Tag: learning

Goals for Teaching and Learning

On By Ed AlgreenIn A Lamp unto My Path, Adoration, Answered Prayer, Appreciation, Awesome God, Beyond Description, Blessing, Celebrate God, Needs, Praise, Praise-worthy, Recognize God, WorshipLeave a comment

DATE POSTED: Friday, January 12, 2024, and I was blessed to be at Advent Christian Village, Dowling Park, FL when God inspired me to prepare this devotional. My Footnote will tell you how to find, read or listen to any and all episodes that I have shared over the years.

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE FROM THE New Century Version (NCV) IS FOUND IN Proverbs 22:17-19

THE BIBLE TEXT IS: Listen carefully to what wise people say; pay attention to what I am teaching you.
It will be good to keep these things in mind so that you are ready to repeat them.
I am teaching them to you now so that you will put your trust in the Lord.

APPLICATION OF THE WORD: I sure wish that over my years of teaching in Sunday School, Marriage Enrichment classes and elsewhere, I would have had as my goal ‘So that they (my students) might trust in the Lord’. I found these verses today very intriguing, for in verse 18, I believe that students will learn that you’re not just in class for a perfect attendance award, but instead, to listen careful to the wisdom being taught, and to record those words in your heart so that you will have wise words of advice to give to others. When you sit in front of a television and fill your mind with all the unfortunate reporting that fill our evening news channels, or if you sit in a local bar and listen to the anger, frustration and brokenness of families today, your heart may very well be soured by, and disappointed from, everything you hear. But God’s Word is filled with wisdom for every good and perfect desire of a man’s heart. Solomon, the author of Proverbs, is known as the wisest man that ever lived. One can expect to find his words of wisdom filled with useful advice for any child of God seeking to follow the desire of the Holy Spirit who inspired this writer as an integral part of God’s Word. So where then should you spend your spare time? I believe that as your mind is saturated by the Word of God, and you make it a priority to meditate on the Creator of this world, you will have a growing desire to be more like Jesus in everything you say and do. As you seek His face, learn about His commands, desire and direction for your life, I believe you will wind up seeking Him out more and more each day. This will come from your desire to communicate with Him, learn more from his Word every day, and seek out learning opportunities frequently. Teachers of the gospel, please notice the responsibility and commitment these thoughts place on you. Why do you teach? Just to fill a vacant spot at church? Have you set an overall goal you are asking God to help you achieve through your teaching? This Scripture might be yet another reminder that your teaching is more of a God thing than anything you can drum up from your own resources. Your students need more of God, and less of you and your personal desires and wishes. Do you teach every lesson so that your students might be encouraged to grow in the Lord Jesus Christ?

PRAYER BECAUSE OF THE IMPACT OF TODAY’S SCRIPTURE: Lord Jesus, thank You for teaching us again today the importance of opening our ears of understanding and our hungry minds that yearn to grow more like You every day, so that we might always be better representatives of Yours before a lost and dying world. If a natural disaster was approaching, we would be in the highest form of urgency to convince our family, friends, students and all others in our circle of influence, that the need for salvation from material destruction is at hand. Please Lord, teach us that same urgency when it comes to teaching and sharing the urgency to set aside material gain, and instead, see with urgency the need for a Savior who would accept us and forgive us of our sin. Please open our minds to accept the wisdom taught to us by our teachers, pastors and elders. Please gift our leaders with more and more wisdom, and their need to trust in You for all things, while losing sight of the need to please others who need so much more of you. Oh Lord, may Your kingdom come, and Your will be done, on earth and in the hearts of all who will meditate on this devotional today. AMEN!

FOOTNOTE: There’s another page on my website, entitled ‘To Know Jesus’. If you have been challenged to make a decision today after reading or listening to this devotional, please go to this page, or speak with a local Bible Teaching Pastor, or contact me at NuggetsFromGodsWord@outlook.com. Please allow someone to pray with you and give you help and/or encouragement as you begin or continue your walk with Jesus. If you would like to read more of my devotionals, or subscribe for a daily email containing each new devotional, please go online to NuggetsFromGodsWord.org. For my podcast, go online to Apple Podcasts or, using the Apple Podcast app, simply search for Nuggets From God’s Word to hear more episodes, or click ‘Follow’ to be notified of Podcast updates. Friends, please allow me to encourage you to find a church home nearby your home and attend as frequently as you could. Get to know God and allow His people to encourage and strengthen you in your Christian walk, while making every effort to be a blessing to them. God is at work among His people! Please consider growing in your faith, as you worship with fellow believers!

