Most students said goodbye to their summer breaks and returned to school this week! Wow, two months have passed by entirely too quickly (most students would undoubtedly agree with that assessment as well J). As I’ve been praying for the students over the course of the past week, I can’t help but feel a certain amount of trepidation for them. Our children are attending school in a totally different environment than what we had to deal with. They will also face challenging situations that we never before experienced. Let’s face it. It’s a very uncertain, often scary world in which we live, and some of us are sending our children out there…alone. You understand the feeling. So my prayer for them over the past week or so is that they simply remember that they are not walking alone and that they don’t lose sight of who it is that is walking with them. I pray that they would learn new lessons and that they would learn them well. I have also prayed that they would keep their eyes open to new things that the Lord Himself wants to teach them throughout the new school year. Finally, I pray for a sense of boldness and passion and commitment to sharing their faith with their peers, and I pray that the Lord would lead them to intentional opportunities to share His love with others.
That got me thinking. Am I doing what it is I am praying for the students to do? Am I living out my faith in my setting CONSISTENTLY? Am I looking INTENTIONALLY for opportunities to share Christ with others? Am I still TEACHABLE? I’d like to think that I am doing all these things, but alas, the reality of the situation is that I’m not. The apostle John talks about this in 2 John:
“(4) It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. (5) And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. (6) And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.
(9) Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.”-2 John 4-6, 9
It occurred to me that the students aren’t the only ones who have things to learn. Sometimes, we as Christians have this mindset that we know all we need to know about the things of God. As a result, we almost live our lives on auto pilot, doing our daily routines with little to no direction from the Lord. If our desire is for our children to walk in the truth, then what are doing to point them to that truth? John is saying in this passage that the formula is not rocket science. This is nothing new. Rather, our most important lesson to learn is one that the Lord gave us when we first came to saving faith in Him. That lesson is to simply live lives of love that point people to eternal truth. If we live those lives consistently and intentionally, and remain teachable as John instructs us to do in verse 9, then we will be pointing people to someone who can and will change their lives. Lesson received.
I never expected that the Lord would take me “back to school”, so to speak, but here I am. I’m thankful that He is still teaching me things after nearly 30 years of walking with Him, even if we have to go back to basics sometimes. What about you? What is the Lord teaching you? Are you pointing your children to the truth through the way you live your life? If not, then maybe it’s time to go back to school and spend some time with the Lord and see what He is trying to teach you. Class is back in session. Are you prepared?
Until Next Time,
Pastor JP
