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In a recent survey, young people were asked the question, "Where do you get bored the most?" The #1 answer was, "In Church."

I agree! The majority of churches today have nothing at all to offer young people. Most teen-agers go to church only because their parents make them go. And many of their parents go only because it's the "religious thing" to do.

It's not because young people have become godless or irreligious. In fact, another recent survey showed that 84% of American young people believe in God and that He is personally involved in their lives.

The mission of Jesus Christ was not only to redeem and baptize believers with the Holy Ghost, but to also separate, purge, and winnow the wheat from the chaff. What a terrible aspect of His mission — to separate and destroy the corrupt seed and prepare it for burning.

The church has experienced a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit. There has been a great ingathering of people from all religions and walks of life. God's holy floor is full and overflowing with a copious harvest. In fact, those whitened fields have been yielding a record harvest.

When Paul wrote his epistle to Titus, he left behind powerful instructions for us regarding Christ’s Great Commission to preach the gospel. He had just left the island of Crete, where he and Titus ministered together. Paul encountered persecution on Crete, and when he departed to evangelize in other cities, he left behind Titus and some other leaders. Now those young men also wanted to leave. Like Paul, they found Crete a hard place to minister. 

Near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, a group of religious people got so mad at him that they tried to kill him. While preaching in the synagogue in Nazareth, the town where he grew up, Jesus said something so offensive to his listeners that they formed a lynch mob.

Are you facing a crisis that has driven you to your knees? Maybe you need physical healing. Perhaps you’re in financial turmoil. Your marriage might be on the brink. Has your trial continued for so long that your spirit has sunk into despondency?

Every follower of Jesus has a certain hunger in his heart. It’s a passionate zeal to be holy before God — free from sin, victorious over flesh, pure and spotless before the Lord.

This desire is actually something the Holy Spirit plants in the heart of every human being. It’s an innate longing to live rightly. People of every religion — and even no religion — are moved to live well, do right, love others, be the best person they can be. Some obviously flee that desire and do the opposite — but they’re still conscious of a deep desire to do right.

Jesus said, "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid" (John 14:27). Christ shared these words with his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion. It was meant to give them comfort and reassurance in what would be the darkest hour of their faith. Since that time Christians down through the ages have drawn comfort from Jesus' words here, to sustain them through their most difficult trials.

When God breathes the breath of his Spirit, everyone knows he has come. Luke, the author of Acts, writes, “Suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind” (Acts 2:2). I like a different translation of this last phrase, calling it “a strong wind, a blast.”

According to this verse, God’s breath came at Pentecost with a “sound from heaven.” Luke says this sound was mighty, rushing, filling the whole atmosphere: “It filled all the house where they were sitting” (2:2).

“The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

“Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?

Recently, a dear Christian woman told me, “I’m learning my purpose in life through a class I’m taking.” She was finishing an eight-week course meant to help people discover their calling. She said everyone in the class was anxious to find their purpose.

I heard a pastor on the radio advertising something similar. He offered to help listeners discover their spiritual gifts. If you would request his questionnaire, fill it out and send it in, his staff would evaluate your particular gifts. Then they would tell you how to find your place in the body of Christ.