The Blog

Hi Everybody! I am a christian teen who wishes to share his ideas on the web, and ultimately, create an online christian teen community. This blog is new, but I am hoping that you will be impacted by what I write and become a member of this online community. I have been greatly inspired by Alex and Brett Harris at www.therebelution.com and David Platt at www.radicalthebook.com thank you for reading!

Monday, February 21, 2011

How Selfish am I?

Hey everyone! I'm starting a series of articles. The first one, There Must Be More To Life Than This, was posted in my last blog post. Here is the next article in the series.


My name is Joshua. I am a perfect Christian who always obeys the Lord and I do his will all the time. Ok, not really.
     I try to do His will as much as I can, but the truth is that no one is perfect except Jesus. Right now I’ve been growing in Him spiritually, so that He can use me as He sees fit. It started at Summer Camp 2010. This time was inarguably the best time of my life, and I can’t wait until next year. Since then, I’ve been a “disciple in training”.
     It’s been about 9 weeks since my last TRUTH service because of holidays and busyness. TRUTH is every Sunday evening, with worship and a great lesson from the youth pastor.
I learned that I couldn’t go to a specific one, which frustrated me, especially because my second youth commission meeting was then. This was Wednesday, and it turned out there was no church that night either. So I was very mad. Another thing that contributed was that the weekend before was the mid winter retreat at church, and I was on a spiritual high. I was hungry for the word.
     Is this a pity party? Am I pouring out my difficulties? Am I whining? Is that what this is about? No.
    In the midst of this anger, I came to a realization. How selfish am I, to be mad about missing a few days of God, when Christians are persecuted in other places, when they risk life, and lose life, daily? How selfish am I to be mad when I have so much homework, while kids around the world get no education? How selfish am I, that I’m devastated when I can’t go hang out with my friends because I must see my boring family, when people around the world, many younger than me, have nothing, not even a box, no single family member or friend? Something to think about. The next article, if I Die Today, follows up and will challenge you to take a new radical standpoint on life itself.

Friday, February 18, 2011

There Must Be More to Life than This

You all have probably heard this phrase before, whether in a book or a movie. Someone at some point, often times an older person, wonders if there is more to life than the everyday things we do: get up, work and play, eat, drink, go back to sleep, and doing it all over again the next day. Oftentimes an entire story revolves around this as the character discovers a deeper something that is more than the norm. And when we Christians see this, we always say to ourselves, “Yeah, there is more to life than this: There’s God.”
         Now it’s ok to say that, in fact its great to recognize that fact, but think of what you are doing this week. Most likely school, homework, and then hang out with friends and on weekends go to church and have fun. There is nothing wrong with this lifestyle; however, I feel that there is more to life than that. Yes, it is a Christian life, and yes, you may be a radical follower of Christ, but there is more to life than that. God has a specific plan for each of us, but He also has a general plan for all of us. What is the general plan? To go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The general plan is to spread His word through all the nations, and do His will to disciple all parts of the globe.
         So the question is, will you see that there is more to life than this? This walking around day after day, a life based on enjoyment? This life that we live here in America as Christians is good. We work diligently and when we’re done we can play. That is our current mindset, and it’s not a wrong one, but there is more to life than that. There is fulfilling the individual and general purposes that God has destined for our lives, whatever that may be.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Introduction

Hi everyone! I am Joshua, a christian teen in Texas that has been inspired by the Holy Word of God. I hope to create an online christian community of teens that want to do great things for Christ like myself. I will write articles on different subjects. Feel free to ask any questions in the blog, and I will answer you to the best of my God given ability. I might write a whole article on the subject! Thank you for reading, and stay tuned for more articles, and feel free to comment or follow at any time.