Unlocked: Daily Devotions for Teens

READ: EZEKIEL 36:26; MATTHEW 5:43-48; LUKE 6:27-28

“So…have you prayed for your roommates?”

I couldn’t believe Jeremy asked this question. Prayed for them?! Had he heard what I’d just said?

One year in college, I shared a two-bedroom apartment with two other girls, who I’ll call Jill and Tara. I shared a bedroom with Jill. Her clothes often migrated under my bed. Her bags and hangers typically lay scattered around the room. Jill rarely washed her dirty dishes, usually just stacking them in the sink, and she often left spilled drinks behind in the kitchen.

Tara suggested we all take turns cleaning the bathroom. So I printed a schedule based on her idea and put it up on the fridge. Week after week, the bathroom remained dirty until I begrudgingly cleaned it during my own week. I reminded them about the cleaning roster. Nothing changed.

When Tara and Jill left for the movies one night without inviting me, or even letting me know, it felt like one more insult in a year full of insults.

Later, as Jeremy drove me home from a prayer meeting, I wanted him to agree about how awful I had it. Instead he asked, “Are you praying for your roommates?”

Before college, I’d put my faith in Jesus to forgive me, pay for my sins, and make me a new creation as God’s child. I valued prayer, and I’d just been praying for needs around the world at the prayer meeting. Yet I balked at the idea of praying for Jill and Tara.

God calls us as Christ-followers to do more than complain. He invites us to pray—talking to Him at all times, about all things (Ephesians 6:18; Philippians 4:6). Even for our enemies. Since Jesus died on the cross to forgive me for all my sin, I could pray for a forgiving heart toward my roommates. So, I started praying for them. By the time I moved out of our shared apartment, not much had changed—except my heart toward them. • Allison Wilson Lee

• Are there certain people in your life you struggle to pray for? How could remembering that Jesus has forgiven us pave the way for us to pray for the people we have difficulty forgiving?

• Consider taking some time to pray for one or two people who have mistreated you, or who you might even consider enemies, following today’s Scriptures as a guide.

[Jesus said,] “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” Luke 6:28 (NIV)

READ: ROMANS 5:6-10

The time: World War II. The place: a printing shop in a village in the Netherlands. Several men, including my grandfather, were busy working for the resistance, printing pamphlets against Hitler and the Nazis. They had been sending these pamphlets through the Underground for a long time to build support for the resistance.

Suddenly, the thing they had long feared came to pass. There was a banging on the door and a great deal of yelling as the German SS entered.

Everyone in the shop was arrested and jailed. They all pleaded innocent to working in the resistance—but, of course, they were guilty.

Some of the men were killed immediately, and the rest were interrogated. The SS wanted names of other resistance workers, so they beat the men to try to get that information. One man, we’ll call him Willem, returned from an interrogation session very badly wounded. Expecting not to survive the next day’s questioning, Willem spoke with my grandfather and gave him his wedding ring. Willem wanted his wife to have it should he die, so he asked my grandfather to take it to her, if he survived and was released.

Fortunately for my grandfather, no one mentioned his name as a resistance worker. The German SS accepted his claim to innocence—that he just “happened” to be there at the time of the raid—and they let him go. One of the first things he did was bring Willem’s ring to his widow.

Romans 5:7 says it’s rare that someone will die for someone else, but Willem did. By refusing to give the names of co-conspirators in the resistance, he saved several lives, including my grandfather’s, and condemned himself to death.

The Bible also says Jesus gave His life for us, but not because we were friends or partners. Romans 5:8 tells us that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Sinners! Those who reject God and go against His perfect law. We were enemies even (Romans 5:10)! But, because of His great love for us, Jesus gave His life for ours! • Rosanne Eising

• Can you think of a time someone gave up something for you, or you gave up something for someone else? What happened?

• For more about what Jesus’s sacrifice means for us, see our "Know Jesus" page.

[Jesus said,] “No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13 (CSB)

READ: EXODUS 29:42-46; 32:1-4; 1 CORINTHIANS 3:16

What are you afraid of? Heights? Snakes? Public speaking? Chickens? Yes, alektorophobia (the fear of chickens) is a real thing! So is coulrophobia (the fear of clowns), dentophobia (the fear of dentists), and microphobia (the fear of small things). A person with helio- (sun) and herpeto- (reptile) phobias might not want to live in Florida, and if you happened to have papyrophobia (the fear of paper) and arithmophobia (the fear of numbers), that math homework is never getting done!

Autophobia is the fear of being alone, and while most of us probably won’t be diagnosed with this phobia, I think we all know what it’s like to dread the thought of being left out, abandoned, or forgotten. And apparently, so did the Israelites.

After four hundred years of slavery in Egypt, by His mighty hand the Lord rescued His people. But as they walked away from all they had ever known, fear set in. Their leader, Moses, went up to meet with God on Mount Sinai, but the meeting took so long the people wondered what had happened to Moses. So they built a golden calf to worship and called it their god. It seems they were afraid that the Lord, who’d just rescued them out of Egypt, had left them all alone.

