If a young person does not have a love for Christ and an earnest desire to please Him, no list of rules will protect him. He will find a way to do what he really wants to do, and if he cannot do it now, he will do it as soon as he is on his own. Two things are missing in the lives of many young people who grow up in Bible-believing churches. The first thing that is missing is salvation. I know this by experience. I grew up in a Baptist church and went through the motions of getting saved around age 10 or 11, but I wasn’t saved. I had no inner motive to do right. I had no personal love for the Bible. As a result, I broke my parents’ rules and snuck around and found a way to do what I wanted to do, and as soon as I could, I left home and “followed my heart.” The missing element in my life was repentance toward God (Acts 20:21), and this is what is missing in the lives and hearts of many young people. I “believed in Jesus,” but I did not surrender to God’s authority. That is the essence of repentance. The sinner has rebelled against God and broken His law, and he must repent of this. Repentance is a change of direction in the heart. Two great biblical examples are the Prodigal Son (Lk. 15:17-19) and the idolaters at Thessalonica (1 Th. 1:9). Parents and church leaders need to look for clear evidence of salvation. These are a life-changing conversion experience (Jn. 3:3; Mat. 18:3), love for God’s Word (Jn. 8:47), love of righteousness (1 Jn. 2:3-4), and divine chastisement (Heb. 12:6-8). Salvation is not difficult. It means to come to Jesus, but when you turn to Jesus you have your back to the old life. The second thing that is often missing is surrender to God’s perfect will (Romans 12:1-2). This is a choice that each believer must make, and it is a choice that is made because of the mercies of God. Because of all that He has done for us, we should be motivated to surrender our lives to His service. The goal of parents and church leaders must be to lead young people to true salvation and surrender and to make disciples of them. (Friday Church News Notes, July 31, 2015, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143) Comments are closed.
|
Archives
February 2020
|