Student Devotions
Mission Trip Devotions for Students
Day 1
So, why did you come on this trip?
Welcome to your mission trip! You are in for perhaps one of the greatest weeks of your life! You’ll be hanging with friends, making new ones, and sharing the greatest story of all time with people you do not even know now. If you let God do what He wants to in and through you this week, it is going to be great.
But why are you here? I hope you are here for more than a reason to see a new place, to be with your friends, or to just get away from home. I hope you are here because you have sensed God calling you to a deeper commitment, one that calls for you to give of your time and talent for Him.
What you do this week will be worthwhile, but let us remember that what you will do this week does not earn your salvation. We see this clearly in Ephesians 2:8-10, where Paul tells us, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Did you catch that last phrase? The first part of this passage is important, for in it we see that mere works do not earn a way to heaven. And then there at the last part of the passage is a statement that is so profound: God has prepared things for you to do in this life! This week is one of those things God has prepared, in advance, for you to be a part of. Will you let Him do His thing?
Close your personal devotion time in prayer, asking God to use you in a mighty way this week. Let Him know, if you are willing, that you are totally His this week.
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Day 2
Where are you right now?
I know that you know where you are right now physically, but do you know where you are spiritually? Read Luke 18:9-14:
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
It is easy to look in the mirror and see a physical reflection of ourselves, but in looking at our spiritual lives, we must go a little deeper than what things look like on the outside. Now read I John 1:5-2:2:
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
Close your personal devotion time in prayer by confessing any sins that may be holding you down right now.
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Day 3
What is your role this week?
Whether you consider your individual assignment big or small, your part is crucial to the results this week. Take time to read Romans 12:3-8:
For by the grace given me I say to everyone of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it according to his faith. If it is serving let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully. (You may also wish to look up I Corinthians 12:12-31)
These passages compare the body of Christ, or the church, with the human body. It is humorous to think that one of our toes would get upset that our hand is getting more attention or use, and decide to stop performing its function. It would be devastating! And that is the point of these passages, that if we as individual Christians decide that we are not as important as other members of the spiritual body and decide to quit performing our functions, the whole body will suffer.
Close your personal devotion time in prayer by thanking God for the opportunity to be used by Him this week. Ask Him to continue to show you how you can best serve Him in this setting.
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Day 4
What will you learn today?
Be ready for God to teach you something today. Pride can get in the way of learning. Read Proverbs 11:2 and 13:10, “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” “Pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice.” You need to remember that you do not know everything. Listen to God… and his friends. If you seek understanding and wisdom from God, it will come to you. Read Proverbs 2:1-6:
My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
Close your personal devotion time in prayer by asking God not only to teach you something today, but also for you to recognize it when he does and thank him for it at that time. Praise him for giving you the opportunity to grow in the knowledge of him.
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Day 5
What have you learned this week?
Read John 4:4-26, 39-42:
Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on the mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
The Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.”
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Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And because of his words many more became believers.
They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.
In addition to making new friends, I hope this week has been educational for you. Not in the school kind of way, but learning that God is not just the God of your hometown. You see, no matter where you have spent your mission trip this year, God is the creator of all the people you have come in contact with. They may not look like you, dress like you, act like you, or speak like you, but God loves them as much as He loves you. He paid the same price for them that He paid for you, in the death of His son on the cross. Read Proverbs 14:31, “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.”
Close your personal devotion time in prayer by thanking God for creating you and all people and thanking him for Jesus and his death. Ask God to help you remember that his love is for all people and help you to show his love to all with whom you come in contact.
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Day 6
How have you been changed this week?
What has God taught you this week? Perhaps you came on this trip with some heavy baggage in your life. Maybe it was a disagreement with one of your parents, an ungodly relationship that had you in its grip, a habit that you shouldn’t have, a way in which you have been deceiving yourself or others. Maybe you didn’t even realize it was going on, but God revealed the truth to you. God’s light has a way of revealing truth. Read I Peter 5:10, “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.”
Close your personal devotion time in prayer by asking God to guide you in how to deal with what you are facing and to help you draw on his strength in following his guidance. Thank him for his light and what it reveals.
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Day 7
What will you do now?
The week is almost over, and in a few hours you will be home. Did this mission experience leave you with just a few great pictures and perhaps a new t-shirt? Or, has your involvement this week led you to commit to being the Christian that God has called you to be. Will your parents notice a difference in your life not just over the next few days, but in 6 months to a year from now? I recently asked a parent of one of our students why he chose to come on our mission trip this year, and he responded by saying that he wanted to experience whatever it was that made the huge impact in his son’s life, who had gone on a mission trip with us the previous year. Remember I Thessalonians 5:24, “The one who calls you if faithful and he will do it.”
Close your personal devotion time in prayer by asking God to help you live out the commitment that you have made in response to his call. Thank him for the faithfulness you know he will exhibit in answer to your request.
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