Category: Teaching Topics

All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.  John 10:8

The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.  Luke 6:45

I often wonder how people can do what they do.  (That includes me when I sin.)

Consider a rebellious child who acts out.  Others can give into him to stop the tantrums.  But without discipline, he will repeat the tantrums until they become a way of life.  The pleasure (Jesus calls it pleasure) he feels when he gets what he wants will become his drug of choice and he will cease to regret the acts he commits in favor of feeling good.  Without Jesus, there will be no remorse.

If you’ve suffered at the hands of one who never said “I’m sorry,” you may have asked the question, “How could this person do this to me and not even feel badly that they hurt me?”  Jesus answers the question.  The pleasure they got by sinning against you numbed their conscience. They may have seen your tears, heard your pain expressed, but shrugged their shoulders.  You just couldn’t understand such coldness of heart and the heart is where everything else emanated.

God is our instructor today.  An unfeeling heart develops over time, never overnight.  It belongs to the person who has been fattened by the pleasures of his choices, even choices that have caused pain to someone he claims to love.

Only God can transform the heart of a sinner.  Only God can comfort the victims.  The sinner must love Jesus more than the payoff of self-gratification and the victim must love Jesus more than taking revenge.

Jesus, you knew the hearts of men.  You were not deceived.  Teach me to look beyond their behavior to the spiritual cause.  I need to pray for others’ spiritual disease instead of just asking you to stop their behavior.  Spirit, show me how to pray.  Amen

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. I John 15:10-11

Sometimes, it’s not what people want that gets them into trouble. It’s when their desires, even noble ones, become the center of their lives and the source of their joy. Their wellbeing becomes dependent on whether or not those things come to pass. If they do, they can be happy. If they don’t, there’s frustration and spiritual depression.

As people of God, we dream of everyone we love embracing Jesus the way we do. We desire every family member to abide in Christ. We want sons to follow Jesus. We want daughters to thrive under the righteous leadership of their husbands. We want grandchildren to see God in their parents so they will be naturally attracted to their faith. We want family members to be healthy. We want parents to live a long life and fulfill all their dreams. All of these are good things but it’s easy to take on these dreams as our mandate to make them happen. We are crusaders on a mission. We invest our prayers, our love, our mentoring skills, even our finances, to help loved ones thrive. But the clock ticks slowly. People don’t change overnight, and while in process, they don’t always choose well. That’s bad news if we are making their wellbeing our joy. As they continue to languish, we languish. If we see them make bad choices, our joy is deferred as we pray that tomorrow will be a better day. And quite frankly, it’s easy to pray for everyone else and forget to pray for myself.

If this is my way of life, my joy is only possible if I see things moving in the right direction. On a good day, I can relax and enjoy feelings of hope in the moment. But at the next crisis, my hope plummets. Joy dies another death. I’m on a perpetual roller coaster of waiting for things to change. I’m a captive, not a conqueror.

The epiphany for me lately has been this. Whether or not I have inexpressible joy cannot depend on the outcome of things going well. Joy is to be found in the enjoyment of God. I was created to enjoy Him forever. And here’s the thing. Enjoyment of God and spiritual depression are mutually exclusive. I cannot engage in both at the same time. So when I wake up in the morning and my stomach churns because I don’t know what the day is going to bring, I’ve already laid a foundation for spiritual depression. I’ve placed my hope in human outcome.

My mornings need to be focused on the praise and worship of a God whom I enjoy. He is my delight. With Him as my focus and with a holy calm that is mine as a result, good news will be the icing on the cake. And if there’s bad news? It cannot take me down because His joy is my strength and the grace of His presence makes me resilient.

My hope has been deferred for a better tomorrow. Joy has been elusive. Show me how to appropriate all of this into my daily life until there are spiritual endorphines. Amen

When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. John 10:4

Have you ever worked under an umbrella of authority that was characterized by defective leadership? Orders were given without care for proper development. There was little instruction. There were high expectations but perhaps you were abandoned while you labored at the task.

When I was twenty-one, I was asked to orchestrate an entire musical road production. I expressed my concern that I wasn’t trained nor experienced. I was a pianist, flutist, and vocal arranger. But, having trouble saying no, I buckled under the pressure to just do it anyway. A deadline was given but no offers were made to network me with professionals who might help me through the process. I read some articles by Henry Mancini, saw a few of his scores, ordered orchestral score paper from a music house in New York City, and dove in the deep end of the pool. Six weeks later, I was standing in front of some Chicago symphony players at a studio in Chicago. Baton in hand, shaking, I heard the scores come to life. Regardless of whether or not it was successful, I was pretty traumatized by it all. The leadership style of the person who delegated the task to me was poor.

