Daily
Devotional

Recently I read a selection of thoughts compiled by a local group of high school students. To my disappointment, the works these scholars had put together offered no hope of how personal pain and suffering can end, and lacked an understanding of what love is. The heartfelt thoughts they expressed left me with sadness; I wondered what had happened to the moral values our nation was founded on. How had these young people, preparing to step out into the world on their own, missed learning about God, His love for mankind, and the gift of salvation through Jesus’ death and resurrection? How had these upcoming builders of our country failed to learn about the One who can heal all pain?  

These teens seemed to have fallen through the cracks of Christian outreach programs. They still need someone to speak to them about the salvation and hope that God offers to all. Initially, my thought was that someone else must be more qualified to help witness to the lost. Then the Lord reminded me of our focus verse.

Perhaps we feel we can do little in spreading the Gospel because we have had no theological schooling or other formal outreach training. The devil would like us to believe we are useless to God, but that is not true. If we are saved and are serving the Lord faithfully, we are prime candidates for His mission to reach the lost! However, we will not do it in our own strength; we must spend time in prayer asking God to give us the words to say, and also to prepare hearts to receive those words. Then we can go forward confidently and offer His message to those who need to hear it.

The high school students whose work I read are probably not unusual. Many teens today do not have Jesus’ peace and love in their hearts, nor the assurance that God can meet their every need. We might feel under-qualified to be preachers, but how will they hear without someone telling them? We need to be willing and ready to reach out to searching souls and share Jesus with them.