Youth Group

Last night, Elijah shared in youth group. We started off reading Joshua 1:8-

"Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful."

Psalm 77:12-20-

"I will meditate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds. Your ways, O God, are holy. What god is so great as our God? You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples. With your mighty arm you redeemed your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.  The waters saw you, O God, the waters saw you and writhed; the very depths were convulsed. The clouds poured down water, the skies resounded with thunder; your arrows flashed back and forth. Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind, your lightning lit up the world; the earth trembled and quaked. Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen.  You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron."

Psalm 119:15-16-

" I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. I delight in Your decrees; I will not neglect Your word."

The main theme of all these verses is meditating on God's Word. His question was, why? Why should we be meditating on God's Word? 

In John 1:1, John calls Jesus the Word. In John 6:48, Jesus says, "I am the bread of life." The Word of God, the Bible,  is our food, our nourishment for our soul. 2 Timothy 3:16a- "All scripture is God-breathed."  The Bible is what is feeding our soul. We need it to grow more in Christ! ... That's where meditating on God's Word comes in. We can't just open up our Bible every day and read a chapter, close it, and feel good cause we read our Bible. Nooo! We need to dig into what we're reading chew it and taste it! 1 Peter 2:2-3:

"Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good."

We're told to crave the Word. Crave it like newborns crave the milk of their mom's. Yet, how often do we neglect to do that? How often do we just read a chapter and then push everything we read aside and get on with the day? How can we grow when we're not eating?? We can't! How can we show love, kindness, gentleness... how can we produce any of the fruits of the Spirit when we aren't feeding  our spirit? We need Spiritual food to grow spiritually! 

We then moved on to encouraging one another to spend time in the Word. Kent said that one night at youth group he was in a group with all the other boys when he took a step back and replayed in his mind everything that had just been talked about. It ranged from mustard to beer commercials. Not once was anything about God mentioned! And this was during youth group. If we're spending time meditating on God's Word and it's not coming out... what is that saying? ... There's the saying that goes, "What goes in must come out." If we are feeding ourselves with the Word it should be gushing out! We should be speaking about Christ all the time! And yet, it's so easy to just keep it all bundled up inside of us. One question that was asked was, "What kind of friend are you if you don't care about each other's spiritual life?" ... We, as believers, need to be encouraging one another in their walk with God. It's so easy to talk about everything under the sun... and never once mention Christ! There comes that verse again... "The world and its desires will pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever." - 1 John 2:17. We need to not be so focused on the styles, or newest things of today... they're just pulling our attention off of God. Instead we need to be yearning to learn more about Him! And encouraging friends to do the same. Praise the Lord, we aren't in it alone! He is with us every step of the way. And He is the one who enables us to understand His Word and help apply it to our lives. But we need to be doing our part. We need to put away the desires of the world and instead turn to Christ and give Him our all to use for His glory!!!  

I thought this song fit perfectly with what we had talked about:

"This is my desire
To honour You
Lord, with all my heart
I worship You
All I have within me
I give You praise
All that I adore
Is in You

Lord, I give You my heart
I give You my soul
I live for you alone
Every breath that I take
Every moment I'm awake
Lord, have Your ways in me"

Amen!

Ps- A lil' side note, that I thought was pretty neat, what Elijah shared was just what I've been reading about in my quiet time:) Isn't God great?! It's always nice hearing others expound on thoughts that you've been thinking for a while :)