aftershock.org.uk
devotional mp3 podcasts for young people

Christianity is a crutch for the weak. If you are a Christian you must be meek and mild. These and other such lies are blown away by this messenger for God. The messenger in these verses is an Angel fresh from the battle field. Can you image a two and half metre bloke running into you at college? The first thing he says is, “great there you are, right I’m sorry I’m late but I have been battling the Devil and his minions. Man you think world of warcraft is bad you should have seen these guys, but anyway we’ve dealt with them now.” “Right I’m on a mission from God to explain what all this stuff means to you, because God has heard your cry. But the first thing God wants me to say to you is. Stand up be strong, be courageous, prepare yourself for battle.” Wow that would be mad. But God does say that to you, he doesn’t say be wimpy. He doesn’t say be weak. No our God wants you to go into the world and tel your mates about Jesus in the way they will understand. And he wants you to do it with confidence, proud in the knowledge that you have the creator God backing you up.

Author - Max Cross, Daniel | No Comments »

So what do you do when everyone around you abandons you? You have a vision for something and no one else understands. Maybe it’s a vision to set-up a charity to help young people learn how to manage money. Maybe it’s a vision to help young people learn about the love of Christ through football. Maybe it’s a vision to create a business that is so successful you can fund hundreds of children’s education. What do you do when you believe God has given you a vision and everyone else runs away? Give up that’s what you do. Bury the vision and forget about it. Go back to what you were doing before and ignore God. Did what I just said make you angry? Did it make you cry out “not a chance”. Yes if you are given a vision by God then God will also give you the passion to never give up. It won’t be your strength that you need, you will need Gods strength to complete a vision that he gives you. But then if you have a dream that God gives you, you will truly be able to shout I have a dream and I have a God that will give me the strength to deliver that dream.

Author - Max Cross, Daniel | No Comments »

So God has answered Daniels prayers by sending him a messenger in the form of the angel Gabriel. How does God answer your prayers? Who does God send as a messenger to you? Could God use your mate, your parents or even your teachers? Oh that’s a scary thought isn’t it? Imagine if God used your teacher or college lecturer to send you a message. Would you be listening enough to hear it? If God used that guy who winds you up at school or college, would you take the time with that person to hear Gods voice? I hate to think of the number of time I have missed Gods voice because I have been in a rush or just wanted to ignore someone, how about you? Often when we are in that moment of asking God for help we expect an answer straight away, this very minute. I don’t know about you, but I don’t often remember that God may choose to answer me later that day, week, month or even year. Another scary thoughts is that God might use us as an answer to someone else prayers. Either way it seems to me that we should be looking for God in all parts of our life, not just when we are praying to him or reading his Bible.

Author - Max Cross, Daniel | No Comments »

Yep this guy has pretty much got the picture now. When you stuff up and are sorry make sure you take the time to say so. If you have a mate who you upset because you have done something stupid then you hopefully would take the time to say sorry. If you don’t say sorry to your mates when you have made a mistake and upset them, then it won’t be long before you don’t have many mates. Think about it this way. You have a mate who you tell a secret to, and you say, please don’t tell anyone my secret. It’s not long before you realise that word has got about your secret and you know that you told no one else so it can only be your mate who told everyone. You are fuming and go looking for them to give them what for. When you finally find them they look really sorry and upset. They know they have done wrong. You know they have done wrong. Now you are even aware that they are sorry they did it. Does that make everything OK, or is there one more thing that needs to happen? Absolutely, if that was it you would still not forgive them would you? You now need to hear fro them that they are sorry, they need to speak those words for you to fully know they are sorry. Well obviously God is much more graceful than we are but we also need to tell him we are sorry when we muck up. God knows if we muck up, God even knows if we are sorry when muck up. But we still need to take the time to tell him we are sorry.

Author - Max Cross, Daniel | No Comments »

So it seems that God warned these people that if they behaved in a certain way the good stuff wasn’t going to happen. I guess that also means that if they behaved in another way then good stuff would happen. It doesn’t matter what you believe, your actions will have an effect. It doesn’t matter if people are Christians or not, it’s true that there are consequences to all our actions. Some people call it Karma, others think it’s is written in the stars, but the reality is everything we do will have some effect. That’s why we needed Jesus to come to Earth and die on the cross for us. I don’t know about you but I seem to be able to think about how my actions are affecting others for a short while and then one day I forget. The day I forget seems to always be the day that what I do hurts others. That’s why Jesus came, so I can say sorry God and know that he will forgive me. You see I make mistakes, you make mistakes, but Jesus is pure forever. God knew, that there were going to be days when we stuff up , God knew that it doesn’t matter how hard we try sometimes what we do would hurt others, and he gave us an equation to resolve it. Jesus plus me or you saying sorry equals forgiveness.

Author - Max Cross, Daniel | No Comments »