TEEN CHALLENGE

       "...know ye not that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." James 4:4     "I do not want everyone to like me. I should be ashamed if some people did." -Henry Jacob      Does the world love you? We know that the Bible says, "Love not the world" but it also says that we should be a peculiar people, and that the world will persecute us. If the world loves you, something is wrong. I don't mean that people should be screaming at you and throwing things when they see you on the street, but they shouldn't feel comfortable around you either. They should see you coming and know that you won't tolerate bad language or inappropriate jokes. They should know that you won't stand by and let them make fun of others. They should know that if they talk to you, they are going to hear about Christ.      Don't lower yourselves to the worlds standards to make them...

        We all have many relationships, whether thy be with our parents, our siblings, our friends, and whether they are good or bad, we still have them. Then there is the most important relationship- and the one we tend to forget about, our relationship with the Lord.      Do you truly desire to have a relationship with the Lord? Do you ask Him to give you a desire to walk with Him?      It is possible to be saved and not have a close relationship with the Lord. What if there was a married couple who never talked to each other? The seen each-other every day, they each seen evidence of the other one being around, but they really didn't know one another. They would speak to each other occasionally, but not enough to really know each other. How is this marriage going to end? Well, they will either live together quite miserable until one of them dies, or they will find someone else to have a relationship with, because they are not taking ca...

      My brother and I recently returned home from a week of camp in PA. While we were gone, my parents took care of both of our dogs for us. I noticed when I came home that my dog was not as quick to respond to my voice as she had been before I left. She would still listen to me, but I now had to give the command more than once. I also noticed that she responded to my mom' s voice more quickly than she had a week earlier. Now that I've been home for a few days my dog responds as quickly as she did before I left.     It's amazing how quickly the dog learned to respond to a different voice. I think we can do the same thing with the Lord. We stop listening to His voice, just for a short time, and we start listening to the world. We quickly learn to respond to the world's commands instead of the Lord's. It takes a very short time for our hearts to learn to respond to the wrong voice.       I was only away from my dog for 5 days. Imagine what it ...

     How do you identify which people you shouldn't be friends with? Now of course we should be friendly and polite to everyone, but there are people that you shouldn't be close friends with because they would be a bad influence on your life. The Bible tells us several characteristics that should be a warning to us that we should not be close to a person.       In Proverbs 22:24 it says, "Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go:" . If a person easily loses their temper, you shouldn't be with them all the time. You will not only be walking on eggshells every time you talk to them, but you will also pick up the trait yourself.      "A companion of fools shall be destroyed." Proverbs 13:20. Are your friends foolish? There are multitudes of verses in Proverbs describing what a fool is like. Study these verses and see if they describe your friends.     "My son, if sinners entice thee, consent t...

  Happy Independence Day!  As we celebrate our freedom today, remember to pray for our country.  Thank servicemen and veterans for their service to our country.   Thank God for our freedoms and for the privilege of being an American. And be proud of your country- The United States of America. 

 This month's devotional comes from Miss Naomi Randall from Standing Stone Baptist Church in Monterey, TN. "For ye are bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." 1 Corinthians 6:20       The topic I want to talk about today is entertainment; more specifically, movies. In a way I want to address two different kinds of movies. 1st, I want to talk about unsavory movies. Some Christians seem to have no problem with watching movies filled with foul language, immodesty, and condoned immorality. This doesn't necessarily mean they don't love God, but I want to give reasons why I disagree with this use of their time. In Psalms 101:3, David, called a man after God's own heart, said "I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside." Ephesians 5:11 says, "And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them." A few verses lat...