Devotion Talk 8/11/08

Tonight I read Acts 17.

^“3explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, ‘This is the Messiah, Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you.’ ”

Jesus needed to die. There is nothing we can do ourselves to ensure entrance into heaven! We can’t rely on good deeds! We can’t die ourselves. We cannot offer our God enough sacrifices to meet the sacrifice of his son’s life. We are vile sinners and the only thing that can stop that and give us entry into heaven is for somnebody perfectly sinless to die for our sins. So, God sent Jesus: a perfect being in his image, his son. And later Jesus died with the burden of an eternity of sins on his back. Can you imagine that? Dying with trillions of sins lying on your back, knowing that you were the perfect, holy, sinless one who came to Earth. Jesus did. The perfect sacrifice.

Devotion Talk 8/8/08

Sorry for the short absence.

Tonight I read Acts 16.

^“9During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ ¹⁰When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.”

God will show us who needs help. There are plenty of people who need to hear His message. How can we say, “Well I didn’t know that they needed my help.” If they needed help, God would have shown that they needed help. He would show their sorrow, he would send someone to speak to you, or even the person who needed help came up to Paul. We must be ever-vigilant when we are sharing our faith. God will make it clear as to who needs our help, but we must keep our eyes open. We need to be ready!

^“18She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, ‘I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.’ And it came out that very hour.”

God will give us the power. God will give us the strength. God will give us the humility. God will give us all we need to share our faith. With God anything is possible. If we believe in God and see that their is a demon co-existing in someone, we can say: “In the name of the one and only God, Jesus Christ, I order you to leave the body you are inheriting, demon.” Guess what’ll happen next? That demon will leave, and the person will want to hear the Word of God.

Devotion Talk 8/5/08

Sorry about last night. Computer was sorta inaccessible.

Tonight I read Acts 9.

“¹⁵But the Lord said to him, ‘Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; ¹⁶I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.’ “

This is a confirmation from God that we are  going to suffer in our fight to spread the Lord’s fame. The Lord says that he will will show Saul how much anybody must suffer in order to proclaim God’s glory. This is proof of the fact that we must DO HARD THINGS to glorify God. And when we do, we will be filled with the Holy Spirit, and be able to share our faith well and easily.

“²¹All who heard him were amazed…”

When we preach our faith to people, they will all be amazed. We don’t have to be the evil Saul before we preach this, even though we are. Saul was another sinner, just like you and me. For anybody to be able to preach the Gospel, it truly is amazing. When we preach the gospels to friends, classmates, and peers (younger and older,) they will find it amazing. Just like the people found Saul’s words amazing.

Devotion Talk 8/3/08

Tonight I read Acts 5.

^“1But a man named Ananias, with the consent of his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property; ²with his wife’s knowledge, he kept back some of the proceeds, and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. ³‘Ananias,’ Peter asked, ‘why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? ⁴While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God!’ ⁵Now when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard of it.”

This is a fine example of the danger of greed. Ananias had the responsibility to give his profit to the Church. He did not. When he was told of his sin, he was struck down by God. The guilt he felt that was inflincted by God was so powerful, that he died. We cannot be greedy with our faith. We need to be able to willingly share it with others. Also, we cannot be afraid of what said person will say or how said person will react. Even if it is someone you know is strongly follows his or her religion- the one you think is incorrect, you need to willingly approach them.

^“20‘Go, stand in the temple and tell the people the whole message about this life.’ “

A speaker sent by the Lord has sent us our mission. This commandment was not aimed just at the apostles, but all God’s followers. In John 17, Jesus prays: “²⁰‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.’ “

He prays that all the apostles, disciples, elder believers, adult believers, children believers, and teenage believers will be one and that we may be able to fill the world with impassioned believers of the one true God. This is what God calls us to do. To spread the good news!

Devotion Talk 8/2/08

Tonight I read Acts 2.

^“4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”

The idea I wish to show from this verse is that though we may not have been shaken and given the ability to speak every language, we have been given the opportunity from God, to learn the languages and to use the ability we receive from this opportunity to share the Gospel with those who have not heard it. This is one of the initiatives we need to take as teenagers to show that we are capable. We cannot wait forever for the Holy Spirit to come upon us. We must act. The farmer who prays for rain and prepares his field will get rain, and the farmer who prays for rain but does not prepare, will receive none.

^“36Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

We must let the entire house know. We must let the entire world know of the one true God. We must tell them of his sacrifices in order to secure us a place in heaven, because he loves us. This is what we must use while sharing faith. We can’t beat around the bush, gradually asking: “So, hey… How do you feel about this issue: _______?” Jesus could come back any day. We must be prepared. We must get everyone ready.

Devotion Talk 8/1/08

I will now start the new month with the beginning of a new book of the Bible.

Tonight I read Acts 1.

Two particular verses I feel are extremely important.

“8 ‘But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.’ “

This verse is the giving of our mission. We shall. Not we might or could. We shall. We will. We will be His witnesses wherever we go, whatever we are doing. Our challenge set by Jesus Christ is to witness to all we come in contact with. And again, pretaining to teens: It does not say “and you adults shall be my witnesses” We, the children of God shall be his witnesses, wheteher we are 10, 19, 35, 67, or 102,  if we believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are his witnesses to all the people of the world.

Second verse is Acts 1:11

“11 and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’ “

This is assurance from the Lord that Jesus will one day return and take us home. Well, that’s great! For us. We need to work to make it great for everybody, so that everybody will be taken home with Jesus to heaven. That is what we must live for. Not for ourselves.

