Tag Archive | Learning

Entering God’s Rest

Hebrews 4 was my scheduled New Testament reading for today, a chapter that focuses on entering God’s rest. Rest is a treasured truth for me right now, as I deal with a painful mouth ulcer that is not healing as I’ve hoped it will. I need to experience God’s rest, so that I don’t end up trying to handle this problem in my own strength.

Remember, biblical chapter numbers were not in the original text. So when a chapter begins with the word “Therefore” you need to look back to the previous chapter to see what it was “there-for.”

Context is another important key to understanding the meaning of a passage. The following verses will make more sense if before reading them you read Hebrews 3:7-19 and Hebrews 4.

These verses help us understand God’s Rest:

“And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.”

“Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.”

“So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.” Hebrews 3:18-19; 4:1-2; 9-11 ESV

“Therefore” in Hebrews 4:1 refers back to the text on entering rest in Hebrews 3:7-19. I thought verses 18-19 summed up the message of the entire section. To enter God’s rest, faith is the key. But unbelief and disobedience are closely connected. Disobedience is the Greek word apeitheia, which literally means “the condition of being unpersuadable.”

To be unpersuadable is to obstinately reject the will of God. This is caused by unbelief, and the effect of unbelief is disobedience. Therefore, because of this cause and effect relationship, stubbornly being unpersuadable is the root of both of these decisions. I hope you will read the following affirmation aloud, as an expression of your submission to the will of God for your life.

My Affirmation:

When God speaks, I will not stubbornly refuse to be persuaded of His message. I will respond with both faith and obedience. When I do this, God has promised I will by faith enter His Sabbath rest, resting from my own works and resting in the Lord Jesus Christ. In this way, I will be led and empowered to accomplish God’s will for my life.

Resting In God’s Presence

Passing Through the Valley of Weeping

Dec24

Psalm 84:5–7 (NKJV):
“Blessed is the man whose strength is in You,
Whose heart is set on pilgrimage.
6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca (Weeping),
They make it a spring;
The rain also covers it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength;
Each one appears before God in Zion.”

Our family has been walking through “the Valley of Weeping” since the death of our special-needs son David in November. It has been a time of God’s grace and sustaining peace, but there have also been times of weeping as we’ve said goodbye to the young man who has been such a big part of our lives for the past thirty-four years.

So when I read this familiar psalm this morning as a part of my daily Bible reading, these verses jumped out at me. They were especially meaningful since this isn’t the first time God has used them as a rhema (spoken) word in my life.

When we were walking through a particularly difficult time early in David’s life, one of many where I had been repeatedly in the hospital with our son, our pastor at that time, Michael J. Cave, specifically shared it with me as a word from the Lord for our situation, after a sermon he preached on these verses. Since that time, the truths of these verses have been a clear reminder of God’s strength that is available to continue the “pilgrimage” of life on this earth and turn the difficult seasons into springs of life.

During our “pilgrimage” as believers in Jesus Christ, we will face seasons of weeping. But even in the weeping, our strength is found in God. And as we move forward in God’s strength, the valley experiences are turned into springs of life and blessing. Psalm 107:35 speaks of God turning the wilderness into pools of water and dry land into watersprings. The dry and weeping places in our lives are transformed as we move forward in God’s strength, keeping our eyes on the Lord and on our heavenly destination. When our pilgrimage is complete and we reach the eternal kingdom that is our final destination, our God promises to wipe away every tear, and “there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”‭ (Revelation 21:4)

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The Benefits of Choosing an Attitude of Gratitude

Nov19

In recent weeks, my life has been enriched by a Bible study and video series by Tony Evans that our iConnect Bible study class at church has been going through. So when I noticed the following quote on gratefulness by Tony Evans it caught my attention.

“God says to give thanks in everything. That doesn’t mean you need to give thanks FOR everything. You don’t need to give thanks FOR that bad day. Or FOR that bad relationship. Or being passed over at work. Financial hardship. Whatever it is – you are not to give thanks FOR the difficulties, but rather IN the difficulties. That is a very important distinction, and one I think we often miss. Giving thanks IN everything shows a heart of faith that God is bigger than the difficulties and that He can use them, if you approach Him with the right heart and spirit, for your good and His glory.”

Giving thanks in difficulties is an expression of our faith in a good God. It is a practical discipline that teaches us to see our tough circumstances from God’s perspective.

