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Section 1 Your Most Important Relationship Not a 'Family Plan' Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. Joshua 24:15b If you've grown up around Christianity, you most likely know all the 'right' things to say and do. 'Read your Bible, go to church, say your prayers, be a good girl.' Maybe it's easy for you to go wiThthe fl ow and make it look like you belong to God. But do you really? Contrary to popular opinion, growing up around Christians or going to church doesn't automatically make you a Christian. Knowing God is not like joining a cell phone company. God doesn't off er a 'family share plan.' He doesn't let you tag along and get 'free minutes' because of the ones your parents have already paid for. God wants you to choose to serve him for yourself---not because of your parents, or your sister, or your friends. He wants you to do it because you want to! John the Baptist spent some time wiThpeople who thought they were part of a 'salvation family share plan.' They fi gured that since Abraham had an 'in' wiThGod, and they were his descendants, then they were cool wiThGod, too. But John was quick to tell them that salvation's not about your family's relationship wiThGod; it's about your relationship wiThGod. Your Most Important Relationship 17 You see, no one else can choose Christianity for you. You have to choose to love and follow Jesus for yourself. It's the most important choice you will ever make. It's the most important relationship you can ever have. While your relationships wiThfriends, guys, family, teachers, and youThleaders are all signifi cant and valuable, your relationship wiThGod is more important than all of those combined. It's the one relationship that should defi ne who you are on earThand that will determine how you spend eternity. So choose for yourself this day---whom will you serve? READ FOR YOURSELF WHAT JOHN THE BAPTIST HAD TO SAY ABOUT CHOOSING TO FOLLOW GOD IN LUKE 3:1-18. God, I want to know you for myself. Show me what it means to serve you each and every day---not because of what anyone else does, but because I want to love you on my own... You're Invited Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters;...Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Isaiah 55:1a, 2b Surely it's happened to you. You go to the fridge looking for something to munch on, trying to satisfy a craving. You open the door and stare. All the good stuff 's gone. Your options are stale bread, moldy cheese, unidentifi able leftovers, and bags of frozen vegetables. Yuck! Can you imagine if just at that moment your best friend called wiThthis invitation: 'Hey, my mom's practicing for her gourmet cooking class. She just made an outrageous spread! We're having shrimp cocktail, bruschetta, Caesar salad, fi let mignon, and an amazing chocolate truffl e cheesecake for dessert. Get over here and help me eat all this!' Hmmm, fridge or friend's house---which would you choose? What a no-brainer! Did you realize that your soul has similar options? Deep down we all crave something more than what this life off ers. We search for meaning. We ache to belong. And we try to satisfy those longings on our own---through relationships wiThguys, friends, partying, sports, academics, looking good, or having the coolest clothes and stuff . But Your Most Important Relationship 19 those things are like stale bread and moldy cheese---they will never satisfy your cravings. Meanwhile God invites you to come to an incredible, all-youcan- eat gourmet banquet for your soul! You don't need to worry about what to wear, what to say, or how to act. You only need to come, just the way you are. Your spot at the banquet table is paid for and reserved (courtesy of Jesus). Come and enjoy God's never-ending supply of hope, help, comfort, love, wisdom, strength---the menu goes on and on. Every good thing imaginable is there for the taking. How will you RSVP to God's invitation? READ ISAIAH 55:1-13 FOR MORE ABOUT GOD'S INVITATION TO YOU. Father, thanks for making it possible for me to come to you. Forgive me for the ways I've tried to satisfy my soul on my own. I accept your invitation to come to you for a feast for my soul... Forget the Rules Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. Matthew 23:27-28 Harsh words from Jesus! In these verses Jesus describes the Jewish religious leaders (a.k.a. 'the Pharisees'). These guys so did not get the point. They thought they could impress God by following a heavyduty list of rules, which they had made up themselves. They went to a lot of eff ort to look very spiritual on the outside. To them, that was what mattered most. But on several occasions Jesus told them they had it all wrong. He told them that instead of following all their little rules they'd made up, they needed to focus on following God's most important command: to love God withyour heart and withyour soul and withyour mind (Matthew 22:37). See, being a Christian is really about what's on the inside. It's about having an intense, real, all-consuming relationship wiThGod. It's about loving him with every part of who you are. Of course, God does have things he wants you to do or not do---but he wants you to obey him out of love and Your Most Important Relationship 21 gratitude, not out of a sense of duty. That goes a whole lot deeper than a list of rules, don't you think? Let's talk about you now. Do you give God lip service that's empty of passion and meaning? Do you call yourself a Christian while your heart is far from God? Do you consider yourself a 'good Christian' just because you don't swear, smoke, or drink? Don't be like the Pharisees who missed the point. God wants so much more from you than following some checklist of do's and don'ts. He wants all of you---heart, soul, and mind. WANT TO SEE JUST HOW UNIMPRESSED JESUS WAS BY THE PHARISEES AND THEIR RULES? READ THE WHOLE FIERY STORY IN MATTHEW 23:13-39. God, I don't want to miss the point of what it means to be a Christian. Show me what it means to love you withmy heart, withmy soul, and withmy mind... Extreme Makeover Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the fl ock under his care. Psalm 95:6-7 'How to get that guy to notice you!' 'Try our ultimate makeover!' 'Test your fashion know-how!' 'The prom workout that will transform your body!' The headlines of a typical magazine tend to focus on you, you, you. But here's a little secret: It's not all about you. What's not all about you? Life. Eternity. Everything. It's not about you; it's about the one who created you. It's about knowing that the Lord is God, and you're not. It's about obeying the Master, since you're the servant. It's about trusting the Shepherd, since he knows how to perfectly love, protect, guide, and care for his sheep. Talk about a diff erent way of looking at things. We're so used to focusing on ourselves 24-7. Don't you think it's time for a change? Your Most Important Relationship 23 Ask God to give you a perspective makeover. Ask him to transform your mind so that you spend the day focused on God and not on yourself. So that you concentrate more on what you can give to God than on what you can get from God. So that you thank God for all he's given you instead of focusing on what you don't have. Wanna know another secret? When you focus less on you and more on God, amazing things happen. You become a much happier person. You have peace even in tough situations. You learn how to be content in all circumstances.
