This letter is to the young people in our community:
Do you guys know that whenever we talk about how many members we have in our community, we include all of you as equal members to the rest of us adults? We may say, for example, that we have 28 members, when really we only have 23 adults. So why do you think that we say we have 28 members, and not that we have 23 members? It is because we really do think of each of you as full members of the Jesus Christians. You all go out on the streets each week and work faithfully to help tell the world about the teachings of Jesus. We all appreciate the hard work that you are doing for God.
But you guys have a special problem, and that is that you don't really have a personal choice about being with us or not being with us. You are here because one or both of your parents are members of our community.
As you get older, you will be tempted to follow the ways of the world instead of following Jesus. Sometimes it won't seem like you are being so bad. You will just choose to be a little bit lazy about putting God first. It can happen by being proud, being dishonest, being greedy or selfish, or by a lot of other things.
You probably won't even think that you are fighting against God when you do it. You will just think that you are having fun, or maybe that you are being a little bit rebellious against your mother or father or even against some other leader in the community. Sometimes it will happen that you don't really do ANYTHING. Laziness is like that. You don't tell lies; you don't yell angry words at anyone; you don't seem to hurt anyone. But you do take a few shortcuts and you put off doing some things. You leave jobs half finished, or you only give a very weak effort to what you are doing.
But you need to remember that when you are doing each of these things, you are still cheating on God. If you keep on doing them, we all know what will happen to you one day. You will become old enough to choose for yourself what to do with your life, and you will choose to live like the rest of the world, thinking mostly of yourself, and you will leave the Jesus Christians.
Is that what you want? I hope not. But I really must tell you very seriously now: if you want to stay faithful to God, you need to start right now, by making a strong choice to do everything you can to put him first in your life, and to serve him enthusiastically. You are not too young to do that.
Can you pray and ask him to help you to be a 100%, red-hot, sold-out warrior for Jesus? See, that phrase about being red-hot is a phrase that we often say to the adult members of our community. We say it because each one of us gets tempted to be lazy and to backslide, just like you. And if we don't keep praying and asking God to make us 100%, to make us red-hot, to make us sold-out, to make us warriors (or soldiers) for Jesus, we know that we will backslide, like we have seen so many other people do. We don't want to backslide, and we don't want you to backslide either. But it is not enough for US to pray like that. YOU must want to be 100% for God too.
So even now, while you are hearing what I am saying, you can choose. You can choose to be full-on and enthusiastic for God, or you can choose to be lukewarm. Which do you choose?
Remember, even if you SAY to us that you want to be enthusiastic, it won't really happen unless you secretly pray to God with all of your heart to be enthusiastic. So please ask him, right now, to make you a true Christian for the rest of your life.
And if you DO say that prayer, can you let someone else know that you have said it, and can you ask THEM to help you to be a 100% red-hot, sold-out warrior for Jesus too?
Love, Dave