Simple Words Powered By The Holy Spirit

On By Ed AlgreenIn Answered Prayer, Appreciation, Needs, Praise, Recognize God, Spiritual Gifts, Understanding, WorshipLeave a comment

DATE POSTED Wednesday, 2022-04-27
WRITTEN AT: Citra, FL

SCRIPTURE FROM: 1 Corinthians 2:1-5
TRANSLATION: Living Bible (TLB)

BIBLE TEXT: 1 Dear brothers, even when I first came to you I didn’t use lofty words and brilliant ideas to tell you God’s message. 2 For I decided that I would speak only of Jesus Christ and his death on the cross. 3 I came to you in weakness—timid and trembling. 4 And my preaching was very plain, not with a lot of oratory and human wisdom, but the Holy Spirit’s power was in my words, proving to those who heard them that the message was from God. 5 I did this because I wanted your faith to stand firmly upon God, not on man’s great ideas.

APPLICATION: Praise God for those who have been persistent and successful throughout their years of education, and have shown initiative to excel and learn even more about a particular trade. Often we might step back and congratulate them, for their gifts help them excel in their jobs. In our biblical account of Paul, we must realize that He had just come from Corinth where we see him going to Mars Hill in the city of Athens, gathering with the intelligent students of the day to discuss with one another about the happenings of their day and place, and as in Paul’s case, to teach and preach the Word of God. Often this discussion and philosophy would serve only to help the very top students of the day, because the success of his sermon was very minimal in reaching the actual hearts of the lost and uneducated. Commentaries believe that this intellectual time by Paul failed in his mission to teach and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Coming now to Corinth, Paul was touched by God to speak the truth of the Word to the common person, and not be so concerned about impressing just the highly educated. This helps to explain why Paul placed aside his oratory skills and instead sought the help of the Holy Spirit and the heart of God for His people. I believe it is evident that God uses hearts to touch hearts, for eloquent words often fall by the wayside. Does this still happen in our churches today? Of course this continues. I sincerely believe that it is often not intentional, as we all tend to speak at the level that we would normally communicate in life. So I believe that it takes the power of God to actually help a teacher or preacher to simplify his message so that those in attendance would understand and apply the message to their lives. After all, why study and labor over a lesson or a sermon, if it will fall on deaf ears, or is not understood by those listening. Friends, that could also happen in any of our lives. For those who have attended church and been under the listening of thousands of sermons or Bible studies, we have learned a language that only fellow Christians truly understand. How then can we speak to an unchurched, unbeliever, who knows nothing about our special language? The important thing that comes out in this lesson today is that Paul sought the help and power of the Holy Spirit, and I am convinced that the Holy Spirit not only knows what we need to simplify, but He also knows the level at which the hearer needs to understand. Begging God for the wisdom on what to say to those who need to hear, is only one part of the equation. We should also ask God to bless us with an understanding heart – one that will identify with our audience and help us to become one with them. God’s messenger who could teach His Word is a unique and amazing thing, but to also find one who could simplify it so that even the uneducated, unsaved, needy person who might be weak in their faith, is nothing less that miraculous. May God bless the messenger who is attentive to the Holy Spirit in teaching and preaching the Word of God in simplicity and clarity!

BLESSING(S) NOTED: To understand God’s Word is far more beneficial than to listen to many eloquent words that do not clearly teach us the picture that God wants painted in our hearts and minds.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, thank You for leaving us Your Word, and also the Holy Spirit to bless us in our understanding of it. Please help us to always be mindful of the hearer when we try to witness, teach and preach, so that the world will know about You and their need for salvation, and not just be impressed with our level of education. Thank You for our educators, and for where they have brought us to scholastically. Please help us to reach family and friends from all walks of life and varied levels of education. Holy Spirit, please help us to always understand what our audience knows about our Father, so that our teaching and our witness will result in the unsaved receiving Jesus, spiritual growth and in productive fruit. Please open the heart of our hearers so that they will desire to know more about the Jesus we love, adore and serve. AMEN!

FOOTNOTE: There are two more pages on my blog that will provide you with additional information, one of them being ‘To Know Jesus’. If you have been challenged to make a decision today after reading this devotional, please click on the above page, or speak with a local Bible Teaching Pastor, or contact me at NuggetsFromGodsWord@outlook.com. Please allow someone to pray with you and give you help and/or encouragement as you begin, or continue your walk with Jesus. Words underlined in my blog might indicate a link to a song that came to mind as I wrote the devotional. Feel free to click on the link and listen as you continue to read or pray. If this devotional was forwarded to you and you would like to see more, please go to Nuggets From God’s Word and read more, or you may freely subscribe for a daily email conveniently containing each day’s devotional. You may also visit me on Spotify and listen to Nuggets while you’re out and about. I would encourage you to find a church home near by your home, and attend as frequently as you could. Get to know God, and allow His people to encourage and strengthen you in your Christian walk, while making every effort to be a blessing to them. God is at work among His people! Please consider growing in your faith, as you worship with fellow believers!