One thing I have learned after nearly 20 years of homeschooling my boys is I cannot teach what I have not learned. It takes time to learn, to process, and to apply concepts to our life. Learning is not something we can come by in a 200 character caption on social media.
This is true of subjects in school as well as God’s truth. If I haven’t yet learned and applied the truth to my life, then I certainly have no business teaching it.
Walking through Exodus in recent days, I am freshly reminded of this as God calls Moses to take the bold step of going to the Pharaoh and asking for the release of His people. God makes this promise to Moses, “Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak,” (Exodus 4:12). God then reiterates this truth to Moses regarding himself and Aaron in verse 15, “I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do.”
Two things stand out in this promise that we can tend our way by as we seek to learn and apply God’s truths to our life.
First of all, God is with them. He is present in the teaching. He does not separate Himself from the lessons He is teaching us. He is near and active. When we walk through the hard trials that teach or the joyful abundances that encourage or the losses that shape us, our God is right there.
Secondly, God is the one doing the teaching. If I am learning His ways, His truth and His Word, He is the one teaching me. Through the Holy Spirit in the believer, He is pressing the truth into our inmost places and giving us the ability to digest, learn and apply His ways to our life.
Jesus, Himself, promised us that when He returned to the Father, He would give us His Holy Spirit. “The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you, “ (John 14:26).
If you and I will walk in step with the Spirit and press into the Word of God, we can begin, by the Spirit of God, to learn the ways of God. As Paul urged his mentee, Timothy, we are then to continue in what we have learned and firmly believe, knowing from whom we have learned it (2 Timothy 3:14).
And that is tending our life by the Word of God.
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“God is with them…He is near and active” – love this so much. It is so comforting.
amen, Wemi, such a comfort indeed.
As someone who describes herself as a Bible Enthusiast, I concur heartily with this post. I love that God is doing the teaching, and I especially love it when I see something new in passages I’ve studied before. Layer upon layer, He reveals rich truth to us in His word.
Yes, I love it when He highlights something for me in my current season, too! Such a gift!