The First Thoughts "Tithe Your Teen Years" What's your life line?

Have you every had an account, with money or something else that was your life line?

Have you ever kept checking that life line to know how you are doing?

Have you ever been on a vacation? A trip far from home, and your main life line was your checking account or your credit card.  How close did you keep those cards to you?  How often did you check on those accounts.  Making sure that you had enough money to do what you wanted to do, and enough money to at least get back home when the trip was done.

Never you say, that’s okay look at it this way, what is the one thing that identifies you, that one thing that makes you feel secure and safe.  How often to check in on it and make sure that it is doing it’s job?  Is it something that you wear, is it something that create, an attitude, or a way that you treat other people, that only allows them to get so close, or causes them to draw close to you.  Or is it is a sport, an ability that you bank on completely that identifies you as the person you are?  How much do you practice, how often do you work out, defining the skill set that sets you apart from others? Could it be grades, getting the right marks in every class every time. making the best grades on all the big test so that you can get the scholarships that you will need to pay for the perfect college that will complete you and set you up for life. Could it be a boy friend or a girlfriend?  Having another person in your life and creating a couple instead of an individual person.  It’s hard to see who someone is as an individual when they are a couple.  Always having someone in your life is great way to hide to the world who you really are.  

What is your life line?  What do you depend on to get through life?
We all have life lines... The problem with most of our life lines is they really don’t bring us life, they only drain the life out of us and leave us dying faster.  The faster our life lines drain, the more we are checking in on them to see how much longer they will be there, and with every check in we find that we lose a little more of the life that they are suppose to be feeding into us.  When a life line that we have been depending upon, drains and begins to run dry we seek to find the next best life line, we go on a quest to reinvent ourselves once again.  If we don’t change our source of life this cycle will continue until we have no idea who we are and what we were created for.  
To break the cycle we must give away and empty out the source that we have been pulling from, we have to trade it all in, we have to come to a place where we realize that there is only once source and that this source requires that it is the only source.  It requires that we give all that we are to it.  There is no other choice, in the end there is no other life source.  

Look at this story from the life of Jesus.

Mark 12: 28-34
 One of the religion scholars came up. Hearing the lively exchanges of question and answer and seeing how sharp Jesus was in his answers, he put in his question:"Which is most important of all the commandments?"
Jesus said, "The first in importance is, 'Listen, Israel:The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.' And here is the second:'Love others as well as you love yourself.' There is no other commandment that ranks with these."
The religion scholar said, "A wonderful answer, Teacher! So lucid and accurate-- that God is one and there is no other. And loving him with all passion and intelligence and energy, and loving others as well as you love yourself. Why, that's better than all offerings and sacrifices put together!"

 When Jesus realized how insightful he was, he said, "You're almost there, right on the border of God's kingdom."

After that, no one else dared ask a question.

Mark 12:38-44
 He continued teaching." Watch out for the religion scholars. They love to walk around in academic gowns, preening in the radiance of public flattery, basking in prominent positions, sitting at the head table at every church function. And all the time they are exploiting the weak and helpless. The longer their prayers, the worse they get. But they'll pay for it in the end. "

 Sitting across from the offering box, he was observing how the crowd tossed money in for the collection. Many of the rich were making large contributions. One poor widow came up and put in two small coins-- a measly two cents. Jesus called his disciples over and said," The truth is that this poor widow gave more to the collection than all the others put together. All the others gave what they'll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn't afford-- she gave her all.

I love this story because it defines the true price that God is calling us to.  A price that is paid not from your wealth, but from the deepest part of all that you are.  The rich in the story were giving from their wealth and from pockets that would never miss what they were giving.  But the poor widow gave two small coins and it was all that she had to give.  Being a widow her chances in that day of making money would have been small.  She gave it all offered up everything that she had.  You might say that she tithed her life to God when she dropped in those two coins.  

I love this story also because it comes after the two greatest commandments.  This story gives a real life example of what it looks like to love God with all your heart, mind and soul.  

I want to challenge you to live your life with the passion of the poor widow, that you would continue to take up the challenge to tithe your teen years.  Concentrate yourself fast once a week for a day, fast from food, from media, from sugar, just fast.  Live with a Passion to really know God, spend time alone with Him, not to do a task but to really experience His presence.  Live with a heart for Intersession, make it a point once a week to be involved in a prayer meeting with other believers.  Live your life with Mission, live intentionally for others to come to know Jesus.  When your life is focused and rooted in these things, then you will have found the life source that you are looking for!

All the false life sources will not have room to suck the life out of you leaving you looking for another source.  You life will be rooted in the things that bring life!  In this life you will find out exactly what you were created for!  

Post it, put your thoughts about this article in the comment section, if you have an article that will encourage us all to press in email it to me and I will post it.  Use the comment section to tell us how things are going.  Encourage one another, lets go after this together!

Be Blessed in your pursuit!

CH 

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