FOOD FOR TEENS: HOW GOD TRAINS HIS CHILDREN

 

Dear Teens, I welcome you to this last month of the year 2023, the Lord has been good to us and we thank Him for His preservation and protection.

In this edition, I would like us to understand how God trains His children. This will help us to better understand how to relate with God in every situation. There are two major ways God trains His children,

1. Nurturing

2. Discipline

1. To Nurture means to nurse, to nourish or to feed; to give tender care. This is how God starts the training process with us, as new born babes, God basically nourishes us, that is why scripture tells us in 1st Peter 2:2 says, “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.” The nurturing process is how you begin the growth process in anything, in plants, animals, humans even in new businesses. That’s how God starts with us. He feeds, He grants our requests, in short as a new believer; Christianity is always going to be so interesting because of the amount of result you get at the beginning. You will ask yourself how come you did not become a Christian on time because of the way you will enjoy it.

This process is the first step in the growth process of a Christian. For the sake of this topic, we would be using the life of Joseph as our case study. At this point in the life of Joseph is father Jacob was still making him the coats of many colors. At this time of nurturing in your Christian journey you are having testimonies upon testimonies, you as you apply God’s word. Though the nurturing process never really ends with God but as you grow in your work with God, He starts replacing the milk with meats. Meats are more difficult to breakdown and digest and they become necessary as you continue in your journey here on earth This is required to give you foundation required for real growth.

2. The Discipline or Discipline process: To educate; to develop by instruction and exercise; to train. Discipline: Severe training, corrective of faults; instruction by means of misfortune, suffering, punishment, etc. Now, this second aspect of God’s training process is very crucial, it is through this discipline process that disciples are formed. Your Heavenly Father sees your end from your beginning, He knows what He has created you to achieve here on this earth, He May have told you at the stage of infancy like He showed Joseph how great he was going to become, God knows how much character is required to achieve this, so He begins developing that person in several ways.

As soon as a believer begins to respond to God in the nurturing stage and begins to bear fruits, the next thing the Father does is to begin the process of purging. John 15:2, “Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” To purge means to rid of impurities; the primary way God does this is through His Word, no wonder the next verse in John 15:3 Jesus says, “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.”

The purging process begins with deeper understanding of God’s Word. What happens at this point is that in your soul where the word of God is growing, are also found to be growing other ideas and beliefs that are contrary to God’s Word and would hinder His plans for your life. So, He begins to take you through character formation through your experiences. For Joseph, the first real lesson he learnt was in being too naïve and trusting too much. You might look at how his brothers sold him out and wonder if God was in it, but the truth is that most of the trials and temptations that you will ever face, though are from the devil but they are allowed by God to build you, not to kill you. That is why the first thing we must do in situations like this is to give God thanks and count it all joy according to James 1:22, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;”

What about Job, it was even God that gave the devil permission to try Job. For every trial you go through, as you fight it with God’s word, always have it at the back of your mind that there’s a lesson in it God wants you to learn for the sake of your purpose. Don’t be too quick to dismiss your trials as satanic attacks therefore it is not the will of God, because even Jesus’ death was a demonic attack but in it was God’s ultimate plan for humanity. 1^st Corinthians 2:8 says, “Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” I heard someone say “never let a crisis go to waste” there are lessons to be learnt, there’s victory to be attained. Out of something strong came out something sweet.

Newton’s first law of motion states that an object will not change its motion unless a force acts on it. God knows you will keep heading in the wrong direction so He allows some external force acts on your life. That external force is what we call trials, God knows it’s incapable of destroying you, He makes a way of escape already for you in that situation but the most important thing He wants you to do is to learn the lessons, there’s a reason why that happened, pick up the lessons, overcome the temptation and keep on going.

1^st Corinthians 10:13, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." Christianity is not only about getting from God, it also entails suffering, and this is the suffering involved in it. Philippians 1:29, “For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;” This is what is called chastening, literally the word discipline and chastening means the same thing. Hebrews 12:6 says, “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”

Be careful because as a child of God if you fail to learn the lesson God has hidden inside that trial, you will have to face the problem again and this time it might destroy you or stop you from achieving God’s purpose for your life. Samson didn’t learn the lesson when his enemies used his wife to manipulate him and get the secret out of him, so when the same enemies came again through Delilah, he was unable to resist which led to his death. There are areas in your life that needs correction, you probably are not aware of, only through the chastening of the Lord are these things corrected. It is how God trains His children to become strong and take their possessions on the earth.

The reason why many African men can’t build generational Wealth is because they fail to train their children to learn the lessons they learnt that made them successful, they fail to see that the secret of their successes are hidden in those “sufferings” they shield their children from and that’s not God’s method, remember we are going to inherit kingdoms, God is going to put a lot into our hands but we must first submit ourselves to His training. Paul could never imagine that pride could be a problem but through his afflictions God dealt with it. At the end Joseph said, what the enemy meant for evil, God turned it around for good. Hebrews 12:11, “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.”

If you want to yield more fruits, allow God to train you as His child and you will forever be thankful that He did.

God bless you and see you next year.