Fbcj Solid Youth

This time of year seems to always be a season where many in youth ministry wax and wane in their walk with God. Coming out of summer camp, ending summer, starting school, and juggling all the various responsibilities with school, extra-curricular activities, work, and family while maintaining a walk with God isn't easy to learn! We need to take a pause and re-evaluate and refocus...

God is consistent. How he deals with mankind can differ from one dispensation to another, but the Lord does not change. Once God establishes a biblical truth in scripture he is consistent from beginning to end. This will be realized in the areas of typology and numerology in God's Book. I love it!

God cannot lie, and that also means the Bible cannot lie or contradict itself. If there happens to be an apparent contradiction, always give the Bible the benefit of the doubt. Apparent contradictions are often God's way of teaching us some great and deeper spiritual truths... and at the same time, scoffers will use those same passages as an excuse to walk farther and farther away from the will of God for their lives.

God created everything after the pattern of himself. This means that when we look out into his creation we can learn lessons of spiritual truths about himself, his doctrine, and other things from the Bible. We live in a world that does not believe that God and science can coexist, but that simply isn't true! Science proves God's existence, power, and even the Trinity.

To properly study and understand the Bible you must compare scripture with scripture. The Bible is the best and most reliable commentary on the Bible, NOT other commentaries written by human authors. Using cross-referencing and a concordance is extremely valuable tools to make this happen. All of these things are free and readily available through smartphone Bible apps, so there is no excuse!

Every word and every event has been specifically chosen by God to communicate his truth, his heart, and his mind to us in HIS BOOK... the Bible. Every word of God is pure and he warns us to not mess with his words (Prov. 30:5-6). The Lord has also promised to preserve every word in his book throughout all generations (Ps. 12:6-7). This truth should change the way we see, understand, and interact with the Bible. Is the Bible your final authority? It should be... Can you trust every single word of your Bible? You should be able to...

Every book, chapter, and verse in the Bible has 3 basic applications - (1) Historical, (2) Devotional, and (3) Doctrinal. Historical deals with the details surrounding the events as they were recorded in history... the Bible is 100% accurate in all historical details. Devotional deals with how this book, chapter, and verse apply to my current life circumstances. Doctrinal deals with the deeper spiritual truths that God desires to reveal about himself, his doctrine, his heart, along with future prophetic events. There truly is no other book like God's Word!!

According to 2 Timothy 2:15 we are called by God to "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that neededth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." We must learn how to study the Bible properly, and part of that means we need to rightly divide it. The Bible has divisions, or dispensations, where God administers his plan in different ways throughout human history. This lesson dives into this topic.

One very important contextual detail that must be considered is the People Group Factor. God has written parts of the Bible to certain people groups. All of the Bible is for us, but only part is written specifically to us. Many, many false doctrines will arise if we misapply passages and verses to our lives that were never mean to be applied to us.

The first rule of Bible Study is CONTEXT... Verses and passages must be taken in their proper context in order to understand their meaning. Many, many people steeped in false doctrine take verses and passages from the Bible OUT OF CONTEXT in order to support their false doctrines. If a person takes God's words in their proper context they cannot believe in false doctrine.

Studying the Bible is a crucial element to the Christian life. There are many believers today that believe they can be "good Christians" without possessing sound doctrine that comes from studying the scriptures. 2 Timothy 2:15 (KJV) says, "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." In nearly all other versions of the Bible, and 100% of all modern versions, the word "study" is removed... and this is a shame. God and his words cannot be separated. The way we treat God is the way we treat his book, and the way we treat his book is the way treat God. We must study his word to know God and know what we are to do to glorify him. TRUTH!

This lesson is taught by Andy Speight... As discussed last week, life transitions are great opportunities to glorify God, but it is not easy. Andy gives us some insight to how he deals with issues of life and transitions in this lesson. They key is always remembering the truth regardless of how we feel on any given day.

Bobby Schilling teaches this week... This is the first week talking about life transitions. These times of life are hard, and they make us very vulnerable. We need to know what the Bible says and obey in order for God to get the glory he deserves from our lives. Times of vulnerability are times when we can give more glory to God!

Glorifying God in our relationships is so critical in this life. In this lesson, we will tackle the topics of family, friends, and dating and how those three areas can easily become pitfalls for us in our walk with God. At the end of the day, we need to learn how to abandon what we think and feel and adopt god's way of thinking. This is not easy to do!

In this lesson we talk about how to deal with sin. What are we supposed to do when we sin against others and we want to make it right? What are we supposed to do when others sin against us and we need to do what is right? These are not easy things to navigate, but extremely important!

Once a Christian is able to grow in their relationship with God to the point where they are gaining true spiritual strength and wisdom, there will be potential issues and pitfalls that will arise from the enemy. We need to be able to identify our enemies and see what the Bible says about how to defeat those enemies. This lesson could save our lives!

Every year we go over the purpose of our High School ministry and how we are going to fulfill our responsibility to glorify God personally and corporately in our local church. What a great reminder! The Lord is worthy of all we can offer...

Serving in a ministry in your local church is critical to your spiritual growth! It is impossible to be engaged fully in the work of the Lord and work with God if you refuse to serve... Bobby explores this topic in this lesson and what the Bible says about serving.

The other element that comes right after evangelism is discipleship. The biblical reality is that evangelism and discipleship are two sides of the same coin... this is what God always desired. Some churches emphasize evangelism and fall short on discipleship while others emphasize discipleship and fall short with evangelism. Both are wrong. Discipleship includes evangelism and we must keep the plan of God to reach the world in motion!

After learning to walk with God and have a healthy relationship with him, then we can focus on working alongside him wherever he is at with anyone we come in contact with. The lost need saved and the saved need to grow... and we get to take part in that process! First, we take a look at evangelism.