Guided by Faith: Daily Christian Devotions and Advice for Teens and Young Adults

What you focus on shapes your outlook, so what are you feeding your spirit each day? In this episode of Guided by Faith, Jay explains how intentional gratitude and encouragement can help Christian teens and young adults focus on God’s goodness, recognize His faithfulness, strengthen their relationships, and develop a healthier perspective on life. Drawing from Philippians 4:8 and his own story, Ja...

A healthy relationship with God involves more than hearing from Him through Scripture because prayer gives you the opportunity to talk with God, respond to His Word, and bring your needs and the needs of others before Him. In this episode of Guided by Faith, Jay explains practical ways to develop a consistent prayer life, including using the Lord’s Prayer, the ACTS model of adoration, confession,...

What are you feeding your mind each day, and are you filling it with the truth of God’s Word? In this episode of Guided by Faith, Jay explains why reading the Bible is more than a spiritual duty or checklist and shares practical ways for Christian teens and young adults to develop a daily habit of feeding their minds with Scripture. Discover how God’s truth can shape your thoughts, identity, habit...

Are you able to feed yourself spiritually, or are you still depending on others to spoon feed you the Word of God? In this episode of Guided by Faith, Jay explores Paul’s challenge to the believers in 1 Corinthians 3 and explains why spiritual maturity means learning to engage with Scripture, prayer, and God personally. Discover why regularly feeding yourself spiritually can deepen your faith, inc...

What if you are afraid to fully surrender your life to Jesus because you are not sure He is really a good King? In the final episode of this week’s Guided by Faith series, Jay offers an encouraging reminder that King Jesus is out for your good. Colossians 1:13–14 describes salvation as God delivering us from the domain of darkness and transferring us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, where we h...

Do you honor the name of Jesus? In this episode of Guided by Faith, Jay continues exploring the question, “Is Jesus really my King?” by looking at what it means to honor Jesus not only with our words but also through the way we live. While honoring Jesus’ name includes treating His name with reverence and refusing to use it carelessly or disrespectfully, Jay focuses on an even bigger question: Wha...

Do you really submit to Jesus’ authority? In this episode of Guided by Faith, Jay continues exploring the question, “Is Jesus really my King?” by challenging teens and young adults to look beyond what they say they believe and examine whether their lives demonstrate submission to Jesus as Lord. In Matthew 28:18–20, Jesus declares that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him and...

Do you really care about God’s glory? In this episode of Guided by Faith, Jay continues exploring the question, “Is Jesus really my King?” by challenging teens and young adults to examine whether their lives show that they care about God’s reputation, name, and glory. Philippians 2:9–11 teaches that Jesus has been highly exalted and that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Chri...

Is Jesus really your King, or is He simply your Savior? In this episode of Guided by Faith, Jay challenges teens and young adults to examine whether their faith is truly their own and whether the evidence of their lives shows that Jesus is Lord. Colossians 1:13–14 reminds us that God has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, giving us redemp...

What do you do when you need to make an important decision but cannot find a clear answer in Scripture or know exactly how Jesus would respond? In this episode of Guided by Faith, Jay brings the week’s conversation about determining right and wrong to a close by exploring three gifts God has given believers for navigating difficult decisions: the Holy Spirit, our conscience, and a wise community o...

How do you know what God wants you to do when the Bible does not give you a specific rule for every situation? In this episode of Guided by Faith, Jay explains why God’s Word is more than just a rulebook and how Scripture provides both clear commands and practical wisdom for making godly decisions. While the Bible contains definitive moral standards, not every Old Testament regulation applies dire...

How do you determine what is right and wrong when culture, feelings, and human opinions can be misleading? In this episode of Guided by Faith, Jay points teens and young adults to Jesus as the ultimate example of goodness, holiness, truth, and righteousness. Because Jesus is God in human form, we can look at His life in Scripture to see what it looks like to live according to God’s standard while...

