“20-2-Seek” means twenty days to seek God. This guide is a great tool to help you spend time with God and learn more about Him. By using 20-2-Seek, you will learn what it looks like to have special times with God on a daily basis.
God wants to have a relationship with YOU and it is important to have personal time with God so you can understand what He is like. Once you have gone through the twenty days, you will either be able to branch off on your own with God, or find another devotional in the app to help you along.
Each day of 20-2-Seek, you will be presented with a prayer to pray, verses to read, and a lesson. These are the basic essentials. If you want to go deeper into the topic presented, you can read through the “Going Deeper” section. You will also be able to read about Christianity, as well as traditions in the church and why we do them.
If you have questions about anything, make sure you talk to your parents, small group leader, youth pastor or conact us. I hope this book helps you in your pursuit of knowing Jesus.
Blessings to you,
Joshua Knudsen
Day 1-Make the Connection!
“In this manner therefore pray…” Matt. 6:9
Before reading the verse, ask the Holy Spirit to open your mind and heart to the truths found in these verses.
Read Matthew 6:5-13
No matter what church or youth group you go to, inevitably the topic of prayer will come up. People pray before they eat, before church, before taking a test, when they don’t want to get in trouble. But what does it actually mean to pray? Is it knowing the right words to say? Is it talking into the air just hoping that God will hear you? What is it?
Prayer is talking with God. Many people say prayer is talking to God, but that means we do all the speaking. We need to remember to take time to listen and hear what God is saying to you.
Prayer is about having a relationship with God. Imagine having a friend who always wanted to talk at you but never cared to hear what you had to say. You have the King of all creation waiting to speak to you and listen to you every day! That’s an amazing thing.
-STOP- Take a minute and thank God for hearing you and speaking to you. Ask Him to help you hear His voice more clearly.
Perhaps you’re wondering what to say when you pray. Jesus gives you a great outline to follow in verses 9-13. Let’s go through it and see what He says.
V. 9 Our father in heaven: Remember He’s your Father and He loves you like crazy!
V.9b Hallowed be(Holy is) Your name: Worship Him. Just tell Him how much You love Him and how awesome He is. You can put on a worship CD if you want.
V.10 Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven: Ask God to do whatever He wants with you and then ask Him to help you obey.
V.11 Give us this day our daily bread: Thank God for providing for you and then ask Him for what you need naturally and spiritually.
V.12 And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors: Repent for where you have disobeyed the LORD and He will forgive you. Ask Him to help you forgive anyone who has hurt you.
V. 13 And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one: Ask Him to give you strength to make choices that make Him happy. Remember to do your part to leave when you are put in a situation you know is a bad one.
V.13b For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, Amen: Praise God again because He is awesome and deserves it.
This isn’t a formula but simply a guide to help you spend time with Jesus. So don’t feel like things must go exactly like this. All that is important is that you have your time with getting to listen and speak to Him.
Now you try it.
-Going Deeper-Read Psalms 119:1-16. Think about the way David prayed. Do you want that to be your heart? Ask God for it!( Luke 11:9)
-Why do we do that?- Why do we sing at Church? Singing has many purposes. It can build our faith (Colossians 3:16), express our love to God (Ps. 139:14), defeat our spiritual enemy (2 Chronicles 20), and God loves to hear it (Psalms 22:3).
Day 2- Star Struck
“...Worship Him in spirit and truth.” John 4:24
Pray: Ask God to show you what He wants you to see today and give you the power to obey.
Read John 4:21-24
I once saw a documentary about the life of Michael Jackson. It was amazing to see all the people, men and women, going nuts over this man. They screamed, fainted, cried and nearly trampled people to death trying to get close to him and touch him. They waved signs saying “Marry Me” and “I love you”. I couldn’t believe how crazy these people were acting because of this one guy.
This is worship. Michael Jackson was more than human in the eyes of the fans. Everyone is looking for someone or something to worship that is bigger than them and the world finds it in famous people.
In the scripture (the Bible), there is a different view of what it means to worship. It means to bow, or lie down on your face because you are in the presence of royalty. This is what it means for us to worship God. We realize that He is King and He deserves our adoration and love.
Let’s look at why we worship:
- Because He is deserves it. He is King and creator of all things including you, so you owe Him worship. (Remember, worship has nothing to do with how you feel but that God deserves it.)
