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Pointers along the way #758

Multi-sided learning

- Jacob Ninan

In our Christian growth, because of our limited ability to understand and process things, we tend to learn things one thing at a time. Sometimes as we read or hear God's word, one particular thing stands out for us. That is the Holy Spirit pointing out something to us. When we are sincere, we get so moved by it that for some time we can't think of anything else. We think this one thing is the reason for our failures or lack of growth, and we start working on it. We may not realise we are somewhat lop-sided because we are focussing on one aspect of truth to the neglect of many others. We notice that sometimes churches have split when one one person was so taken up with 'one truth' that he felt that the rest of the church wasn't paying enough attention to it.

It is good for us to be excited about truths in such a way that we are moved to action. But we must remember that any one truth is not the full truth, and that we need other truths also to keep us in balance!

When we begin our Christian life some of us are very confident of ourselves and our natural abilities and we may start out 'doing things for God'. Sometimes leaders tell young people to serve God by using the natural abilities God has given them instead of asking God what He wants them to do. Natural abilities may impress some people, but God's work can only be done through God's power (Jn.15:4), through depending on the Holy Spirit to break us down at the natural level and to build us up spiritually. So these people make mistake after mistake and finally learn that they are to be totally dependent on God for producing any spiritual results (Pr.3:5,6). When they overcome their disillusionment over their failures, they can now begin to produce lasting results through the Spirit.

But if they have lost all confidence in themselves and they now wait on God to initiate and do everything for them, they get disappointed again! He wants us to be actively involved in His work (Ps.32:8,9). Actually God wants us to depend on Him and His strength, and thus develop our own spiritual muscles trying to understand and do the will of God (He.5:13,14).

Some others start with a poor image of themselves because of their earlier failures before they came to Christ. What they need to learn first is that when they depend on God He can do mighty things through them in spite of their past failures. But after that perhaps they have to still learn that God wants them to use their abilities under the guidance and strength of the Holy Spirit.

We first learn that we cannot do anything spiritual without God and that we can do all things through Him. Then we need to go on to doing everything with the full conviction that it is all God's work and not ours, and at the same time presenting all of us and our abilities to Him to use as He wills (Ro.12:1). God wants to make us strong men and women who will do exploits for Him without attributing any honour or recognition to ourselves.

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