Thrown into the sea with a giant rock

1 One day Jesus said to his disciples, “There will always be temptations to sin, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting! 2 It would be better to be thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around your neck than to cause one of these little ones to fall into sin.

As sinners we struggle with temptation on a daily basis, I know for myself I struggle with it every single second. Temptation is something that we will never fully conquer, unfortunately we will continue to struggle with it probably until the day we die.

Working with youth is truly a blessing and I have a great time doing so, but if my heart is not in the right place it could spell disaster for the students. I remember back when I was a little kid and admiring my brothers and trying to mimic everything they did. I thought that they were so cool. My oldest brother got heavily involved with substance abuse and gangs that I began to see that as something that was ok.

The same applies to the kids that I work with in ministry. I see that some of the kids look up to me and that I have to set an example. God says that if I cause anyone of those kids to sin then I should be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around my neck.

I see that a lot of kids try to copy everything that I do and everything that I say. There is a boy in the 7th grade that saw that I wear a calculator watch so he went out and bought a calculator watch. So how could we possibly not cause these kids to sin if they watch our every move?

We need to live our lives for God and not for ourselves. If we try to accomplish everything in life just using our own power than we really cannot accomplish much at all. We may get a good job, a house to live in, family. But what happens when all that is gone where will you be. With God in our daily lives our accomplishments will begin to become and show so much more. We will still stumble and fall into sin, but we will be repentant and God will forgive us of that sin.

Lord I pray that when I connect and build relationships with the youth that I can be a good example of what living our lives for you is really about. That when I speak that the words be glorifying to you Lord. I pray that these kids can make a decision to not live their lives solely for themselves but for you. In Jesus name

Amen.