Youth

Our devotion this week, Getting It Right With Others, was provided by Life.Church and is available on the YouVersion Bible app.

Why do we fear conflict?

As we learned yesterday, conflict is unavoidable. So, why are we so afraid of it? Here are a few reasons we tend to fear conflict:

1. It makes us uncomfortable. Ultimately, conflict just isn’t fun. When we sense that something isn’t right, we know we need to do something about it, but sometimes we try to hide our feelings to avoid conflict. 

2. It makes us feel out of control. When we experience conflict, we feel like we’re no longer in control of our lives. It’s the same reason we prefer to send a text instead of talking on the phone—we like to be in control of the conversation and the situation. 

3. We’re not obeying God. Sometimes we fear conflict because we’re not doing what God wants us to do. When we trust God, we know that He wants our relationships to be in the right place. When we choose to avoid conflict and allow it to poison us, we’re hurting relationships that God wants us to make right. 

Now that we know why we fear conflict, we can start to overcome it. God is bigger than your fears, and fear is not from God. So, when you’re worried about conflict, pray about it. Ask God to give you wisdom and to give you the right words to heal that broken relationship. Tomorrow, we’ll find out how conflict can affect our relationship with God. 

Read Philippians 2:4.

⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

Read James 1:19-21.

¹⁹ My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, ²⁰ because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. ²¹ Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

Read 2 Timothy 1:7.

⁷ For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.

Read James 1:5.

⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

Our devotion this week, Getting It Right With Others, was provided by Life.Church and is available on the YouVersion Bible app.

What is conflict?

Have you ever noticed that your greatest pain and disappointments came as a result of a broken relationship? 

When something isn’t right between you and someone else, we call that conflict. 

You know how it goes. It’s like that time you had a horrible fight with your parents, or when your friend spread rumors about you at school. Or maybe, for you, it was when your girlfriend or boyfriend dumped you over Snapchat.

It’s not hard to figure out what conflict is because we experience it every day. Sorry to break it to you, but it’s also unavoidable. Why? Because we’re human, and humans mess up! None of us are perfect, and when imperfect people try to do things, conflict can easily come up. 

But conflict isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, healthy conflict can lead to healthy relationships. But, when we don’t deal with conflict in a healthy way, it’s like a poison. It’ll slowly seep into our relationships, infecting everything and everyone we interact with. In the Bible, the writer of Hebrews knew this well. That’s why Hebrews 12:15 NLT says this:  … Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.

It’s important for us to work through conflict, because the quality of our lives is only as good as the quality of our relationships. 

So, how do we work through conflict in a way that honors God? Over the next four days, we’ll learn why we fear conflict, how conflict affects our relationship with God, and how to deal with conflict in a healthy way. Our prayer is that you’ll stop fearing conflict and start dealing with it so that you can build better, stronger relationships.  

Read Hebrews 12:15.

¹⁵ See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

Read Colossians 4:6.

⁶ Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

Read Ecclesiastes 7:9.

⁹ Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit,
    for anger resides in the lap of fools.

Our devotion this week, I’m In, was provided by Life.Church and is available on the YouVersion Bible app.

I’m Invested.

Investing is taking a risk to entrust what you have to someone or something else, with the expectation that it will return something greater. 

When church people start talking investment, sometimes it gets weird. It doesn’t have to.

Yes, God asked for some financial buy-in. You’ve probably heard it referred to as a “tithe,” which is a tenth of our income returned back to God’s work, through His Church. You may have even thought about the tithe as an investment before. You give 10 percent and God turns it into so much more. It’s true—God does do that. And yes, if you’re giving God all of your life, you might as well give Him 10 percent of your money (since it really all belongs to Him anyway). 

But there’s something so much greater happening. You are an investment. 

God looked at something He had (Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Cosmos, life itself), He entrusted you with it, and He fully expects God-sized returns.

• Before you walked the earth, God invested His unlimited creativity and resources to make it the only known planet in the Cosmos where human life can thrive. 
• When you were just an idea to God, He invested His thoughts and imagination into creating you. 
• Before you were born, God invested into your lineage, your heritage, and your DNA. 
• When you gave your life to Jesus, you received the return on the investment He made when He gave His life for you. 
• When the Holy Spirit filled you, you received His friendship and His gifts invested in you for others. 

Actually, the word investment originally comes from this idea of being clothed. Specifically, being clothed in the official robes for a particular role. To be clothed in authority. Like the person in bright green whom we immediately trust to direct traffic. When God invested Himself in you, He didn’t do it just on the off chance that He’d get 10 percent of your money back one day. He clothed you in the official robes of your role so that you, and everyone around you, could know who you are: His child. 

No wonder He wants you to put on the armor of God. No wonder He has big plans for you. No wonder He gave up so much to give you a way back to Him. No wonder He wants you to go into the world telling everyone what He’s already invested in them. No wonder it’s no big deal to give a little bit of our money back to His work in our world. No wonder He expects such great things for you. He’s clothed you as His kid.

You get to decide to store up His investment—or pour it out through your life as a God-sized return of worship back to Him.

Read Isaiah 61:10.

¹⁰ I delight greatly in the Lord;
    my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
    and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

Read Matthew 6:19-21.

¹⁹ “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰ But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Read Luke 12:16-21.

¹⁶ And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. ¹⁷ He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
¹⁸ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. ¹⁹ And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
²⁰ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
²¹ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

Read Malachi 3:10.

¹⁰ Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “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.

Read Isaiah 53:12.

¹² Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
    and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
    and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
    and made intercession for the transgressors.

Consider: If I believe I’m invested in by God because I am His kid, how will that change what I pour out into others and into His work around me?

