Bobby Bosler: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. I’m speaking to you today from Deltona, Florida, where I’ve just finished up a week of speaking to the young people at Deltona Christian School. And in fact, I’m just about ready to head on an airplane and head back to Wisconsin.

But I’m right now sitting across the table from Pastor Mike Foster. Mike Foster has been in ministry for about twenty years now or so, and he’s worked with Christian school, Christian education. He’s also served the Lord in planting churches and in various pastoral roles.

And it’s been a blessing to spend time with him here this week. We’ve gotten to trade stories and just share our hearts about a number of different things. And as I was just kind of meditating on the podcast here, I was thinking, you know, I need to give Brother Foster an opportunity to speak to you young people.

Now, I know he’s got something on his heart. And I wondered, maybe if Brother Foster, you could just share with the young people of the generation what God’s speaking to you about here.

Mike Foster: Sure. It’s good to have Brother Bosler here this week, and the Lord used him. My burden and heart for young people is what the Thee Generation is about, which is surrender and faith.

And I’ve seen over the years that when young people give their lives to the Lord, there’s really no limit to what God can do for them. In Romans chapter twelve, verses one and two, we often talk about this passage in dealing with the concept of the Lord’s will, the will of God, as it states at the end of verse two.

But I really feel burdened about one phrase in particular that I think is key to it, that at the beginning of verse one, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” The idea here is that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, thinking about a sacrifice.

They don’t really make a whole lot of choices and decisions about what happens to them. They don’t get on the altar and they say, you know, “Hey, buddy, you can have all of me, but you can’t have my leg. You can’t have my head, my fur, or whatever.” Sacrifices don’t do that.

They’re totally yielded to the person that’s sacrificing them. And I find many times that teenagers say, you know what? I’ll sacrifice.

I’ll surrender. I’ll give everything to the Lord. But—and then you fill in the blank.

Whatever it is, I’ll surrender, but, Lord, you can’t have my music. Lord, I’ll surrender, but you can’t have my favorite book. I’ll surrender, but you can’t have my phone.

I’ll surrender, but basically, you’ve got to let me do what I want to do is what it boils down to. And that’s not true surrender. Surrender is basically saying, Lord, I’m yours.

I have no choice in the matter. Whatever you want me to do, that’s what I’m going to do. And that’s really what a sacrifice does.

And until somebody comes to that point where they say that, they really cannot know God’s will for their life; they really cannot be used of the Lord. And I find it to be so true, dealing with young people often throughout the years, that they’ll make a decision about something, but they’re holding on to something else.

It could be their music, or it could be a bitterness issue that they have toward a parent or toward the Lord in some way or somebody else, a conflict, or they just love it. They have to hold on to that no matter what, or they’re not willing to give up their internet viewing or something else. And as a result of that, they’re not used of the Lord as effectively as they should, or in some cases, not at all.

And it just is an encouragement to see when young people say, you know what, I’m willing to give God everything. I’m going to do whatever God wants me to do, no matter what the cost. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to go to the country of Jordan.

And I was at a conference with pastors from all over the Middle East. We had men that came from Iraq and Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and even Egypt. And one man in particular that I met—he was, I believe, eighteen or nineteen years old.

And his dad had been a pastor in Egypt. And he was effective in his ministry. He was seeing people saved.

The church was growing. And at one point in particular, the Muslims weren’t too thrilled and excited about what he was doing. So they attempted to kill him in some way or another, while the Lord preserved his life for a little longer.

And then the Muslims tried again. They came with their car and they ran him over. They hit him and murdered him.

They killed him. Well, this pastor’s son said, you know what? This church can’t just die.

It has to have a pastor. And knowing full well what had just happened to his dad, he volunteered and said, I’ll be the pastor. I’ll do what God wants me to do.

And he was at that conference. And I tell you, it was a blessing to meet him. You could tell he was totally sold out, completely yielded to the Lord, and God used him in an effective way, used him in my life, but He also used him in an effective way there in Egypt.

You know, that really describes to me what surrender is all about. That describes to me sacrifice complete, one hundred percent—the living sacrifice, putting yourself on the altar, saying, God, whatever you want me to do, that’s what I’ll do. And that’s what my desire is.

And that’s what I’d like to encourage all the young people to do, to yield your body a living sacrifice so that God can use you.

Bobby Bosler: Amen. Praise the Lord. That is our heartbeat.

Maybe you’re listening right now, and maybe as he was speaking about some of those things that sometimes young people say, you can have everything but this. Maybe God spoke to you about something specifically. Can I challenge you?

Give it to the Lord. Take the steps that he’s speaking to you about right now, even before the podcast is done. Hit the pause button and go do that.

You know, I trust that your heart has been encouraged. Maybe you’re here and you’d say, I am absolutely surrendered to the Lord. I trust you’ve been encouraged in that surrender.

And I want to encourage you to take those steps as God shows you. Remember that the Thee Generation is a generation of young people who are committed to total surrender to God and total dependence on His power to reach the world with the gospel.