Ten Life-Changing Truths to Tell Your Teen

Recently I picked up J.C. Ryle and found myself thinking, If I could go back to seventeen. Before the cement dries. Before habits harden. Before a thousand small compromises calcify into a life. I would want someone to grab me by the shoulders and speak to my gut.

So let me do that for you.

Half the guys graduating high school admit they are directionless. A staggering number of young women have seriously considered suicide. I do not want you to torpedo your life before it ever leaves the harbor. That is why Paul wrote to Timothy. A young man. Mid-twenties. Asked to lead a large church in a major city. The culture was crushing Christians. The baton had been placed in his hands.

And Paul says this:

“For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7).

Everything I want to say to you hangs on that verse.

1. You Do Not Have to Live Afraid

The backdrop matters. Timothy was young, visible, scrutinized. Paul tells him that the fear strangling him is not from God.

This is not about physiological fear. Adrenaline when a car swerves into your lane is normal. Paul is talking about spiritual fear. Fear of man. Peer pressure. The slow drift from obeying God to being liked by people.

You know what that looks like. Going with the pack even when your conscience says no. Needing others to fill your tank, what psychology calls self-esteem, as if people can do for your soul what only Christ can do. Nervous you will be exposed as an imposter. Building a platform you know is not real. Second-guessing yourself based on what others say. Easily embarrassed. Crushed by the smallest mistake. Telling white lies. Covering up. Manipulating. Jealous of others’ popularity, body, success. Obsessed with image.

Ed Welch writes that we fear people because they can expose us, reject us, or oppress us. That is every teenage nightmare. Standing on a stage half dressed. Tripping in front of the cheerleaders. Being captured and powerless.

It all started in the Garden. Adam and Eve sinned. Their eyes were opened. They realized they were naked. Exposed. Ashamed.

None of that is from God.

So stop worshiping what others think. Stop lying about where you were. Stop posting to look popular. Stop scrolling and stewing in jealousy. The world, the flesh, and the devil may traffic in that fear. God does not.

2. Your Pride Will Fade

Paul says God gives power.

The word points to a dynamic energy. An explosion of divine enablement. When you are saved, the Holy Spirit indwells you. You have a power source the Avengers can only imitate.

Jesus lived the life you could not live, died the death you could not die, and rose in a way you never could. That means no matter the adversary, you can do what is right.

Teens are often prideful. Impatient. Know-it-alls. Pride got Lucifer kicked out. Pride got Adam and Eve expelled. It has been killing young people ever since.

Our culture hammers pride into you. You do you. Follow your heart. Be your own truth. But pride always ends in pain. An older man once told me there are only two ways to learn, by precept or by pain. He would not listen. He learned by pain. No family. No friends. Alone in a motel room.

Look at twelve-year-old Jesus. Where is He? Not at a party. In the temple. Asking questions.

The Spirit’s power whispers, It is not about you.

3. You Will Not Be the Party Guy

Power also means the devil’s lies do not have to work on you.

His oldest lie is, “Has God really said?” His newest version is, “You only live once.” The Spirit says what you sow, you will reap.

Look at the wreckage of celebrity culture. Fame. Money. Sex. Platform. And then rehab, divorce, bankruptcy, or worse. Peter says that God’s divine power has granted us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him. Everything you actually need.

The so-called 27 Club is a graveyard of gifted young people who were told that money, power, and sex would satisfy them. They did not.

Solomon said it is better to go to a funeral than a frat party because funerals force you to think.

The same power that raised Christ from the dead now works in you. It is the power of the gospel. It is the power to say no. It is the power to witness. It is the power to live for something that outlasts you.

4. You Will Live with Gospel Purpose

When the Spirit gives power, He gives purpose.

Acts 1:8 says you will receive power and you will be My witnesses. Not spectators. Witnesses.

I think of a teenage girl saved at sixteen. On fire for Christ. She wrote in her Bible, “Lord, do whatever You must to save my parents.” A few weeks later a drunk driver hit her car. At her funeral, the last two people at the casket were her mom and dad, holding a Bible.

That is power.

5. You Will Start to Consider Others

Paul says God gives love.

Not eros. Not mere friendship. Agapē. A love of choice. A love of the will. A love that seeks the good of another even at cost to self.

The Spirit pours that love into our hearts. It is sacrificial. It casts out fear. It says, I will lose so you can gain.

Even Hollywood knows this story line. The hero who stays behind so others can escape. The one who jumps into the ocean to save a sibling. We applaud it because we know it is right.

Your generation’s religion is self. Darwin tells you that you are an animal. Nietzsche tells you to will to power. Freud tells you to follow instinct. Disney tells you to follow your heart.

Scripture says love is patient and kind. Not jealous. Not arrogant. It seeks the good of another.

Esau traded his birthright for a bowl of stew. Who cares, he said. Just give me what I want now. That is not love.

6. You Will Save Sex for Marriage

Real love seeks to give, not to get.

Sex outside marriage is not freedom. It is theft. It defrauds another person. It leaves scars, memories, and often consequences that last a lifetime.

Paul says this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality and learn to possess your own body in holiness and honor.

Studies confirm what Scripture has always said. Pornography rewires the brain. Objectification changes how you see people. Lust never satisfies.

Remember Amnon and Tamar. He lusted until he was physically sick. He manipulated her. He raped her. And then he hated her. Sin always overpromises and underdelivers.

Love waits. Love protects. Love honors.

7. You Will Invest in the Right Friends

Show me your friends and I will show you your future.

You can sit under a thousand good sermons, but one wrong friend can corrupt it all. Scripture is blunt. Bad company corrupts good morals. Whoever walks with the wise will become wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

The tragic story of Amnon begins with five haunting words: “Amnon had a friend.”

Choose friends who pull you toward Christ, not away from Him.

8. You Will Not Cause Trouble

Paul also says God gives discipline. Self-control. Balance. Priorities.

The Spirit helps you keep the main thing the main thing. You are not boxing at the air. You are not living recklessly.

Ask a parent, a pastor, or a judge who stirs the most trouble. The answer is predictable. Substance abuse. Speeding. Gangs. Disgrace. Tears.

Ecclesiastes says rejoice in your youth. Follow the impulses of your heart. Enjoy the sunsets and the cookie dough. But know that God will bring every act into judgment.

Life has guardrails. Ignore them and you hit the ditch.

9. You Will Start Numbering Your Days

Psalm 90 says our days are seventy years, maybe eighty. Then we fly away. So teach us to number our days that we may present to God a heart of wisdom.

One out of every ten of you will not be here in a decade. I stood over the grave of a twenty-three-year-old drummer who loved missions and prayed for his little brother. A drunk driver ended his life on a Friday night.

Number your days. Live deliberately.

10. You Will Cherish God’s Word and Trust Christ

God’s Word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path. It will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from it.

In China I once traveled through the mountains with a tiny interpreter named Lisa. She was our lifeline. If we lost her, we were lost. Scripture is that for you.

But I have only given you nine truths.

The tenth is the foundation of them all.

“For God…”

Without Christ, the rest do not work. He showed what you could not know. Lived the life you could never live. Died the death you deserved. Rose in victory.

Trust Him.

If you do, fear will not own you. Pride will not define you. Lust will not enslave you. Friends will not derail you. Time will not surprise you.

And when the cement sets, it will set around a life anchored in power, love, and discipline.