How do you determine whether something is truly good or evil? In this episode of Guided by Faith, Jay examines the different standards people often use to determine right and wrong, including personal feelings, majority opinion, cultural norms, and human reasoning. While these standards may seem convincing, Jay explains from Scripture why they cannot provide a reliable foundation for morality. Jer...

How do you know what is truly right or wrong in a world where culture, personal feelings, and popular opinion constantly change? In this episode of Guided by Faith, Jay explores how Christians can discern good from evil and why cultural norms, conscience, and majority opinion cannot provide a reliable absolute standard for morality. Looking at examples from history and modern culture, Jay challeng...

In this episode of Guided by Faith, Jay wraps up the week by challenging Christian teens and young adults to live with humility and gratitude because of who God has made them to be. Reflecting on Psalm 8, Jay considers the majesty of God’s creation and the incredible truth that human beings are made in God’s image and, through faith in Jesus Christ, can become children of God. These foundational t...

In this episode of Guided by Faith, Jay explores the reassuring truth that God does not love His children less when they fail. While our mistakes, sins, and poor choices have real consequences and should lead us toward repentance, our failures do not cause God to withdraw His love from those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ. Jay reflects on his own journey of faith and points to the pow...

In this episode of Guided by Faith, Jay explores the freedom that comes from understanding God’s unconditional love for His children. Many teens and young adults struggle with a performance mindset, believing that God loves them more when they succeed, get good grades, excel in sports, serve faithfully, or make good choices, and loves them less when they fail. Jay points to Romans 5:8, reminding u...

In this episode of Guided by Faith, Jay explores how our relationship with our earthly father can influence the way we understand and relate to God as our Heavenly Father. Through Romans 8 and the biblical picture of adoption, Jay explains that God invites His children into a close and personal relationship with Him, but experiences with an absent, distant, or abusive father can sometimes make it...

In this episode of Guided by Faith, Jay explores what it truly means to be a child of God and challenges the common belief that everyone is automatically God’s child. Through passages including John 1, Romans 8, 1 John 3, Romans 9, and John 8, Jay explains that becoming a child of God happens through faith in Jesus Christ, not through physical descent, good works, accomplishments, or simply being...

In Episode 525 of Guided by Faith, Jay takes a deeper look at what it means to be created in the image of God and why this truth matters for Christian identity. Drawing from Genesis 1:27, he explains that being an image bearer means reflecting aspects of God through our ability to reason, create, innovate, make moral and ethical decisions, steward creation, build relationships, and recognize the G...

In Episode 524 of Guided by Faith, Jay addresses the identity crisis facing many teens and young adults by pointing them back to the foundational truth of Genesis 1:26 to 27: human beings are created in the image of God. Your identity is not ultimately determined by your family background, achievements, appearance, popularity, failures, abilities, or the labels society places on you. As an image b...

In Episode 523 of Guided by Faith, Jay continues exploring the question of identity by unpacking the truth that you were created for God’s pleasure. Based on Revelation 4:11, this episode expands the definition of worship beyond singing songs at church to include everything we do to please God. Prayer, reading Scripture, listening to the Holy Spirit, serving others, giving generously, developing y...

In Episode 522 of Guided by Faith, Jay explores what creation reveals about the God who made it and challenges teens and young adults to look beyond Scripture to the “book of nature” as another way to recognize God’s creativity, power, joy, and wonder. From national parks and coral reefs to whales, mountains, and distant galaxies revealed through powerful telescopes, creation points to a God who d...

In Episode 521 of Guided by Faith, Jay explores the danger of building your identity around achievements, accomplishments, recognition, or the opinions of others. Whether you are known as the athlete, musician, academic, popular person, class clown, or even the person who is always left out, these labels are unstable foundations for your identity because accomplishments fade and circumstances chan...

In Episode 520 of Guided by Faith, Jay concludes the week by examining one final question about the trustworthiness of the Bible: Were the biblical authors simply trying to gain power, influence, or wealth? Jay argues that the lives of the early Christian leaders point in the opposite direction. Instead of receiving power and comfort, many of Jesus’ disciples faced persecution, imprisonment, suffe...