Being a responsible Christian means being a good giver in relation to your time, talents and treasures. In relation to time we usually think of taking parts of a day or week out for worship or involvement in ministry. Most people don’t think of the importance of living one’s life for Jesus and His kingdom from our youth forward. 

This statement is not insinuating that the Lord cannot save a person at any age but it is true that a person can give so much more the longer they serve the Lord. I have heard the testimony of several persons who were close to death who have wished they would have come to the Lord earlier in life so that they could have given more.

The scripture is full of examples of those who have started serving the Lord at an early age.

The prophet Samuel was around 11 years old when God called him. David who later became king over Israel was around 15 when he was first anointed to be king. The prophet Daniel was believed to be around 13 years old when he was being trained for the future role where God used him. In the New Testament it is believed that the disciples of Jesus were under the age of 18 and the preacher Timothy was believed to be 16 when he became a convert to Christianity.

There are 3 main reasons why it is important for our young people to start following Jesus.

First, because of the reason mentioned above, being that they will have more of their life to give.

 Second, because sometimes a person can get their life so messed up before accepting Jesus, it limits the person’s ability to do everything they would like to do.

 Third, the statistics would tell us that the longer a person waits to accept Jesus, the more unlikely they ever will. Someone did a study on this and came up with the following findings. Here are the chances of the likelihood of choosing to becoming a follower of Jesus: Age of 25 - 1 in 5000, age 35 - 1 in 25,000, age 45 - 1 in 60,000, age 55 - 1 in 125,000. I think you get the point.

If you are a believing parent of younger children, please take time to teach them about Jesus and take them to church. Be earnest about praying for them. May we as Christ’s church see the urgency of making children a priority in our prayers and in our overall ministries.