Open to ages pre-school to 6th grade @ 9 AM to 9:45 AM
Association of Free Lutheran Churches
3251 Midway Road, Duluth, MN 55810, USA
218-628-1306
Augustana Lutheran Church
Wednesday Night Bible Study
Wednesday's @ 7 PM
Our Bibles studies are fun and interesting with wonderful fellowship. Come and join us!
Sermon of Pastor Gary Ries
The Last Straw.
Teen Temptations
A huge survey of teens and their faith was conducted in 2002 and 2003. The results, reported in the book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, should encourage any diligent Christian parent—although with a warning as well.
Over eighty-percent of American teens say that religion is important to them. Those who attend church weekly and belong to a youth group do better in school. They are also much more likely to avoid alcohol, drugs and sex. They live healthier, more constructive, and more promising lives. This is all good news to parents who struggle to raise their children in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
But the study was not all good news. It also found that many teens know little about their religion. Homework, the media, sports, and other activities compete with church for their time. As a result, teens are increasingly replacing their traditional faith with the false view that religion is merely a way to “divinely underwritten personal happiness and interpersonal niceness.”
The danger, the study finds, is not that teens are rebelling against religion; it is that their feeling about religion may be expressed as, “Whatever.”
These findings apply to all of us. Faith in Jesus Christ helps us do better in life, make better choices, and avoid temptations. Clinging to the truths in the Bible we are able to “live more constructive and promising lives.”
This is no accident. It is not simply psychology. The Bible says, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”
The Bible is not simply a set of rules for living, but it is a book that changes us!
Do your days seem jam-packed with activity? Are you stretched thin, tired out, and beat up? They used to say of a horse that was pushed hard and given no time to recover that it was “rode hard and put away wet.” Is that you?
Make time for Jesus. Spend a few minutes each day in your Bible. Then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.