What kind of leader is Jesus? He describes himself as the shepherd who goes before his sheep. This was not the way shepherds usually did their job. They were known to drive out the sheep from the pen. They were sent out in front. Not Jesus. He goes before. He’s already checked the path for stones, tree roots, and wild beasts. He marks the way and is known to say, “Don’t step here or you’ll get hurt.” Or “Watch me; I’ll show you how to do it.” There’s security and safety for all who follow him. I have to remember that the disciples were discipled by Jesus the shepherd. They didn’t just follow, they learned. Everything he did, they did. So, when he left them, they knew what to do on their own.

You’ve shown me how to follow you, Lord. Make me a considerate leader like that. Amen

I no longer call you servants. Instead, I have called you friends. John 15:15

Many of the slaves freed after the Civil War returned to their former owners. Now knowing how to handle their freedom, they chose to continue living in slavery because the mindset of a slave was firmly embedded in their psyche. Though they had been offered a new life, fear of the unknown was too intimidating.

Through his death, Jesus made us free yet many of us have never left the familiarity of our old life to investigate the new one He offers in His far away kingdom. What could be more frightening for a poor maiden who thinks she’s deeply flawed than to look in the eyes of a prince and accept his love? Yet doing so is her ticket to the life she privately dreams of.

Jesus paid for my freedom with His life! Can you imagine his grief when I continue to think and act like one in captivity? He’s calling out, “Come out of the slave quarters. Move into the big house with me. Sit at my table. Let me serve you. Oh, by the way, I’ve put your name on the deed to my inheritance. Everything I have, I share with you.” It takes humility to accept such a gift if I know that I’m undeserving and can do nothing to earn it. I will initially squirm in my seat at the banquet table. It will take some time to dance in the reality that I’m rich. The only thing that melts my protests of worthiness and the pride of self-hatred is perfect Love.

But there is also a second deadly response. If I believe I am a pretty good person, I’ll feel entitled to the favor Jesus extends. At the announcement that I’m an heiress, I’ll flaunt my position and look down my nose at less fortunate sinners. You know the saying, “She’s a princess?” That means I’m self-centered, entitled, spoiled, and arrogant. My greatest need is to see my sinfulness first, be reminded of my need for a Savior, and then accept His love with abject humility.

If I’m afraid of intimacy, self-hatred or self-exaltation is usually the cause. Figuring out which one plagues me is the most important thing I could do on this calendar day ‘in the life’ . . .

At your loving gaze, will I be tempted to look away? Why? Show me. Amen

When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own. John 16:13

Look, one person of the Trinity is teaching us about Himself. He says that the Trinity, though three distinct parts of God, acts in perfect unity. No one who experiences the Spirit will come away feeling differently than if he experienced Jesus or His Father. What one of them feels and what each of them believes are all consistent within the person of God.

Not so with us. The Fall in the Garden fractured the internal world of humanity and we’ve been divided ever since. Because we’re fractured, we’re inconsistent and unstable and we don’t always recognize it. Without the help of the Spirit, we will fail to really know ourselves. Who we think we are is often radically different from what we portray to others. They experience our inconsistencies and it’s usually painful for them. I can say one thing but convey another. My words don’t match my face. I have chuckled at family vignettes in which a parent says to a child, “I can see that you’re angry.” He replies, “I’m not angry!” but his yelling and his cherry red face betray him.

Growing into the image of Christ is all about allowing the Spirit of God to show me where I am sinfully divided. It is giving Him permission to bring every corner of my soul into the light of His grace and then asking Him to change each part so I may also live in unity. As I come to know firsthand the beautiful ways the Trinity works together, the ways they complement each other, and as I appreciate God for always being the same, for always being stable, I will covet that for myself. I will desire for others to experience me that way.

Self-disclosure empowered by the Spirit can be painful but the rugged introspection pays off. No longer will I say one thing but do another. I will live in peace and harmony within myself and with the God who lovingly created me to bear His image, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Work in me, O Spirit, to make me unified with Your Spirit internally. Graft me into Your perfection through sanctification. Amen

Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “Come down from the cross if you are the Son of God!” Matthew 27:39-40

The majority who saw Jesus crucified thought He was weak. If He had exerted His power by saving Himself from the cross, they might have spoken of His strength. But would we then have a Savior! His accusers’ perception of what was weak and what was strong was entirely wrong. They were living life in the moment. They were not able to see that the power was in the cross, bringing about a death most humiliating.

