The Cost of Discipleship

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Preached At, Not Taught To

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How many times have you wished that your kids had a full relationship with God?  Working in youth ministry for close to two decades I cannot count the times where teens or collegians are told to develop spiritual disciplines in their lives.  They are told that these habits will deepen their walk with the Lord and help them to rely on Him while building their faith.  Yet that is where it stops.  It is as if we tell each generation, you get a good relationship with God.  When the push back of "Why?" comes the response is often no more than a spiritual "Because I said so."  We cannot expect teens/college kids to do the spiritual disciplines we have preached, but not taught. 1. "Because I said so" does not work How many times have you used that with your children.  I remember growing up I thought to myself, "That's dumb.  I will never say that to my kids."  I do not remember the first time I used it on my little ones (at the time) but I know
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Now Is The Time To Stand For Truth

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When Life is Hard

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There are difficult things in life to understand, many of which, let's face it, we don't.  There are some who, at times, act like they understand.  For example, when the grandchild explains to the grandparent about all that is needed to beat the video game, talks about the hidden stages, and uses characters by name.  The grandparent nods, mutters mmmhmmm and ok, but has no clue what is going on.  You know, moments like those.  Yeah, sometimes life is hard to understand.  What happens when you don't know which way to go, what is happening, or why it is happening to you.  How can you explain your life, your faith?  What if you have trouble understanding it all. 1. Live on mercy As Christians, we can live on one of three levels. We can return evil for good, which is the satanic level. We can return good for good and evil for evil, which is the human level. Or, we can return good for evil, which is the divine level. Jesus is the perfect example of this latter approach (
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