The last several months of my life have been filled with circumstances I would never have chosen. Financial difficulties, needed home repairs that in the natural are an unsurmountable obstacle, a hospitalization with our special needs son David and then his sudden death two weeks ago have made this one of the most challenging seasons of my life.

And yet as I look back on what God has done in my life during this period, I’m amazed. I’ve experienced peace that surpasses all understanding in the loss of our son, a dreaded event which had previously been my biggest source of anxiety. I’ve grown in my knowledge of God more than during any other recent season of life. And as I’ve gotten to know the Lord more intimately, I’ve fallen freshly in love with Him.

Are you facing a situation that you never would have chosen? Realize there is a reason God allowed the details of what you’re going through to touch your life. Recognize He is at work through your circumstances to bring you to a new depth of relationship with Him, to a new level of spiritual maturity as suffering works to conform you to the image of Jesus Christ.

Today, decide to look for the good in your life. Spend time with the Lord, asking Him to help you see your circumstances as He sees them. Focus on the little blessings you see in the midst of the pain – and if you’re like me, I suspect you’ll find they aren’t so little.

Take time today – and every day – to choose an attitude of gratitude to God. And before long, I suspect you’ll find your entire attitude toward life will begin to change. That’s definitely what’s happened in my life – in spite of the fact that the trials our family has been walking through have no end in sight.

Gratefulness and Grace

Nov1

“But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians‬ ‭15:57‬ ‭ESV‬‬

During one of my times studying God’s Word this week, I made an interesting discovery. The Greek word translated “thanks” in this verse from 1 Corinthians 15 is “charis,” the same word that is translated “grace” throughout the New Testament. This was a reminder to me of how closely related grace and gratefulness are in the life of a Christian.

Grace has been defined as “the merciful kindness by which God, exerting his holy influence upon souls, turns them to Christ, keeps, strengthens, increases them in Christian faith, knowledge, affection, and kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues.” (Blue Letter Bible)

In simpler words, God’s grace is the kindness He shows daily to the unworthy. There is nothing we can do to earn God’s grace. It is a free gift, given to us because God is benevolent. Giving good gifts is a part of His nature.

Grace is what saves us. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (‭Ephesians‬ ‭2:8-9)‬

Grace‭ trains us how to live lives that are pleasing to God. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,” (Titus‬ ‭2:11-12‬)‬‬

Grace gives us access to God in our times of need. “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews‬ ‭4:16)‬ ‭‬‬

Grace gives us comfort and hope. “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.” (2 Thessalonians‬ ‭2:16-17‬)

Grace gives us a future inheritance to anticipate, “so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians‬ ‭2:7‬)

As believers in Jesus Christ, giving thanks for the many blessings we receive through His grace should be a daily practice.

Recently, God has been doing a good work in my life, one that has sometimes been painful but one that has always been by His grace. As a result, I’m beginning to walk in victory in several areas of my life where victory is a new experience. And for that, I want to give Him thanks. Will you join me today in giving thanks for what He is doing in your life?

Learning About Prayer

Jul20

I am the leader of prayer ministries for a large and growing ministry for ladies with chronic illness. I am currently leading a prayer study for the Sunday school class my husband and I attend. So prayer is important to me. But I do not consider myself an expert in prayer. As my responsibilities in the area of ministering to others in the area of prayer have increased, the knowledge that I still have a lot to learn has become foremost in my mind. I am a learner in the area of prayer.

I shared in a recent article that my husband and I have been walking through some difficult circumstances in our lives. I don’t want to go into the details again, so I’ll share the link for anyone who is interested in this story. https://readywriterbr.wordpress.com/2017/07/15/living-outside-my-comfort-zone/

God has been at work through these circumstances in both my husband’s life and my life, but in different ways. In my life, He has had me in what I would describe as theHoly Spirit School of Prayer.

During the same period of time, I have been preparing to lead the prayer study in our Sunday school class using The Battle Plan for Prayer Bible Study materials from Stephen and Alex Kendrick, producers of the movie War Room.. What I share today is a combination of what God has personally been teaching me and what I’m learning through the study of these excellent materials.

