The following Devotional ideas are yours to use before during and after Challenge Youth Conference. Please take time to study them and develop your

Transcription

1 The following Devotional ideas are yours to use before during and after Challenge Youth Conference. Please take time to study them and develop your own personal thoughts to buttress the devotional thought. There might also be notes from the lessons given at CYC that could enter the discussion. The most important thing is that we grow closer together, closer to God, and closer to heaven.

2 Be Bold, Stand Out, Fear Not, Let Go, and Let God by Travis Creasy, My older brother Bradley was born with Cerebral Palsy and has spent a lot of his life in and out of the hospital, generally with a smile on his face. He is one of the toughest guys I ve ever known. I did not wake up on October 16, 2018 expecting to challenge his time spent in a hospital room. I knew something wasn t right but I thought I d be out of the doctor s office in time to coach a Junior Varsity football game later that evening. Then the word leukemia came out of the doctor s mouth. After looking at my blood cells under a microscope, he returned to the room and told us he thought it was the good kind of Leukemia, but he wouldn t know for sure until the results of a bone marrow biopsy could be confirmed. He informed us that we should look at weeks in the hospital instead of days. Once in the hospital that evening, we learned that I would be there for at least 36 days. It was during that hospital stay, that I learned the true meaning of Be still and know that I am God. Many of the mornings that I woke up in room 1751, I would look out the window at the mountains and say He s done it again! as He had seen me through another night. My goal was to get through the next 10 to 15 minutes and make sure I was learning the lessons that God wanted me to learn. One of those lessons is the power of prayer. I ve preached entire sermons about the power of prayer and I ve admitted that I was not a prayerful person in those sermons. I truly felt the power of your prayers and many others throughout these last few months. My prayer life has changed drastically and the struggle now that I m home is to not lose the momentum. I just thought I loved the church before my hospital stay. I ve often wondered, how anyone can do this life without a church family? I know for sure now that I cannot and do not even want to try. Our brothers and sisters certainly have their problems (they re humans after all) but when it comes to being there for one another they re second to none. I saw God s power and love in the eyes of over 300 visitors, the large amount of cards I received (that astonished the mail ladies everyday) and tremendous donations to my medical fund. If you don t feel this way about your church family then, please, become the difference. There were a few people in that cancer wing with me that never received visitors or cards. Your local hospital or nursing facility would be a great place to start!

3 The biggest lesson that I continue to learn is what Moses exclaimed to the Israelites as the Egyptians closed in on them at the Red Sea Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent. (Exodus 14:13-14 ESV) To say it s difficult for a preacher, teacher, and football coach to be silent is an understatement. One of my students sent me a card with this scripture on it and it found its way to a prominent place (the bathroom door) in my room. As the weeks passed that verse became my life. Finally, I was forced to be still as the LORD fought my and my family s battles. My wife and I are foster parents to a two-year old boy and three-year old girl. We had been struggling with what our next step should be in this foster journey. Upon my diagnosis we were forced to get out of His way and let Him take over that struggle. He did and continues to fight for us! As I ve told many people The LORD showed up and showed out! The LORD works 24/7 on the hearts of men. His Word is sharper than any two-edged sword. It shouldn t be shocking to say that He is better and more successful at winning my battles than I ll ever be. Paul says that we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10 ESV). At different times in life those good works require the boldness to create, the willingness to walk, and being UNASHAMED to sit still and let Him do the heavy lifting - because He does it anyways. As I write this devotional I m connected to a machine that administers a 2-hour chemo treatment for my leukemia. I don t know what the future holds but God does. This has always been true and the only difference now is that I have new hurdle that God has already cleared. I have anxiety and fears just like anyone but I remind myself what 1 John 4:4 says for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. Christian brothers and sisters, live boldly because he lives in you. If you re not a Christian allow God to put your anxiety to death (Romans 6:6) and put on the boldness of Christ today! Around the room 1. Share some reasons why you love the church. 2. Share some things your congregation could do to help the church make an impact on their community. Close with prayer

4 The Darkest Evening & The Darkest Day How Can I Stand Before God UNASHAMED By Larry Davenport, ldavenport7671@gmail.com The Darkest Evening Winter Solstice occurs when one of the Earth s poles is tilted away from the Sun at its maximum point. This results in a day of the year that has the least amount of sunlight the shortest day the longest night the darkest evening of the year. As a child, Mom spent many hours reading to me, and much of that reading was poetry. It is no wonder that I had memorized several selections before I could even read. If you ever want to hear a drooling 3-year old reciting Flanders Field by John McCrae, I have recordings of it and many more. One of my favorite poems was Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost where a man and his disillusioned horse take a short pause on a snowy evening to watch the woods fill up with snow. The observation is made that it is the darkest evening of the year. Around the room: What are some situations when you find yourself in the dark? How does darkness in those situations make you feel? Although darkness can be pretty ominous, in the case of Winter Solstice (somewhere around December 20 each year) it takes my mind back to my childhood, winter, Christmas, snow days, homemade biscuits with chocolate gravy, and lots of other good things. The Darkest Day It was around AD 33 when Jesus was crucified. For 3 hours beginning at noon, the entire land was covered in darkness. Gifted speakers and writers have skillfully illustrated the imagery described in the scriptures through their lessons and writings for many years. Still more speakers and writers will deliver these messages to new generations of Christians every year. (This would be a good place to share some thoughts on the cross or tell a personal story about when you became a Christian. Tell what was going through your mind at the time and what led up to your decision to obey the gospel. You may want to include a reading on the crucifixion before discussing the next section) What was accomplished at the cross? Many hours of study and research could produce several lessons about what Jesus did for us at the cross, so I won t attempt to exhaust the answer to that question in one short devotional. Instead, let s briefly focus on one word. John records in 1 John 2:2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. Big Words. Some versions use the word propitiation, others use the term expiation, and others use atoning sacrifice. I am not sure which translation I like the best because all 3 terms help us understand what Jesus did for us. Note the following 3 ideas this word reveals:

