Follow me, Jesus?!?

Blessed are those whose ways is blameless,
who walk in the law of the LORD!
Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,
who seek him with their whole heart,
who also do no wrong,
but walk in his ways!
Psalm 119:1-3-Aleph

We have some big problems that we struggle with these days. 

Young men looking at Pornography and teaching their bodies to naturally respond in a very unnatural way. 

Young ladies giving themselves away and doing whatever they can because they think it will make them feel loved and wanted. 

Teen guys and girls making terrible life choices to the tune of "YOLO", (you only live once) and then finding unthinkable ways to get rid of the mistakes that they have made.

The kicker is, these big problems are not only happening outside the church, they are happening inside the church as well.  In some cases, the problems are more frequent with "believers" than non-believers.  What is wrong with us, the church, these days?  How did we get to this point? 

I don't know as though I have the answer but allow me to share a theory with you.  We, as the church have become so complacent, we have stopped teaching that Jesus needs to be our lives, rather than add him into what we already have going on.  Its like we don't drop everything when he says "Follow Me", we come to him and say "Jesus, Follow Me, be a part of the life that I already live, but don't change anything in it.  Just be my get of of hell free card". 

Am I wrong?  We live life the way we think is best, then scream at God for not saving us from certain situations when the outcome is not what we expected.  The above Psalm says blessed are those whose way is BLAMELESS, who walk in (there own way, no way) THE LAW OF THE LORD.  Blessed are those who seek after him with their WHOLE HEART!!

Jesus said the only way to save your life is to lose it to Him!!  If you try and hold onto your life you will lose it for good. 

This is what we need to teach our sons and daughters and youth.  Lose your life to Jesus and He will save it.  Follow Him, rather than Him follow you. 

Here are three ways we can do this;
-Teach the word of God rather than trends and fads.  Talk about God and his way of living with our kids and teach these things in our Youth groups.  If we do not teach the word of God in our groups, these kids will never know about it.  When we teach the Word, it will inevitably answer their life questions and problems they face. 

-Let's be less sensitive to those who are not believers yet.  I am not saying be mean but often times we don't give kids the truth because they "are not believers yet".  Encourage those kids to cry out to Jesus, to pray, to worship.  Dong this will teach them to be a disciple even before they give their lives to Christ.  That is the truth and the only way to live, why would we cover that up or try and dance around that with advice.  Give it to them straight, talk to Jesus, pray to him, read the Word. 

-Teach those who do claim to be believers to get rid of all the things in their lives that keep them from following Jesus and get serious about following him.  Sometimes you have to draw the line in the sand and say, "either you are with Jesus or you go your own way".  Continuing to teach these students that they can live life and add Jesus in when they want is only doing more damage.  We need to teach them and our children that Jesus needs to be their life, Period. 

May our LORD be with you
Josh