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The New World of the Christian Youth
There is a great abyss that separates the world of the youth of God from the world of the youth without God. Even though the youth of God lives in the same physical world as other young people, his spiritual world does not mix with theirs. This means that he works, goes to school, rides the bus, and has a family like all other teenagers, but he knows that he has no part with world that is, if he has truly had an encounter with the Lord Jesus. Once a young person has an encounter with God and receives the seal of the Holy Spirit, he begins to understand God’s purpose for his life: to serve Him. And so, if he is in Christ, he has become a new creature. New creature means “made new” or “made again” not just improved on. Many people have been deceived into thinking that they have already been converted and had an encounter with Jesus, based only on a few changes and improved in their lives and attitudes. It’s like an improved car, for example. You may have already noticed that year after year, motor companies change the look of their cars to increase sales and make last year’s cars look “old”. They get the same “old” model and make a few changes here and there like changing square headlights to round, and moving the aerial to another place. If the bumper was plain, they add car that looks different, renovated and more attractive. But if you look behind those ”change”, you’ll see that it’s the same car as last year, just an improved version! In the same way, there are many people who say they have God and they’re Christians, but even so the truth is that they aren’t. Even with a few change in their attitudes and habits, their person is still the same old creature it’s only an “improved version” of what they used to be. New does not mean improved on, reconditioned or refurbished. New is new. The old simply does not exist anymore. That is why the new world of a Christian youth has nothing to do with his old one. And then the fact is that he never was born again in the first place. There’s an old saying that goes, “Show me your friends and I will show you who you are”. We discussed how easy it is for young people to be influenced. There’s no doubt that one of the biggest factors of this is friendships. When a young person truly converts, naturally he or she will lose some “friends”, for these friends will immediately be against his or her new faith going to church instead of parties, etc. They’ll call him or her a fanatic. This is why the young person must be aware that losing friends from the world is inevitable. It’s all a part of paying the price to be faithful to the Lord. The devil is crafty and knows the negative influence these old “friends” have, so he won’t let them stay away. Rather, he will use them to do everything they can to persuade the new convert to go back to his old life. Let me make it very clear that this doesn’t mean a young person has to alienate himself from everything and everyone, and stay inside the church all the time. If that was the way we had to live, how could we reach out to those outside the church? The kind of behavior we’re talking about here is that of the Lord Jesus when He was here on earth. He walked with sinners, ate and sat with them; but He never did they did. His behavior influenced all those around Him, but they never influenced all those around Him. The youth of God has to be just the same. Remember, the biggest and best friends you can have is the Lord Jesus Himself, as He said in his words.