Who's Controlling You?

Every young person likes to believe that he or she is independent, free spirited, and thinks for themselves.  

“My life is my life. Respect my choices. I do what I do because I want to”, they say.

This is the general philosophy of so many youths that are lost and confused and can’t see that something else is manipulating every feeling they have.  

Free and independent? Not a chance, not with a puppet master pulling the strings of their lives like a simple wooden puppet.

Friends, addiction, music, relationships, past hurts, etc; these are the strings. 

Pulling each of those strings, unseen and unhindered, is the puppeteer (devil).

You'll always be controlled one way or another.

 It's your decision to either have your strings attached to God or to something or someone else.

Cut your strings loose before it's too late.

It's your decision, if you don't control your life someone will. 

Pr Luke Castro

YPG National Coordinator 

Waterman - A New Kind Of Stupid Hero

If you pour the same quantity of water in vase of different shapes and forms, the water will take different shapes. 

Many youths are like water. They take the form and shape of the places they go to and the people they hang out with. 

Recently, a member of our YPG in Houston told me that a young lady who she knew for a long time before coming to church, died in a car crash on a Sunday morning, around 3am. She was only 17. She was coming from a night club when the driver lost control of the car (a 20 years old young man who was apparently drunk and had no license to drive) and the car flipped over couple of times before going ablaze. 

The interesting thing is that the YPG member was coming to church Sunday morning when she drove by the accident without realizing until later on Sunday that it was one of her friends who was in that car.

A moment of sadness hit her and, at the same time, relief. "Relief?", you might be asking. Yes, relief for not being in that car. She told me she was glad that she choose to be in a different environment. She had decided not to go to these places anymore and stick to her faith. The church and the YPG molded her in to a different young woman.  

She could have been one of those youths in that car accident, which did not only kill her friend but another two passengers, all under 21. Only the driver survived and ESCAPED the scene. What a friend!

Friends, where have you been going? What places? And what kind of people you have around you? 

Careful, they will shape you.

Pr Luke Castro

YPG National Coordinator.

Who's Got Your Back?

One common thing that I've noticed among youths who come to the youth group is the struggle they go through in order to abandon the friends they've made in the world. This is typical of them.

I tell you, they manage to stop using drugs, they forgive those who hurt them, they begin doing better at school, but when it comes to 'friends' they say, "Ah, I know them for too long. How can I turn my back on them?", or something like, "If I stop hanging out with them then who will be my friends?".

These youths fail to understand that unless they leave their friends behind they won't grow spiritually. Yes, they won't. The Bible says:

"Don't become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That's not partnership; that's war. Is light best friends with dark? Does Christ go strolling with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands?"

2 Cor 6:14 (The Message)

Let me break it down to you for a better understanding. What they literally do is to come to the YPG (light), receive help and guidance and then after that go back to their worldly peers (darkness) because they can't 'live' without them.

Who does that? Who, after years living in darkness, finding the light that brings direction to them, goes back into darkness again? This makes non sense!

Okay. Some youths might say that they go back out there to help them out. I've heard youths saying that because now that they know the truth they should tell their so called friends of the new life they've found. Yes, the same friends who never came to terms with their conversion and their notorious changes.

I question for you: what is easier, for a basket full of good oranges to make the one rotten orange among them good or for the rotten one to spoil the entire basket? You know the answer to this question.

Friends, let's be wise. I'm not being radical. I'm just saying that there's a right time for things to happen. If you've just started attending the YPG now I advise you to pray for your friends in the meantime.

I know God will soon provide a way for you to meet them and invite them to come to the church with you. Get strong first. Leave them behind. It's either them or God.

"Blessed is the man who walks

not in the counsel of the ungodly,

Nor stands in the path of sinners,

nor sits in the seat of the scornful;

But his delight is in the law of the LORD,

and in His law he meditates day and night."

Psalm 1:1-2 (NKJV)

At the end of the day, who's got your back?

P.S. - Follow up on this message about friendship. There's more coming.

Pr Luke Castro