The year is in full-swing at Area 12:2 youth group! We’ve got Bible study every Sunday at 9:30am. High School Teen Night takes place every Sunday night from 7-9 pm, and Jr. High Teen Night happens every 2nd and 4th Tuesday from 7:00-8:30pm. Mexicali 2012 is open to all 7-12 grade students this year. We anticipate a huge group. Applications are due November 6 and can be downloaded from this site. Springhill Winter retreats take place in January for High School and February for Jr. High. Those forms can also be found here on this site. Take your time to check out the site, and feel free to contact us if you have any questions. Hope to see you at one of our activites!
Dave Priskorn
Director of Youth Ministry
STUDENT NEWSLETTER #514
Contents
1. Something for Your Heart
2. Surf Report
3. Random Randomness
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1. SOMETHING FOR YOUR HEART
Romans 8: Call Him Father
“For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ ” (Romans 8:15)
What does it mean to you to be God’s child, to be able to legitimately call Him your father? Too often, Christianity is presented as a contract between a person and God: “Just sign here, here, and here, and all your sins will be forgiven and you can go to heaven when you die.”
It’s much more personal to God than that. He’s not selling something we need. He’s not looking for buyers. He’s looking for children. He has given us the “Spirit of sonship,” which could also be read as the “Spirit of adoption.” He’s looking to fill His family with lost kids by making them His kids.
Aside from Jesus, God has no biological children. Some of us may have grown up in the church nursery, but we were not born into God’s family just by being born. We had to be adopted to become a child of God. And once we were in the family, He gave us the right to call Him “daddy.”
Think: What does it mean to you to know that God is your Father, that He has adopted you into His family? What is the value of that? Can Christianity work without the idea of God as Father?
Pray: Thank God for giving you the spirit of adoption and inviting you to call Him “Abba, Father.”
Do: Read this great quote from J.I. Packer’s book Knowing God:
If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. “Father” is the Christian name for God. … Our understanding of Christianity cannot be better than our grasp of adoption. (pp. 201—202)
(HT: Between Two Worlds)
Get More Daily Devotionals at PlanetWisdom.com.
2.Surf Report
Real Steel [Christianity Today]
The Ides of March [Plugged In]
3. Random Randomness:
More than ten people a year are killed by vending machines.