Now I have a more balanced understanding of what prayer includes. Up until recently, when I thought of prayer, what primarily came to mind was confession of sin, lifting our needs up to the Lord (supplication), and intercession for the needs of others. I always felt like I was falling short in these areas, especially in supplication and intercession, because the needs were so overwhelming that it would literally take “prayer without ceasing” to cover all of them daily.

These are important parts of prayer, but prayer is so much more. I knew in theory that worship, praise and thanksgiving were all elements of prayer, but in my mind they were separate things. I had even tried using the A.C.T.S. acronym – Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication – during my prayer time, but I saw this more as a formula for prayer, with worship, praise and thanksgiving more as preparation for prayer than as actual types of prayer.

I had also read of the importance of using God’s Word in prayer, but in my mind and on my daily schedule Bible reading and prayer were two separate things. As we have walked through this difficult season, I’ve begun to understand each of these things as a part of true prayer.

At it’s root, prayer is communion and communication with God. When Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 we are to pray without ceasing, he was not talking about what I used to think of as prayer. He was saying throughout the day we are to stay in open communication with God. The main way God speaks to us is through His Word, so we are to read His Word expecting Him to speak to us. And we are to respond to what He shows us in prayer. Bible reading and study are meant to be a part of our prayer life, not separate from it.

This season of my life has caused a major change in my daily quiet time. Instead of seeing it as composed of a series of things I do, I have begun to see the whole quiet time as a part of prayer. Praise and worship are no longer preparing my heart for prayer – they are prayer. Overcoming discouragement by looking for God’s blessings in the midst of our trials and expressing my gratitude to Him is also a part of prayer. And when I pick up my Bible or open a Bible app on my iPad to begin reading and studying, I do so with an attitude of prayer and expectancy.

One thing that has really helped me gain this new understanding is prayer journaling. I’m not new to journaling. I remember many years ago as a new Christian getting up and reading my Bible and writing in my journal every morning before leaving for my job as a kindergarten teacher. And through the years, I’ve filled hundreds of notebooks and journals from this habit. But again, I saw this as separate from my prayer life.

When we began walking through this season where the cry of my heart daily became “God, we do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (2 Chronicles‬ ‭20:12‬b‭ NIV)‬‬, I began prayer journaling. I now begin my quiet time with a prayer for God to speak to me through His Word, and as He began to do so regularly I grew into an expectancy that this would happen.

Now, as I read God’s word, I do so with a pen in my hand and my current journal open so I can put in writing the things God in showing me. This isn’t really much different than the journaling I’ve always done, but I no longer stop there. Those insights now become prayers of worship, praise and gratitude to God, of confession of sin, of honestly telling God where I am and asking His help, or of commitment to obey something He has shown me I need to do. Often as I’m reading a Scripture, someone with a need comes to mind and I intercede for them. Or I read a verse that gives a burden for Christians facing persecution for their faith and I turn this into a prayer. Or I read a passage that reminds me of how messed up things are in our nation , and I pray using that passage for our nation. Whatever God speaks to my heart during this quiet time in His presence is turned into a prayer of response.

As a result of this growing understanding of all prayer includes, and of learning to make prayer an important part of my day and not just an add-on to my Bible study time, I have been walking through one of the most difficult trials of my recent life, one where my normal response would be fear and anxiety, in almost constant peace. There have been days when staying close to God was a battle – life as a Christian in this fallen world is like that. But by staying in communication with God by talking with Him throughout my day, walking in meekness and submission to His will and purposes in our lives, and resisting the devil and his lies, I’ve experienced God’s peace and strength as seldom before.

As I was praying this morning about this article, a picture came to my mind of someone throwing a large stone into a lake. When the stone breaks the surface of the water, it creates a ripple effect, with concentric waves of water moving out from the spot where the stone landed. This is a picture of the effect of true prayer in our lives. True prayer isn’t just something we do as a part of our daily schedule, or even throughout the day as we become aware of needs. True prayer is like breaking the surface to enter into the presence of God, and the result has a ripple effect. It changes every part of our lives and even spreads out to touch the lives of others.

Learning Is For a Lifetime

May28

Hundreds of thousands of high school and college students around the United States have recently or will soon graduate. As they grab their mortar boards and throw them in the air, they are rejoicing that their time of schooling is finally over.

For the first eighteen or twenty-two years of our lives, depending upon whether or not we go to college, learning is our main “job.” The majority of our time is spent in classrooms, learning new materials. And once we graduate, many think this “learning stage” is over. It’s time to leave learning behind and to go out into the adult world.

