March 6 What Attitude Do You Want Teenagers To Have?

In business, the term target market speaks to a concept of identifying the type of business or person that needs or wants a business’s product or service. If you know your target market you can then begin to shape your offerings to them specifically.

Businesses do not advertise denture adhesives to school children. However, a denture adhesive manufacturer does serve two markets which are female, and male identified. How well do you know the markets you serve?

We might serve more than one market, but do you know how many you and your team serve. Our attitudes make a difference to our markets. If a passenger on an airplane does not keep an attitude consistent with safety the passenger will not be tolerated on the plane.

If they smoke in the lavatory or fail to comply with the buckle of your seatbelt request, they can be deplaned. Attitudes matter to your markets so it is logical to know them and your most important attitudes. If we do not know the markets clearly then we might not be serving them clearly either.

This is especially important when we realize that the internal team you work closely with are also a target market.  They are people that we serve and collaborate with.  If we do not recognize them as a market, then we might miss providing them what they want and need. 

One might also get misaligned in the attitudes we need to collaborate with them effectively. Misalignment with a market or with an attitude will cause friction and frustration.  Where are you misaligned with either and what is the first thing you can do about it today?

In our Christian life, we are given a new life when we accept Christ. We have been forgiven of the past and come into a new life with Christ. One challenge we face is what target are our behaviors trying to satisfy?

Are we satisfying what our egos need from our old selves or are we satisfying the new life of following Jesus? In Psalms 51:4, the Psalmist says, "Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight.

You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just." Are we serving Christ, ourselves, or the world? Those are three different targets. We might question if our behaviors in one market are consistent with another market.

The attitudes that we have towards our target matters as well. Answering the question in the title of today’s devotion affirms it. What attitudes do you want a teenager to hold? A parent of a teenager will likely have a different answer than an eighty-year-old childless couple.

But Jesus wants us to align with his most important attitudes regardless of our station or circumstances in life. What is the most productive thing we can do this week to think and act in our most important market? What is the first thing you can do about it in the next seven days?

Let us pray, Heavenly Father, we live in a world of past, present, and future. These times are demanding. It is you that we desire but we are pulled. The attractions of this world continue to pull on us and we continue to be pulled from our relationship with you. Thank you for your gifts.

Gather us back to you and help us to keep you first. Empower us to allow all other requests to be secondary to yours. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen,