Daniel Fast Day 9
FRUITFULNESS
Learning Matters - Part 1
The happiest people are growing people. We are supposed to grow physically, mentally, relationally, and spiritually. Show me a person, especially a Christ follower, who is not growing and you will find dissatisfaction and sometimes downright misery. Non-growing people find ways to complain about life, and usually, it’s never their fault. Some people are stuck. They haven’t had a new thought in decades. They are alive, but not truly living. I don’t know if you’ve ever been stuck in the mud with a vehicle where the engine is revving, the wheels are spinning, the mud is flying, there’s lots of noise and people might be frantic, yet the car isn’t going anywhere. We have to learn that all effort is not necessarily fruitful, but fruitfulness requires effort with wisdom. Just like the car stuck in the mud, if we apply the wrong effort, it will produce the wrong results. In order to get unstuck, we don’t just need effort, we need the right kind of effort. Our effort has to be focused in the right place.
A person’s growth is not subject to their outside environment, although it can help. It is subject to their inside mindset. The mindset that is willing to push through any and all obstacles, including a thought process that is stuck in the old. Paul admonishes the believers in Colossae to put on the new and disregard the old. Colossians 3:10-11(NLT) “Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.”
We are encouraged to put on the new nature and be renewed as we learn to know the Father and become like Him. We have to be willing to learn. To learn means to gain an understanding of something new and to change accordingly. Learning is not simply the gathering of information; it is the application of the information that was gained. You haven’t learned something because you can quote or recite the information, you’ve learned something when you apply what you have learned. To know something is to do what we say we know. Are you willing to learn? Learning takes effort. The first place of effort is to get the information. Do you read? Obviously, you do, because you are reading this great devotional!
According to goodereader.com, 33% of high school graduates never read another book the rest of their lives, 42% of college graduates never read another book after college, 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years, and 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year. Whether these statistics are accurate or not, it is still very alarming how few make reading a priority in their lives. Somehow, we have bought the lie that once you finish high school or college, you don’t need to learn anymore. No wonder we get stuck. I am very proud of you for reading this, but don’t stop here. Make a quality decision to read, especially God’s Word. God’s Word is transformational because the Holy Spirit will quicken your mind so that you may put into practice what you are reading.
Joshua encouraged the people to study the Law, to speak about it, and to meditate on it consistently because then they will be able to act accordingly. Joshua 1:8(EHV) “This Book of the Law must never depart from your mouth, and you are to meditate on it day and night, so that you will act faithfully according to everything written in it, because then you will prosper in everything you do, and you will succeed.”
If you just read 30 minutes a day, you can read an entire book every week of your life, unless it is Marcel Proust’s Book, “In search of Lost Time” which boasts 1.3 million words or Karl Barth’s book “Church Dogmatics” that only has over 6 million words in the English translation (and you were complaining about my long devotionals). However, just read 30 minutes a day and you could read 50 books a year. Take half the year off and you could still read 25 books a year. The average American watches almost 3 hours of television a day. I am not knocking tv, I am knocking an unwillingness to learn. What if you simply cut 30 minutes off of your viewing time and read instead? When we are more interested in being entertained than in learning, we become apathetic to our spiritual growth and spiritual things. We stay spiritually immature, not because we cannot grow or we don’t have the resources to grow, but because we are unwilling to stretch and learn so we may grow. Fruitful people are learners, learners are listeners, listeners are growers and growers will always increase. Learning makes things better, not just for me, but also for those around me. Are you willing to listen so that you may learn? Proverbs 1:5a(EHV) “A wise person should listen, and he will increase learning…” Are you a wise person? If you are, you will be listening and learning. The writer of Hebrews has this to say: Hebrews 5:11-14(MSG) “I have a lot more to say about this, but it is hard to get it across to you since you’ve picked up this bad habit of not listening. By this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet here I find you need someone to sit down with you and go over the basics on God again, starting from square one—baby’s milk, when you should have been on solid food long ago! Milk is for beginners, inexperienced in God’s ways; solid food is for the mature, who have some practice in telling right from wrong.”
What spiritual diet are you on; baby food or solid food? We are told to put on our new nature and learn what it means to look like our Father. The ugly list that Paul mentions in Colossians 3:5-9 has no relevance in our lives when we are walking in our new nature in Christ because we are learning how to act like our Father. We are imitators of our Father. Hebrews 5:14(NASB1995) “But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”
It takes practice to train our senses to be able to discern between good and evil. Believers who are not in training are exposing themselves to the elements of this world system, and some are falling for the lies. Mature believers listen, eat spiritual solid food, and have trained their senses, through practice, to recognize what is beneficial and what is harmful. When we struggle with baby’s milk such as love one another, serve one another, fellowship with one another and give to one another, we have a difficult time differentiating between that which is helpful and that which is harmful. Foundational truths such as, we are saved by grace, we need to be baptized, laying on of hands, resurrection is real, judgment is coming, and there is a hell, these things are supposed to be milk! If we struggle with milk, how will we do with solid food?
