Encouraging Young Christians
I belong to the ‘senior’ generation of those old enough to have experienced life but not necessarily wise enough to have learned over much. I love to see younger people coming through the church – the pastors, evangelists, teachers, and leaders of tomorrow. I was just thumbing through my Bible looking for inspiration when an email arrived. So it is that I owe a big thank you to Apostle Terry Graham of Team Soteria Ministries at www.soteria.org for this text and the inspiration for this blog.
I have, for some time, spoken about honouring our young people. Some of the things I have been saying, to the older generation of the church, are these :-
“Its time to acknowledge and honour the anointing on our young people and allow them to minister & pray too or we risk losing them.”
“Young people do not receive a ‘junior Holy Spirit’ anointing. They receive exactly the same Holy Spirit baptism as us and God uses them too.”
“We may usher in revival but our young people will carry it to millions more than we can even dream of reaching. Mentor them properly.”
What I had omitted, until now, is any word for the younger generation. However, the Apostle Paul wrote this for me some 2000 years ago and the advice holds good even today.
1 Timothy 4:12 NIV – UK
“Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.”
What incredibly wise advice and encouragement this is. As far as I am seeing, the young people in our local churches throughout the world are setting their local worlds on fire by their example. They are leading street evangelism to the partying and good-time youngsters of their own age group; They fearlessly lead public and private prayer teams for healing and repentance; and they are bringing scores into the kingdom that people of my own age group, fervent though we may be, just cannot hope to reach.
Many have ‘pledged’ not to drink nor smoke, not to watch or read unsanctified stuff, and most importantly to keep themselves pure for marriage to a partner of the opposite sex. We may not see many prophetic youngsters but even that is changing as their zeal drives them to seek ALL the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Young Christians, I commend you. I hold you before the Lord and give Him praise and glory for you all. I pledge that I will continue to do all I can to encourage, help, and mentor you, and I will encourage my own peers to do the same. I hope this doesn’t sound patronising nor in any way deprecating. I truly do admire your commitment in today’s perverted and lost world.
As for my own generation, can we please encourage, teach, train, and mentor these youngsters and not try to keep them quiet. If we don’t encourage them, we will lose them – to other churches who will use them or to the world. What a criminal waste that would be.
Joel 2:28-32 NIV - UK
The Day of the LORD
28 And afterwards, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.
29 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
30 I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke.
31 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.
32 And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the LORD has said, among the survivors whom the LORD calls.
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