REMEMBER YOUR CREATOR IN THE DAYS OF YOUR YOUTH
Ecclesiastes 12:1 “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you say: ‘I find no pleasure in them.”
King Solomon gave this advice to the youth of his day. His advice came from years of experience. In the beginning of his reign as King Solomon sought the Lord with all his heart and God gave him both wisdom and wealth. Solomon experienced fame and fortune. With all his wealth and worldwide influence he forgot God. He turned to the desires of the world, wine, women and song.
Solomon confessed that everything he received in life, all his wants and needs were met. He was a multi-billionaire. He enjoyed all the pleasures this world could give. He said that all the pleasures brought vanity and meaninglessness.
As Junior High Youth now is the time to remember the Lord in your life, not tomorrow, but today. Today make the commitment to follow-Jesus. Say in your heart, “I have decided to follow Jesus.”
During my first year of High School I experienced trauma that moved me to turn to the Lord for help.
One day I was playing at a friend’s house and I saw my father come out of the house next door with a woman. They got in my dad’s car and drove off.
I went home and told my mother what I had witnessed and that event was the beginning of my parent’s separation. My mother found a teaching job in another city and we moved that summer and I started my sophomore year in Sterling, Kansas. In October of that year at the age of 15 I confessed my sins and invited Jesus into my heart and life. Later that month I was baptized by immersion at the Missionary Church.
When I accepted the Lord as Savior, Jesus gave me a new purpose in life, to honor and serve Him. I started studying harder and I got involved in the youth group at the Missionary Church.
When you accept Jesus into your heart and life you begin a great adventure in life. You are no longer walking alone, you take the hand of the Lord and He guides you.
My High School Sunday school teacher became my mentor and spiritual life coach. He picked me up and took me to activities. He played tennis with me. He enrolled me in the Navigators Topical Memory System. During the summer between my sophomore and junior year in high school I memorized scripture while I drove a tractor plowing fields following the wheat harvest.
I began to study harder and received A’s and B’s in all my classes during my high school years.
Whatever talents you have been given you can use them to accomplish much. You don’t have to be tall with a body bulging with muscles to accomplish great things in your life. You have this promise in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
#A man who owned a circus elephant did research and discovered that an elephant can’t jump. He took the elephant on a tour from city to city offering anyone $1,000 if they could make the elephant jump.
He came to one small city in Kansas and gave out the challenge to a crowd of people who had paid an admission to see the elephant. After waiting quite a while an young boy wearing glasses and with a freckled face stepped out of the crowd and said he would take the challenge. The boy pulled out his slingshot and put a long nail in his slingshot and went around behind the elephant and pulled back the slingshot and shot the elephant his rear end and the elephant jumped several feet into the air.
The man who owned the elephant was dumbfounded. He gave the boy his money.
The man nursed his elephant back to health and after doing more research he read that an elephant wont shake it’s head up and down and then side to side in sequence. So he took the elephant on the road with a new challenge. He would give anyone a $1,000 if they could make the elephant shake his head up and down and then side to side in sequence. He traveled from city to city and no one could make the elephant shake his head in that sequence.
In his travels he came back to the same town in Kansas and gathered a crowd. He threw out the challenge. He would give anyone a thousand dollars who could make the elephant perform with the head shaking. After a long pause a year older boy wearing glasses and with a face filled with freckles stepped out of the crowd and approached the man with his elephant with his slingshot.
He stood in front of the elephant and asked the elephant. Elephants do have great memories. The young boy stood in front of the elephant and asked: “Do you remember me.” The elephant shook his head up and down. “Do you want me to do it to you again?” The elephant shook his head from side to side.
The young boy with just a slingshot earned $2,000. With a small slingshot the young boy got the huge elephant to obey his commands.
Don’t listen to people who say you’ll never amount to anything. Remember God created you and knew who you were before you were born. Psalm 139:13-14, “You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous – and how well I know it.”
The Lord has created you for a purpose in life. When you take the Lord’s hand you walk with the creator of the Universe. He will guide and direct you life as you walk with him. Only when you turn lose of the Lord’s hand will you get into trouble.
Don’t listen to people who put you down or make fun of you. To constantly listen to negative people who tell you that you are no good and good for nothing causes you to fall short of God’s potential for your life.
#When elephants are young they are staked to a pole with a chain. They yank and yank on the chain until they come to the realization they can’t break the chain. Something clicks in their mind that they are limited to the length of the chain. After a while the chain is removed, but the elephants remember they are limited to just a few feet from the pole.
#The same thing happens with fleas in a jar. You put the fleas in the jar and they jump up time and time again and after hitting the lid so many times they realize they can’t jump any higher. You can take the lid off and the fleas continue to jump only as high as the top of the jar.