Hebrews 6:1-3(MSG) “So come on, let’s leave the preschool finger-painting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ. The basic foundational truths are in place: turning your back on “salvation by self-help” and turning in trust toward God; baptismal instructions; laying on of hands; resurrection of the dead; eternal judgment. God helping us, we’ll stay true to all that. But there’s so much more. Let’s get on with it!”
Mature believers don’t spit up their food, they digest it. Babies spit up, a lot! Are you spitting up truth because you cannot digest it? Are you struggling to learn because truth is not tickling your ears? Some of us would rather stay the same and hope for the best, rather than actively pursuing growing in our walk with Christ. Truth might not always taste good, but truth is always beneficial for our spiritual progress. Spiritual milk and junk food might look good and taste good, but it has little nutritional value for your soul. It’s time to become a learner because learning matters for all saints!
Prayer and Reflection:
Father, I want to give You glory and praise. You deserve all honor and I worship You for who You are. Thank You that I can take off the old and put on the new. Thank You that I can learn about You, my Creator, and do what You tell me to do. Thank You for creating me with the capacity to learn and to grow. Help me not to stagnate or become indifferent towards growth, especially growing in You.
I want to learn and I want to grow. Please give me the wisdom I need and the strength to obey You in all things. Holy Spirit, help me train my senses so that I may discern between that which is of You and that which is not! May Your church be filled with the Spirit of wisdom and understanding. May our mouths be full of Your Word, our minds be renewed by Your Word, our hearts changed by Your Word, and our spirits quickened by Your Word. May we, Your people, become mature so that we may receive the truth with meekness and speak the truth in love. Thank you, Father, that You hear our prayers. In Jesus Name, Amen!
Learning Matters - Part 1
The happiest people are growing people. We are supposed to grow physically, mentally, relationally, and spiritually. Show me a person, especially a Christ follower, who is not growing and you will find dissatisfaction and sometimes downright misery. Non-growing people find ways to complain about life, and usually, it’s never their fault. Some people are stuck. They haven’t had a new thought in decades. They are alive, but not truly living. I don’t know if you’ve ever been stuck in the mud with a vehicle where the engine is revving, the wheels are spinning, the mud is flying, there’s lots of noise and people might be frantic, yet the car isn’t going anywhere. We have to learn that all effort is not necessarily fruitful, but fruitfulness requires effort with wisdom. Just like the car stuck in the mud, if we apply the wrong effort, it will produce the wrong results. In order to get unstuck, we don’t just need effort, we need the right kind of effort. Our effort has to be focused in the right place.
A person’s growth is not subject to their outside environment, although it can help. It is subject to their inside mindset. The mindset that is willing to push through any and all obstacles, including a thought process that is stuck in the old. Paul admonishes the believers in Colossae to put on the new and disregard the old. Colossians 3:10-11(NLT) “Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.”
We are encouraged to put on the new nature and be renewed as we learn to know the Father and become like Him. We have to be willing to learn. To learn means to gain an understanding of something new and to change accordingly. Learning is not simply the gathering of information; it is the application of the information that was gained. You haven’t learned something because you can quote or recite the information, you’ve learned something when you apply what you have learned. To know something is to do what we say we know. Are you willing to learn? Learning takes effort. The first place of effort is to get the information. Do you read? Obviously, you do, because you are reading this great devotional!
According to goodereader.com, 33% of high school graduates never read another book the rest of their lives, 42% of college graduates never read another book after college, 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years, and 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year. Whether these statistics are accurate or not, it is still very alarming how few make reading a priority in their lives. Somehow, we have bought the lie that once you finish high school or college, you don’t need to learn anymore. No wonder we get stuck. I am very proud of you for reading this, but don’t stop here. Make a quality decision to read, especially God’s Word. God’s Word is transformational because the Holy Spirit will quicken your mind so that you may put into practice what you are reading.
Joshua encouraged the people to study the Law, to speak about it, and to meditate on it consistently because then they will be able to act accordingly. Joshua 1:8(EHV) “This Book of the Law must never depart from your mouth, and you are to meditate on it day and night, so that you will act faithfully according to everything written in it, because then you will prosper in everything you do, and you will succeed.”
