Chapter 7
Scripture Reading: Heb 12:1-14
This is the last chapter of this book; you now have an excellent opportunity to go before the Lord and pour out your heart before Him. You have to pray opening your whole being to the Lord, then He can speak to you.
Hebrews 11:6 says: "But without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to Him, for he who comes forward to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." Those who approach God need to believe that He exists and believe that He is a rewarder, then He becomes their rewarder. He rewards, gives a prize to those who seek Him. Have you sought the Lord recently? Have you come to the Lord in weakness and did He make you strong? Have you come to the Lord in a passive way and He made you active? When you do that, you learn to know your Lord better and He reveals more of Himself to you. Those who know their God becomes strong and active.
In this book we saw the history of a number of people who lived by faith. They had failures, mistakes, difficulties, negative environments and random circumstances, but they had something positive, they acted and were not passive. When God appeared and spoke to them, they responded and God infused faith in them. God was not looking for perfect young people, who didn't have problems and didn't make mistakes. Who does not make mistakes? Who does not make mistakes before men and before God? If some could be like this, the Lord must have already come back. What are we doing in the church life? We have a heart that seeks the Lord and loves Him. We are not perfect but we want to be perfected.
Young people, if Satan comes to accuse you saying, "You are not strong, not active" what do you have to say to him? You must say, "Although I'm not, I want to be and I believe in God."
God is the rewarder of those who seek Him. That's why the word of God has as an objective to provoke a response in us. A situation comes and we react and complain, "I'm so miserable! I cannot, I can't make it! Who can free me from the school, from my friends, from my weaknesses, from my problems? I cannot stand it any more, nobody can stand me, neither can I stand myself." Are you someone always complaining and discouraged? Don't be like that. You need to be a young one who responds. Every time that you look at the mirror, in the morning, when you wake up; do you have a beautiful face? No, but you wash it. Do you wake up with a wonderful breath? No, but you do brush your teeth. And, in this way you get better, right? If every morning your heart turns to the Lord, something will happen with your face, in your heart, in you. When you turn to the Lord, He will do something in you. This is what we need to do every day. We need to respond; we need to seek the Lord.
The examples in Hebrews 11 show us people who lived by faith. We saw Abel, Enoch, Noel, Abraham, Joseph and Moses' examples. Verse 13 says, "All these died in faith, not receiving the promises but seeing them from afar and joyfully greeting them and confessing that they were strangers, and sojourners on the earth." We need be young people who confess, declare that we are strangers, and sojourners on the earth. Look at what verses 14 to 16 say, "For those who say such things, make it manifest that they seek after a country of their own. And if indeed they continued to remember that country from which they went out, they would have had the opportunity to return; but as it is, they long after a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them." Don't you desire at least something you read in this book, or heard in a young people's meeting or conference? What do you desire? Here it speaks about a better country. Don't you think that the Lord's need is superior? Don't you think that the Lord is better than your romantic adventures and the latest fashion? You are always spending money to have fashionable clothes, new shoes, new lipstick, new earrings, everything must be new. How many times do you open your closet, see your new shoes, and still think that you need another pair? You think that you don't have proper shoes; therefore, the Lord can take care of His own need. This is the reasoning of those who don't know the Lord, who don't know their God, who listen to rock bands, and who have a lot of CD's from worldly bands. But, if you know your God, you have no use for these things.
Praise the Lord, after three or four years, the young people who make a habit of going to young people's conferences, can be delivered from their CD's of heavy metal bands, etc. We are through with those things! They are something from those who don't know their God. After many conferences, meetings, messages, books and experiences with God, even our faces become different; we have another face, a happy face, the face of young people who have been set free. We do not have the face of someone who is oppressed. The young people with a normal church life are learning to know their God, who is superior to everything.
One brother from the church was at the meeting hall lobby and heard the young people who were outside, talking about "slacking in school". The brother was behind them and they thought that he wasn't paying attention. The brother turned and said to them, "When I was with your age, I did the same. Today, my pay check is low. My brother studied and his pay check is high." Then he left them there.
Young people, when you enjoy the Lord and His divine life in the normal church life, slacking in school and things like that are over. Those are attitudes from those who are not useful to the Lord, who despise the divine life as we saw in the last chapter. Do you slack in school? What is that? This kind of talk does not come from those who love the Lord and hand over their lives to Him to be useful vessels.
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