Finding my way

Bible Bites 4 Teens Posted on by

You are getting your gear together to go on a camping trip. You have your clothes, your sleeping bag… What else will you need? Did you remember a flashlight so you can see to walk around at night? Does your flashlight have fresh batteries?

There were no flashlights in Bible times. Instead they used oil lamps to see at night. Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” (NIV)

What does this verse mean?” The Bible is often called the Word of God. Do you think you could use a Bible instead of a flashlight to walk around in the dark when you are camping? Of course not. And that isn’t what the Psalm writer meant either.

Sometimes it seems dark, even when the sun is shining. Sometimes we have problems that are so difficult that it feels dark inside us. We wonder which way to go, what to do. Perhaps you have friends who try to get you to do things that are wrong. Someone may be bullying you. Or you may know about someone who is hurting another person, but you don’t know how to get them to stop. These things make us feel dark inside.

Psalm 119:105 tells us that the Bible is our light. That doesn’t mean we will just happen to turn to the right page when we have a problem and the answer will jump out at us. But it does mean that if we will take the time every day to read a little more, we will be prepared for the hard times when they come. Reading the Bible every day is like charging your batteries so your flashlight will shine when it gets dark.

You may be facing dark days already. If you haven’t yet started reading the Bible, get started. Meanwhile, find an older friend who has been reading it a long time to talk to about those dark problems. Maybe their batteries will be charged up enough to light your way for now. They might show you some of the best places in the Bible for you to start reading as well.

How can we know?

Bible Bites 4 Teens Posted on by

Jesus said to them: “Watch out that no one deceives you. Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. (Mark 13:5-6 NIV)

Has anyone ever told you a lie and you believed them?  There is a picture book by Evaline Ness called Sam Bangs and Moonshine. In this story a little boy named Thomas believed a lie that an older girl called “Sam” told him. She said he could find her baby kangaroo out on the rocks in the ocean. The little boy ran out on the rocks to find it because he always believed Sam’s lies. Meanwhile a storm came up and the tide came in. Thomas was rescued, but he got very sick and might have drowned if the men hadn’t gotten to him in time.

Sam learned her lesson about telling lies (her dad called lying moonshine). I hope little Thomas learned how to know when someone was lying to him as he grew up.

Today’s Bible verse tells us to be careful to not let anyone deceive us. Sam deceived Thomas with her lies. Has anyone ever tried to deceive you? Perhaps someone wanted you to steal some candy in a store so they told you it was free. Perhaps someone wanted you to try some drugs and they said it would make you feel good. People who tell you things like this are trying to deceive you. They are not your friends.

The biggest deceiver of all is Satan. He doesn’t want you to believe in Jesus. He wants you to make bad choices, so he makes them seem like fun. But his “fun” doesn’t last. Like Thomas on the rocks in the storm, the fun ended suddenly. Remember Satan wants to hurt us.

Satan’s biggest lie is to pretend that he is Jesus. The Bible tells us that Jesus will come again and make everything good. He will put an end to Satan forever. Satan knows this is going to happen. So he keeps looking for ways to spread lies. His worst trick is to make a bad person look like he is Jesus’ friend, so the bad person can pretend to lead you to Jesus. But this person isn’t really Jesus’ friend and he will do everything he can to keep you from knowing Jesus.

How can you know if you are being lied to about Jesus? How can you know if you are learning the good things God wants you to know? The answers are in the Bible. It is important to start learning what the Bible really says while you are young. Then you will know if someone is teaching you true things about Jesus.

Here are two good things to remember about when Jesus will come again:

The Bible (see Matt 24:36) tells us that nobody knows the day or the hour that Jesus is coming. So if anyone tells you what day Jesus is going to come, you can know that they are wrong. Jesus said not even the angels know when Jesus will return. Only God knows.

The Bible says that when Jesus comes everyone will know it at once. Nobody will have to say to you, “Here he is.” It will happen very fast like lightening across the sky. So if someone tells you Jesus has come, don’t believe it. You would have found out at the same time. (To learn more, read Matthew 24.)

Father God, keep us close to your heart. Help us to learn from your Bible. Guide us to the parts we can understand best, and help us to keep learning new things. Help us to know when deceivers are trying to teach us wrong things. Help us keep our eyes on you. Help us to know Jesus so well that so nobody else can fool us into believing that they are really Jesus. Amen.

© 2009 by Janice D. Green

Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Some really old people!

Bible Bites 4 Teens Posted on by

How old does somebody have to be to be old? 40 years? 50 years? 70 years? 90? over 100? It’s funny, but when I was a little girl I thought 30 and 40 was old. But when I reached 30 I didn’t think it was old at all. I kept on having more birthdays until now I think 90 is old.

The Bible says the first people God created got much older than people do today. Adam lived to be 930 years old before he died. Adam’s great great great great great grandson was Methuselah, and Methuselah lived to be 969 years old when he died. Because Adam lived so long, he lived to see Methuselah. And Methuselah lived until after Noah was born.

