Now more than ever it is important to be clear about the hope that we have as followers of Jesus. In this episode, I was excited to do a quick interview with my friend Greg Stier of Dare 2 Share ministries about how to clearly share the Gospel and offer a behind the scenes look at a brand new app that makes this easier than ever--even in a pandemic. I will share my quote of the week by John Stott and talk a little more about life during the quarantine. Find more resources to help the next generation build a lasting faith at jonathanmorrow.org . 

Resources:

• Life in 6 Words App
• Yet Not I But Christ Through Me

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How to Explain the Trinity to a Child

How do you explain the Trinity to a child? For that matter, how do you explain the Trinity to anyone?

The first thing you need to know is that the Bible never uses the word “Trinity.” The word Trinity captures the various ways the Bible talks about the nature of God.

Also, the Trinity is one of the essential and foundational doctrines of the Christian faith. You can’t have Christianity without it.

I want to share a clear and memorable way to understand what the Bible teaches about the Trinity. I first came across this illustration from Norm Geisler.

There is one what and three who’s. There is one God and three persons. The what refers to nature of God that all three persons share.

The belief that there is only one God is clearly taught in Scripture. For example,

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! – Deuteronomy 6:4

That there are three persons is also clearly taught in Scripture. We see all three persons described and at work in various passages, including 2 Cor. 13:14:

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.”

The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father. Each is a distinct person. Three who’s.

These are just two of many verses we could share. If the Bible claimed there was one God and three Gods, that would be a logical contradiction (and obviously false)....

Will Your Kids Faith Survive YouTube?

Worldview training is not optional for today’s teenagers.

As a parent, pastor, educator or youth pastor you need to know that training in worldview, apologetics, and theology is good for the heart and soul of the next generation.

[shareable]We don’t have to choose between reason and relationships.[/shareable]

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I believe in the next generation. I love getting to spend time with them talking about the big questions of life and the everyday stuff of life.

Gen Z has amazing potential and I think God will use them greatly. (Here's my interview with David Kinnaman of the Barna Group and Catalyst podcast on Gen Z)

But they must be trained.

Worldview training is not optional for today’s teenagers

Here’s the bottom line—it’s exhausting to live a compartmentalized faith.

Yet, many Christian teenagers are trying to do this impossible task every day. And it’s taking a toll on their soul and faith.

The cultural messages are strong, and the challenges are unrelenting. Students are being shaped more by YouTube and Netflix than by what they are hearing on a typical Sunday morning.

There’s a disconnect.

Faith and feeling goes in one category of life on Sunday; reason and thinking goes in another category the rest of the week. That kind of faith will not survive....

Why Read the Bible? The short answer is the Bible brings life to our souls....

Knowledge of God Matters.

Which do you think shows up more in the Bible—faith or knowledge? If you do a concordance search, you will find something surprising. Knowledge (including knowing, know, etc.) shows up far more than faith does.

Of course, without faith, it is impossible to please God, but knowledge is far more important to God than people realize. Listen to
the words of the Lord as recorded by the prophet Jeremiah — words reminding us that knowledge of God is to be prized above all else...

Devotion and Sincerity are admirable. But when it comes to questions of reality, we know this is not enough.

In our “follow your heart,” “You do you” and personalize everything to my own preferences world--this can be confusing.

Every day through Spotify, Netflix, and YouTube--People are discipled by our culture to think that right and wrong, gender, sexuality, and spirituality are determined by what I—as an individual--choose to believe. That’s the height of freedom right? Wrong.

Why? Because we all know that we’ve been sincerely wrong. Remember all those tests you took that your teacher had the audacity to count certain answers incorrect? Remember how sincere you were on the SAT and ACT? They didn’t care.

Or think of it this way. I am not...

Why Ideas Are So Powerful

Ideas have always been and continue to be our Enemy’s favorite method of undermining the work of God.

Dallas Willard comments on what happened in the garden of Eden:

“Ideas and images are ... the primary focus of Satan’s efforts to defeat God’s purposes with and for humankind. When we are subject to his chosen ideas and images, he can take a nap or a holiday. Thus when he undertook to draw Eve away from God, he did not hit her with a stick, but with an idea. It was with the idea that God could not be trusted and that she must act on her own to secure her own well-being.”

Two observations. First, both Adam and Eve fell for the bad idea that God really can’t be trusted. Second, once ideas take root, they have a mind of their own and

Does the Bible really teach that Jesus is the only way to God?

That’s a good question. Our culture is definitely headed in the direction of pluralism and relativism.

For example, 6 out of 10 teenagers today agree with the statement “many religions can lead to eternal life; there is no one true religion.” Prominent religious leaders like the Dali Lama agree when he says, “The essential message of all religions is very much the same.”

There are different parts of this question worth looking at and responding to, but I want to focus on what the Bible says. Because if the Bible teaches that Jesus is the only way to God, then it doesn’t matter what our increasingly secular thinks.

It turns out that Jesus—the founder of Christianity—couldn’t be clearer:

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”—John 14:6

Luke...

What Are Spiritual Disciplines?Right off the bat, we need to acknowledge that Paul commands us to discipline ourselves “for the purpose of godliness; for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:7 – 8 NASB; cf. 2 Peter 1:5 – 10).They are essential for our growth and not optional when it comes to the Christian life.A discipline is “any activity I can do by direct effort that will help me do what I cannot now do by direct effort.”For example, we practice scales on a piano to learn to play music — not to get really good at playing scales.I don’t practice grammar to get really good at grammar. I study vocabulary and grammar so that I can learn to speak a new language and experience the whole new world that language opens up....