Unlocked: Daily Devotions for Teens

READ: PSALMS 62:5-8; 87:7; ISAIAH 1:18; 1 CORINTHIANS 1:30 Sure is the hope of our righteousness, pure is the Word of the Lord; He is the rock of my salvation, He alone is my reward. “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD, “Though your sins are like scarlet, …they shall be like wool.” * My soul waits in silence for God only, His face, as the morning sun; In Him my refuge and my salvat...

READ: JOHN 13:1-17; 2 CORINTHIANS 5:15-21; 1 PETER 2:21-25 A few days after arriving in Romania as a missionary, I discovered two things: First, one of the sandals I had brought along, hoping they would last my entire year overseas, broke. Second, on the ground floor of my apartment building, a family ran a small shoe repair booth. When I brought the busted shoe to the family members sitting behin...

READ: PSALM 90:4; JAMES 4:13-14; 2 PETER 3:8 Have you ever heard the saying, “Life is short, and then you die”? That saying certainly applies to cicadas. Cicadas are big, noisy bugs that look kind of like grasshoppers. And every seventeen years, a certain type of cicada shows up from underground in a massive swarm to mate and lay eggs. But the cicadas don’t last very long. They live for only about...

READ: EPHESIANS 4:22–5:2; HEBREWS 12:1-3; 2 PETER 1:3-9 Do you have vivid dreams? I dream vividly almost every night. Once, I had a hilarious dream about a team of ostriches flying, pulling me on a sleigh in the sky. We landed in a parking lot so they could take a break and join an exercise class. But last night, I dreamed I was crossing an immense desert on rollerblades. Every few feet, there wer...

READ: PSALM 139:13-16; ISAIAH 49:15; ROMANS 5:1-11 Have you ever felt undervalued? You try to speak and state your views, but people disregard them, ignoring your ideas or even ridiculing them. Perhaps you have been overlooked in the planning or details of an event. In situations like these, it would be easy, and only human, to believe we are insignificant. Negative comments, not being included, o...

READ: PSALM 10:4; MATTHEW 11:28-30; PHILIPPIANS 2:5-13; 1 PETER 5:5-7 One of the things that gives me the greatest anxiety in life is thinking about what others think of me. I worry about what the other shoppers think of me when I’m in the store, and I worry about what my family thinks of me when we get together. I’ve started to wonder, is it pride that makes me worry about all of this? Wanting to...

READ: PSALM 19:9-10; JOHN 1:1-5, 15; LUKE 4:14-21; HEBREWS 4:12 Of all the things I learned at Bible college, the most important thing I learned was from Dr. Kroeze. In every class, Dr. Kroeze’s excitement for the Bible was contagious. As he talked about the Scriptures, he would bounce up and down on his toes, close his eyes and gesture with his hands, and sometimes take off his glasses and spin t...

READ: MATTHEW 7:1-5; ROMANS 8:1; JAMES 3 Yesterday, we talked about how the little habits we maintain as Christians can make a big difference. I shared the story of how I forgot to post information online prior to an important meeting at work—a responsibility that previously hadn’t felt all that important. After the meeting, I found myself trying to justify why I hadn’t uploaded the agenda. Genera...

READ: 1 CORINTHIANS 15:55-58; HEBREWS 10:24-25; JAMES 2:14-26 Do you have a responsibility that feels like it doesn’t matter? Part of my job is updating the township’s website. When we have public meetings, I upload what are called agendas (which describe the meeting’s subject matter) to the website. Not a big deal, right? Well one day, we had a board meeting where a very hot topic was being discu...

READ: LUKE 15:1-3, 11-32 Life can be tough, and we all make mistakes, but one thing that remains constant is God’s mercy. In moments of doubt, fear, or guilt, we often forget just how merciful our heavenly Father is. So, let’s dive into this wonderful aspect of God’s character and reflect on the question: Isn’t it merciful? What even is mercy anyway? Mercy is often defined as compassion or forgive...

READ: EPHESIANS 4:20-24; COLOSSIANS 3:8-14; HEBREWS 10:10-14 Have you ever seen a lizard shed their skin? Chameleons, for example, shed their skin whenever they get too big for it. Unlike humans, their skin doesn’t grow with them. So, when they get too big, they need to shed their smaller, ill-fitting skin and grow new skin. As Christians, we’re called to shed our old, sinful habits. Things like l...

READ: LUKE 7:47; JOHN 15:9-15; 1 JOHN 4:19 I don’t know if anyone knows how difficult life is for me, living at the edge of our village. I lost my family long ago and all I can do is spend each day looking for some argoine—the substance we must eat to survive on this planet. I wake up early in the morning and my body aches. I spent all day yesterday walking around, trying to find the fuel I need t...

