Teen
God
Our Daily Bread
BIG QUESTIONS ABOUT . . .
God
I
s there a God out there? How can we know for sure? And if he is there, what’s the plan?
Who God is and what he’s got to say to us is hugely important! If he is speaking loud and clear,
then the worst thing we can do is shrug our shoulders and ignore him. But where do you start? Here are a few big questions about God, answered for you by readers in the Our Daily Bread Ministries family. So get stuck in! And if you want more, check out Aren’t all religions just the same thing really? at ourdailybread.org/lookingatlife
Is God W
Real?
e can be sure God is real because he has shown himself to us in three ways: the world around us, the Bible and Jesus Christ.
The most basic reason to believe God is real is simply looking at what he’s made. Look at the uncountable creatures and animals; the depths of the sea; the billions of stars and galaxies; all the different foods and drink we enjoy. Think about it: if you found a watch in the middle of a field, you wouldn’t just think it had ‘appeared’ by itself.
You’d know someone had made it because it has a clear design and purpose. It’s the same with the world we live in: it’s designed and balanced so perfectly that many scientists (not all of them Christians) believe that ‘someone’ must have made it. God has also shown himself to us through the Bible. All through the Bible, the existence of God is treated as a fact (GENESIS 1:1). Like when anyone writes their own story, they don’t first try to prove they exist! The life-changing stories, evidence and wisdom of the Bible, and the miracles it describes, should be enough to make us want to take a closer look. The third and most important way God shows himself to us is through Jesus Christ (JOHN 14:6-11). In Jesus’ amazing life, he lived perfectly (which no one managed before or since) and fulfilled all the predictions in the Old Testament about a coming Rescuer and Saviour (MATTHEW 5:17). He also healed people, raised the dead and did lots of other miracles that no ordinary person could ever dream of doing. Then, three days after he was executed, he came back to life and was seen by hundreds of eyewitnesses (1 CORINTHIANS 15:6). The Bible and historical records are filled with evidence of who Jesus is. As Paul, a writer in the Bible, said, this thing “was not done in a corner” (ACTS 26:26). God has very publicly and clearly shown
himself so that we would all come and find him for ourselves. The best place to start is reading Jesus’ life in the Bible.
Does God
Speak
to us?
T
he main way God speaks and guides us is through the Bible. That is where we learn how he wants us to live, what sort of things we need to avoid and what it means to become more like Jesus. So we need to spend time reading the Bible and thinking about all it tells us. God will use this to transform how we think so that it feels more natural to follow him. Of course, exact details are not found in the Bible—like how to revise, what we should do after school, what subjects to take, etc. But through reading the Bible we get the
help we need to make these kinds of decisions with God’s ways in mind—rather than just doing
whatever we think is best.
Prayer is also really important. Jesus told his friends, “My sheep listen to my voice” (JOHN 10:27). This doesn't mean we're going to hear an audible voice talking back to us when we pray; but God will guide our thoughts, reassure us as we ask him about our worries and help us get to know his voice and his ways as we focus on him in the Bible. It should be a great comfort to know that Jesus is like a shepherd in our lives. Shepherds do not expect sheep to be clever and know exactly where to go; they only expect them to follow the shepherd’s voice. It’s the same with us: God is always guiding and leading us through the Bible and in our prayer times.
Does God
Speak
to us?
Other Christians, particularly our youth leader, can help us pray to God and get to know his voice better. When we are confused or need to make a big decision, older Christians (who know God really well) can help us talk with him and think about what the Bible has to say about our situation. Through reading the Bible we will get to know God's ways, perspective and priorities better. It's also really important that we spend time talking to God ourselves, no matter how stressed out or under pressure we feel. There is always time to pray! When we pray, we start to trust our situations to God. This is an important way that we grow in dependence on him.
Whenever we feel God may be saying something to us or nudging us to do something, it is important to check it really is God speaking. When
God speaks his words will be in full agreement with what he has already said in the Bible (2 TIMOTHY 3:16-17). God does not argue with himself. So, if ever we’re not sure whether something is from God or not, we can ask our youth leader or another Christian to help us check it against the Bible. Find out more with Big Questions about . . . Prayer online at ourdailybread.org/teen
Does God Love
Some People
More than others?
