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Track 3 (Lesson #2) – What Makes The Bible Different?

Posted on November 10, 2014

Track 3 (Lesson #2) – What Makes The Bible Different?

Its important to become besties with the Word. The Bible isn’t a history or self-help book, but it has the power to change your life. Challenge yourself to get into reading the Bible and fall in love not just with Jesus but also with the Word of God.

Main Points

  • The Bible was written by many different people but still has the same theme (God’s plan to redeem or buy man back)
  • The Words in the Bible are inspired by God
  • The Bible has the power to change your life!

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Growth Scriptures

Here are a few scriptures that show what makes the Bible different.

Youth Leader Resources

If you’re a youth leader and would like to use this discipleship track for your youth group, download our Youth Leader Resource pack for this lesson! It comes with promotional material, a lesson outline based on the video above, powerpoint slides and discussion questions. This pack is a sure fire way to get your youth group established in the Word!

 

Why Your Words Are Like A GPS

Posted on May 7, 2014

20130913-190714.jpgHave you ever used a GPS? Its a pretty neat invention. You can speak or program a destination into it and then it will devise a route for you. What we don’t realize is that every day we are programming our direction in life by the words we speak- whether consciously or unconsciously.

For example, you get ready to take a test and say “I’ll probably fail this” and you are shutting yourself down from doing your best. Or you may say “nobody likes me” and the result of that will be that your downcast attitude repels people from you so you get what you say.
How about on purpose, saying what you WANT, not what you feel?
If you want energy to win as an athlete or a musician you can say “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” Phil 4:13

Pro 18:20 says “A man’s belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; he shall be satisfied with the product of his lips.” This isn’t talking about the food you eat as much as the words you speak (although the size of your belly does indicate what you’re putting into your mouth as well!) You live with the consequences of the words you think and speak just like you live with the consequences of what you eat by the size of your belly.

Set your life for success by thinking before speaking and then speaking faith-filled words of what you want to see. It’s really pretty easy to understand and with practice, you can learn to say only those words that you want to see happen.

To do: Start listening to your speech. What are you saying that you don’t want happening in your life? What aren’t you saying that you wish was happening? As easy as programming a GPS, you can program your life for success.

Prayer: Thank You Lord for giving me a mouth that I can set the course of my life. I want to speak the words that will cause the plan you have for me to succeed. I want to bring You glory with my thoughts, my words and my actions today. Direct me and correct my words and thoughts today.

Similar Devotions for Teens

 

Learning to Like Yourself

Posted on October 18, 2013

Teen DevotionsLearning to like yourself is really hard sometimes. You can watch your friends on Facebook and see their profile and start to think, man I wish my life was more like theirs. Its easy to start comparing what you have and who you are to them and begin to feel like you don’t measure up to them.

Liking yourself and having a good self-esteem can be really challenging. So how do you begin liking yourself when you feel like you don’t measure up to those around you?  We’ve got some suggestions below to help boost your self-esteem.

  1. Do a reality check – This can be really tough to do, but take a realistic look at your situation.  You might feel like no one really cares about you, but is that really true? Its easy many times to let something someone said or did make you think that no one cares about you.  More than likely, you have a ton of people who really do care about you.  You have parents, siblings, grandparents, and most importantly God that care about you.  So when you think you’re all alone and that no one cares, do a reality check and realize that in reality you have people that care about you.
  2. Check your thoughts –  Its easy to get into a negative pattern of thinking about yourself.  You can start to believe lies that you’re worthless, or that your life doesn’t matter.  In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth.  When these thoughts come, recognize them for what they are…lies.  Take the necessary steps to switch your thoughts from negative patterns of thinking to ones that are positive.  The Bible says in Philippians 4:8 (NLT) “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable.  Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Checking to make sure your thoughts are good ones is an important step to winning the battle for your self-esteem.
  3. Choose to see yourself like God sees you –  Decide to begin to see yourself like God sees you.  He doesn’t see you as a failure, as a loser or as anything bad you might think you are.  He sees you as important.  You’re so important that if you were the only person in the world he would have sent his son to die for you.  Your life matters to God.  He knows everything about you, and cares about everything that is important to you. God thinks so much about you that the Bible says his thoughts about you can’t be numbered.  Psalm 139:17 (NLT) – “How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.  They cannot be numbered!” I can count pretty high, so the idea that God thinks about you so much that those thoughts can’t be numbered just goes to show He cares about you a ton and a half. So, decide to see yourself like God sees you.  Choose to base your worth on how God feels about you.

I believe that these tips can help you with learning to like yourself.  The battle for your self-esteem is very real, but I believe that with God’s help, you can come out and win this fight!

Check out the song: Gold by Britt Nicole

Here’s a great book for you to read too: You Are God’s Best!: A Classic on Human Value

Tips For Dealing With Bullying

Posted on August 29, 2013

Bullying is becoming more and more common these days among teenagers. In fact, one in four kids in the U.S. are bullied on a regular basis according to bullyingstatistics.org. So more likely than not, you or someone you know has felt the effects of bullying.

Teenage Bullying Devotional

So what are some things you can do to help combat bullying in your school?

  1. Pray – it sounds absolutely crazy, but sometimes the best thing to do in these situations is to pray. Pray that God will give you wisdom to know how to deal with the situation. Pray for those who are bullying that God will open their eyes to see what it is they’re doing (Eph 3:17-23)
  2. Love – this is super crazy. It does work. Walking in love is a great way to combat bullying. If you respond in love, it gives the bully no fuel to the fire. Kill them with kindness, it works.
  3. Tell – If someone is being abused physically against their will, you are justified in telling a teacher, principal or faculty member at your school.
These are a few suggestions to help with dealing with bullying in your school. Never underestimate the power of praying for those who are bullying others. More than likely, the person bullying is really hurting inside. You might be the person that God could use to help heal them. You may even end up with the opportunity to lead them to Christ!

