Greg started our time off by asking a question. "Who really loves you?" Teens (and adults for that matter) have a deep desire to be loved, but many people are looking for love in the wrong places. Instead of placing our love with those who love us we tend to place our love with things. We tend to love things and use people. The person/people who REALLY love us are the people we should live our lives for. There is basically one person who loves us more then He loves himself.
Greg talked about how he discovered this love in high school through four things his Christian buddy told him.
1) God loves you (John 3:16). God loves us and wants to spend eternity with us. He has even prepared a place for us so that we might be with him forever.
2) There is a problem though. You have sinned (Romans 3:23). All of us have sinned and it doesn't matter how much or how little it is, it is still sin. Sin separates us from God and no matter how much we do that is good it will never be enough to earn us a place with God.
3) Fortunately, Jesus Christ died for our sins (Romans 5:8). Jesus is not a legend, He is historical fact. The truth is He payed for our sins on the cross. We are filthy because of our sin, but through His sacrifice He has made us clean. We are separated from God, but Jesus reestablished the connection through His sacrifice.
4) We have to make a choice (John 1:12). It isn't good enough to just have an intellectual understanding of God and Jesus, we have to make a choice based upon what we have discovered. We have to decide whether God is real or not, whether we are going to love Him or not, and whether we are going to follow Him or not. God is not going to make us love Him. Love isn't love unless we choose to love. God has chosen to love us. He is under no obligation to love us. We are given the choice whether to love Him back or not.
The teens were challenged tonight to make one of two decisions. The first was directed to the non-believer. "Have you asked Jesus into your heart? What about tonight?" The second was directed to the believer "Have you allowed stuff to come between you and Jesus? How about taking care of that tonight?"
He ended by saying "You need to make a decision about who really loves you. Jesus does. If you are going to live a legendary life you need to know Jesus and live for Him!"
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