Hi Passionate Youth Reaching Out, today is Friday June 24.  My name is Grant and this is Start Up, helping you start your day with an upward focus.  My question for you is, “How much convincing do you need to be “fully convinced” of something”?

Romans 4:18–25 (HCSB)

18 He believed, hoping against hope, so that he became the father of many nations according to what had been spoken: So will your descendants be. 19 He considered his own body to be already dead (since he was about 100 years old) and also considered the deadness of Sarah’s womb, without weakening in the faith. 20 He did not waver in unbelief at God’s promise but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 because he was fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. 22 Therefore, it was credited to him for righteousness. 23 Now it was credited to him was not written for Abraham alone, 24 but also for us. It will be credited to us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

Abraham was fully convinced that God could do what he promised to do.  The odds however, were not in Abraham’s favour.  He was 99 and his wife was 90, and God was promising them a baby boy. A year later, baby Issac was born. Could you believe God for a miracle when the odds are against you?

I think that the term “fully convinced” is an important one.  There is one thing that we need to be fully convinced about, it is that Jesus Christ our Lord has been raised from the dead, and is to this day, alive.  We need to be fully convinced of this because the entire Christian faith rests upon that fact, that Jesus died for our sins and was raised for to make us right.

Don’t beat yourself up if you are not fully convinced, but don’t let yourself off the hook either.  Do the work to become convinced by reading the Bible, praying, researching ancient documents and doing everything that you can to be convinced of the truth. You can pray and ask for God’s help in your journey, after all, faith is a gift from God.

Challenge

The challenge for this week is to pick one of our church missionaries and then pray for them and write them some sort of encouragement email.  You can find a list of our missionaries on the church website, www.hawkwood.ca

Invitation

The invitation this week is for all students in Grades 6-12 to come to our School’s Out Sports Party at M   cMahon Stadium.  We have some special guests coming including Mike Carnegie who is the Captain of the Calgary Roughnecks. We will also be joined by Team Paes Bobsled from Brazil, and they are bringing their sled with them.  We are meeting at McMahon Stadium, please enter at the Pass Gate on the Southwest Corner of the stadium, the cost is $2.

Thanks for listening to today’s StartUp, you can find all of the details about our youth group online at hbcyouth.ca.  We are also on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, just search for Hawkwood Youth.

https://www.facebook.com/HawkwoodYouthPYRO/

https://twitter.com/HawkwoodYouth

https://www.instagram.com/hawkwoodyouth/