This message is for teenagers because I strongly believed that how you lived your life in your teen ages will have an impact on your 20s, 30s, 40s, etc a also observed very many of today’s teens are living scary life that may cause a deep scar tomorrow and that most of these behaviours are preventable.
Note this; my dear, you cannot live a perfect life but you can live a life that you won’t be ashamed of today.
Now, today, before you hit your 20s onwards, make the following decisions. I made those decisions while I was a teen and I did not for once regretted ever doing so.
1. Decide to accept Jesus Christ now.
I received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior before I aged 20 and that singular decision helped to shape and sharpen my choice of knowledge between evil and good because I already know what is good in the sight of the Lord and what is bad and the consequences thereof.
Making this decision early will help you too, to avoid many avoidable mistakes in life and will preserve your life.
This fantastic decision will set you on path of destiny fulfilment early in life. That great, world renowned evangelist Reinhard Boonke became born again aged 9 and started his ministry aged 16. We all know how God used his Evagelistic outreach, CfaN for harvest of souls in Africa. I was one of them. Same thing with Pastor David Ibiyeomi of Salvation Ministries in Port Harcourt – also gave his life to Christ early and started the journey of purpose delivery early.
My dear, you cannot live a perfect life but you can live a life that you won’t be ashamed of today.
If you accept Jesus Christ now, it will save you many years of tools, struggles and scars and you can’t regret ever doing so.
2. Decide to live right.
Bible said, ‘Daniel purposed in his heart not to defile himself with the king’s rich foo…’ Daniel was 17 years old boy in captivity when that decision was made and later saved him for den of lions and made him president of the presidents in a foreign land.
What does it mean to decide to live right? It means to shun evil now.
It means to depart from sin and all appearance of sin now.
It means to shun premarital sex.
It means to stop unhealthy behaviors like drug abuse, cultism, thuggery, overeating, smoking, immorality and perversion.
It also means embracing the fruit of the Spirit as listed in Ephesians 5:22-23 (NIV)
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
It means truth telling at all times.
It means standing for what is true, holy, reasonable and of good report at all times.
I reaped the benefit of my decision to shun premarital sex till wedding nite 2 weeks after wedding.
3. Quality relationships and bridges.
The world is run based on relationships and connection.
Somebody knows someone who has what you need.
Somebody knows someone whose daughter/son will be a good spouse.
Somebody knows someone who can recommended you for a job. A friend once done that for me.
There is someone who can help, build, advise you and set you on the path of destiny alignment.
But you have to build a good relationships and bridges to access all these benefits and more. Such
Such relationships including friendship, mentorship, discipleship, leadership. The quality of those relationships and more that you build now will definitely served as your springboard later in life.
Though social media allow anyhowness, but you as a someone with future must build a great online relationships courtesy of respect. No everybody on social media is your age mate or grace mate
My late father-in-law’ quality relationships that was built as at the time he was alive 11 years worked for us during our wedding ceremony.
Caveat; build only godly relationships.
4. Have a skill.
Financial skills like tailoring, baking, plumbing, content creation ( check the E-book section to download my Ebook titled A-Z of Content Creation), graphic designing, web design, Ads manager, bricklaying, amazon KDP, IoT, app development, YouTubeing, bag making, catering, event planning, computer and GSM repairs, blogging, etc.
Spiritual skills such as constitent bible reading, quiet time, fasting, constant fellowship with the brethren as occasion demands, prayers, tithing, alm giving, ministerial work, volunteering for Church works, etc.
Survival skills like making money, budgeting, cooking, reading, safe internet browsing, saving, investing, etc.
Advantages of having skills at tender age ; you learned at the prime of your time because your basic needs will be provided by your parents, i.e., focused, you learn your mistake early and correct it early and lastly, by the time you are in your mid-20, you have become an expert in that field
5. Decide to pray now.
Many Christians are reactive Christians. They only pray after calamity instead of praying to prevent it. Talk about medicine after death.
Talk about prevention is better than cure, prayer is the real prevention because you don’t have to do it when you don’t have problem. You can do it now to acknowledge God as your source, secure your future (carrer wise, financially, maritally, for unborn kids, inlaws, coworkers, neighbors, etc) and avert future problems.
Dear, I can assure you; if you don’t pray jejely now when you have no kid to feed, no rent to pay, no inlaws to visit, no spouse to love and no ‘ responsibility ‘, you will pray violently when responsibilities keep dropping on top of one another like bag of bean.
I repeat; the best form of prayer is preventive ones
Thanks for reading. I will like to hear your thoughts and questions in the comment section.
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