TEEN CHALLENGE

  "Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I,     Here am I, send me." Isaiah 6:8     We must echo Isaiahs words of surrender; Here am I, send me. We must give God our best, our worst, our strength, our weakness, our victory and our failure, and allow Him to take us wherever His plan leads. We must follow and continue to follow. We must not 'go down to Egypt' and try to wait out our trials when God wants us to be moving on. We can't tell God we'll go, but not do what He wants us to do when we get there. We need to tell God, "I'll go. And I'll do what you want me to do when I get there."      Where does God want you to go that you won't? Africa? Soulwinning? Across the street to help your neighbor with their lawn? Someday God will stop asking you and He'll ask someone else to do what He wanted you to do. They'll have to do the work, but they will also get your blessing. We do...

      Our ultimate example of being willing to go? Our ultimate example for everything in the Christian life; Jesus Christ. People use a lot of excuses to not go when God says "Go."  "Those people are not serving God at all- they don't deserve my help." Jesus came to a world full of wicked sinners. He came to everyone. How can we not do the same?  "I couldn't leave my home and my family! God wouldn't ask me to do that!" Jesus left all of Heaven and His Father for us. Why shouldn't we do the same?  "It could be dangerous. I could be hurt- or killed!" Jesus was hurt and killed for us. How can we do anything less for Him?       Jesus left all of Heaven, His Father, and His throne for us. He sacrificed more than any human being ever has for the Gospels sake. Without Jesus there would be no Gospel. We lift up the Christians that have become martyrs for their faith- and well we should. But how much more should we lift the one who made t...

  "And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows." Exodus 3:7 "And Moses said unto the LORD, O my LORD, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken to thy servant: But I am slow of speech, and of slow tongue....And he said, O my LORD, send, I pray thee, by the hand of whom thou wilt send." Exodus 4:10, 13     The Lord came to Moses with a very special assignment. He wanted him to go down to Egypt and tell Pharoah; "Let my people go." And we all know that Moses did go, and he was used mightily of God. But we also know that Moses wasn't completely willing to go. He would go, but only on his terms.     He would go to Egypt, but he would not speak publicly. Sometimes we are the same way. We will do what God wants, but we won't do all that He wants. God can still use us as we do part of what He asked us to do, but He ...

 Over the next three weeks we are going to be studying four people who the Lord told to "Go". Then on the fourth week we will talk about how God has told us to go.    "Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee... So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him." Genesis 12:1,4b     Imagine this; God tells you, "I want you to leave the country and go serve me somewhere else."  You respond, a little frightened, "Where, Lord?"       He answers, "I'll tell you later."      Now you're shocked and terrified.  "You'll tell me later!? Lord, I can't just leave and not know where I'm going! I need to plan!"     "Don't worry. I'll take care of you."     You sigh and then say, "Alright, Lord."      This is what happened to Abram. The Lord said get up and go to where I say. Abram got up and left, just ...

This months devotional comes from Pastor Jerimiah  Mitchell  from Fairhaven Baptist Church in Chesterton, IN                                                                                    "But, Aren't Relationships Built on Trust?" Not too long ago I heard a preacher tell his audience that parents should know what their kids are doing and who they are doing it with.  In addition, parents should really limit what their children CAN do on the smartphone and should be in control of what is being done.   What do you think?  Was he right or wrong?   In this day in age, this type of preaching is not very welcome.  Young people are tempted to argue with this line of reasoning with responses like, "Our parents get into our business too much and it's ...