YOUTHS-TRAIN YOUR PERCEPTIVE POWERS!

Training Your Perceptive Powers

Note that your perceptive powers - your ability "through use."   When you must make a decision, guessing, acting on impulse, or simply following the crowd will rarely result in a wise choice.  To make wise decisions, you must use  your perceptive powers.  How?  First of all, by thoroughly investigating the situation and getting all the facts.  Ask questions if necessary.  Determine what your options are.  Proverbs 13:16 says:  "Everyone shrewd will act with knowledge."  Next, try to determine which Bible laws or principles bear on the subject.  (Proverbs 3:5)  To do this, of course, you must have a knowledge of the Bible.  That is why Paul encourages us to take in "solid food' - to learn "the breadth and length and height and depth"  of the truth. - Ephesians 3:18.

Doing so is essential, since we are imperfect, prone to sin.  (Genesis 8:21; Romans 5:12)  "The heart  is more treacherous than anything else and is desperate," says Jeremiah 17:9.  Without godly principles to guide us, we can deceive ourselves into thinking that something bad is good - simply because our flesh craves it.  (Compare Isaiah 5:20) The psalmist wrote:  "How will a young man cleanse his path?  By keeping on guard according to your word.  Owing to your orders I behave with understanding.  That is why I have hated every false path." -Psalm 119:9, 104.

Why has some youths who were raised in Christian households followed false paths?  Could it be that  such ones have never 'proved to themselves the good and acceptable and perfect will of God'?  (Romans 12:2)  Some may attend meetings  with their parents and be able to recite some of the basic teachings of the Bible.  But when asked to give proof of their beliefs or to explain some of the deeper things of God's Word, their knowledge proves to be disappointingly shallow.  Such youths can easily be misled.  (Ephesians 4:14)  If  this is true of you, why not resolve to make changes?  One young sister recalls:  "I did research.  I asked myself, 'How do I know that this is the right religion?  'How do I know that there is a God named Jehovah?' "  Carefully examining the Scriptures convinced her that the things she had learned from her parents were really so! -Compare Acts 17:11.

Armed with a knowledge of Jehovah's principles, you will more easily make "sure of what is acceptable to the Lord."  (Ephesians 5:10) Yet what if you are not certain of the wise course to take in a particular situation?  Pray to Jehovah for direction.  (Psalm  119:144)  Try talking matters over with your  parents or with a mature Christians.  (Proverbs 15:22; 27:17)  Helpful direction can also be found by doing research in the Bible and in Watchtower publications.  (Proverbs 2:3-5)  The more you use your perceptive powers, the sharper they will become.

Next time: Showing Discernment in Recreation

Watchtower, 1999