Have you seen the Jaws movies? The great white shark in the movie is made out to be 5,000 lbs and 30 feet long. Marine biologists report great white sharks have the potential of reaching 3,500 pounds and 20 feet in length.
The marine biologists found in their study that you can take a baby white shark and if you keep the shark in a small aquarium he will grow to a mere 12-15 inches and weigh 15-20 lbs. By keeping the sharp in a small area its growth is limited.
God has created you with great potential. You have this promise from the Lord, “You are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10 Don’t limit the potential God has for you in life.
As you walk with the Lord you can expand your horizons. Build your life with purpose. Surrender to the Lord and allow the Lord to give you His purpose and plan. “God gives his best to those who leave the choice with Him.”
Psalm 127:1, “Unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builder is useless.”
Unless you build your life on the teachings of Jesus and God’s Word, your life will have no real meaning. You have the choice to either build your life on a solid foundation or on sand. Jesus said the wise man build his house on a rock and the foolish man built his life on sand. When you hear and obey the Word of the Lord you build your life on a solid foundation. With a solid foundation the storms of life will come, but your life will stand secure.
You remember your creator in the days of your youth when you give of your best to the master. Do you think it’s a sin to live a wasted life? A person wastes his or her life when they don’t give their best. Don’t be a slacker. A slacker lives a wasted life.
Proverbs 6:6-11, “Take a lesson from the ants, you lazy bones. Learn from their ways and be wise! Even through they have no prince, governor, or ruler to make them work, they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter. But you, lazybones, how long will you sleep? When will you wake up? I want you to learn this lesson: A little extra sleep, a little more slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest – and poverty will pounce on you like a bandit; scarcity will attack you lie an armed robber.”
Don’t be satisfied to become a drifter. Give you best in studying and life a Christ honoring life. Live up to your full potential. Don’t let others put you in a box. Break out of the box and soar high for the Lord.
Seize God’s plan for your life. William James once said, “Destiny is not a matter of chance, but of choice, not something to wish for, but to attain.”
God gives you this promise in Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
# A nature lover was once walking through the countryside when he came upon a farm. He walked up to the fence and looked into the barnyard. He saw lots of chickens and geese and other farm animals wandering and scratching about. Then he noticed one bird that didn’t fit. He looked more closely and, oddly enough, saw that it was a young eagle, the king of all birds.
So the nature lover climbed the fence, walked into the barnyard, found the farmer, and said, “Sir, I am a nature lover. Do you realize what kind of bird you have here?” The farmer answered, “Why, yes, I do. That’s an eagle!”
The nature lover replied, “But…but why is this eagle, the king of all birds, scratching around on the ground with chickens, eating and acting like a chicken? Why?
The farmer said, “When this bird was very young, its mother abandoned it. It grew up in the barnyard, and I just treated it like a chicken. That eagle thinks it’s a chicken.”
“Well, that’s terrible!” the nature lover said. This is an eagle, the king of all birds. It should be soaring, not groveling about on the g round with these chickens! Do you mind, sir, if I take this young eagle and try to convince him of his destiny?”
“Sure,” said the farmer.” I don’t are what you do with him. He doesn’t lay eggs, so he’s not helping me any here.”
So the nature lover grabbed the young eagle, walked into the center of the barnyard, held him up against the sky, and said to the bird, “You are an eagle, the king of all birds. Stretch forth your wings and fly!” And at that moment, threw the young bird up into the sky. The bird went up…then came down and immediately started flopping and fluttering around on the ground, eating and acting like a chicken.
The farmer, who was watching, said, “I told you! That eagle thinks he’s a chicken!”
The nature lover, undaunted asked permission to take the young eagle up to the top of the barn. “OK,” said the farmer “Do what you want.”
So up to the top of the barn the nature lover climbed with the confused bird under his arm. Once they had reached the very rooftop, the nature loved held up the bird against the wind and said again, “You are an eagle, the king of all birds. Stretch forth your wings and fly!”
With that he threw the young eagle up into the sky. The bird flopped and fluttered and landed in the barnyard and began eating and acting like a chicken.
The farmer grinned and said, I told you! He thinks he’s a chicken!”
Undaunted, the nature lover grabbed the young eagle, strode out of the barnyard, walked across a field, and climbed a hill. He climbed to the very top of the tallest peak. There, he stood atop a boulder, holding the young bird against the wind, and said once more. “You …. You are an eagle, the king of all birds. Stretch forty your wings and fly!” With that he threw the young eagle into the sky. The young eagle stretched forth his wings once…twice…and suddenly he was flying! He was flying in the autumn sky, becoming all God had created HIM TO BE.
You were created to soar like an eagle.
