THEME FOR THE MONTH: IT'S ALL ABOUT LOVE

LIVING AND LEARNING: IT'S ALL ABOUT LOVE

One of the greatest qualities that we can have as disciples is an eagerness, willingness and desire to learn - to keep on growing continually. We need to love learning.

Let us consider the examples of several people, who learned from:

1. A DONKEY
Numbers 22:21-34
In resisting learning from a donkey, Balaam was resisting learning life-saving lessons from God. There are key lessons we can learn from thje people around us in our lives.

Q. Are there people or situations from whom you are not willing to learn?
Q. Are you eager to be discipled?
Q. Do you initiate to get discipled, or do you wait to be approached, settling not to be discipled if such an approach is not made by your discipler?

2. A DAME
Acts 18:24-26
In many cases, men are not willing to learn from women. Apollos, as much as he knew and as effective as he had been, was ready to learn from a lady, Priscilla.

Acts 18:27,28
The result of Apollos learning from Priscilla is that he becomes even more effective.
The fruit of humbling yourself to learn from others is spiritual growth.

Q. Have you grown spiritually in the last six months?
Q. Have you been willing to learn from any disciple, or have you been selective about who you listen to?

3. DIFFICULTY
Hebrews 5:8
Difficulty is designed by God to make us better and not bitter. Jesus learned obedience - not bitterness - from the suffering he underwent during his life. Difficulty should not be cause to get upset at God. You can take the lessons you learn through hardship and use them to teach others who later on go through similar experiences.

4. DISASTER
Job 42:1-6
After much soul-searching following the tragedy of losing his whole family, Job learned, to serve and trust God.

Job 42:10,12a
God's response to Job's humility was to bless him incredibly. When you decide to learn through he painful tragedies and loss that you experience, rather than respond to them by getting angry at God and/or blaming him, God rewards and blesses you.

Q. In what way has your attitude been like or unlike that of Job?

5. DAD-IN-LAW
Exodus 18:17-21
In many cases, people have poor relationships with their in-laws. Moses was humble, listened to and learned from his father-in-law. He could have decided that because he was the leader, had spoken with God directly, and had spectacularly brought the entire Hebrew nation out of Egypt through the sea, that there was no one he could learn from except god himself. But he chose to be a learner.

Exodus 18:24-26
The fruit of Moses being a great learner was that Moses became even more effective in his leadership and the needs of the people were well met.

6. A DISCIPLE OF LESS EXPERIENCE
Galatians 2:11-13

Peter was an "older Christian" than Paul. He had walked with Jesus and walked on water. He is the one who was given, and delivered, the keys. He was present at the transfiguration. Paul came into the faith much later, and not before hating the movement of Christ and slaughtering the followers of Christ. But peter still needed to learn from Paul when corrected by him.

Q. Do you feel that you can only learn from or be discipled by those who have been in the faith longer than you? No one is obligated to have a discipler or to be discipled by someone they would rather not be discipled by, but it is not spiritually healthy to judge or write people off simply and solely due to how long they have or have not been in the faith.

Let us love to learn, and learn to love learning, and the fruits will be immense.