God has appeared feeble to me. Like those who hurled insults, I cried out, “If you are God, come down and change this.” Yet the sources of pain that caused me to demand deliverance became the very things through which the power of the cross was showcased. Where I was weak, through Christ I am strong. Where my heart bled, through Christ my scars bear the handiwork of His grace and glory. The things I thought would destroy me have, in essence, saved me. All of them were really the doorway that brought me to the end of myself and to the beginning of new life.

We cannot live in the moment, child of promise. Things are not as they appear. We cannot judge whether or not God is powerful by looking at our present circumstances and setting up a criterion by which God must prove Himself. We need only look back to see that He already did that. And we need only look ahead to see that He is a King who will rule throughout eternity. What could be more powerful than His cross, our own cross, and future glory that awaits us all!

Your plan for me is redemptive, Lord. I trust you with my life today. Amen

And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. Luke 4:13

After having made three tries and failed, the devil departed from Jesus. A defeat didn’t end his attempts. The retreat only meant he went to the shadows to regroup. Luke says that he departed from Jesus until another opportune time. When would be an opportune time?

• When his mother and brothers thought he was under demonic influence.
• When he was called the illegitimate son of Mary.
• When Judas betrayed Him in the garden.

King David reinforced the truth of this experience with different wording. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the LORD was my support. Psalm 18:18  

Nothing has changed. Today, the devil still looks for fainthearted saints. He waits to see ‘blood in the water’; knowing that a weakened enemy is more easily taken down. Don’t expect your worst battle on a good day. It’s on an awful day, when you don’t feel like fighting, that you need to put on your armor.

Jesus had an advantage we don’t have. He knew Lucifer in heaven. He knew his passion for power and revenge. He knew that three defeats in some wilderness wasn’t going to send him away for good.  He was out to take God’s people down to the very end of the age, if possible. God has allowed him to have limited power until that final victory but it’s always under the umbrella of God’s promises of redemption and glory.

What’s the bottom line? We have to know how to fight when we’re weak. 1.) Clothe yourself in the Word. 2.) Pray, pray, pray! 3. ) Live holy. 4.) Rest in God’s love and favor. Remove one of these and there’s a chink in our armor. Without the word, we’ve abdicated our sword. Without prayer, our communication lines to power and authority are crippled. Without holiness, we’ve opened doors to the kingdom of darkness. Without resting in love and favor, we’ll experience a loss of resolve to do the first three. I mean, why bother!

No matter how tough it got for Jesus, no matter how hot the temptation, no matter how bloody the path, our Savior never forsook the Word, prayer, holiness, and an assurance that He was indeed God’s beloved Son ~ destined for glory.

If ever it were time for me to walk in Your footsteps, Jesus, it’s in this. Amen

Save

SaveSave

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  John 20:29

It’s hard to trust something or someone that you can’t see.  Jesus knew that and and said that those of us who place all our confidence in Him will be blessed.  Faith can erode quickly when we see no evidence of an invisible God.  I knew what it’s like to arrive at a place where I had no confidence in Him anymore.  I ceased to see the vastness of God but the issue was not about a God who had grown anemic; it was about how the enemy had deceived me through my adversity. He lied and I bought it.  I had fallen into the black hole of unbelief.  I found myself on a dead end street until faith was restored.

Now that I’m older, here’s what I’ve learned.  At the point where belief and unbelief meet at the fork in the road, self-preservation is born.  When I believe God to be impotent, I rise to the occasion to take care of myself.  In arrogance and in fear, I conceive ways to cope in order to survive.  This is all a reaction to the lie that God is powerless.  I do not realize that my plans, oaths, and new alliances will be wasted.

What is the battle plan?  1. Confess my unbelief and my fears.  2. Ask God to comfort me and give me faith.  3. Force-feed the Word into my heart.   4. Go back to the specific place where belief ended and unbelief was conceived; ask the Holy Spirit to speak to me about that tenuous place so that I can understand and learn from it.

Jesus is tender with my wounds.  He is the gentle healer.  His heart is for me but I must be tough on my sin of unbelief.  Healing comes when I find the corresponding truths from God’s Word that confront my specific lies.  I begin to live differently when I recite God’s Words out loud.  (“I once believed _________ but God said ______________.”)  This takes time.  There must be a daily resolve to keep embracing what God says by asking Him to write His Word on my heart.  What follows if I am diligent?  Spiritual prosperity.  An enlarged view of God.  The glorious freedom that comes from living in truth.

You meant it!  “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”  I believe.   Amen