10/27/19 - Meet Elisha, and "how we know Christianity is the right religion."

Good morning!

This past Sunday morning we spent some time discussing the succession of Elijah's ministry into Elisha. We are travelling through 2 Kings now, and your students have been challenged to participate in a daily discipleship guide! We spent some time learning about the end of Elijah's ministry and the spirit of God transferring to Elisha. Elisha boldly asks for a double portion of God's spirit and follows Elijah till he is taken to heaven. We discussed the fact that we tend to doubt the spirits power in our lives, and rarely do we truly expect God to do great things in and through us. Maybe we would see more miracles if we believed the Spirit was still with us and capable! 

In youth group, we answered another question from the question box. The question was "How do we know that Christianity is the right religion?" I spent a few hours drafting a lesson plan for this one, only to have a close friend point out that Jesus never came to establish a religion, but rather a relationship. He's not wrong. Most of the time when we hear the word "Christian" there are some feelings (whether positive or negative) associated with it. Jesus Christ is often associated with those things as well, but He should not be blamed for his followers shortcomings. So if Jesus didn't call us to religion, what did he ask of us? 

Simply, we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus calls us to be more and more like Him as we draw nearer to God. When we ask ourselves if following Christ is the right decision, we find that there is a lot of evidence to support God's existence, and that the Bible is His word. We see all sorts of evidence in history, archaeology, and within the Bible itself. We watched this video made by Ravi Zacharias to get a feel for where Christ followers differ from other major worldviews. Of the major religions that believe that God and the universe coexist, only Christianity speaks of a God who loves His creation and desires to be in relationship with them. On top of that, the evidence that the Bible is God's miraculously preserved word is overwhelming. See this link if you want to read a little more about that. 

What it eventually boils down to is faith. If you believe that there is a God, and that He is worthy of worship, only Christ offers a path to relationship with Him. Every other spiritual belief requires works on the part of humans and paints a picture of an angry god who must be appeased. The Bible is unbelievably accurate in the way it describes history, and we can confidently say that it is the most well-preserved book in known history. 

God exists, He is good, and the Bible is his word. All our conversation hinges on these assumptions, so it makes sense to revisit them every once in a while! 

Next week we continue with The Gospel Project and some more questions from the question box!