- Because you love Him. We love Him because He loved us first.
- Because we are commanded to. Ps. 45:11 says “…Because He is your LORD, worship Him.”
- Because He really wants it. You read that in John 4.
How do you worship? The key in John 4 is to worship in “spirit and in truth”. This means you worship Him a conscious decision that you will do it because you know that God deserves it. You can worship by:
- Dancing- Joy, victory (even in a hard situation)
- Hands raised- surrender to God, or like a child raises his hands to his father to be loved
- Kneeling- God is King and you honor Him
- Lying face down on the ground- God is King and He is holy
- Shouting- Victory, joy, love, excitement
Worship is one of greatest things we can do. There is nothing we can give God that He needs, but we can give God what He wants. Don’t you think He deserves it because of all He’s done for you?
-You try it- Choose one of those ways to worship God now and then begin to tell Him how awesome He is and thank Him for His love. Keep going until you feel God’s presence and then keep going just because you love Him!
-Going Deeper- Read these verses about ways to worship. Psalms 33:3, Revelation 1:17, Psalms 95:6, Psalms 150:4, Psalms 32:11
-Why do we do that?- Why do we touch people when we pray? Throughout the Bible, the blessing, power or gift that was being given in the spirit was connected to the physical touch. Read these verses to see this: Genesis 48:8-22, 2 Timothy 1:6
Day 3-How He Loves Us!
“…God is love.” 1 John 4:8
Ask Holy Spirit to show you the truth about the Father’s love for you.
Read: 1 John 4:1-19
There’s an old song that says, “I was looking for love in all the wrong places, looking for love in too many places.” These lyrics perfectly describe so many people today. It might even describe you. We look for love and acceptance from friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, parents, teachers, pastors, leaders, culture, music and everywhere else you can think of. The problem is that it never ends up being what we hoped for. It leaves us wanting more and never feeling satisfied.
It’s because the love we need is God’s. We are made to be in a relationship with Him and His is love will fulfill us. God’s love is perfect and will never let you down.
-Stop- Usually when we feel disappointed in God’s love it is because we have tried to find His love in something else and when that doesn’t work we realize how we’ve left God and think His love hasn’t fulfilled us.
God’s love will fulfill your every desire because His love is:
Forgiving- No matter what He will forgive you and take you back with just as much love as before.
Giving- God’s love for you caused Him to send Jesus to die on the cross to die because of your sin. The Bible says if He gave His son, won’t He give you other great things too? Of course!
Forever merciful- God is always giving more chances and not punishing us for our sin. He isn’t an angry parent just waiting to crush your dreams if you mess up. He’s merciful.
Gracious- God is always blessing us when we don’t deserve it. He loves too. The Bible says that He draws us close with His loving kindness. (Jeremiah 31:3)
Personal- God meets with each of us as individuals. He doesn’t treat us all the same. Go d knows exactly what you need to know Him more and to encounter His love just right.
Perfect- God’s love is exactly what we need. He will discipline us when we need it, He knows when to give to us, when to take away what is bad for us, how to encounter us, how we can reach our destinies and everything else you can imagine. This knowledge should help remove any fears you may have from uncertainty, anxiety or feeling abandoned. God has your back!
How He loves YOU!
-Going deeper- Read these verses to see where the Bible reveals God’s love. 1 John 1:9; John 3:16; Psalms 118:1; Romans 5:8; Acts 9:1-8; 1 John 4:18;
-Why Do We Do That- Why do we tithe? Tithing is giving ten percent of your income to God. Abraham was the first person to do that in the Bible (Genesis 14:18-20), and then Jacob (Genesis 18:19-22). In Malachi 3:10 God commands us to tithe and promises to bless us in our obedience. Jesus reaffirms tithing in Matthew 23:23. Tithing is a sign of trust in God’s promise as well as an act of worship through obedience.
Day 4- U Turns Allowed
“…Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matthew 3:2
Pray: Ask the LORD to show you what He wants you to see.
Read: 1 John 1:5-10 and 1 John 2:1,2
Sin is a weird word that has lost its meaning in today’s culture. What do you think of when you hear the word sin? Do you think of something so filthy, dirty and horrible that it caused the death of billions of people including Jesus? Do you think of something so terrible that it is the cause of cancer, hatred, wars and brutality worldwide?