G
od doesn’t love supposedly ‘important’ people more than the rest of us. God doesn’t view people by how smart they are, what marks they get, what their teachers think of them or how popular they are at school. He doesn’t rate us by our grades or achievements. In fact, those things don’t matter to God as much as we might expect. There is only one thing we need to receive all of God’s favour: trusting in Jesus. And this is open to absolutely anyone. He shows his love and unlimited kindness to everyone who wants to know him (JEREMIAH 29:13). And though he may give different spiritual gifts to everyone who trusts him, that’s not a sign of favouritism either, because he does give all his children gifts and places to live for him (1 CORINTHIANS 12:5-7; 1 PETER 4:10). God’s favourites are all his children; everyone who trusts Jesus and has been forgiven and made new through him (JOHN 1:12). We judge people by what we see: looks, abilities, skills, popularity. But the Bible tells us: “The Lord does not look at the things
people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 SAMUEL 16:7). Whether
we’re doing well at school or feel like a misfit, God’s love is available in exactly the same way: through trusting Jesus. And when we do trust Jesus, we receive just as much love, care and attention from God as anyone else. We are prized by God not because of what we have done, but because he personally made us and died to save us. He is excited to have us in his family just as we are.
Did God
Create Evil? A
t first it might seem that if God created everything, then evil and all the bad stuff in the world must have been created by him. But evil is not a ‘thing’ like a rock or electricity. You cannot have a box of evil. Evil has no existence of its own; evil is really what’s left in something when there is no good there. Let me explain: it’s a bit like how cold is all that’s left when there is no heat. Or how darkness is all that’s left when there is no light. In the same way, evil doesn’t exist in its own right; it is what’s left when there is no good. An even better definition is that evil is all that’s left if you remove God.
We’re told that everything God created, including people, was “good” (GENESIS 1:31). But when people decided to ignore God and push him away, they were left with evil. The result of not
having God in our lives is selfishness, hatred, wars, unfairness, etc, etc. In other words: evil. So God didn’t
create evil, but he does allow it. Why? There are two important reasons.
If God hadn’t allowed for evil, we would be serving God and doing good out of duty, not choice. He doesn’t want us to be robots who simply do what he wants because of our ‘programming’. He wants us to choose him; but that also means he has to allow us to choose evil instead. If God were to remove evil and everything attached to it right now, what would happen to us? What would happen to you? Would you survive that shake down? We've all chosen to live for ourselves, in our own way, without God. If God wants to save us, he has to allow bad stuff to exist for now, so that we can continue to exist as well. But one day Jesus will remove everything that is evil (HEBREWS 12:25-29). And heaven will be for those who have chosen him now, while they live on this earth. Everyone else will be judged and sent to hell. The question for us is: what have we chosen? If we haven’t chosen God, we have chosen evil—and we will be removed when Jesus returns.
Whodunit? Genesis 1:1-27
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness” (V.26).
D
id you know the word “whodunit” is actually in the dictionary? It means “crime fiction or a detective story”. One of the most important whodunits of all time is: Who made the world? Some people wish the Bible said, “In the beginning, God wasn’t needed.” To them, they don’t like to think that, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (GENESIS 1:1), or that he made us in his own “image” (V.26). If those things are true, then we are responsible to God. This idea is uncomfortable for many people who still don’t know Jesus for themselves.
Instead, many want to believe that, after an explosion of energy and matter, somehow our amazing world, filled with life, just happened. Then, single-celled organisms developed over millions of years into the incredible creatures we see today. No need for God, they say. It all happened on its own. There’s no plan. No design. No intention. No big picture. It all works by chance. What we make of the words “In the beginning God” is at the centre of it all. We either believe the Bible—and everything it says—or we believe that our meaningless lives are the accidental result of a random chain of events. In the beginning. Was it God? Or was it chance? Our answer to this whodunit helps show whether or not we really believe in the awesome God of creation.
DB
Thank you God for being the very centre of everything! Help me to spend time with you and enjoy getting to know you so much better.
ONLY GOD COULD CREATE THE WORLD OUT OF NOTHING. This article is from the Our Daily Bread Teen Edition annuals. Fancy getting hold of them? You can ask for your copies and see all our other resources at ourdailybread.org/teen
The most basic reason to believe God is real is simply looking at what he’s made. Scripture taken from Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved. © 2019 by Our Daily Bread Ministries. All rights reserved.
TB458