Youth Of The Nation

It’s funny how out of nowhere you’re at a place that feels like a dead end, but actually you are maturing so a beautiful message can be formed out of that dead end. My message has been evolving and developing for a while now, and I feel it’s time to share what God has recently been speaking to my heart. This word that was put in my heart is strictly for the youth.

1 Timothy 4: 11-14 – “Get the word out. Teach all these things. And don't let anyone put you down because you're young. Teach believers with your life: in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity. Stay at your post reading Scripture, giving counsel, teaching. And that special gift of ministry you were given when the leaders of the church laid hands on you and prayed—keep that dusted off and in use.”

In the verse above, Paul writes to Timothy instructing him to not “let anyone put you down because you’re young.” Many times, we as youth are put down and ignored because of our age. I have experienced in my own life, many times where I felt discouraged, unwanted, and useless. Now-a-days, it seems like we’re expected to be irresponsible and insignificant—to party all night and drink until we can’t stand. I want to put and end to this misconception and un-biblical theory. According to Paul, there are a handful of things that young people can and should do. The first is to teach each others and fellow believers with your life as we live in speech, in demeanor, in love, in faith, and in purity. Second, we need to keep reading scripture, giving counsel, and teaching others. Last but not least, we should keep our special ministry gifts dusted off and in use.

This seems like a long to-do list, especially for us youth who just want to enjoy our time being young! I can imagine Timothy probably read this and thought, “This man must be crazy. I want to live my life!” But, Paul knew what he was doing; he knew that Timothy’s generation would only experience all God had for them if they took hold of their gifts and lived the life God has intended for them.

When I look into the world, I see plenty of people—especially in my school—who are in need of a savior; they are hurting and think there is no answer to their problems. As believers, we have the ability to change lives by sharing our testimonies and the word of God. Imagine, we could be sharing the Gospel with the next pastor, producer, politician, or even president. Of course, it takes more than just wanting to change people to actually accomplish it. Even though it is ultimately the Holy Spirit that changes a person’s heart, we still need to put effort into helping that person. This is a big responsibility, and frankly, if it was up to us, the world could shatter as long as we were still going to heaven. But (and thank God for that “but”), we have a Spirit inside of us that wants to see change; we have a passion to see God move in this generation like never before. If you have Jesus inside of you, this should be your heart. More often than not, life gets in the way of what God wants to do in us according to our call in the ministry by distracting us from the call. Paul understood this when He wrote, “And that special gift of ministry you were given when the leaders of the church laid hands on you and prayed—keep that dusted off and in use.” So even when we don’t feel like it, we have to put our selfish desires aside sometimes and look at the lives of others before ours, because there are still people hurting and crying for more then this life.

However, there is one little thing that Paul did not mention when writing this to Timothy: the reward system. Paul was probably thinking “No, I can’t write this to Tim; we all know how cocky he can get. I’ll just let him experience this part on his own.” Although we don’t need a reward in the first place because Jesus is enough, God still shows us how much He loves us by establishing rewards for our efforts. A basic bible principle is you reap what you sow; if you sow blessing, you reap blessing. Sometimes, our blessing will be something we can see; other times it could simply be a spiritual blessing - seeing supernatural growth in your church or seeing the person you minister to experience supernatural growth in the ministry. These rewards bring a satisfaction like no other, and as you see one person grow you will be compelled and filled with the desire to share even more. Then, as it says in Malachi 3:11, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.”

My prayer and my desire for all the youth that read this is that the Gospel becomes so real to you that you can’t help but share it, and that God gives you revelation after revelation as you continue to seek him. Audacious faith leads to audacious outcomes.

Checking Hearts and Taking Names

Going to the dentist sends shivers down my spine: cold, sterilized chairs; tall, lifeless walls; maniacal drilling noises; little kids crying so loud that I can’t hear myself think; year-old teen magazines featuring Twilight interviews; dentists who lie and say that “it will only hurt for a second” when it actually hurts for the next day or two. Needless to say going in for a check-up can become quite an ordeal.

But although I hate to admit it, going to the dentist is actually good for me. Even though it might mean a small amount of pain for a day or two every six months, check-ups help keep my teeth in line and cavity-free, and if a cavity pops up, it’s dealt with quickly and efficiently so that it won’t do any more damage.

Our hearts are a lot like that.

When we first come to Christ, we desperately need a heart check-up. Receiving salvation means receiving an entirely new lifestyle that comes as a result of God’s grace working in our lives—a lifestyle that is completely opposite from how we acted, thought, and lived before we ever knew Jesus and experienced His love. Colossians 3:9-10 says “You have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge and the image of the Creator.” The more we learn about Jesus and about His amazing grace, the more we are going to live like He lived, but before we can move forward we need a heart check-up to remove the “cavities” in our hearts.