5 We Are No Longer Separated From God. Isaiah 59:2 teaches that our sins have separated us from God. Payment must be made for sin. Mark 10:48 teaches that the Son of Man came to give His life as a ransom for many. So, the atoning sacrifice of Christ restores us to fellowship with God through the blood of Christ. We are no longer separated because payment for our sins has been made. Jesus Death Satisfied God. God is the object of the atoning sacrifice. Not us. Not the devil. Oh, we are blessed with forgiveness, and the devil received a crushing fatal blow, but it was necessary to satisfy God. When Paul says in Romans 1:18 that the wrath of God is revealed against all unrighteousness, please understand that you and I would never survive God s wrath and we won t have to because Jesus took God s wrath at the cross. God was satisfied. The sacrifice of Christ appeased God s righteous anger and changed his disposition towards us as sinners His death on the cross turned away God s wrath it changed God s mind about us! The Atoning Sacrifice Not Only Removed Sin But Also Guilt And Shame. When Christ paid the penalty to God for our sins, the sun darkened for 3 hours. He not only bore our sins, but he also took on our guilt and our shame. In doing so, he not only removes our sins, but also the guilt and shame. This is probably difficult for all of us to accept. I know my sins, I can even recall my sins, and I am ashamed of my sins. It boggles my mind that God does not know or recall those sins and that one day I get to stand before Him UNASHAMED. Each Sunday during the Lord s Supper, I am reminded of Jesus atoning sacrifice on the cross and the darkest 3 hours in history as I read a passage of scripture, meditate on the words of the song we just sang, and pray. I am also reminded of the open tomb on the first day of the week when Jesus rose from the grave. My mind then thinks about one day when I will stand before the Father as he points to the cross with no memory or recall of my sins and failures because Jesus removed my sins along with all guilt and shame at the cross. On that day, I will get to go home with friends and family and all things good forever. Discussion: How does guilt make a person feel? How does shame affect how teens interact with family and friends? How can becoming a child of God through baptism change all of that? Do you need prayers now? Do you need to be baptized now? Closing: Explain to the group that you are going to offer the invitation. Pass out pens and paper to make it easier for them to respond. Lead a song of invitation, take care of any responses, and close with prayer.

6 Unashamed of What? by Dale Jenkins, The concept of not being ashamed is pretty directly referenced 10 times in the New Testament. Almost every one of them is referring to Christ and/or to the Gospel of Christ, the Good News (cf: Matthew 10:32-33; Romans 1:16; 10:9; 2 Timothy 1:8; 1:12; 2 Peter 4:16; 1 John 4:15). But of the several we could look at I want us to think about one that is significant to the health of Christianity. I have a sermon I ve preached a few times titled: What is an Onesiphorus? It is actually a he. He is only mentioned two times in your Bible but we can learn something valuable from him. His name reveals something of his character, Onesiphorus means useful. In the short sentences of his life we find that he traveled the nearly 850 miles from Ephesus to Rome and upon arriving he scoured the numerous prisons and prison cells in Rome until he found Paul and he became a great source of encouragement to the aging, imprisoned Apostle. There is a unique little phrase in 2 Timothy 1:16 that appears nowhere else that I have been able to find Onesiphorus was not ashamed of my chains. One scholar rendered the phrase he wasn t embarrassed a bit that I was in jail. While we often talk about the need for standing for truth (and we should strongly emphasize that.) While we passionately pursue evangelism (and that must be at the forefront of all we do.) While we take a strong stand against the immoral slide of our country (again, rightly so.) Many of the problems in the church that I ve seen in my 50 years as a Christian do not stem from false teaching, evangelistic malaise, or a laxness of morality in the Body. Most of the problems I have seen come from our own inabilities to interact with each other, to treat each other right, to love each other after a disagreement, to avoid wearing our own feelings on our shoulders, or to keep our spirit in the work after a disappointment in another. And over time that congregation that we found that felt so right we become ashamed of. I want to challenge you to the hard work of not being ashamed of God s People, His family, and His servants.