Young People’s Blog

Tribulation

On June 10, 1770, British navigator and explorer James Cook’s ship hit a reef off the northeast coast of Australia. He sailed the ship out into deeper waters, only to hit the reef again, and this time the collision almost sank the boat. That day, he wrote in the ship’s log: “The north point was named Cape Tribulation, because here began all our troubles.”

Maybe you are experiencing a Cape Tribulation in your life. It just seems like no matter where you turn there is one disaster and problem after another. Remember, our God and Father loves us and knows all about it.

The Bible says, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing” (James 1:2-4).

All is under His full control and ordered by the One who knows best what we have need of. There are many lessons to learn as we continue on in our Christian pathway, and He has promised to see us through and to provide all the grace that is needed in every situation. As Samuel Rutherford wrote, almost 400 years ago,

“Faith grows best in the winter of trial.”

The Truth in Love

“Speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15).

Do you ever feel discouraged and ready to give up? I do! In fact today I am rather discouraged. Yesterday someone spoke rather harshly to me, and it really upset me. What they said may have been true, but the way they said it hurt. I felt as if someone had whipped me.

It got me thinking about Job and his three friends in the Old Testament.

“Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite” (Job 2:11).

Many of the things they said to Job were true, but the way they said them and their attitude in talking to Job was anything but a help. In fact, Job finally said to them,

“Miserable comforters are ye all” (Job 16:2).

Let’s be careful, not only about what we say, but how we say it. We may speak the truth, being clear as ice and just as cold. It is good to be faithful with our friends, but let’s make sure it is in a way that not only speaks to the conscience but also warms the heart.

Our Hearts

The Lord wants our heart’s affection. He says to each of us, “My son, give Me thine heart” (Proverbs 23:26). The children of Israel were instructed, “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). However, grace does not buy hearts — it wins them. That’s why “it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace” (Hebrews 13:9).

The Lord Jesus went to the cross and died, not merely to save us from hell, but to win our hearts’ affections. When we consider His great love for us — all that He has done to prove that love, all that He is doing for us now, as well as all that is ahead and waiting for us when we arrive in the Father’s house of joy — it will indeed win our hearts and draw out our affections for Himself. The Apostle John enjoyed the fact that he was “the disciple, whom Jesus loved” (John 21:20). Later on, he wrote,

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love Him, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:18-19).

Has the Lord won your heart?

Youth

“It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth” (Lamentations 3:27).

“Redeeming the time” (Ephesians 5:16).

Wasted time and wasted talents,
In our days of youthfulness,
Never can they be recycled,
Gone those days of usefulness:
Do not squander, do not lose them,
Serve your Master, serve today:
There is much to do for Jesus,
Do not waste your youth away!
Jesus wants our youthful vigor,
He desires our very best,
All the energy He gives us…
This is not our final rest:
We are going on to heaven,
There our service will be done,
Then rewards and commendations,
When our race is fully run.

Dear Young Christian,

I am writing to you this morning from the desert. I am in Yucca Valley, California, visiting a brother in Christ for a couple of days. As I sit at the desk in my room and look out at the early morning dawn, I am reminded of what the Lord said to the disciples after they told Him of the death of John the Baptist. “He said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while” (Mark 6:31). How gracious of the Lord to draw the disciples aside for a few moments of personal fellowship and refreshment with Himself. They were no doubt burdened and perplexed with what had just happened to John, and the Lord knew that they needed some time alone in His presence.

Maybe you are starting the week with a troubled heart. Perhaps you dread to face what you anticipate will happen. Take time to slip away and be alone with the Lord, even if just for a few minutes at a time. Maybe on your lunch or coffee break or between classes. And don’t forget to spend some time with the Lord at the beginning of each day.

Your Christian Friend,

Jim Hyland

He Gave His Life

“Jesus, when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost” (Matthew 27:50).

This loud cry came as the Lord dismissed His spirit at the end of the three hours of darkness when He had finished the work of bearing “our sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). In another gospel we read the very words He spoke at that time, saying, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit” (Luke 23:46).

This was not the weak whisper of a dying man succumbing to death, but a strong cry of victory. Never think that the death of the Lord Jesus was the result of physical decline caused by the sufferings of the cross, severe as these were. The Lord Jesus was not overcome by death, because death had no claim upon Him. He had already said,

“No man taketh it [My life] from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My Father” (John 10:18).

We also read,

“He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8).

What a Savior! What love!

Live to Be 100

Magazine publisher, J.I. Rodale, a zealous advocate of health foods, claimed at the age of 72 that he would live to be 100. The same week his prediction appeared in The New York Times, he was being interviewed for a television program, claiming that his bones were as strong as ever. Moments after making his boast, he died of a heart attack.

The reasonable person knows that there are no guarantees when it comes to life. Long ago Job declared,

“Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not” (Job 14:1-2).

Centuries later, James wrote,

“Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away” (James 4:13-14).

This is why it is so important to be saved and ready for eternity. When we leave this world it is too late to prepare for the next world. Do you have ETERNAL LIFE?

Monthly Question Page

Q. Will a faithful life ensure a more lovely crown that we can cast at the feet of the Lord Jesus?

A. Crowns for faithfulness are set before us as an encouragement in running the Christian race. Paul was running with the “prize” or “goal” in view. “I press toward the mark for the prize” (Philippians 3:14). However, crowns or rewards are never to be our object or motive. They are a nice incentive, but Christ is to be our object and motive.

The Bible brings the subject of crowns before us to spur us on in the path of faith and service, and it is good that we be exercised to obtain that which we can cast at the Lord’s feet, giving Him all the glory, realizing that if we were faithful it was not of ourselves but His grace working for us and in us. “The four and twenty elders … cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power” (Revelation 4:10-11).

Many will receive a crown, as Paul said,

“Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8).

Settled

“Continue in the faith grounded and settled” (Colossians 1:23)

I live in Canada. The name comes from the Iroquois Indian word, “kanata,” which means “settlement.” The early pioneers were glad to arrive on the shores of a new land and be able to settle into what they hoped would be a better life and a better country than what they had left behind.

As believers in Christ, it is good for us to be “settled” as well. Not “settled” down in this world, but “settled” in our souls as to our salvation, our eternal security, and all that is ours in Christ. “The faith” referred to in the above verse is not the individual faith of believers, but the truth of God as revealed in the Word of God. It is what Jude refers to when he writes,

“Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for THE FAITH which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3).

An unsettled believer is an unhappy believer, with no rest of soul or peace of mind. The more you prayerfully read your Bible, the more “settled” you will become.

Monthly Scripture Reading

Isaiah 5:1-6

1 Now will I sing to my Wellbeloved a song of my Beloved touching His vineyard. My Wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:

2 And He fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt Me and My vineyard.

4 What could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?

5 And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to My vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:

6 And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.