn’t it be nice if he did? God reveals things to you in your spirit. And it’s not complicated: to hear God you’ve got to get quiet and listen. That’s hard sometimes, social media is way more fun than reading your Bible and prayer. However, God wants to talk to you and reveal things to you. You’ve just got to get quiet to listen to your spirit.
The key to discovering your divine destiny and purpose is simple: Realize God wants to speak to you about your future.
When you have that truth solidly in your heart it will make the process of discovery easier. God wants to show you His plans for your life. He wants to help you make good decisions about your future. God speaks those truths to your spirit. So if you’re quiet and willing to listen, God will show you the next step to take.
For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. – Jeremiah 29:11 (NLT)
God has plans for you. And he wants to show them to you. All you have to do is spend some time seeking God. If you started dating someone, you’d want to spend time with them to get to know them better. You’d want to know all their hobbies, their dislikes, likes, hopes, and dreams. Developing a relationship with God is no different. It’s all about spending time getting to know God. As you spend time in the Bible and in prayer you’ll get to know the things God likes and His hopes and dreams for you.
More than anything, God wants to help you make the right decisions – so involve Him in the decision-making process. Choose to spend time getting to know Him and letting Him speak to your spirit about your future.
We put a lot of weight on what we do for a career, so much that it often becomes our identity. You’ll see adults that introduce themselves by saying something like, “I’m Lydia and I’m a doctor”. In society, a lot of weight is placed on your career. It’s important to remember that our purpose or career is not our identity. Our identity is found in Jesus. We need to find out what Jesus says about us in the Bible. We need to let who we are in Christ become our identity.
[Tweet “Jesus is your identity, not your career – @studentdevos”]
What you do for God is never as important as for you to discover your identity in Christ. Your career isn’t your identity. Jesus is your identity.
Dear friend, I pray that you may prosper in every way and be in good health physically just as you are spiritually. – 3 John 1:2 (Holman)
God wants you to prosper in every area of your life. He’s more concerned with you knowing who you are in Christ than He is about what you end up doing as a career. So take some time in the discovery process to focus on the things God says about you. Realize that God wants you to prosper in every way.
Have you ever discovered a new game? I remember when I was a kid my grandma taught me a new card game. The first few times I played, I wasn’t very good. It took me some time to learn the rules and discover strategies that would help me win. Once I had played the game a few times, I began to win. The more I played, the more I learned and the better I got.
The same is true with our giftings. We don’t always know what we’re gifted at right away. You’ve got to learn and discover the things you’re good at. You might try out for band and realize you hate music. You might go out for volleyball to discover you’re not athletic. That’s ok. Part of discovering what you’re good at requires learning what you’re not good at. Keep at it, keep trying to learn and discover your giftings.
[Tweet “Part of discoving your giftings requires learning what you’re not good at – @studentdevos”]
You might realize that you really like helping with the children’s ministry at your church, but you hate working with the media team. That’s ok. You’re in the process of discovery. You’re learning more and more all the time about what your giftings are. Get involved at your local church. Begin to serve and you’ll start to see the things you’re good at and the things you’re not that good at. It’s all part of the learning process. The more you learn the better you’ll get!
Discovering purpose takes some effort. It requires spending time with God, and learning about yourself and your giftings. The good news is that God wants to show you your purpose. If you choose to spend time with Him and listen, He’ll speak to your spirit and show you the next steps to take.
If you’re a youth leader, you can download discussion questions to go with this devotion in our youth leader resource area.
As a teenager, you might not really think about your habits much. But, you probably have tons of habits. You might have a habit of getting up in the morning a certain way. Or a habit of eating something a certain way.
I have this crazy habit of eating Nutter Butter cookies. I take two cookies, open each cookie sandwich up, and scrape out the peanut butter. I then re-stack the cookie using only two of the four cookies and all of the peanut butter filling. This makes a mountain of a cookie with lots of good peanut butter filling. Its so good!
Sometimes, habits can be weird, like how I eat Nutter Butter cookies. Other habits are boring and some habits are good and others are bad. Regardless of how habits are characterized, let’s look at a few things that habits have in common.
Truth One – Habits are Hard to Break.