How could people live so long back then? Nobody really knows the answer to that question. Some people use information from the Bible like this as excuses to say the Bible is just wrong. Here are some things to consider before you let this kind of thinking get in the way of learning and believing what the Bible has to say.

  • Sea turtles have been known to live over 250 years.
  • Mollusks or clams have been found that may be over 400 years old.
  • There is a Bristlecone pine tree (named Methuselah)  in the White Mountains in California that is believed to be over 4,000 years old.
  • These really old people all lived before the time of Noah and the great flood. So many things about the earth, its climate and atmosphere could have been very different then.
  • God’s first plan for Adam and Eve was that they should live forever, but they messed that up when they ate the fruit God told them not to eat.

Before you let anyone tell you not to believe the Bible because of these things, remember that nobody can prove the people didn’t live that long – they can only guess about it. The Bible says they did.

Almighty God, you are so great and so powerful. You decided what we would look like before we were born. You are the one who gives us life and who decides how long we can live. Thank you for making us. Give us the courage to believe the Bible, even if others say we are wrong. Amen.

© 2009 by Janice Green

Here is a link to a chart I found that gives the ages of many people in the Bible beginning with Adam and ending several generations after the flood when people didn’t live as long.

God made the heavens and the earth

Bible Bites 4 Teens Posted on by

Where did the earth come from? What about the sun and the moon and the stars? Who made the plants and animals and people?

In the first chapter of Genesis (the first book in the Bible) we read that God made everything. Here is some of what the Bible tells us.

In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth but at first everything was dark and like nothing at all. Like a spirit God floated over deep waters before he went to work.

First Day  On the first day God made the light and he separated it from the darkness.

Second Day On the second day God made the sky and used it to separate the water. Some water was above the sky and some was below the sky.

Third Day On the third day God gathered up the water that was under the sky. Then he told the dry ground to come up out of the water. He called the dry ground land. Then God made the plants to grow on the dry ground, and the plants made fruit and seeds.

Fourth Day On the fourth day God made the sun, moon, and stars. I wonder if he took all the light he made on the first day and filled up the sun and stars with it. The sun was so bright it bounced off the moon at night. God started up the seasons and began measuring days and years with the sun and earth and all the stars and planets.

Fifth Day On the fifth day God filled the sea with fish and sea animals. He also filled the sky with birds. God thought of everything. It’s a good thing he made the plants first or the birds wouldn’t have any trees to make nests in. The birds also needed the plants God made for food. 

Sixth Day On the sixth day God made the land animals. He also made people on the sixth day. The Bible tells us that people were made in God’s image. This made people more special than any of the other creatures God had made. God told the people to rule over the fish, birds, and animals.

Seventh Day On the seventh day God rested. God said everything he had made was good. Now it was time for him to rest for a day and to enjoy his creation. God wants us to rest on the seventh day of every week too.

Something we can only wonder about: What did God do the next week after he made the heavens and the earth? He only rested one day. 

You can learn more about the creation by reading it straight from the Bible. If you click on this link, Genesis 1, you can read it on your computer.

Father God, thank you for making the earth, and for making it so beautiful. Thank you for making us in your image so that we can know you in a special way. Help us to be responsible and to take care of the earth and the plants and animals you made.

(c) 2009 by Janice Green

The biggest gift

Bible Bites 4 Teens Posted on by

If I gave you a penny would you get all excited about it? Probably not. One day Jesus watched a poor widow put two tiny coins worth less than a penny into the offering. 

Other people gave lots of money if you count how much it can buy, but Jesus wasn’t thinking about that. Jesus knew that the other people had much more money and they only gave a little part of what they had. But this woman was very poor, and this was all she had. Yet she gave it all to God by putting it into the offering. I think she probably felt embarrassed that her offering was so small. But Jesus didn’t think her offering was small. Jesus said she had given more than anyone else, because she gave all she had.

One year I was a third grade teacher. One of my students’ father was in prison. This little boy was teased by the other students. Many times during recess we talked about Jesus. When I opened the Christmas presents the students had given me, the students laughed at this little boy’s gift. It was a stuffed dinosaur that he had obviously played with for a long time. The gifts the other children brought were things their parents probably bought at a store, but this child gave me something that was precious to him. I believe there was more love in his gift than in all the other gifts put together.

You can read this Bible story about the widow’s offering yourself in Mark 12:41-44. If you don’t have a Bible, click on the link and read it on your monitor screen.

Dear Jesus, thank you for seeing us through eyes of love. Help us to have loving hearts too. Help us to want to give generously because we love you. Thank you for telling us about this lady in your Bible. We are glad that you saw in her gift how much she loved God, and that you loved her too. Amen.

© 2009 by Janice D. Green