We must exist “to make Christ famous by doing whatever we can, wherever we can, to fill the world with impassioned worshipers of the one true God.”

-Quoted from the TFC Vision Statement of Sovereign Grace Minsitries, Toms River, NJ

Devotion Talk 7/31/08

As the last of July, I see it fitting to make it the last day I spend in John. It also says so on my devotion reading plan. What a coincidence.

Tonight I read John 20.

The ressurection of Jesus: What a perfect way to end the Month! I think their is one particular verse that really pretains to us teens.

” ‘As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ “

-John 20:21b

Well some people would see this as: Okay… The Lord is sending out all the adults to spread the good news off Jesus’ ressurection. WRONG! Where in the Bible does it say that adolescents are not to be caring about these things and not to be doing things for God. God exhorts the teens as much as he does the adults. Why he even thinks of us as adults. The words “Adolescents” or “teenagers” do not occur in the Bible: Seen here & here.  We are just the same as them except we are shorter, our voices are higher, and we are undergoing tremendous changes, but that does not matter.

1 Corinthians 13:11 reads:

“11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”

“There is no when I was a teenager I reasoned like a child and looked like a man! We have to be men today and not spend our teen years: the best years of our life goofing off, which has been expected by the world today.”

-Alex and Brett Harris

I’m Back!

Sorry for that really long absence. I really couldn’t concentrate on this for some reason. I need prayer that I will be able to start this up again and not stop. Instead of my devotion, I feel I should renew this website’s ideas. I went to the Rebelution: Do Hard Things Conference this weekend. Alex and Brett Harris were basically my inspiration for starting this blog. I don’t know if my blog will ever get as large as theirs. (That would be nice) Although, I fight for the same purpose as them.  And that is to achieve higher expectations from the adults. One of my favorite things that the twins said was:

“We were searching ‘teens and expectations’ one day on Google one day, just to see what was expected of us. As we typed, we saw in the suggestion box: teens and drugs, teens and texting, teens and videogames, and teens and violence. Even Google has low expectations for teens! Anyway, we continued our search and came up with our results. The first sounded good: ‘Teaching Teens Responsibility by Setting Expectations.’ It sounded good, so we clicked on it. It started out saying how if the expectations for teens were higher, they would act with higher intelligence. Here are the lists of responsibilities:

‘Younger Teens:

• Have useful daily habits like making his/her bed and picking up his/her room.
• Cleaning his/her room – vacuuming, dusting, etc – weekly, with some parental help.
• Take phone messages and putting them where someone will see them.

Older Teens:

• Everything on the preteen list that you have not added before.
• Cleaning his/her room – vacuuming, dusting, etc – weekly.
• Doing a daily household chore, such as cleaning the dinner dishes, straightening the family room, swiping down the bathroom, etc.
• Helping with the weekly household chores.

Please do not feel that your teenager should be doing all of them. Pick and choose a few and add on as your teen is able to handle more responsibilities. Be sure to praise your teenager when he/she accomplishes his/her responsibilities. A simple hug and a “good job” will go a long way.’

Wow! They don’t expect anything of us do they?

The problem with the world today is that we are not expected of as much as the adolescents of the past. At the age of sixteen, George Washington was made a surveyor of the Fronteir: charting out and making plots for property. His equipment consisted of heavy logs and chains. Furthermore, George had to drag these along through a dense forest. He was expected to have a well paying job, not to be goofing off from age 13 to 18.”

The view of the teens’ ability has diminished over the course of two and-a-half centuries. Our mission is not to bring it back up to the standards of 1752, but to raise the standards high above. We are the Outliers and we must fight to be recognized as having greater ability than we are expected to have and to raise the expectations of people today.

Devotion Talk 4/3/08

Yesterday was my birthday. Got caught up.

Tonight I read John 17.

“4 ‘I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.’ “

THIS is a direct order from God to glorify him in all our works. We sometimes find it hard to do this because of all of Satan’s temptations. We need to fight lust, envy, pride, and just plain sin in all aspects of our life. We need to glorify God, because he was the one who gave us life. I don’t know f you have ever really thought deep about why God wanted to create us and a universe for us. He could have had a perfect realm to do what he pleased. But, he created us because he wanted someone to be in this universe with him to bring glory to his name. Our God is a jealous God. He wants the praise from us. While we show this praise, we are meant to help others to join the praise, because God is GOOD.

The rest of the chapter shows how much God loves and cares for us. Jesus prayed for us that we would remain in him and to be strong because the world will hate us for what we set out to do.

” 20 ‘My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.’ “

Devotion Talk 4/1/08

Tonight I read John 16.

The beginning seems to be a continuation of the last couple of verses of John 15. Jesus continues to tell us how we will be despised in this world by all followers of Satan. Again, we need to remain strong for God and what we believe in.

And after Jesus told this much all to his disciples, he rose into heaven as he told them how he would be back soon. Just because he left doesn’t give us the right to stop our good works and the spreading of the good news. HE is still working for us up there. We need to keep working for him to show him our love. He has showed his immeasurable love in so many ways. We cannot show how much we love him for his sacrifice, but we can attempt to make up for some of it.

The last verses (17-33) describe how Jesus will return. Praise the Lord, Jesus will return to take us home. This is good news. We are saved and soon, we will be taken home by our Lord and Savior. Can’t you wait. I can’t! I want to see Jesus in his glory! I want to know what he looks like. I want to see the scars in his hands and feet. HE BLED AND DIED FOR ME! I want to see his hands and feet. I don’t care if I don’t get to go to college before he takes me. Going to heaven is the thing I look forward to most. That is no April Fool.