If not, you have not had a real understanding of what sin is. God isn’t just this super perfect guy who doesn’t like bad people. God sees sin as it is; a horrible disease that ravages the hearts and minds of His children ultimately leading to death.
Sin is disobeying God’s directions and commands. Romans 6:23 says the payment for sin is death. When you disobey God something will die. It could be the trust of your parents, or a friendship. This death also means a separation from God. We can’t have the relationship with Him that we want to have because of sin.
This is why Jesus died on the cross! The payment for sin is death. Jesus made the payment for us that we owed because of our sin and now we can have a relationship with God. When you accept Jesus’ gift of life and payment for your sin, you gain access to God again and you our now in relationship with Him.
But what’s repenting? After we have asked Jesus to come into our lives, we begin the quest of becoming more like Him. We still have a desire to sin in us and a lot of times we disobey God and choose to do our own thing. (See Going Deeper) When this happens there is a separation between us and God. Remember you will not go to hell for this, but you do lose the connection with God that you once enjoyed. Now you can repent. To repent means to change your mind. That means you change your mind about your desire to do that sin. When you do that 1 John 1:9 says God will always forgive you and make you clean like you never sinned! You are free to have a perfect connection with God once again!
-You try it- If you need to repent do it now. Ask Him to change your mind and fill you with His Spirit. Once you’ve done this, you’re forgiven!!! Walk out the mind change by staying away from situations that might try to draw you back in to sin.
-Going Deeper- Read Ephesians 4:17-24. The old man is our old way of thinking that wants to sin. The new man is the Spirit of God living inside of us that gives us the power to do the right thing. Every day we must choose to take of the old man and put on the new man. Try this each morning: “LORD, I choose to take off my old way of thinking that wants to sin and I choose to put on Your Spirit and your way of thinking. Help me to choose you today.”
-Why do we do that?- Why do we put oil on people when we pray for them? Oil was used in the Bible to represent God’s presence and power on people. Read these verses to see this: James 5:14,15; 2 Kings 9:1-13
Day 5-His Lordship
“…that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is LORD.” Philippians 2:11
Ask Holy Spirit to show you the truth found in the Word of God.
Read: Romans 12:1,2; Philippians 2:5-11; John 15:9-17
When we accept Jesus Christ into our life and ask Him to forgive us of our sins, He becomes our savior and gives us access to heaven. But in Romans 12:1 Paul tells us there is more to it than that. We are to give ourselves as a “living sacrifice”. A sacrifice is something that is given up completely usually to benefit something or someone else. Paul is telling us, because Jesus died for us, we should live completely for Him. In other words, Jesus is to be the Lord of your life.
A Lord is someone usually of royal ancestry who is over and owns lands and servants. He is the highest level of rule in that land. What He says goes, no questions asked. Am I saying that is how we should act towards Jesus? YES! He is the King of the world. He created everything. He died for you and me. Because of that we should make Him not just our Savior, but our Lord also.
What He says goes. It’s true that we can now call Him friend and He desires a personal and intimate relationship with you. But it does not mean He stops being God. It only means He allows us through His love and mercy to come close to Him. When He tells us to do something or not to do something, we should say, “Yes sir”, and that’s it.
In John 15 Jesus tells us what a friendship with Him looks like. “ You are my friends if you do whatever I command you.” (v.14) It’s not your normal friendship, but it’s the best one you can ever have. He loves you with an everlasting love. Will you choose to say, “Yes, LORD. I will do what you say because you are King”? If so the Bible says that you can abide in His love and in His presence. Stop trying to run your own life and say, “Jesus, You’re in control.”
Going Deeper- Go online and go to blueletterbible.com. Search “Lord” and “Jesus” read different verses where Jesus is called “Lord”. Think about what this tells you as far as Who He really is now that you know what it means to be lord.
Why do we do that- Why do we go to church? The church was set up by God so people could encourage each other in their faith and belief in God. It is extremely important to be part of a church and attend regularly. This is where you can find hope in the middle of hard times and be fed by interacting and learning from God’s people. It’s also important for you to find a place to serve within the church so you can encourage others also. When you serve others you are serving God also. Read: Hebrews 10:23-25 and Romans 12:3-8
Great Job! You finished the first 5 days of your two-day journey to know Jesus more! Stay connected for week 2 of this devotional.