King David prayed, “Search me, God, and know my heart” (Psalms 139:23 NIV). The Message translation of this verse goes even further reading, “Investigate my life, O God, and find out everything about me.” David had such a deep understanding for what it was like to live a God-filled life that he personally asked God to investigate his heart, to search out the bad, and to replace that bad with God’s goodness and love so that he could live a pleasing and free life. In short, David gave himself a heart check-up.

What makes us a Christian is a change in the heart. We need to be changed like Jesus – from the inside out. And the first step in being changed from the inside out is giving ourselves a heart check-up, not just once when we first accept Christ, but periodically. We need to pray the same prayer David prayed and ask God to reveal the sins in our hearts, because many times its hard for us to see our own faults until they blow up in our faces.

And, along with the heart check-up we do when we first come to Christ, we need to continuously ask God to check our hearts. Just like we go to the dentist periodically to maintain our dental health, we need to continuously humble ourselves and go to God asking him to search our hearts.

Recently, I experienced an unexpected heart check-up first hand. About two weeks ago I was feeling good; I felt confident that I had everything under control in my life and in my heart. In my eyes, I was golden and I thought that nothing could touch me because there was nothing wrong with me. Covering my basics as a Christian, I prayed that God would search me and show me anything hidden in my heart, even though I didn’t expect Him to find anything.

The next day I presented three posters I had made the night before to my classmates. The teacher that assigned the project walked by as I was revealing the posters, and before I even showed the third poster, she cut in saying, “Are those the posters? Looks like you took two seconds to make those.” I quickly responded “No, ma’am. This took me two hours to make.” I immediately felt embarrassed and overwhelmingly angry with my teacher. I told myself that I couldn’t have a face-to-face conversation with her or else I would explode. I walked around for four days resenting my teacher and her rude remarks about the project that worked hard on.

Then, God reminded me of the prayer I had made only a few days before. God had used the entire situation with my teacher to reveal the underlying heart issues I had with my pride and maintaining my good reputation. I prayed that God deal with this heart issue and thanked Him for His faithfulness. I wasn’t as golden as I thought I was.

If you think that you don’t need to go to God and that you can live right all by yourself, you should take a look at Colossians 3 and look at your own life. Colossians 3 has an entire list detailing how we should live in the Spirit and how we shouldn’t live by the flesh. However, it’s important that we approach these verses knowing that we can never achieve holiness or live right on our own power. Nothing we can do could ever make us right, which is why God’s grace is so amazing. He gave us His holiness through grace so that we could live right through Jesus, and all we need to do is receive this gracious gift by faith. Once we do that, then the things listed in Colossians 3 will become fruits in our lives.

So whether you’re a new believer or you’ve grown in Christ throughout the years, whether you feel close to God or further from God than ever, you need to ask God for a heart check-up. The longer you take to go to God and surrender your heart to Him, the more damage you might cause to yourself. Thankfully, we have God who loves us so much that He invites us in to get checked out because God doesn’t care about what we’ve done, He cares about who we are and for how much better we will be once we embrace His grace.

Where Has All The Excitement Gone?

I love roller coasters. The jubilant feelings of waiting in line and the excitement that builds up while I wait. And after riding the roller coaster, I want to tell all my friends about how great it was and how badly I want to ride again. If you’ve ever ridden a roller coaster, you know what I’m talking about. Thousands upon thousands of people flock to amusement parks every year to experience these same feelings and embrace this same excitement.

But, where has this excitement for Jesus and His church gone?

The Bible says in Mark 7:36-37, “Jesus urged them [the people of the town] to keep it quiet, but they talked it up all the more, beside themselves with excitement. ‘He's done it all and done it well. He gives hearing to the deaf, speech to the speechless.’”

In the passage above, Jesus has just performed miracles, healing the deaf and the mute in front of the multitudes. Then something interesting happens, He urges them to shut up! However, the multitudes keep talking about it even more, professing their excitement to anyone and every one around them. They just couldn’t hold back their urge to talk about Jesus and all His goodness because they saw it first hand!

What has stopped us from being as excited for Jesus and His church? The answer lies in where we place our excitement – in what we are excited about and why.

This past summer our youth group Generation Next went to a youth conference in Georgia; it was an amazing, Spirit-filled experience that left our entire youth group and leaders with an excitement for Jesus. Unfortunately, after a month or so that excitement dwindled and the passion for Jesus that was so consuming burned out. As I recall on my own excitement, I noticed that I relied more on a conference to change me than Jesus. My passion was more about going back each summer to rekindle that fire than fanning the flames and increasing it through the year. My point here is that when Jesus becomes the source of your excitement, it well never be exasperated because your faith and hope comes from an everlasting God who continually shows His power and goodness like he did to the multitudes in Mark.