READ: PSALMS 56:8; 62:5-8; ISAIAH 40:11; 43:1; 55:8-9 Waves roll wild across the lake With every roar my soul aches Grief and sorrow meld Like the waters foam and quake This pain and anger testify My heart is still awake The sharp intake of sobbing breath Pounding beat beneath my chest Alternating between sorrow and rage But still, my God, you know my name I don’t always understand Your ways Suffe...

READ: MARK 9:20-25; JOHN 6:25-35; PHILIPPIANS 1:6 Do you truly believe that Jesus’s way of life is the best way of life? I was raised in the church, and when I was presented with this question, my instinct was to say, “Of course!” Upon further examination, however, I began to realize that if I truly and wholeheartedly believed this, my life would look quite a bit different. If I fully believed Jes...

READ: JOHN 4:4-30, 39-42 When I was 18, I took part in a scholarship program to earn money for college. All the participants stayed with host families during the week of rehearsals and competition. Volunteer drivers picked us up for events and then returned us to our host homes in the evening. On the final night, I loaded my bags into the driver’s car for the short trip to the auditorium. Impulsiv...

READ: DEUTERONOMY 8:10-18; 2 CORINTHIANS 3:16-18 Have you ever looked up at the night sky and dreamt about what you might do in the course of your life? Maybe you’ll make a scientific discovery that will save thousands of lives, or write music that will touch thousands of hearts. Maybe someday, everyone will see just how amazing you truly are. All those twinkling stars seem to make space for dream...

READ: ROMANS 3:21-26; 6:14; EPHESIANS 1:3-10 I have started a program to read through the Bible in ninety days. That means I’ve been reading a lot from the Old Testament each day. Wow, if there’s one thing I’m learning through my reading, it’s that we have so much to be thankful for when it comes to Jesus, His death on the cross, and the way He gave Himself as the one sacrifice to pay for all our...

READ: PSALM 103:12; MATTHEW 18:21-33; COLOSSIANS 3:12-17 In Matthew 18, Jesus said to forgive people “seventy times seven” times (verse 22). Have you ever read this and thought, “I’m sure I’ve forgiven _______ that many times already! I’m done!” You might already know this, but this verse doesn’t mean we should literally forgive someone seven times seventy—or 490—times. It means we should forgive...

READ: GENESIS 50:15-20; ROMANS 15:23-24; EPHESIANS 1:1-2; 6:19-20 Life as he knew it was over. His most precious possession was out of reach. Impossible to retrieve. He lay on the floor, nose touching the ground, limbs outspread in utter dejection. He was eighteen months old, and his red ball had rolled behind the sofa. She was eighteen years old, and the college she wanted to go to had accepted h...

READ: PSALM 23; 1 JOHN 1:1-5 Chester turned his face to the sun one last time before climbing into the truck. Though the sun hung low in the sky like always, not providing much warmth, Chester knew he would miss it almost as much as he would miss his family. He was leaving all light and warmth behind to work in the shadowside mines for three months. It paid well, and his family needed the money. A...

READ: EXODUS 34:5-6; MALACHI 3:6; MATTHEW 7:24-29; 14:22-33 The world is constantly changing. There are always new technologies being developed and new ways of doing things. Each generation puts different emphases on different issues. It can be easy to feel like our parents and grandparents don’t understand what we’re facing today because certain things about life are just different. Yet, no matte...

READ: PSALM 139; MATTHEW 11:28-30; JOHN 3:17; 16:7-14 I work in the office of our local fire department, and unfortunately sometimes part of the fire department’s job is locating the bodies of people who have drowned. This is a valuable service that can help bring some peace to the victim’s family. However, it can be difficult to locate people under water—especially in more harsh weather condition...

READ: ISAIAH 53:1-12; MATTHEW 26:27-28; 27:35-54; 2 CORINTHIANS 5:19, 21 Early I come to behold Your face, Seeking still Your glorious grace, Christ who died…holy…divine, Love crucified. Blessed be the Lord my God, Blessed be, O, blessed be, Blessed be the Lord! In shame the sun did turn away, As darkness in the silence reigned, God in flesh afflicted then, Cursed for all our sin. Holy is the Lord...

READ: ROMANS 2:9-16; 3:21-31; TITUS 3:3-8 It was a sweltering Sunday. We were a few days into the mission trip, and I decided this must be the usual climate in Costa Rica. The small church was filled with people. There was no air conditioning. We were on the third hymn when my vision began blurring. All I could think was, I need water. The last thing I remember before losing consciousness was grip...

READ: 1 CORINTHIANS 12:12-27; 1 PETER 4:10-11 When was the last time you hurt one of your fingers? It happens often— it’s so easy to accidently cut, bruise, break, or burn our fingers, and then we have to figure out how to do everyday things like eat or write or drive with a hurting or bandaged finger while we wait for it to heal. We don’t tend to think about our fingers much…until we can’t use th...