What the people of Israel didn’t know was, in that very meeting on Mount Sinai, God was giving Moses instructions for the tabernacle. He said, “Have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8). This tent would be a tangible reminder to the Israelites that the one true God was always right there with them.

Yet, there had to be a curtain in the tabernacle (and later in the temple) to separate the place where God’s presence dwelt from the place where the people could come and worship Him, or people would die. But when Jesus died on the cross, that curtain was torn in two! Because He rose from the dead, the presence of God now dwells wherever followers of Jesus are. Cleansed by His grace and indwelt by His Holy Spirit, we are now the “sanctuary” where God dwells on this earth!

My instincts may tell me to bolt headlong in the other direction when I see a chicken, but I never have to fear being alone. Wherever I am, God is right there with me! • Mandy Desilets

• Jesus is “God with us” (Matthew 1:23), and He promises never to leave us (Hebrews 13:5). Whenever we feel alone or afraid, He wants to reassure us with His love. According to Colossians 3:16, what are three ways we can be reminded of God’s presence with us?

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? 1 Corinthians 3:16 (NIV)

READ: PSALMS 46; 77

Ever been wide awake at night? Maybe you were afraid of the unknown. Maybe you were overwhelmed with a never-ending to-do list. Or maybe you were heartbroken by injustice and brokenness in the world.

When I can’t sleep—which happens to me a lot—I often end up reading the Psalms. They’re like a prayer journal: the psalmists praise God in times of celebration and cry out to Him in their darkest nights. In Psalm 77, for example, Asaph is in a dark place, and he starts by talking to God honestly about how he’s feeling: “Will the Lord reject forever and never again show favor? Has his faithful love ceased forever? Is his promise at an end for all generations? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?” (verses 7-9).

Then, the mood of the psalm changes when Asaph turns from his worries and pain and remembers all that God has done for him in the past (verses 11-12). God has been faithful, saving Asaph and his people from their enemies, leading them every step of the way (verses 15-20).

In our own lives, we can follow Asaph’s example. Whenever we’re tossing and turning at night, we can talk to God honestly about how we’re feeling. He is eager to remind us that, even when circumstances are ever-changing and our world feels like it’s falling apart, He does not change. He remains constant and faithful—the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow (Hebrews 13:8). Because God made the way for us to be with Him through Jesus’s death and resurrection, we can know that our future is secure in Him. And even now, as Christians, Jesus’s Holy Spirit lives in us, helping us remember God’s never-ending love for us. So when worries keep us awake, we can think about how Jesus has been with us through similar times in the past. The truth is, we have unshakeable hope no matter what the day ahead may bring. • Abby Ciona

• Can you think of a time you noticed Jesus’s presence with you during a tough season? Hebrews 4:14-16 tells us that Jesus empathizes with us in our struggles and He invites us to come to Him with all our needs so that we can “receive mercy and find grace to help us.” Consider taking some time to tell Him about whatever has been weighing on you lately.

• Sleep is an important part of our physical and emotional health. Sometimes we need help to give our bodies the sleep we need, and that’s okay. If you’ve been having difficulty sleeping, who is a trusted adult you can talk to, such as a parent, counselor, or doctor?

I will both lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, LORD, make me live in safety. Psalm 4:8 (CSB)

READ: ROMANS 12:1-21; 1 CORINTHIANS 12:4-11; 1 PETER 4:8-11

I wish I could play the piano as well as they can.

At least I’m a better swimmer than she is.

I finally got a better exam grade than he did!

At first, comparison might seem fun—like a contest—especially when you win. And humbly, honestly assessing our skills and abilities and how they’re different from other people’s isn’t inherently bad. In fact, it can help us find ways to improve! But when we start to compare in unhealthy ways, we can easily become prideful—or discouraged. We either think we’re inherently superior to other people—or we put ourselves down, feeling like who we are isn’t good enough, like we just don’t measure up.

But this isn’t how God views us. It doesn’t make any sense to rank ourselves because we’re all in the same boat. We all desperately need Jesus, and in His great love, He has rescued us and made us one through His death and resurrection. Now, as believers, we all have His same Holy Spirit. In the Kingdom of God, status doesn’t matter. Unity does.

Trying to be someone else will never help you. Why? Because you aren’t someone else. God has made you unique, with a combination of talents and passions that no other person in history has ever had, and He has empowered you to use those gifts to serve in a way no one else can. You are one of a kind, so why try to be the same as others?

When you’re tempted to compare your identity to somebody else’s, you can come back to who God says you are. In Jesus, you are God’s beloved child, an irreplaceable part of His global family. He calls you to do your best with what He’s given you. Not for the approval of others or to be the best in the world or to show that you deserve to be in His family. But because God—the one who loves you more than any other—made you this way. • Abby Ciona

• How can unhealthy comparison get in the way of following Jesus, enjoying the ways He made us all different, and taking part in the good work He calls us to do together? (Matthew 28:16-20; Ephesians 2:10)

• In what ways do you tend to compare yourself to others? Consider taking a moment to talk to Jesus about this, thanking Him for making you—and the people you’re tempted to measure yourself against—and asking Him to help you see yourself and others as He sees you.

Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Romans 12:10 (NIV)