A Brand-New Start

Teenagers Are People Too!
by Joyce Meyer

(Page 2 of 5)

Having a personal relationship with Jesus cannot be equated with church attendance. Those who love the Lord will want to go to a good church and have fellowship with like-minded people. They will want to learn and worship Him with others. But before church can be truly enjoyed, an individual must first have a personal relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ.

Jesus said …, I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except by (through) Me (John 14:6). No amount of our own good works will gain us favor with God or ensure us a place in His eternal kingdom. Only faith in Jesus will do that-faith in Jesus is the key.

Perhaps your parents were believers who tried to instill faith in you as a child. Perhaps they took you to church and saw that you were exposed to the teaching of God's Word. You may have tried to follow the rules you were taught, but it all seemed so boring, and none of the people there seemed very happy It may be that even your parents did not live the life at home they were telling you to live. They may have seemed hypocritical to you.

There is a major difference in having religion and having a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Joining a church does not make one a Christian; faith in God through Jesus does.

You don't have to shut God out of your life because some church did not meet your needs. Like everything else in life, there are good churches and there are bad churches. You may be sick and go to a bad doctor, but you don't stop going to doctors just because of one bad experience. You keep looking until you find one who can help you with your sickness. The same is true of looking for the right church. Even a church can disappoint you, but God won't if you trust Him.

Your parents and others you looked up to may have been model Christians. They may have done everything right, and yet you could never seem to “hook into” what they said they believed. It just did not seem to be for you.You wished it would work for you; you wanted to feel close to God, but something was missing.

We went through this with our older son David when he was a teenager There was continual strife between us. He went to church but lived a compromising life. We wanted him to be serious with God and make right choices, but he was consistently rebellious.

God showed me that I had unforgiveness toward him because he was not what I wanted him to be spiritually. I realized that I needed to accept him where he was and trust God to get him where he needed to be.

David felt rejected by his father and me. Although we loved him, we were rejecting him as he was. We wanted him to change, and he felt the pressure of our disapproval.

I knew that I needed to apologize to him and try to find a place of “new beginnings” in our relationship. His dad and I talked with him and told him if he would go to church once a week, not listen to heavy metal rock music in the house and not bring girls there while we were gone, we would not nag him about other things. We told him we recognized that he was eighteen years old and that it was time to let him make his own decisions.

From my experience with David I learned that a parent cannot make a child love God. That is something that must be worked out between God and every individual personally But a parent can continue to pray for that child, love that child unconditionally and trust God with their outcome.

As we talked together. David began to cry He told us that with all of his heart he wished he felt the way we did about God, but that something was missing for him, and he could not make himself have it. He said he needed our unconditional love and acceptance. He admitted that he was not living the way he should, but he felt he needed some time to make his own decisions without pressure from us.

The next few months were not easy for me. It was hard not to tell David what he should be doing. It was also hard to treat him right when he ignored what he knew were our wishes. There were a few occasions when things got a little tense, but for the most part we stuck to our agreement.

Six months passed. One evening David returned from a New Year's Eve church service and stated that God had dealt with him. He announced that he was going to go to Bible college in Florida. He said he intended to serve God if it was the last thing he ever did. I remember him standing in the living room and telling us that even if it meant he would lose all of his friends, he was going to follow God.

To make a rather long story short, David is now the Director of World Missions at our ministry. Life In The Word. He is married to a wonderful woman, has two lovely children and is a great joy to Dave and me.

We took David to church all of his life, but that was not enough to make him want to love and serve the Lord. Church attendance alone is not the answer-only a new birth can truly change a person's heart.

In John 3:3, Jesus said that in order to see the kingdom of God, a person must be born again. Without Jesus living in our heart we are spiritually dead. As we receive Him by faith into our heart to dwell there and ask Him to forgive our sins, we are cleansed, forgiven and made a new creature in Him. At the new birth, we are given a brand-new start in life.

Do you need a brand-new start? If so, it is available to you by simply committing your life to Jesus Christ and asking Him to be Savior and Lord of your life. He gives us a reason to live, direction and purpose.

Copyright © 2002 by Joyce Meyer

About the Author

JOYCE MEYER has been teaching the Word of God since 1976 and in full-time ministry since 1980. She is the bestselling author of more than fifty inspirational books, including How to Hear from God, Knowing God Intimately, and Battlefield of the Mind. She has also released thousands of teaching cassettes and a complete video library. Joyce's Enjoying Everyday Life radio and television programs are broadcast around the world, and she travels extensively conducting conferences.