A Different Way

The Gospel of Matthew shines light on what it means to say “I’m in” to God’s way. It’s worth taking the time to read the whole book soon. Matthew is the first book of the New Testament: God’s new commitment with the world through Jesus. It’s the story of why and how anyone, not just the Jewish people of the Old Testament, but anyone can find the way to God because of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. 

In Chapter 10, Jesus sent out His followers (us). He gave us His authority, promised us His power, and then reminded us of our importance to God. As you read it today, pay special attention to verses 29-31. Jesus told His followers that we might even run into people who will try to kill us, but, “Don’t worry,” Jesus explained, because we’re of more value than a bunch of sparrows. 

Huh? Okay, Jesus, what? That’s not really doing it for me. Birds? Specifically sparrows? You couldn’t pick eagles? Like how many sparrows? We must be missing something, right?

The words more value come from the Greek: diapherō. The root, dia, basically means through. Like a channel which something can travel through. Pherō means to carry or bring forth. To carry through? Kind of. Jesus’ specific use here is consistent with other uses in Greek that would translate more like: to carry differently, or to carry through a different way. 

No wonder we’re so valuable to God. Each one of us is a custom-made channel crafted by God to carry Jesus a different way. No wonder He sent His only Son, not just to save us, but to send us with Jesus to next person in front of us. 

Our world tends to value people not unlike how we value meat, by weight. Not like waist size, but the weight we carry in relationships, in money, in stuff, in an organization, or in society. But God’s way is different. It’s diapherō. You’re not valuable because of the weight you carry; you’re invaluable because of the way you carry Jesus.

Don’t get all worked up because you messed up or because you’re different. Being different is what makes all this work. 

Paul, the guy who hated Jesus so much that He murdered His followers, finally met Jesus on the road and then spent the rest of his life growing the Church and writing a lot of the New Testament. In His letter to the church in Corinth, he wrote about how we, the Church, are one body, with many parts and all different functions.  

Paul realized he could only carry Jesus the way a guy who used to kill Jesus’ followers could carry Jesus. A way which so far has carried Jesus all the way through Corinth to you. How do you carry Jesus? Who will you carry Him to?

Read Matthew 10:1-42.

Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
² These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; ³ Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; ⁴ Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
⁵ These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. ⁶ Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. ⁷ As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ ⁸ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.
⁹ “Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts— ¹⁰ no bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff, for the worker is worth his keep.¹¹ Whatever town or village you enter, search there for some worthy person and stay at their house until you leave. ¹² As you enter the home, give it your greeting.¹³ If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. ¹⁴ If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. ¹⁵ Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.
¹⁶ “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. ¹⁷ Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. ¹⁸ On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles.¹⁹ But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, ²⁰ for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
²¹ “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. ²² You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. ²³ When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. Truly I tell you, you will not finish going through the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.
²⁴ “The student is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his master. ²⁵ It is enough for students to be like their teachers, and servants like their masters. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!
²⁶ “So do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. ²⁷ What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. ²⁸ Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. ²⁹ Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.³⁰ And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. ³¹ So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
³² “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. ³³ But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.
³⁴ “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. ³⁵ For I have come to turn
“‘a man against his father,
    a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
³⁶     a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’
³⁷ “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.³⁸ Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.³⁹ Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
⁴⁰ “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹ Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. ⁴² And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”

Read 1 Corinthians 12:12-27.

¹² Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³ For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. ¹⁴ Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
¹⁵ Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸ But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. ¹⁹ If they were all one part, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
²¹ The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” ²² On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³ and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, ²⁴ while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it,²⁵ so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. ²⁶ If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
²⁷ Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

Pray: Jesus, I’m in. Show me what I can do to act on the unique life experiences I have to carry You a different way as part of Your Church body. Amen. 

Our devotion this week, I’m In, was provided by Life.Church and is available on the YouVersion Bible app.

I’m Influential.

If we were to scroll through today’s headlines, it wouldn’t take long to encounter the brokenness of this world: violence, poverty, hatred, abuse, and countless other atrocities. All evidence of our need for Jesus. Faced with this reality, it’d be easy to sit back, shaking our heads, longing for Jesus to return. While His return is the hope we all look forward to, sitting back and waiting is not what He asked us to do. Rather, as children of God, we’ve been asked to be influential for His glory, right here, right now. 

God desires to right the wrongs of this world, and His plan to bring about this reconciliation is us, His Church, living out the good news of Jesus for our world to see. This means growing and living in a way that our lives produce fruit that makes a difference in the world around us. Rather than passively enjoying the freedom we’ve received in Christ, we are compelled to share the good news and lead others into God’s family. Rather than separating ourselves from broken people and systems, we’re invited to realize our own brokenness and find healing as we engage in God’s work in our neighborhoods, churches, and relationships.

Living a life of influence begins with recognizing that our days are not our own. God has good works planned for each of us, ways that He wants to influence this world through us. We must simply hear His voice and obey His nudges. It may require setting aside our own expectations and choosing to see what seem like interruptions as opportunities—opportunities to embrace a moment of influence. These moments may seem inconsequential, but when God is at work in the middle of them, our small acts of obedience can become significant acts of influence.

God is at work in this broken world, and we have a vital part to play in His plan. Listen to His voice, obey His call, and step into a life of influence for His glory.

Read Colossians 1:19.

¹⁹ For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,

Read 2 Corinthians 5:14-20.

¹⁴ For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. ¹⁵ And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
¹⁶ So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. ¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

Read Matthew 5:16.

¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Read 1 Peter 2:9-12.

⁹ But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
¹¹ Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires,which wage war against your soul. ¹² Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

Read Ephesians 2:10.

¹⁰ For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Consider: What is something, or who is someone, that I can stop seeing as an interruption and start seeing as an opportunity to be influential for His glory?