Last Lessons #62 - TEENS

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”   John 3:16

The decisions we make in the teen years usually determine the rest of our lives.  Whether we go to college, whether we get married early, who we hang out with, what we give our lives to, are all things that will decide our future.  My teen years definitely determined my life.

1. Statistics show that most Christians come to faith as teenagers.  That was true for me.  As so many churches do, my Presbyterian church had youth camps in the summer.  For any of you who know Florida, I was at Camp Olena on the Suwannee River at a week-long youth camp when I was sixteen years old.  I had been in church and Sunday school as a child, but it was when my own pastor preached to us one night and said simply that Jesus Christ died for my sins and rose again so that I could have eternal life with him, that God touched me in a special way, and I knew I was born-again.  I felt different.  When I returned home, my mother said, “You seem different, Rosemary.”  I was different!  

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”  Psalm 119:10

“The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.”  Psalm 119:130

2. As a new person in Christ at sixteen, I wanted to know God, but for sure I was simple!  My church had made it clear that God reveals himself in the Bible, so, I decided to read the Bible through.  I set myself to read one chapter a day.  Now remember, I only had the King James Version in those days with all the “thee’s” and “thou’s”.  So, I started to read one chapter a day.  I got through Genesis and Exodus just fine, but Leviticus was another story.  It was so boring!  I didn’t understand much of what I read, but I had set my goal to read the whole Bible and so I ploughed through each day.  I was determined to do it, and it determined my life.  Do you know how long it takes to read through the Bible?  About three and a half years!  And I did it.  And when I finished, I was in the habit of reading the Bible every day and I wanted to keep it up.  I have done so all my life.  It has been the most influential activity in my life. 

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.”  Matthew 28:19-20

3. At age seventeen, I attended a city-wide youth rally for Presbyterians.  The main speaker was a missionary who had served in Africa.  I listened to him with rapt attention.  We were all standing around in a large gym and the missionary closed his presentation by asking for those of us who wanted to become missionaries to step into the circle so he could pray for us.  I do not know what prompted me, but I stepped into the circle.  I knew I wanted to be a missionary and that was that!  I did become a missionary, but that’s another story.

Three huge decisions made in my teens determined the rest of my life.  What lessons did God want to teach me?

1. That God saved me before the foundation of the world, but he made it real to me in history when I understood what Jesus Christ had done for me.  My salvation needed to be personal.  To be born again means to have a personal relationship with Jesus.  When a person is born of the Spirit you know it.  The Holy Spirit takes up residence in you and changes your life.  You become a new creation.  I pray that you are a new creation in Christ.  Ephesians 2:10
2. That God reveals himself in the Bible.  You can learn a lot about God from sermons, from other books, from nature, and from others telling you about him, but you can only really know God through the Scriptures.  In the Scriptures we learn what God does, what he wants from us, what he promises.  We learn his attributes – what he is like.  I hope you have a plan for reading through the Bible – at least once!  For your interest I put together some verses that describe the attributes of God and Kregel published it in 2003.  It is called Praying the Attributes of God.  and is available through Kregel, Rafiki, and Amazon.
3. That God has a plan for each person’s life.  It is true that his will is different in different phases of our lives, but you can trust that God knows what he is doing with every person.  That is so amazing to me.  How can God work out every detail for every life so that it ends in his glory?  But he does.  Not every person is meant to be a missionary, but every person does have a part to play in God’s plan for history.  That gives great comfort to me.  I hope it does to you too.