Habits can be really hard to break, especially if you’ve been doing them for a long time. Maybe you have a habit of cracking your knuckles and it drives your mom crazy. So you try really hard to quit, but it seems like you always forget and crack them anyway. Habits are tough to break. Over time, they’ve become a part of who you are and it makes it much harder to break them when you find a bad one.
A bad habit never disappears miraculously. It’s an undo-it-yourself project. – Abigail Van Buren
Have you ever had a habit that was really hard to break?
To break a habit, it takes a lot of hard work, but if you decide to do it and are determined, you can break any habit. Also, don’t discount God’s help in breaking a habit. Ask God for wisdom and he’ll show you creative ways you can break your habit.
The more bad habits you kick when you’re young, the freer and more fun you’ll have as you get older. Don’t waste any time, start working on those bad habits today!
Truth Two – Habits are hard work
Good habits don’t just appear in your life. As awesome as that would be, habits don’t just show up in your life. You’ve got to choose to work on the habits you’d like to have.
If you want to be more generous, you’ve got to spend time working on generosity. If you want to be more patient, you’ve got to practice patience in your life. A good way to do this, is to find some verses in the Bible that deal with the habit you’d like to see in your life. Read the verses and say the verses out loud daily, and put a copy of the verse in your locker at school or mirror at home. Getting God’s word into your heart is a good way to develop good habits.
Another practical thing you can do is to find some resources to develop the habit in your life. Perhaps your library has a book on your habit, or you can spend some time searching online to find tips to develop the habit. You can gain a lot of insight by simply looking for resources designed to help you develop good habits.
Regardless of how you develop the new habit, you need to realize that good habits aren’t going to just show up in your life. Just like an athlete has to practice hard to become good at their sport, you’ve got to spend time practicing and developing good habits in your life. Good habits don’t happen by chance, rather they’re developed through hard work and discipline.
Truth Three – Habits determine your destination.
Just because you want to get a certain level of success in life doesn’t mean that it will happen. Just desiring something will never get you to where you want to go. Your destination in life is determined each day by the habits you keep.
Habit is a cable; we weave a thread each day, and at last we cannot break it. -Horace Mann
You’ve got to put in work to get to where you want to go in life. High achievement doesn’t happen automatically. You’ve got to put some time in to developing habits that will help you reach the destination you desire in life.
If you want to do well in sports there are certain habits you must develop to get you there. If you never show up for practice and don’t eat right, you’ll never achieve as much as those who do. To be good at something, you’ve got to develop the habits you need for success.
This is why its so important to develop good habits while you’re young. As you get older, habits become harder to break. It also becomes harder to reach your destination. Choose to develop habits that will help you reach your goals.
Habits help you reach your dreams.
If you have a dream of becoming a musician, then begin to develop good habits of practicing music. If you want to be a writer, begin writing a little bit every night before you go to bed. Whatever it is that you dream of doing, the habits you work on now matter. They will take you toward your dreams or away from them.
People ruin their lives with the foolish things they do, and then they blame theLord for it. – Proverbs 19:3 (ERV)
Habits are really important. So choose today to make good habits in your life. Choose to not let life just pass you by, but rather put in the effort to develop good habits today.
[Tweet “Choose to put in the effort to develop good habits in your life today – @studentdevos”]
If you’d like to discuss this devotion with your youth group, we’ve got a PDF handout of discussion questions ready for you. Click below to add to cart.
Through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see–such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him – Colossians 1:16
As a student, it’s easy begin to wonder what your calling is in life. You can begin to wonder what is next for you or how will God bring to pass the dreams that are in your heart.
These are all great questions and things to consider. However, it’s always good to check our motives when we’re praying and asking God our destiny. Many times we fall into the trap of asking God to bless our dreams and what we want to do, instead of asking God to show us what He would have us to do.
God created us. He knows us and loves us, He knows what will make us fulfilled and happy. In light of this, we should focus on building a thriving relationship with Jesus. As we spend time with Jesus we should ask Him what He wants us to do and what He created us for. Doing this will bring you lasting and true happiness.
[Tweet “True happiness comes from a relationship with Jesus – @studentdevos”]
As a teenager, you might not really think about your habits much. But, you probably have tons of habits. You might have a habit of getting up in the morning a certain way. Or a habit of eating something a certain way.
Through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see–such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him – Colossians 1:16