Satan's 4 Successful Lies to Destroy Teens

You can afford to fail. In Christ, you can afford to fail. When I was in middle school and high school, I wish someone had told me, 'Brenda, you can afford to fail because you are a Christian and you are in Christ.' He has already performed the perfect works for you. He has lived the perfect life for you. You no longer have to earn your worth by the things that you do.

This is the summary video of the 5-part series we just finished called "Becoming a Gospel-Centered Leader." This video is designed to stand alone. It's meant to help you identify Satan's attacks in your daily life at school, at home, when you're out with friends. These lies come at you all day, every day, in multiple ways. The purpose of this series has been to expose Satan's four big lies to teens so that they can recognize and replace them with the truth. Students: Learn to recognize these lies, then replace them with the Truth!

Lie #1: I Must Meet Certain Standards to Feel Good About Myself

The first BIG lie Satan pelts at you is believing you must meet certain standards to feel good about yourself. This is Satan appealing to your fear of failure. Fear of failure is also known as the love of success. Who doesn't want to do well? We all want to do well as much as possible.

A lot of us will stay in our comfort zones and pass opportunities to take risks, healthy risks, to grow, to try something new, to put ourselves out there...we just won't because we're afraid to fail at it. Satan loves it when we stay in our comfort zone. He loves it when we pass up opportunities to put ourselves out there. Why? Because when we stay in our comfort zone, we don't have to exercise as much faith as we do when we step out of our comfort zones.

When we don't take risks, we don't have to trust God for that risk that we're going to take. Satan loves it when we don't go to God for anything. We just go to ourselves. We say, I can handle it, I can do this, I will succeed... if I just stay within these boundaries.

The reason you need this lie exposed to you is to encourage you that Jesus has already met those "certain," high standards for you. The risks that you take outside of your comfort zone have no bearing on who you are as a person or on your personal worth and value. Whether or not you succeed or fail when you do try something new, when you do put yourself out there, you can afford to fail.

In Christ, you can afford to fail. He has already performed the perfect works for you; He has lived the perfect life for you. You no longer have to earn your worth by the things that you do, and that takes the pressure off of you. When you don't have to succeed -- you don't have to do well -- you can instead simply learn from the experience and grow from the opportunity, regardless of how it goes.

As leaders, we need to be the first ones to step out of the comfort zone. We need to be the one to raise our hand and volunteer when nobody else wants to do the job. But how are you going to get the courage and the gut to raise your hand and volunteer when you're scared? You get the courage by not tying your sense self to the outcome of the opportunity, and you get the courage by depending on God for strength instead of depending on yourself.

Lie #2: I need the approval of others

The second lie that Satan tells teens is: "I must have the approval of certain people in order to feel good about myself." We all have a need for acceptance and approval from other people, especially in the stage of life you're in right now. You are dependent. You depend on your parents, on your teachers, on your coaches, on your college admissions committees to open doors of opportunities for you, to move on to the next stage of your life. Satan wants you to care more about what all these other people think of you than about what GOD thinks of you.

Ask yourself, "How much do I weigh the opinions of others? How much do I weigh the opinion of God?" Although we are supposed to honor our parents and obey them, a Christian parent would never ask you to put them above the Lord. Christian parents want you to follow the Lord and to discover with clarity what God's purpose is for your life so that they can support you in it.

So this lie is using your fear of rejection to hold you back and to hold you down. When Jesus proved to you by His death that you are acceptable and approved of by God, that frees you to be rejected. You don't have to be cool. You don't have to be part of that group. You don't have to be a part of that clique. You can sit by yourself and be cool with it because you're not tying your sense of self and your personal worth and your personal value to the people around you and what they think of you.

That is a amazing level of freedom for youth, because this is the time in your life when it's normal to want to fit in. It's normal to want to be accepted, to want to belong, to want to do what the other youth are doing, to go where they're going, to watch what they're watching, to say what they're saying, and to laugh at what they're laughing at. That's normal, and there's nothing wrong with that--UNLESS you care too much about what those people think of you, and you care too little about what God thinks of you.

Satan is trying to get you to care more about what people think of you than about what God thinks of you. When that happens, all you have to do is remind yourself of Jesus hanging on the cross--because when He died for you, He proved once and for all that you are, first of all, worth dying for; you're that valuable. Through Christ's work of dying for you, He has made you acceptable, and He has given you all the approval that you will ever need to feel good about yourself -- to feel confident, not in yourself, but in Christ.

Lie #3: I'm Unworthy of Love

The third lie that Satan tells teens is: "Those who fail are unworthy to be loved and deserve to be punished." This is Satan appealing to your fear of punishment, and this has to do with how you handle failure. Most of us, when we are sinned against, want to blame and condemn the offender, the person who hurt us. Satan uses the grudge -- resentment and deep-seated anger inside of us. He uses that to enslave us, to keep us in a emotional jail where we're holding on to bad feelings toward a person because it gives us a sense of control over the other person.

When you really think about it, a grudge is us trying to exercise control over that relationship with the other person, with the offender. Satan uses that sense of punishment that we want to exact on the other person to keep us down, to hang a grey cloud over our heads every day. As long as we don't forgive, and we don't release that person from our grudge, and we don't let him or her go, it's like a ball and chain that we have attached to our leg. We're always hauling that hurt around. Every time you see that person, you are aware of the ball and chain, the burden, that's still following you around.

