You cannot be young twice. You had better know this. It is a pity that the devil knows this very well and that is why he is catching human beings in their youth. He knows that if he can catch them young, he would be able to disciple them for evil, thereby frustrating the purpose of God for their lives.
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But God has His own plans for the? youth. He knows that the most potent stage of a person’s life is in his or her youth and God wants to give everyone a vision to be pursued in life. Joel 2:28 says, “Your young men shall see visions” (NKJV). Both God and the devil are interested in you as a youth. There is a battle that is going on over your destiny as a youth. Satan is contending with God over your life. Will you allow satan to win, or will you yield your youth, the most important stage of your life to God?
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You must have heard that life begins at 40 – that is what an anonymous proverb says. But that is a lie. Life begins from the time you are born. You become conscious of it as you are growing in age from babyhood to adulthood. God gives you time to fulfill your destiny and your time starts ticking from birth; your life is ebbing as you increase in age everyday. Don’t be deceived, life does not begin at 40. Don’t postpone life or living till you are older than you are now. A substantial portion of your life would have gone by then.
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God wants you to pour your youth into your destiny and not to waste it on pleasure or vanity. Life is too short to be wasted and it is too important not to be invested in what God has created you to do on earth. You don’t have to waste your life doing wrong things under the pretext of youthful exuberance. Focus on God’s purpose for your life and pour your life into it. Divert your youthful strength and energy into productive ventures. ?
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It is sad to note what the devil is doing today to youths all over the world, especially in our nation, Nigeria. Satan is giving the youth a wrong focus in entertainment, drugs, cultism, sexual immorality and all forms of crime. But these are not what God created these youths to do on the earth. “For you formed my inward parts; you covered me in my mother’s womb.? I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them” (Ps 139:13-16 NKJV). Think about that. Do you think God would have wasted His time to create someone for him or her to become a prostitute, a gangster, an armed robber and the rest? No, He has a better purpose in mind, but satan has perverted the destiny of a lot of youths, giving them wrong focus very early in their lives. “For I know the thoughts that
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I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jer 29:11NKJV).
Friends, there is no scientific breakthrough yet on how to bring back your youth once you passed the stage. I am not talking about looking young. The clock of your life is ticking away; you have a duty to discover and pursue God’s purpose for your life as a youth and stop being deceived by the fantasy of life that satan is peddling. Your youth is not to display your beauty around. Young lady, how long do you think, you will remain a beauty queen? The Bible says, “Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised” (Prov 31:30 NKJV). No matter all the beauty accessory and paraphernalia that you use to look young and beautiful or handsome, you are not getting younger. Have you noticed that a small case for carrying cosmetics and toiletries is called in English, “vanity case”??? Why live your life at “vanity fair”? “Vanity fair” is another term meaning “a place, especially a very large city or the world in general, considered to be frivolous and full of idle worthless amusements.”
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Why don’t you invest your youth in what will not make you regret when your years as a youth are gone? Why won’t you live your life as a youth such that later when you reflect on your youth, you will be happy about how you spent it?
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Paul told Timothy: “Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity” (1 Tim 4:12 NKJV). Paul was telling this young minister of the gospel to live a quality life that would be a good example to others. I say the same to you: Don’t despise your youth with ungodly lifestyle and don’t let anyone despise it by luring you to do what is evil. ?
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Prov 1:10-19 admonishes: “O my son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say, ‘Come with us, let us lie in wait to shed blood; let us lurk secretly for the innocent without cause; let us swallow them alive like Sheol, and whole, like those who go down to the Pit; we shall find all kinds of precious possessions, we shall fill our houses with spoil; cast in your lot among us, let us all have one purse’ —? My son, do not walk in the way with them, keep your foot from their path; for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood. Surely, in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird; but they lie in wait for their own blood, they lurk secretly for their own lives. So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain; it takes away the life of its owners” (NKJV).
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Permit me to stop here today. I will continue this message next week. Meditate on what you have just read. Reflect on how you have been living your life, evaluate it in the light of the truth you have just read and restructure your life to be founded on the principles of the Word of God. Live for God; don’t live for the devil.
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