Author: Nathaniel Colt

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Read: Matthew 28:19

No two people are alike: every person who has ever lived is different from everyone else! Hair color, eye color, skin color, language, culture, favorite foods, favorite animals—we are all different! You may live in a city or small town or out in the country, but there are people who live in the most remote places of the world who don’t have any contact outside of their group. Can you imagine that? Life for them is very different from life for us!

Jesus told us to make disciples of all the nations—all the people who are different from us, not just those who are like us. He wants everyone to be in relationship with Him and to find life through Him. He doesn’t want people to just pray a quick simple prayer and return to their life without Him. No, a disciple is more than that: A disciple is someone who follows Jesus by surrendering their life to His plans and purposes. This is why God wants the whole world to know about Jesus: God loves every person so much that He sent Jesus to die in our place and take the punishment for our sins. He wants to fulfill each person’s life by making them disciples, lifelong followers of Jesus. And Jesus can use you to reach people around the world for Him!

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Read: 2 Timothy 1:5–7, 13–14

Before firetrucks were used to put out fires, people came together to form what was called a bucket brigade. When there was fire, people grabbed empty buckets and formed a line that started at a water source and ended at the fire. Carefully, buckets of water would be passed down the line until the last person in the line threw the water on the fire to put the fire out. Everyone in the line had to work together to make sure that water was not spilled, buckets weren’t dropped, and that water got to the fire as quickly as possible.

Think of Jesus as water and your life as a bucket. God wants us to bring His water, Jesus, to others—so we must keep sharing about Jesus with them! Jesus is our greatest treasure, and God wants for us to tell others about Him so they can choose to follow Him. We can pass on the truths of God’s Word from person to person. As we all pass it on, the people of the world will have a chance to hear about Jesus. There will be growing disciples of Jesus who will continue to pass on His good news to others until He comes again.

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Read: 2 Timothy 3:10–11

In order to get to know someone, you have to spend time together. It’s not good enough just to have a quick conversation in the hallway at school or send them a quick text every few months. To get to know people, you have to spend time with them. And to get to know God, you have to spend time with Him—and other people who love God.

As we spend time with people who love Jesus, we can learn from them and help one other grow to be more like Jesus. Your friend may go through a hard time, and you can encourage him because you’ve gone through something hard, too. Or maybe you have some questions about God, and your friend has asked the same questions. She may have some help to share with you. As we spend time in relationship and friendship with other Christians, we can help to encourage each other in our relationship with God.

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Read: 1 Timothy 4:12

There are many things you can’t do when you are younger. You can’t have a driver’s license. You can’t have a full-time job. You can’t register to vote. All of these things require you to be a certain age to do them. Can you think of more things that you want to do but have to wait until you’re older? There is one thing that doesn’t have an age requirement, and you can do this right now, even if you’re young. You can live your life to follow Jesus and be an example to those around you.

No matter your age, people are watching your life and the choices you make. Is the way you’re living your life pointing people to God, or is it pointing people away from God? He can use you, no matter what age you are, to influence those around you. Your life makes a difference!

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Read: 1 Corinthians 11:1–2

Have you played the game Follow-the-Leader? In the game, one person is the leader, and everyone in the group must copy everything the leader does. For instance, if the leader walks backward around the room while patting her head and rubbing her elbow, everyone else does the same thing. You win if you never stop following the leader.

In our Scripture today, Paul was writing to Christians in Corinth, where he had started a church. He was one of their leaders, and he was telling them to follow him while he was following Jesus Christ. The Corinthian Christians’ leader was Paul, and Paul’s leader was Jesus! Paul wanted them all to follow Jesus together.

We can learn from this that we should all be leaders who follow Jesus. It’s important for us to have people in our life who we can follow as they live for Jesus. They may make mistakes, but we can learn and grow in our relationship with God by watching their walk with God. In the same way, we can be an example to others and be a leader who leads people to Jesus.

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Read: 1 Peter 3:13–16

If you were trying to learn how to play a new sport, what would be the easier way to learn: have someone yell the rules at you or have someone show you how to play? Obviously, it would be the second option!

The world is watching how we live if we claim to be a follower of Jesus. At times, they may ask us why we do things differently or why we believe in Jesus. It’s important for us share about Jesus in gentle and kind ways, being an example of Jesus’ love for them. As we make daily choices that follow Jesus and show His love by the way we treat others, they will be able to see Jesus in us. God will use our life as a living example of Jesus’ love and others will want to know about the hope we have.

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Read: Psalm 40:9–10

Fear can keep us from doing many things. Maybe being afraid of spiders can keep us from walking barefoot. Being afraid of meeting new people can keep us from making new friends at school. Being afraid of what other people may think can keep us from telling other people about Jesus.

God knows that we have fear—and He is ready to help us. When we know Jesus, we have one of the greatest gifts that other people need to know about! We can’t allow fear to keep us from speaking about what God has done in our life. So, go on, be bold, and tell everyone around you about the good news of Jesus!

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Read: Acts 17:32–34; Romans 10:13–17

Have you ever missed a birthday party because the person forgot to invite you? If you had known about it, you would have made sure you were there! That’s because birthday parties are fun.

God has invited us to be part of His family—the best invitation we could ever receive! The invitation is for everyone, but some people don’t know about it yet. They could go their whole life missing His invitation, and that’s worse than missing any birthday party. That’s where we come in. Jesus told us in Matthew 28:19 to make disciples of all nations—and that means His invitation is for everyone! But how will they receive this invitation?

That’s the question Romans 10:13–17 asks us: How do people receive God’s invitation to be part of His family? Because we invite them! Think about it: Someone invited you to be part of His family, too! In our Bible story, God used Paul to invite the people of Athens into God’s family. Some of them even accepted His invitation!

God is looking for people who are willing to go and the share the good news of Jesus with people who don’t know and have never heard. There are many people in our life—family, neighbors, friends at school, people we see around town—who don’t know who Jesus is. When they hear about how good God is and what He has done in our life, they may want to know more and want to know the love of Jesus for themselves.

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Read: Psalm 71:14–17; 1 Corinthians 2:1

Do you know what the word cattywampus means? How about the word bumfuzzle? These are long, interesting words that you might not know or use unless you grew up hearing or studying them. Words like this aren’t typically a part of our everyday conversations, and you don’t really need to use them to have a meaningful conversation.

Do you ever wonder what words you should use to tell people about Jesus? Maybe you are searching for some big, long, important words before you speak. Sometimes we feel like we can’t tell others about Jesus because we don’t know the right words to use. We may feel like we’re not smart enough or we don’t know all there is to know about God. Somehow this keeps us from telling others about who He is.

Here’s the good news, though: We don’t have to be skilled with words or know everything there is to know about God. We simply need to be willing to allow God to use us and speak through us to share about Jesus and what He’s done in our life. Psalm 71:15 says, “All day long I will proclaim your saving power, though I am not skilled with words.” The Bible is telling us that we can still talk about God’s power even if we’re not good with words! When we are willing to share Jesus’ story in everyday conversations, God will use us to draw people to Him. And they may want to have a relationship with God because of what we’ve told them.