A Letter to My Students
You live in a time period where the world keeps telling you, “be you,” “say what you want,” and “make your beliefs fit you.” There are so many lies being thrown at you and sometimes your mind and your tongue cannot decipher what to believe and what to say that is actually true. Your fingers fly across your phone to respond to someone-nice or not-to get your point across. What you watch and hear on social media becomes a reflection of what you say and do in the real world. Those outside voices (in your hand or elsewhere), the voices of this world, are the enemy though, not those trying to disciple you–not those like me, your teacher.
But it’s sometimes hard for you to understand that. Who can blame you? At this age, your teenage mind is already trying to wrap its head around so many things in the present and future tense. You're constantly thinking about how you can impress __________, how you can make yourself look ____________ and whether or not you are feeling anxious or not in this anxiety driven world. How could you possibly try to decipher all the other worldly “truths” that are being thrown at you?
1.Humility–you nor I know all that there is to know. Your parents don’t either, but Jesus does and He modeled humility. Therefore, we can too since we have been given the same Spirit (Ephesians 3: 16-20).
2. “Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.” (James 1:19)
3.Sit by Jesus…seriously though, if Jesus was sitting right next to you what would be different? Jesus isn’t a religion, He’s a friend…treat Him like one, but also be in reverence for what He does for you each day. (John 15:15)
4.Invest in time IN your Bible. Imagine how much you could grow if we all spent more time in our Bible and less IN this world…I mean distracted by anything.(Psalm 119:105)
5.Choose work and not entitlement. If you don’t know what entitlement is, I suggest you make sure you know because we don’t need any more crotchety Christians walking around ;) (Colossians 3:23)
Know this: these things aren’t easy for me to live out either. In fact some days some of you make me tempted to go in the opposite direction of those 5 encouragements. What I do know though, is that we have a loving Father. A Father that loves you so much, that your life down here on earth is so valuable. So treat it in that way. Choose to be different and choose to let Jesus BE the truth-that’s been His job anyway since the beginning. So, let Him have it.