I had similar thoughts when I graduated from college. Personally, I knew I would still be in a classroom, since my degree was in Early Childhood Education. But now, I was the teacher, and “they” (my two classes of five year olds) were the students. But a few days after the start of the school year, I saw the error in my reasoning. My children were learning – but so was I. Just finishing my formal education didn’t mean my learning was over. I simply needed to take more responsibility for my acquiring of knowledge from this point on.

This was before the Internet was available for the public, so most of my learning during my years of teaching was from books. This was also a season of making new friends, many of whom were fellow teachers, and I quickly learned that they were good sources of answers to many of my questions. I think my first year of teaching kindergarten was one of the most intense times of learning in my life.

In my second year of teaching, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Suddenly, there was a whole new body of material to learn. I sensed God calling me to turn in my resignation and enroll in Bible college. I did this, and there we learned the basic principles of the Christian faith and became familiar with the Word of God. But this one year of extended classroom learning was like sticking my toe in the vast pool of teaching found in the Bible.

While in Bible college, I met my future husband. We married at the end of the school year. With marriage, and nine months later having our first child, it didn’t take me long to realize I had many new things to learn. Throughout the last forty-three years, that has continued to be true. Life isn’t static. And with each new stage of life, we see new things we need to learn. Before long, I clearly saw that learning is for a lifetime.

Areas of Lifelong Learning As a Christian:

Center on the Word of God. We are called to be disciples, and to be a “disciple” means to be a learner. The main way Jesus teaches and leads us is through His Word. And His purpose in teaching us isn’t just so we’ll be familiar with the facts and principles. We need to learn about our teacher. We need to grow in our knowledge of Him and understand His character, so that we have a good foundation to build our faith upon. We need to know how to recognize His voice when we are reading or praying. And we need to learn how to apply the things He teaches us, even in situations where they may not seem logical.

Learn new skills required for your ministry or occupation. I first learned this when I was teaching kindergarten. Even after four years of college, I was totally in the dark about many things: use of some of the equipment, what to teach the children in certain areas so that my classes wouldn’t miss out on some topics that the kindergarten classes in my school regularly taught, and how to handle ongoing discipline problems. Thankfully, I had experienced kindergarten teachers on both sides of my classroom, who took me under their wings and taught me some of these basics. This happened because I had a teachable spirit and was willing to reach out and ask for help.

Don’t ignore practical learning for everyday life. As soon as you notice an area where increased knowledge is needed, find some sensible answers. This will vary for each person, but you will reach a point where you need to learn something new. For example, as a newly wed, I knew nothing about cooking Mexican food. I wanted to surprise my husband, and decided to add some jalapeño peppers (seeds and all) to a casserole I was making. He was definitely surprised! As soon as he took a bite, he quickly warned me not to eat it. The casserole was even hotter than he likes, but he ate some so he wouldn’t hurt my feeling. All my previous experience using peppers for cooking had been with bell peppers, and I had no idea how to cut up the jalapeños or how many needed to be added to the casserole. Wisdom would have been learning this before using them in a recipe. After the damage was done, the friend who gave us the jalapeños gave me some instructions on how to chop them – after removing the seeds – and how many to use in cooking.

Learn about any other areas that are important for you or your family. For our family, one of the biggest areas we’ve needed to increase our knowledge is in the medical field. First, when our infant son was diagnosed with Massive Infantile Spasms, we needed to do some research to understand what to expect. And this was just the beginning. I quickly learned that I needed more information about our son’s growing list of problems, to be able to talk intelligently with his doctors. A few years later, I started going through the same process for myself, as one chronic illness after another was added to my medical history.

We are fortunate to live at a time when information about each of these areas, as well as many others, is easy to find. We can learn through personal conversations, reading books, taking classes, listening to recorded audio, and watching educational videos. And the Internet is seemingly an unending source of information.We can even use social media to continue our learning. But we need to have discernment concerning the sources we use. Is this “fact” really just someone’s opinion? Are these medical sources of information trustworthy? Use a variety of sources, and stay away from those that seem unreliable. But there are no excuses for not continuing to learn, until you go to be with the Lord. In fact, Henry Ford said continuing to learn is the key for staying young.

No matter what else you choose to study, don’t neglect the Word of God, our most important instruction book for life.