If you just read 30 minutes a day, you can read an entire book every week of your life, unless it is Marcel Proust’s Book, “In search of Lost Time” which boasts 1.3 million words or Karl Barth’s book “Church Dogmatics” that only has over 6 million words in the English translation (and you were complaining about my long devotionals). However, just read 30 minutes a day and you could read 50 books a year. Take half the year off and you could still read 25 books a year. The average American watches almost 3 hours of television a day. I am not knocking tv, I am knocking an unwillingness to learn. What if you simply cut 30 minutes off of your viewing time and read instead? When we are more interested in being entertained than in learning, we become apathetic to our spiritual growth and spiritual things. We stay spiritually immature, not because we cannot grow or we don’t have the resources to grow, but because we are unwilling to stretch and learn so we may grow. Fruitful people are learners, learners are listeners, listeners are growers and growers will always increase. Learning makes things better, not just for me, but also for those around me. Are you willing to listen so that you may learn? Proverbs 1:5a(EHV) “A wise person should listen, and he will increase learning…” Are you a wise person? If you are, you will be listening and learning. The writer of Hebrews has this to say: Hebrews 5:11-14(MSG) “I have a lot more to say about this, but it is hard to get it across to you since you’ve picked up this bad habit of not listening. By this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet here I find you need someone to sit down with you and go over the basics on God again, starting from square one—baby’s milk, when you should have been on solid food long ago! Milk is for beginners, inexperienced in God’s ways; solid food is for the mature, who have some practice in telling right from wrong.”
What spiritual diet are you on; baby food or solid food? We are told to put on our new nature and learn what it means to look like our Father. The ugly list that Paul mentions in Colossians 3:5-9 has no relevance in our lives when we are walking in our new nature in Christ because we are learning how to act like our Father. We are imitators of our Father. Hebrews 5:14(NASB1995) “But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”
It takes practice to train our senses to be able to discern between good and evil. Believers who are not in training are exposing themselves to the elements of this world system, and some are falling for the lies. Mature believers listen, eat spiritual solid food, and have trained their senses, through practice, to recognize what is beneficial and what is harmful. When we struggle with baby’s milk such as love one another, serve one another, fellowship with one another and give to one another, we have a difficult time differentiating between that which is helpful and that which is harmful. Foundational truths such as, we are saved by grace, we need to be baptized, laying on of hands, resurrection is real, judgment is coming, and there is a hell, these things are supposed to be milk! If we struggle with milk, how will we do with solid food?
Hebrews 6:1-3(MSG) “So come on, let’s leave the preschool finger-painting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ. The basic foundational truths are in place: turning your back on “salvation by self-help” and turning in trust toward God; baptismal instructions; laying on of hands; resurrection of the dead; eternal judgment. God helping us, we’ll stay true to all that. But there’s so much more. Let’s get on with it!”
Mature believers don’t spit up their food, they digest it. Babies spit up, a lot! Are you spitting up truth because you cannot digest it? Are you struggling to learn because truth is not tickling your ears? Some of us would rather stay the same and hope for the best, rather than actively pursuing growing in our walk with Christ. Truth might not always taste good, but truth is always beneficial for our spiritual progress. Spiritual milk and junk food might look good and taste good, but it has little nutritional value for your soul. It’s time to become a learner because learning matters for all saints!
Prayer and Reflection:
- Do you feel like you are stuck? Have you considered why? What can you do to get unstuck?
- Not all effort produces results. How can you make sure that what you do is not simply spinning your wheels, but actively moving you forward? How can you tell the difference?
- As a learner, how good are your listening skills? What can you do to improve them?
- A learner is a reader. Do you find reading challenging? What challenges do you have with reading God’s Word? Have you considered doing something practical such as getting an audio version of the Bible?
- It takes practice to train our senses to discern between what is good and what is evil. How well trained are you? In an ever-changing world, mature saints make God’s Word their final authority, not the world or their feelings, even if it is challenging. Is the Word of God your final authority or is it simply a point of reference?
Father, I want to give You glory and praise. You deserve all honor and I worship You for who You are. Thank You that I can take off the old and put on the new. Thank You that I can learn about You, my Creator, and do what You tell me to do. Thank You for creating me with the capacity to learn and to grow. Help me not to stagnate or become indifferent towards growth, especially growing in You.
I want to learn and I want to grow. Please give me the wisdom I need and the strength to obey You in all things. Holy Spirit, help me train my senses so that I may discern between that which is of You and that which is not! May Your church be filled with the Spirit of wisdom and understanding. May our mouths be full of Your Word, our minds be renewed by Your Word, our hearts changed by Your Word, and our spirits quickened by Your Word. May we, Your people, become mature so that we may receive the truth with meekness and speak the truth in love. Thank you, Father, that You hear our prayers. In Jesus Name, Amen!
Posted in Daniel Fast 2024