Young People’s Blog

“And Samuel cried unto the Lord…and the Lord heard him” (1 Samuel 7:9).

Many years had passed since Samuel, as a boy, first heard the Lord’s voice. But we see in reading these intervening chapters that he had learned to listen to the Lord, and also to talk to Him. And the Lord heard! Prayer is a two-way street! The privilege is not there just so I can press “prayer” as an emergency button whenever I am in trouble. The Lord wants us to have a relationship with Him. He loves to hear from us. He is always listening. A little “Good morning, Lord, please help me to please You today.” Or a “Thank you, Lord, for helping me to get home safely on the slippery roads.” Sometimes we may think that the Lord does not want to be bothered with the little problems in our lives, but this is not true. If we have lost something, or need help with a test, or are frightened of something, He wants us to come to Him and ask Him for help.

A little talk with Jesus–
How it smooths the rugged road,
How it seems to help me onward,
when I faint beneath my load:
When my heart is crushed with sorrow,
and my eyes with tears are dim,
There is naught can yield me comfort,
like a little talk with Him.

                                   R. L. Allan

“If He [the Lord] call thee…thou shalt say, Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth” (1 Samuel 3:9).

We may all know the story of the little boy Samuel who was taken to the temple to live with Eli the priest. His mother had prayed for a child, and when her prayer was answered, she dedicated him to the Lord. Here he is now, a young boy, having the Lord speak to him in a very direct way. Eli gave Samuel good advice as to how to answer the voice that called him in the night.

We will not likely have such a direct encounter with the Lord, but He still does speak to us through reading His Word, and sometimes through circumstances. How wonderful if we, too, can answer as Samuel did. Let the Lord know we are listening! The Lord also speaks to us by His Spirit, and if you are a true believer in the Lord Jesus, then the Spirit of God lives in you. He is able to show you what to do when you have a question as to which way to go in your life.

This became a wonderful pattern in Samuel’s life. Verse 21 of this same chapter tells us, “The Lord appeared again…for the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel…in the word of the Lord.”

“What shall I do? I will send My beloved Son” (Luke 20:13).

This question is asked in the form of a parable, which the Lord Jesus told to the Jewish people. (You may read it in Luke 20:9-18). It talks about a man who owned a vineyard, and who arranged for men to look after it in his absence. But when the owner sent servants to get some of the grapes of the vineyard, the men who looked after it treated them all badly. Finally the owner said, “What shall I do? I will send My beloved Son.” You know who that Son was—the Lord Jesus. The owner is a picture of God the Father.

But what did the men do with the Lord Jesus? It says in the 15th verse that “they cast Him out of the vineyard and killed Him.” That is what men did with the Lord Jesus, and God has not forgotten it. But all who come to the Lord Jesus, admitting that they are sinners, can be saved through what He suffered on the cross.

“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

Just last month, the world’s oldest living person died. Her name was Kane Tanaka, and she was born in January, 1903. She lived to be 119 years old! What a great many changes she saw in this world during her lifetime!

You will remember that last month we talked about how the Lord kept Moses strong and able to lead His people right up to the age of 120. Kane Tanaka was a very frail old lady. Our verse today instructs us to “number our days.” We do not know how much time we have left in our lives, so how can we number those days? I believe that the verse is telling us to make each day count. If this were the last day of your life, what would you do with it?

There is good advice for us in this quotation, as Christians—“Plan your life as though you were going to live it out, but live your life as though every day were the last.”

The Lord does not expect us to sit with our hands folded, waiting for His return. We need to earn a living and study at school. Most important, we must bear in mind that the Lord has given “to every man his work” (Mark 13:34). But all the time we should be thinking, “maybe today!” Let’s use our time wisely, for our Lord’s honor, and in learning more of Him.

“Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! For so did their fathers to the false prophets” (Luke 6:26).

This might seem to be a strange verse, for should we not want people to like us, and to speak well of us? Yes, in one sense, for a Christian should always be courteous, loving, and helpful. However, if everyone out there in the world really likes us, and wants to be around us, then this verse tells us that something is wrong.

When the Lord Jesus was in this world, they liked His gracious words, and the fact that He healed people, and fed them with good food. However, they did not like it when He told them that they were guilty sinners before God, and needed a Savior. They eventually crucified Him for this, and for claiming to be the Son of God.

It will be the same for us, if we speak about Christ in our interaction with others. The false prophets in the Old Testament told the people what they wanted to hear, and they were popular. However, a faithful prophet (like Micaiah) was put in prison. (See if you can find where he is mentioned in the Old Testament.) Today you and I will not be popular, if we honor the Lord Jesus and speak about Him to others.