 

What Text Messages Can Teach Us About Creation

Posted on May 27, 2013

Most of us would agree that the story of creation is a pretty neat one. But what does that story have to do with our everyday lives? Its neat that God created man, trees, animals and tons of great stuff for us to enjoy. But how does that impact our daily lives?

Here’s a few reasons why the creation story has power in your day to day life:

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  • It shows us that we are created as a reflection of God. (Gen 1:26-27) – God created us with a special plan in mind. We have a spirit and can fellowship with God. Its kind of like we’ve got God’s phone number and can send him a text whenever we want. We’re able to be in constant contact and talk to Him all the time. We’re able to get His ideas and thoughts as we live out our lives each day.
  • We see that we choose our own fate –  God didn’t create a bunch of clones or robots. He created us to be able to choose to talk to Him. Its like we have God’s number and are able to send Him a text any time we want to hear what He is saying to us. Its just up to us to choose to take advantage of having his number. You can either talk to Him and make His words important in your life or not. Its up to you. You choose to follow God, just like Adam chose.
  • Adam messed up, but God had a plan. – Even though Adam messed up in the garden by not choosing to obey God, God had a plan. He was getting ready to send His son Jesus into the world. God’s plan for getting mankind out of the mess we were in runs throughout the Bible. God has a plan for us to give us a way to be able to talk to Him.

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The creation story has more to show us that what we see on the surface. Its easy to just see the stuff being created and not realize there is a story and plan behind it. Knowing that plan will help us live lives that take advantage of what God intended, friendship with Him. Its also good to remember that talking to God is just as easy as sending a text to a friend. We can communicate directly to God because we were made in the image of God. Just like you can send a friend a text message, at any time you can talk to God at anytime. Its awesome to know that God wants to talk to us!

 

What Rollercoasters Can Teach Us About Self-Esteem

Posted on April 25, 2013

Teenage Devotion - Self Esteem

Riding a roller coaster can be exciting. There’s great big hills, drops and turns that keep your heart racing and you screaming at the top of your lungs. Roller coasters are a great mix of terror and fun.

Self-esteem can be like a roller coaster sometimes. One minute you’re having fun because someone popular thought something you did was funny. Later that day, you feel the terror of embarrassment because your mom came to pick you up from school wearing fuzzy bunny slippers.

Sometimes when it comes to how you feel about yourself, its like a roller coaster. You feel great one moment and down in the dumps about yourself the next.

With that in mind, we’re going to give you some tips to keep the roller coaster ride of self-esteem fun.

  1. Base your self-esteem on what God says – its easy to look only at others for finding your self-esteem. If your friends like you, your self esteem is good. If your boyfriend or girlfriend likes you, then you have good self-esteem. But what happens if your friends decide they don’t like you? Or what if you break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend? What happens then? Determine to base how you feel about yourself on what God says about you. God won’t ever break up with you or ditch you for someone better to hang out with. He thinks you’re the best!
  2. Focus on strengths – its easy to start comparing yourself to others. You can see someone who is better at something that you are and get down on yourself. If you decide to focus on your strengths rather than the areas you are weak, you’ll find you’ll like yourself better!
  3. Realize that a healthy self esteem takes work – Developing a self-esteem based on how God feels about you rather than what your emotions say takes time and work. Its a process of changing your thinking to line up with what God says about you. Don’t become discouraged if you don’t get it perfectly at first. Spend time reading good books to help you in this area and realize that it will take time to develop a healthy self-esteem.

God thinks you’re the best. Learning to rely on what he says about you, rather than how you feel about yourself will help you grow in developing a healthy self-esteem.

Success for Teens – Lesson #1

Posted on March 9, 2013

Success doesn’t happen automatically. It comes as a result of the habits and choices you make everyday. Check out this lesson based on principles from the book Success for Teens for some tips on how to be a success as a teenager.

180 Youth Group Assignment

  1. What was one thing you learned or liked from the video above? (Please put your answer in a comment below)
  2. Read Chapter 1 in Success for Teens or listen to it online
  3. If you haven’t already, like StudentDevos on Facebook

If you get time, check out this great song by Hawk Nelson – We can change the world

 

Success for teens – Lesson #4 (Small Steps)

Posted on March 7, 2013

Assignment

  1. What do you think about the concept of taking small steps everyday to reach your goals and dreams?
  2. Can you think of a time when you’ve gotten discouraged in the midst of going after a dream?
  3. What was something you liked from the video?

If you’d liked this lesson, you can listen to this chapter of the book, Success for Teens online.

Worship: Check out the song Activate by Stellar Kart

Success for Teens – Lesson #5 (Failure)

Posted on March 4, 2013

Youth Questions

 

  • What was something you learned from the video?
  • What is something that you’ve learned from a failure in your life?
  • What’s a positive way you can look at failure in the future?

 

If you liked this lesson on failure, you can listen to this chapter in the book, Success for Teens by the Success Foundation

Listen: Limitless by Planetshakers

 

Sucess for Teens – Lesson #6 (Habits)

Posted on March 3, 2013

Youth Assignment

  1. What was something you learned from the video lesson?
  2. What was a suggestion from the video you can apply to your life?
  3. What is one habit that you have that helps you grow?

 

If you liked this lesson, you can listen to more information about habits online from the Success Foundation.

 

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens This is an awesome book with great suggestions on how to develop good habits. The habits you develop can make or break you!

 

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