If we implement this knowledge into our everyday lives – if we base our excitement in Jesus and what He has done for us on the cross, our circumstances won’t dictate how much excitement we have for Jesus. No amount of time will diminish our passion because we are connected to an unquenchable source. The enemy will try to do everything he can to steal your joy, believe me! He knows that if we get excited about Jesus circumstances won’t affect our steadfast faith, but he also knows that if we are not rooted in Jesus circumstances lead us to exhaustion and tirelessness.

This leads me too my next point, for most Christians, myself included, church becomes an exhausting ritual and quickly fades. I have seen many Christians come to church like Jesus never died on the cross, never broke the chains of death, and never rose again on the third day. Cheer up! Jesus lives and when we come to church it is a sincere testament that what He did is true. In essence, church should be the happiest place on earth where lives are healed, the lost are found, and the captive are liberated.

Even if you don’t see God’s miracles at this stage in your life or if you are looking at a one-way road down the avenue of disappointment, you can still rejoice knowing that God has everything in position to bless you tremendously, that Jesus already paid every price for us to be alive in Him, and that our sins and inadequacies are wiped away. This should get you excited!

The best feeling in life is not riding a roller coaster, despite how much we love it; the best feeling is when we don’t allow situations in life, big or small, to determine the precious value of our excitement. Walk around knowing that God’s divine, supernatural, and all knowing favor is on you – you have a reason to jump, dance, and shout! We are chosen; let’s act like it!

Why You Slumpin'

Slump - To fall or sink heavily; collapse

What does a slump look like? In baseball, a slump means that you go a certain amount of at bats without hitting the ball, thus keeping you from moving forward to the next base.

Slumps can happen in our walks with Christ too, and they function in a similar fashion. A slump occurs when we Christians go through seasons in life where it seems like we can’t do anything right or like we’re stuck in one place spiritually fighting off the same struggles that we always have been. Well then, how do we maneuver our way out of a slump?

When a coach notices “A player in a slump”, he keeps the player out for a couple of games to better his technique and climb out of the slump.

The Bible says something similar in Matthew 11:28, when Jesus says, “Come to me all who are burdened and heavy laden and I will give you rest”. This feeling of being burdened and heavy laden is an even better way of defining the slump. The first three words of this verse are “Come to me.” When we are graveled under burdens and a heavy heart, Jesus instructs us to simply but effectively go to him. If you are experiencing a “slump” you easily slip in to a routine, slump on Saturday, go to Jesus on Sunday, and back to slumpin' on Monday. For the ones who enjoy this routine you can stop here, but for those who don’t – keep reading.

The last step you must take in order to live a slump-free life is preventing the slump. Preventing the slump in my opinion is the toughest part of the process. Preventing “The Slump” means discovering the root of the problem and uprooting it so that its negative influence over you ceases. Unfortunately, people quiver at thought of changing themselves even when it is for the better because, believe it or not, it requires effort. Yes, I said it! Don’t hate me for it, but it’s true! An effective Christian life requires effort! Effort to remove yourself from compromising situations, effort to grow in our knowledge of God, and effort to reject the slump immediately when it comes at our doorstep.

I will be honest; this seems like something tiresome and unchanging. Many of us sometimes, myself included, try to follow similar steps in beating our own slump, but we come up empty handed and frustrated. The problem is many of us go into it thinking that we can change ourselves alone. We don’t acknowledge the power and the necessity of grace in our situation. The definition of grace in essence is getting what we don’t deserve. We didn’t deserve to be saved through Jesus’ death on the cross, but by grace, although we had sinned, God “has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation” (Colossians 1:22). In the same way, we can only change ourselves after acknowledging and believing that we need grace. We are only changed when we trust and believe that God is the only one who can change us, and there is freedom in that!

Ultimately, the more we seek a relationship with God, the easier it will be to reject the slump. In the words of worship leader Jeremy Riddle, “sinful choices and attitudes stem from a lack of intimacy with God.” As a result, the more we seek God and develop a relationship with the Father, the more we will want to reject the slump and the more we will walk in His purity and purpose.

Taking The Limits Off

When it comes to God, He can do more in our lives than we could ever imagine. But sometimes we are so preoccupied with our problems that we only see then mediocre. Ephesians 3:20 says, “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.” This word “according” actually means “to the limit of.” In other words, God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, to the limit of the power that works in us. So what, or who, limits God’s power in us? According to Ephesians, we do.