“That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Hebrews 6:12).

Have you ever heard of an animal called a sloth? They live in the tropical rain forests of Central and South America, and are very interesting animals. They sleep a good deal of the time, hanging upside down in trees, and their metabolism is so slow that if they swallow a leaf, they can take a whole month to digest it! When they were first discovered they were thought to be very lazy, and thus were called sloths. However, they are strong animals for their size, and can hang on to a branch for hours. They can easily survive a fall of 100 feet (about 30 meters) from a tree.

The Lord does not want us to be like a sloth. It is easy to become a lazy Christian, and not use our time and energy for the Lord. If we really appreciate what the Lord Jesus has done for us, we will want to spend our time for Him in this world, and use our energy to walk in what He has given us in His Word. We are not left in this world merely to lead good, morally upright lives, and then to go to heaven at the end. Yes, we should be doing all that, but we are also to be living witnesses of the grace that brought us to Christ.

“Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man” (Colossians 4:6).

We saw yesterday that our joy in the Lord ought to enable us to be cheerful even on a dull day, or when things were not going smoothly for us. Our joy in Christ should show people that we belong to Him. However, there is something else that is needed when we speak to people who are not saved, and we find it in our verse today—salt. What is salt, in a spiritual sense?

Salt does many things for us naturally: it preserves food, it prevents infection, and it seasons food. But we all know that the right amount of salt in food is most important. Too little makes it bland and tasteless, and too much makes it impossible to eat, as the salt overwhelms the food. Perhaps you have seen your mother taste food which she is preparing, and then add a little more salt. She knows by tasting just the right amount of salt to use.

Spiritually, salt could be said to be “holy grace.” Grace is a wonderful thing, but salt brings in God’s holy claims. We should show the grace and love of God to unbelievers, but also remind them that they are sinners, and need to be saved. The Lord can show, by His Spirit, just how much “salt” to bring into every conversation.

“A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken” (Proverbs 15:13).

“Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4).

If you look at most people you meet today, and especially if they are not interacting with someone else at the time, often they do not appear very happy. I am writing this in April, 2022, and here in Canada it has been a very late spring, at least where we live. Some people are suffering from what is called “seasonal affective disorder,” which simply means that they get depressed and sad when it is cloudy and cold for a long time. (Notice the letters at the beginning of those three words: what do they spell?) Those people do not have the “merry heart” that makes a “cheerful countenance.”

For those of us who know the Lord, we have the Holy Spirit living in us, and He wants to give us continual joy from within. Yes, we all like a warm, sunny day, but we can be happy in the Lord even on a dull day. It is this kind of joy that makes others realize that our joy does not come from our circumstances or the weather, but rather from the enjoyment of Christ in our hearts. There are many out there who need the encouragement that you and I can give them. Philippians 4:4 is given more as a command than a suggestion, for God has given us everything to enable us to rejoice.

“Now when He [the Lord Jesus] had left speaking, He said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. And Simon answering said unto Him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at Thy word I will let down the net. And when they had done this, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake” (Luke 5:4-6).

The Lord Jesus had asked for the loan of Simon Peter’s boat to use as a small platform from which to speak, and now the Lord is going to reward him. Notice that the Lord Jesus told Peter to let down his nets to catch some fish. However, Peter was a bit skeptical; he was probably a good fisherman, and having worked all night, had not caught anything. Was something suddenly going to change now? So Peter said, “I will let down the net.”

What was the result? The net was so full of fish that it broke, and they had to get help from their partners in another boat. If he had let down all his nets, they would not have broken. I believe Peter learned a good lesson that day. He learned who the Lord Jesus was, and that He could command even the fish in the sea to obey Him. The result was that Peter realized that he was a sinner in God’s sight, but that God loved him just the same. That very day Peter gave up fishing, and followed the Lord Jesus.

“But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Galatians 6:14).

The cross shows what this world thought of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only did they want to get rid of Him, but they put Him to the most cruel death they could think of. It is true that it was the Jews who insisted on His being crucified, when the Roman governor Pilate wanted to release Him. But then the Roman soldiers mocked Him, put a crown of thorns on His head, and heaped upon Him every indignity they could.

You and I, as Christians, can glory in that cross. Why? Because it separates us from the world, and because we are privileged to follow a rejected Christ. The One who hung on that cross is now our Savior, and we should be honored to bear His name, and to follow Him in being separate from this world.