The way we deal with this need to punish other people for hurting us is by remembering the Gospel. Once again, we remember that Jesus died not only for the sins that we committed against other people that give them reason to hold grudges against us, but Jesus also died for the sins that other people commit against us. Because Jesus paid not only for your sins, but He paid for their sins too, you don't have to exact payment from the people who hurt you.

You can afford to let them go.
You can afford to forgive them.
You can afford to let God deal with the justice that still needs to be served.

Some people are never going to give you the apology that you deserve. They're never going to say they're sorry. Your choices are either to live your whole life holding that grudge against them, or you can choose to let Jesus die for the sin that was committed against you and release them because you believe the Gospel is true and because you know that God is ultimately going to avenge. God is the judge, and He will make them "pay" for what they did to you in His way, in His time. You don't have to worry about it. You just leave it in His court. Let God be God. You can move on in freedom, trusting that God's going to handle this.

You know, something that haunts me is the peace that sin robs of me. When I do something wrong, I can't sleep. I can't eat. I feel itchy in places I can't scratch, and it's a horrible feeling. You never want to feel like that. But it's the Holy Spirit stirring in you, and it means you have to make things right. But only God can put that feeling in a person and use it to compel them to action.

God could at any time speak to the offender and move them to come apologize to you, to come make things right to with you, but it has to be in God's time, in God's way. It's not wise for us to sit around and not move on with our lives until we get what we want. We can rest in Jesus' finished work on the cross, knowing that He has already died for every sin that is committed against us and every sin that we're going to commit against other people.

Now, I do need to say that when we commit a sin against other people, just because Jesus already died for that sin doesn't let us off the hook from having to apologize, or from having to make things right. Remember when Jesus met Zacchaeus? Zacchaeus -- after being with Jesus -- was humbled and broken and convicted of the sins that he had committed as a tax collector. And what did Zacchaeus do? Did he think that God was going to just overlook all the money he stole from the people when they paid him their taxes? No! He returned to everybody not just what he owed them, but four times what he owed them. He made things right, and then some!

That's what we need to do when we are convicted, when we hurt or offend somebody else. We need to make it right, and then some. We need to bless them.

Lie #4: I Can't Change

Satan's fourth lie to teens is: "I am what I am. I can't change. I'm hopeless." Satan wants you to believe that what has happened in the past is always going to define you. Whoever you are right now is who you really are and how you're always going to be.

That is simply NOT true.

Although God will not change the things in your past, He can heal what has happened to you in the past; He can bring a sense of peace over your past. That comes with time. That comes with prayer. That comes with waiting and growing in your understanding of the Gospel.

Regarding who you are right now in the present: you are being changed if you are in Christ. If you are justified (declared righteous by Jesus living the perfect life for you), then you are being sanctified as well. That means you're being made more and more like Jesus. That is hope! That is good news! Even though you may not see God's work of changing you, He is. He's committed to changing you by renewing your mind. The way you renew your mind is by controlling and choosing what you feed your mind--what you consume, what you put into your mind, your eyes, your ears, your heart.

The way you change is by making sure you CONSUME TRUTH. Consume more of God's Word, His Gospel, more than you consume the culture. That is how we combat Satan's lies--choosing to consume the Truth. Make these choices to resist the Enemy, who is prowling around like a lion waiting to devour you (1 Peter 5:8).

Satan's lie to you that you can't ever change appeals to your fear of shame. Shame is that voice in your head -- the self-talk -- telling yourself that you're hopeless, that you're not valuable, not worthy, not lovable, not forgivable, not acceptable, not approved of. As children of God, these are lies!

Satan wants to use your past failures, mistakes, sins, either that you've committed or have been committed against you--and he uses your present sins and failures and offenses--to hold you down and to hold you back from moving forward in faith and encourage and in confidence in Christ. Know that when you hear that voice of shame condemning you, Jesus was condemned for you. Jesus has died for the offenses that have been committed against you. He's also died for the offenses that will be committed against you. Yes, there will be offenses committed against you, and you will also be guilty of sinning against other people in your future.

But in Christ, you have freedom. You don't have to walk around worrying: "What am I going to do wrong today? What am I going to do wrong tomorrow?" Because Jesus has already taken care of all of your sins.

Conclusion: The Truth Sets You Free

Do you see how the truth of the Gospel sets you free? The truth will set you free. By watching the five parts of this video series and this sixth summary video, you should feel a shift in your mind, a shift in your heart, a shift in your perspective, and in the depth of your soul. The truth really will set you free to move forward in confidence, to move forward with a sense of resilience, to move forward with faith, knowing that God is already where you're going to be. He is before you, He is behind you, He is beside you, He is within you. That is the truth of who you are when you are in Christ.

It's my prayer that this summary video and the 5-part series preceding it have set you free, even just a little bit. I would love to hear how you are being transformed by the Gospel. If you want to get in touch with me, please connect with me on Instagram at @weleadthis_brendajung. I'm on Facebook, and I'm on YouTube. I can also be emailed at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you.

If you want some support, if you need somebody to talk to about these concepts, you can book a call with me, or you can read the source of these ideas from The Search for Significance book. I pray that the truth will continue to set you free every day!!