Last night we as a youth group studied John 14 and here is a quick recap:
In the beginning of John 14 Jesus tells his disciples that he is going back to Heaven to prepare a place for us...I think its so cool that Jesus spent much the first 30 years of his life as a carpenter's son/apprentice and now he is acting as a carpenter in heaven building us homes!
We talked about who we would want to live by in Heaven if we could pick 1 person...I chose Peter. The reason being that when the guards tried to take Jesus in the garden, Peter cut one of their ears off. I figure if I can get on Peter's good side he would be a good neighbor and protect me from any hecklers in Heaven :)
One thing we noticed was that this would be a very scary thing for disciples to hear! Jesus was their leader, their teacher, their provider and the reason they gave up everything they had. Now Jesus was telling them he was leaving! The disciples were going to have to learn to trust Jesus in a whole new way!
We spent the rest of the night looking at the statement in John 14:6 "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me"
This is such a loaded statement that really flies in the face of what our post-modern culture of tolerance and individualism preaches. We as Christians are called exclusive, arrogant, and unloving because we believe that Jesus is the only way to the Father, but we believe that because we believe in Jesus! If we truly believe that Jesus is the Son of the living God who was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, and died for our sins and rose again, we need to believe what he says!
This is why i hate the "Jesus was just a cool morale teacher" statement. If you don't believe he was the Son of God, than he was a lunatic because he repeatedly said that he was the Son of God and called people to believe in him and follow him. He also said if you didn't know him you didnt know God. What I love about Jesus is that there is no middle ground with him. You have to totally embrace him or completely reject him and sadly I think many people try to find a middle ground which is impossible!
The rest of the night we looked at how Jesus actually is the way, truth, and life. We ended the evening taking some time to ask ourselves if we do really believe that Jesus was who he said was? And if we do how is that changing our lives!
It was a great night and I am already excited for this weekend!
cal
Love the picture, Cal.
ReplyDeleteI think the youth of the church today are a great place to challenge them with Christ. They dwell in that "middle ground." They believe the basics of the Bible, but don't necessarily play out the fruits of that belief in their lives. If you can shine a light into their lives and show them that faith without works is dead, what a difference it will make as they become adults!
Too many adults in the church today don't have that conviction either, and the church is filled with hearers but not doers.
I just read the other day that the "be a doer of the Word and not a hearer only" concept in James is similar to showing your work on your Algebra homework. Don't just give the answer, show how you got there - evidence the process in your life.
Its so nice to see young people becoming the leaders of our country with strong convictions for the Lord. Belief in the saving grace of Jesus is becoming unpopular so the challenge to you is to be strong in your walk and stand firm. Very nice reading your post.
ReplyDeleteThanks Nancy for the kind words, I really appreciate it!
ReplyDelete