What Now? New Believer Plan For Teenagersنموونە

What did I just do?

Saying YES again

There’s a chance that you are reading this because in the last few days or weeks, maybe even in the last few hours, you decided to say, “YES” to trusting God. That’s a HUGE decision. Maybe you are still thinking about it, trying to decide what does it really mean? How do you trust God? How do you follow Jesus? What’s it mean to be a Christian? What am I saying “yes” to?

It might help if you imagine a friend. Even if you have never had a really tight friendship, you can imagine the kind of person who is a real friend. He would be totally trustworthy. He would want what is best for you. He’d be easy to be with. He might go so far as to care more about you than about himself. You would want to be around him as often as you could. God wants this kind of friendship with you. God actually made you especially for friendships. He’s always wanted your most important friendship to be with Him.

Read

You could read the very first pages of the Bible, Genesis 1 and 2, and find the summary of how God created everything, including men and women. And then God started a friendship with the people He created. Notice that when God created all the animals and the sky and stars he said, “This is good.” But later, when he created man and woman, he said, “This is VERY good.” Genesis 1:31 Learn even more about how God created you and wants a friendship with you. Read Psalm 139. Pay special attention to verses 1-18.

Made for RELATIONSHIP God created humans because He loves humans. He made you because he wants a friendship with you.

Think about this

What do these verses tell you about how much God loves you and wants a friendship with you?

God created us to be in a friendship with him. But, we humans usually like to do things our own way. It wasn’t long after God created the first people, Adam and Eve, that they decided to leave God. They wanted to make their own rules. In fact, they did exactly what God asked them not to do.

WE RESIST GOD That’s what sin is; when people decide to make their own plans and ignore the directions that God has given. The Bible says that ALL have sinned and don’t live up to God’s amazing glory.

Can you think of times when bad decisions have separated you from God?

JESUS RESTORES RELATIONSHIP God’s love for you never stops. It can’t be broken by anything we do. God never holds his love back from you. That’s because Jesus restored our chance for relationship with God by dying on the cross.

HOW WE RESPOND TO GOD MATTERS When you say, “YES” to following God, you admit that you’ve made bad decisions and that you have resisted God’s friendship with you.

Is there anything you want to tell God you are sorry for? In the same way that you ask a friend to forgive you when you have hurt them, you can ask God to forgive you.

When you say, “YES” to following God, you’re saying that you don’t want to resist anymore. Instead, you want this friendship with God who made you, just like those verses said in Psalm 139. You might even stop here and say “yes” again. When you say “YES”, you are inviting Jesus to fix the broken relationship that you have with God. Jesus is the only one who can fix that. When Jesus allowed the people to murder him on the cross, he did that to pay the price for sin. When he died and then rose again, he restored the relationship we can have with God. What are some ways you can thank Jesus for what he did by dying on the cross?

You are made for this friendship with God. He will never leave you. He will walk with you and lead you and comfort you.

Try This

Go back and read Psalm 139 again and as you read it, insert your own name whenever you see “I” or “me.” If you are reading through this plan with a friend or leader, you could read it out loud and insert your friend’s name and then they could do the same for you. When you realize you have a friend like God, who knows you and loves you, even with your failures, it makes you want to stay close and follow His lead, which is exactly where He wants you!