[my notes from my session this week; P.S> how do you possibly get 13-15 year olds to understand why spiritual disciplines are good?]
So we recently asked you guys what would be a helpful topic we can focus on and you chose Christian living + understanding the Bible – so that’s what we’ll be doing until the end of the year.
I want to start with a bit of an activity – I’ll ask a question and list a few answers, can you do a tumbs up if you agree with any of the answers?
Ok, what makes someone a Christian?
Reading the Bible
Doing good for others
Being generous
Going to church
Praying to God
Thinking about God a lot..
Right, so I think people often get this wrong, that appearing all religious and goody-good means they’re saved. They’re all great things to do, but I’d say these are more about how you get closer to God or the kind of things you do as a result of faith in God. But choosing to follow God is a response you make to the gospel – by faith that Jesus Christ God’s son, came to Earth, lived in perfect obedience to God the Father, was punished on our behalf and after 3 days raised to life with the HS and by faith in Him we get to spend eternity with God. It’s that belief that saves us, not anything external .
Now, I have 3 main points to make today, and the first one is this:
we do not earn God’s love and acceptance – He gives us those freely. The bible says we could never earn righteousness with God – we’re simply incapable. That’s the whole point of Jesus dying instead of us. And by believing in Him, we are made right with God. He looks on us as though we’d lived the perfect life Jesus did. Not because of anything we do – purely because of Jesus. Once you really grasp this, and ask the HS to live in you, you begin to actually want to know more of God – and how do you do that?
Mainly through the Bible. Helpfully, God has inspired a bunch of people throughout history, to write out God’s story from various points of view and different textual styles.
There’s letters, history, poetry etc – so it can feel a bit challenging and overwhelming to read and understand all by yourself, but that’s where church and youth group can be helpful.
Now, after a long introduction – we’re gonna talk about fitness!
We all know that exercise and eating well is essentially how you keep your body healthy and strong. Do you want to be physically healthy? Great, me too! Now, if you believe the Bible, and I do, it actually says that we have a spirit, soul and body. Who wants to read out 1 Thessalonians 5:23 for us?
Ok, if exercise and food keep me physically healthy, what about the rest of me? Spiritual fitness then, is basically doing what God says is good. And God has advice for how to live well – all through the New Testament really, we learn about how Christians should live. Loving people, Bible study, Prayer, Fasting, Worship etc.
I talked about good habits a few months ago, and this topic is similar in that it’s often tricky to get motivation to go out for a run or eat spinach or do something you don’t feel like. But building spiritual fitness into your week is how you get spiritually stronger and better able to face difficulty, stress, anxiety, and essentially learn how to trust God and spend time with Him and love Him. You’ll see that once you get going it’s actually a lot easier and even enjoyable!
So that’s my second point – spiritual disciplines are how you build a relationship with God and build the “muscles” of your character and faith.
It’s kinda like studying for a big test …
You prepare beforehand. And the more you work you put toward it, (one hopes), the easier you will find the test and you’ll probably get a better result. At the same time, if you dread the subject you won’t want to study for it, and will look for an excuse to avoid it at all. Does that resonate with you?
Do you see, and that’s point number 3 – the goal is not the studying. Or even the test- it’s really about being able to use the knowledge in real life. Or, you train for a marathon before the marathon itself. But first you have to want to run a marathon. So you make space for training in your every day, even though you don’t always feel like it. So it seems that the main thing is whether you care, whether you think the effort is worth it. And I’m here to tell you, pursuing God is 1000% worth it. Practicing spiritual disciplines like reading the Bible and praying helps us know God more and in a sense hear from him – get direction, peace, joy and live well. So, that’s the type of thing we’ll talk about in the following weeks
broken, and mended 