What skills should every young person have mastered in the process of growing up?
When I was a boy, there were two skills that I very much wanted to acquire – cycling and swimming. At the age of 12, I would go to the Farrer Park Swimming Pool every Saturday morning alone. There, I would observe how people float, swam and imitated them. After a few months and many failures, I finally was able to swim without the help of any teacher.
My father had a big grocery bicycle, too big for me to handle. Each time when my father was not using it, I would push it around in the car park. I started by trying to balance on the bicycle. After many tries, injuries and on a few occasions knock down by cars, I manage to cycle, all by myself. During secondary school, I picked up more skills – cooking, hiking, canoeing, typing with two hands, and many more.
What about spiritual level? What should every Christians know in the process of growing up? I received an email many years ago by one member of the church and here are the list mentioned:
- Know your way around the Bible. Become familiar with the Old and New Testaments. Choose some special passage and memorize them.
- Develop the confidence to pray in a group.
-Learn how to tell someone about Jesus.
-Understand the basic beliefs of the Christian faith: God, salvation, Jesus, the Bible, the Holy Spirit, the church, what happens after death.
-Be able to pray with someone who is going through a rough time.
-Attend church, and worship God throughout the service.
-Get in the habit of giving to the Lord.
- Learn how to tell a Bible story to children.
- Be able to study a Bible passage for yourself and know what it says.
- Become skilled at working through personality conflicts and differences of opinion to maintain Christian friendships.
I like to add a few more (after you have attained the above):
-Know how to find and obey God’s wills in your life.
-Able to sense to presence of God in your life.
-Know how to make Godly and wise decisions in crucial issues of life.
-Learn how to handle crisis and trial that test your faith.
Has BPCES or our Youth Alive develop our youth and new converts in these spiritual basic skills? Have we prepared them well (in our safe country) so that when they move on in life, maybe to overseas (with no one to check on them spiritually, so to speak) for studies or job attachment, they can still stand firm in faith?
Here in Equipping The Saints, my purpose is to try to provide some guidance in these areas.
Let us heed the word of the Lord to Jeremiah:
"If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?” (Jer 12:5)
Agape
Mark Lim
2 comments:
Thank you Brother Mark, for this post. I am not familiar with Jer 12:5, so did a look up on a bible commentary.
This is from the commentary.
" He acquaints us with the answer God gave to those complaints of his, v. 5, 6. We often find the prophets admonished, whose business it was to admonish others, as Isa. 8:11. Ministers have lessons to learn as well as lessons to teach, and must themselves hear God's voice and preach to themselves. Jeremiah complained much of the wickedness of the men of Anathoth, and that, notwithstanding that, they prospered. Now, this seems to be an answer to that complaint. 1. It is allowed that he had cause to complain (v. 6): "Thy brethren, the priests of Anathoth, who are of the house of thy father, who ought to have protected thee and pretended to do so, even they have dealt treacherously with thee, have been false to thee, and, under colour of friendship, have designedly done thee all the mischief they could; they have called a multitude after thee, raised the mob upon thee, to whom they have endeavoured, by all arts possible, to render thee despicable or odious, while at the same time they pretended that they had no design to persecute thee nor to deprive thee of thy liberty. They are indeed such as thou canst not believe, though they speak fair words to thee. They seem to be thy friends, but are really thy enemies." Note, God's faithful servants must not think it at all strange if their foes be those of their own house (Mt. 10:36), and if those they expect kindness from prove such as they can put no confidence in, Mic. 7:5. 2. Yet he is told that he carried the matter too far. (1.) He laid the unkindness of his countrymen too much to heart. They wearied him, because it was in a land of peace wherein he trusted, v. 5. It was very grievous to him to be thus hated and abused by his own kindred. He was disturbed in his mind by it; his spirit was sunk and overwhelmed with it, so that he was in great agitation and distress about it. Nay, he was discouraged in his work by it, began to be weary of prophesying, and to think of giving it up. (2.) He did not consider that this was but the beginning of his sorrow, and that he had sorer trials yet before him; and, whereas he should endeavour by a patient bearing of this trouble to prepare himself for greater, by his uneasiness under this he did but unfit himself for what further lay before him: If thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee, and run thee quite out of breath,then how wilt thou contend with horses? If the injuries done him by the men of Anathoth made such an impression upon him, what would he do when the princes and chief priests at Jerusalem should set upon him with their power, as they did afterwards? ch. 20:2; 32:2. If he was so soon tired in a land of peace, where there was little noise or peril, what would he do in the swellings of Jordan, when that overflows all its banks and frightens even lions out of their thickets? ch. 49:19. Note, [1.] While we are in this world we must expect troubles, and difficulties. Our life is a race, a warfare; we are in danger of being run down. [2.] God's usual method being to begin with smaller trials, it is our wisdom to expect greater than any we have yet met with. We may be called out to contend with horsemen, and the sons of Anak may perhaps be reserved for the last encounter. [3.] It highly concerns us to prepare for such trials and to consider what we should do in them. How shall we preserve our integrity and peace when we come to the swellings of Jordan? [4.] In order to our preparation for further and greater trials, we are concerned to approve ourselves well in present smaller trials, to keep up our spirits, keep hold of the promise, keep in our way, with our eye upon the prize, so run that we may obtain it. Some good interpreters understand this as spoken to the people, who were very secure and fearless of the threatened judgments. If they have been so humbled and impoverished by smaller calamities, so wasted by the Assyrians,—if the Ammonites and Moabites, who were their brethren, and with whom they were in league, proved false to them (as undoubtedly they would),—then how would they be able to deal with such a powerful adversary as the Chaldeans would be? How would they bear up their head against that invasion which should come like the swelling of Jordan? "
Thanks for taking the time to look up the commentary.
Jer 12:5 is always a reminder for me that when in our comfort zone, we still could not learn to withstand trials and temptation, how then when a bigger trials come, would we still be faithful?
Are those in our charge properly trained in their faith so that when tested still prove faithful?
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