Unlocked: Daily Devotions for Teens

READ: GENESIS 1:26–2:3; MATTHEW 11:28-30; LUKE 10:38-42

Alistair hefted his saw and adjusted his vision screen over his eyes. As he made the final cut, the virtual gift box opened in the corner of…

READ: ROMANS 8:18, 23-25; REVELATION 21

If you were a character in a book, it would be nice to know that your story has a happy ending. When we’re the ones reading a book, usually we try to avoid …

READ: MARK 16:19-20; LUKE 24:50-53; ACTS 1:4-11; REVELATION 1:7

Recently I noticed Ascension Day on the calendar of a religious publication. In my faith tradition, little attention is given to thi…

READ: ISAIAH 49:13-17; JOHN 10:1-30

I have a bad habit of losing umbrellas. As a little girl, I flipped through a catalog one day and spotted an umbrella I desperately wanted. It featured an array…

READ: ESTHER 4:1-17; EPHESIANS 2:1-10

Do you ever wish you had been born during a different time? I sometimes wish I was living earlier in history. I read books about knights, ladies, and castles,…

READ: DEUTERONOMY 31:8; PSALMS 8:1-9; 139:1-14; EPHESIANS 2:13

I step into the night, surrendering my eyes, enveloped in darkness like plunging into water. Desperate for light, I look up. A few …

READ: 2 CORINTHIANS 5:17; GALATIANS 5:16-18; JAMES 1:3-5

For most of my youth, being mature was all the rage. Everyone pretended to be mature. My conception of what that meant was not laughing at …

READ: 1 KINGS 18:20-39; PSALMS 115:1-13; 116:1-9

"Can you hear me? Hello? I’m talking…Are you even listening?” Have you ever tried and tried to get someone to listen to you, and eventually just ga…

READ: DEUTERONOMY 31:8; PSALM 23:4; HEBREWS 13:5-6

I stood anxiously in front of the school doors, feeling as if I was glued to the spot. I had no idea what awaited me inside that building. How co…

READ: JOHN 21:21-22; PHILIPPIANS 2:1-11; HEBREWS 12:1-3

Picture this: you’re getting ready to run a race. You stand at the starting line, stretching and nervously shifting your weight from one foo…

READ: ISAIAH 40:28-31; 1 CORINTHIANS 9:23-27; HEBREWS 12:1-3

What’s the number one thing you need to win a race? Speed, right? It seems obvious. So why isn’t that what Hebrews 12:1 says? In this p…

READ: PSALM 63:1-5; MATTHEW 11:28-30; JOHN 4:7-15; 7:37-39

Not much farther, Mai chanted to herself. Not much farther. Brittle sand attacked her eyes, blinding her, but she was so dehydrated they …

READ: PHILIPPIANS 4:4-9; 1 THESSALONIANS 5:16-18

The sudden screeching from the children had me running down the stairs. I’d only left for a moment, but in that time the littlest kid in the house …

READ: GENESIS 2:9; 3:1-7, 22-24; DEUTERONOMY 21:22-23; 1 PETER 2:21-25

The American poet Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. once wrote, “In fact, there’s nothing that keeps its youth, so far as I know, but…

READ: EPHESIANS 6:10-20; 1 TIMOTHY 2:1-8; JAMES 5:16

We see bad things happen all the time. We can’t help it; trouble is all around, and people are suffering. Maybe something hard is affecting you…

READ: JEREMIAH 29:1-14; PSALMS 37:1-6; 139:1-24

Are you or someone you know graduating this year? While a graduation is a momentous occasion, what follows is the question: “What are your next step…

READ: EZEKIEL 36:16-38; PHILIPPIANS 2:5-8

Which is better: a heart of stone, or a heart of flesh? To be honest, some days I want to choose the stone. A heart of stone doesn’t feel pain, and it doe…

READ: JOHN 1:1-14; COLOSSIANS 1:15-20; REVELATION 21:1-6

In my life, there are many starts and stops. I start a new hobby, and I finish a TV show. I wake up and start my workday, and I end the day…

READ: PSALM 27; ISAIAH 40:31; LAMENTATIONS 3:25

Waiting for things to work out can be exhausting, scary, frustrating, and stressful. Sometimes it feels like there won’t ever be an end. Sitting in …

READ: PSALM 115:3; EPHESIANS 1:3-10; HEBREWS 12:2

For a long time, I’ve had this nagging thought that God just loves us because He has to. He’s God, so that means He’s obligated to love us, right?…