The Conversation...We exalt you Lord, and lift you high above the heavens. On today we ask that you give us your heart and teach us to love others how you love us. Help us to show other youth how to live for you in a world full of temptation. Keep our minds focused that we may successfully complete all of our assignments and continue to order our steps. Bless our families and those who are less fortunate. We thank you for loving us, protecting us, and we honor you today, in Jesus' name, Amen! The Affirmation...I declared that God and His Word teaching me how to treat and love others. Just like He loves me! The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:31 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. I Corinthians 13:4-8  The Resource... The Word!How Do You Measure Truth? Bible Reading: 2 Thessalonians 2:13-17 We are thankful that God chose you to be among the first to experience salvation, a salvation that came through the Spirit who makes you holy and by your belief in the truth. 2 Thessalonians 2:13 “HEY, PEDRO, here’s that board you wanted,” Devin says to his friend. “I was on the arm saw anyway, so I cut it for you.” Pedro looks at the board. “Thanks. But it looks longer than a meter.” Devin shakes his head. “It’s a meter exactly. I measured twice, cut once.” “Let’s see,” Pedro says. He finds a meter stick and lays it on the board. “I was right. It’s four centimeters too long.” “That’s crazy,” Devin retorts, pulling out his own meter stick. “Check it out. According to my stick, the board is exactly one meter long.” When the two friends compare meter sticks, Devin’s is four centimeters longer than Pedro’s. How can they know which meter is really a meter? Well, they do have some options. They could take a vote, flip a coin, or appeal to an absolute, unchanging standard of measurement. It so happens that there exists a totally authoritative benchmark for measurements in Sevres, France, at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. That bureau establishes and guards the international standards for metric measurements. To learn what a meter really is, all you need to do is compare it to the original-the standard. Webster defines truth as “fidelity to an original or to a standard.” Just like you need a consistent stick when measuring meters, you also need a standard to tell right from wrong. To decide what’s good and true, you need to ask how something stacks up against the original, the standard. The only reason you can recognize that some things are right and some things are wrong is that there is a Creator: God. He is so righteous, so just, so true that he alone sets the standard for right and wrong, justice and injustice, truth and lies. The reason you know love is good and hatred is evil is that the God who made you is a God of love. Honesty is right and deceit is wrong because God is true. Sexual purity is moral and sleeping around is immoral because God is pure. It’s God and God alone who determines absolute truth-what is right for all people, for all places, for all times. That perfect truth is objective because God isn’t just a figment of our feelings. It’s universal because God is above all. And it’s constant because God is eternal. Absolute truth is absolute because it originates from the original-God, the Standard. REFLECT: can you explain to a friend why God’s standard of right and wrong and truth and falsehood-is the one to use? PRAY: Lord, the world gives me all kinds of standards to judge actions and ideas. I submit to you as the perfect Judge of what is good and right. © 2016 Josh McDowell Ministry. All reserved. No part of these Materials may be changed in any way or reproduced in any form without written permission from Josh McDowell Ministry, 2001 West Plano Parkway, Suite 2400, Plano, TX 75075. www.Josh.org.+1 972 907 1000. Used by Perm The Sound...
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