There are five ways that we can limit God:

1. Sin – Isa. 59:1-2 (CEV) “ The Lord hasn’t lost his powerful strength; He can still hear and answer prayers. You sins are the roadblock between you and your God. That’s why He doesn’t answer prayers or let you see his face.” Sin separates us from God and stops the flow of His blessing in our lives. We got to repent and turn away from sin.

2. Thoughts – Isa. 55:8-9 (CEV) “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘ As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts’.” Our small thinking, reasoning and logic limit the power of God in us.

3. Choices – Deut. 30:19 (AMP) “I call heaven and earth to witness this day against you that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curses; Therefore choose life, that you and your Descendants may live.” Out future is determined by all the choices we are making today. Choose life

4. Experiences – Heb. 3 7-8 (NCV) “SO it is as the Holy Spirit says: ‘ TODAY listen to what he says. Do not be stubborn as in the PAST when you turned against God, when you tested God in the dessert’.” We allow past experiences to harden our hearts – both success and failure. Don’t get stuck in the past.

5. Unbelief – Matthew 13:58 “and he did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.” Out ability to believe gives God something to work with – our inability to believe God takes that something away.

God is not limited because He does not have the ability to do what He wants to do, but because He is not given the opportunity to do it. If we allow these barriers to remain and linger in our lives, then God can’t exceed beyond the mediocre to do greater things in our lives. We should not limit God where He has not limited himself; in the words of Martin Luther, we need to “Let God be God!”

Adapted from Pr. Viviane’s

Friday night message.

Don't Let The Secret Out

Facebook. It seems that nowadays everyone has a Facebook page. We spend a big chunk of time going through Facebook, checking notifications, viewing recent pictures, liking interesting posts, catching up with old friends and family, and simply chatting with a friend.

But how much Facebook is too much Facebook? The apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:23 (AMP) that “all things are legitimate [permissible--and we are free to do anything we please], but not all things are helpful…constructive [to character] or edifying [to spiritual life].” In other words, through the grace of God, we have the free will to do anything we choose, but the choices we make should be governed by a right standard. When on Facebook, there are things we need to be aware of.

First, Facebook is a time waster. Checking one harmless picture can lead to another picture which leads to a Facebook page which leads to countless hours on Facebook. The Bible in Psalms 90:10 that time “[passes] quickly, and then we are gone.” Time cannot be accumulated or replaced; it is always passing, whether we make the most of it or not. We need to manage time and limit ourselves when on Facebook so that we aren’t couch potatoes on the internet.

Second, Facebook connections can prove to be hurtful. Although Facebook is a great way to stay connected to family and both old and new friends, it also allows us to be connected with some unfriendly “friends.” 1 Corinthians 15:33 (NCV) warns us to “not be fooled: ‘Bad friends will ruin good habits.’” Not everyone on Facebook has pure motives; some just gossip and spread rumors, and many post compromising things on their pages. We need to be careful who we accept as a “friend” because that person could be anything but a friend.

Finally, Facebook is one of the main invaders of our privacy. It is up to us to check our privacy settings to manage who we want viewing our information, but, more importantly, it is up to us to decide what we should share on Facebook. Not everyone needs to know that we “checked in” at “home,” how bad we think parents, bosses, or teachers are, or about that embarrassing moment at the party or in the bathroom.

So, what secrets are you letting out through Facebook? Don’t broadcast every moment of your life – it’s your life. God has called us to live in a way that pleases him: “…live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:10).

Based on Pr. Viviane’s Friday night message “Don’t Let The Secret Out.”

DO YOU HAVE A VISION?

God's word says:"Where there is no vision, the people perish." Proverbs 29:18 
Let me ask you a question where you want to be 2 years from today? What Kind of relationship you want to have with your savior? Do you have a vision to be more for God and His kingdom, or are you satisfied with your relationship with Him right now and don't want to seek anything else? Or you do have a vision for your life and the type of relationship you want to cultivate with Him?


God is a marvelous God and His mercies renew every morning, as a matter of fact God has something new for you every day. He wants your relationship with Him to grow and mature. He expect you to seek Him with all your heart, with all your soul and understanding. He is expecting your to set goals for your life, It is good to set goal and have expectations of what God will do, it is called HOPE! Now faith will bring it to pass...


If you don't have a vision, you will lose your focus and eventually the Hope that something good will happen. You will live life just letting time pass you by. Without a vision (goal) we will perish and not accomplish anything in God. So Today let us aim for a vision to believe in, a goal to run after and a dream that will hold us grounded and focused in Him. A God's purpose driven dream to win the nations for Christ!