We learn things all the time. Some things we set out to learn, other things are known just by continuing to live our life and keeping our eyes and ears open to what we see and hear. Sometimes we don’t want to learn but are forced to learn because of our situation. In any case, there is great importance to learning. Growing up should always go hand and hand with understanding. If you want to grow, you must be willing to learn because knowledge gives you answers and prepares you to act when you are called upon.
There is a kind of learning that pertains to the world and its people. I’m not going to focus on that part in this teaching. Here I want you to give your attention to how to learn the thoughts and ways of God. This will focus you on the learning that pertains to God and your spiritual life. If you are like me, you love learning God’s secrets and mysteries. His truth and revelations are a trustworthy source of life for all who live in them.
This learning is about life beyond the flesh. It is understanding that goes beyond the world we live in every day. This learning has the value and importance of eternal life. It is about learning the mind of God and why He says what He says and does what He does.
To prepare you, you must learn that everything has to be divided to attain salvation—good and evil, life and death, light and darkness, to name a few. But one of the most incredible things to learn in salvation is that you need to be saved. You realize that you are divided from God, and there is One True God, and you are not Him. You have to learn that you need God in your life if you are going to enter eternal life. When you begin to realize your state of being and how far from God you are, only then will you recognize your actual need for Him. In this state of mind, this teaching will benefit you the most.
Why? Because when it comes to learning God, we must come ready and willing to learn. If we think that we are already God-Like, then we will not be taught by Him, nor will we be changed into His likeness because we do not need Him. When you approach God in that mindset, you will only walk away with the knowledge of Him, but you will not be like Him. When that happens, it makes you more dangerous than you were before you knew anything about God.
I am writing it this way because we have to approach the Lord as One who is superior to our weakness. The same way a student would approach a teacher, or a son would come to a father. God has all, created all, and knows all. He is holy and righteous. His words are true and just. There is no error and no lie in Him. You must come to His classroom believing that His way is the right way, ready to give your life to His cause.
If you have been taught things in your life before reading this, remember to think soberly and be humble before God at all times. As long as you’re on the earth, you will always have more to learn and plenty of room to grow. As stated above, learning is a crucial part of your eternal life. How you learn does matter. Everyone is very different in the way they approach learning, yet everyone is very much the same in many ways.
So here are four simple principles that will help you learn as you grow in the Spirit of God. If you apply these to your heart, you will excel in your knowledge and understanding of the truth.
How To Learn God.
1. Trust the teacher.
He is the creator; let him lead you. He will teach you the words of eternal life that will create the right way to think, see, and hear. A good teacher speaks truth and leads by the Spirit. When you come to God, you must believe that He is God. This belief will allow you to trust Him. The Apostle Paul said, “be followers of me as I follow Christ”. 1 Corinthians 11:1
2. Come with a clean sheet of paper.
Do not bring your own expectations; let the teacher create them for you. If your heart already has your expectations listed, you will not correctly listen to the teacher when He doesn’t address your expectations like you think he should. The key is to empty yourself of your own ideas and goals and be taught a new way of the Spirit. The Patriarch David even spoke to his own soul and said, “My soul, waits only upon God; for my expectation is from Him”. Psalms 62:5
3. Learn to see and hear through the eyes and ears of the teacher.
It is God’s story, not yours, so let Him teach it to you. God said, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, and My ways are not your ways”. God’s thoughts and ways are higher than ours, so to be enlightened to the higher thoughts and ways of God, we must see the way He sees and hear the way he hears. Let your prayer be that God gives you a new heart, with new eyes and new ears so that you can experience life as He experiences it.
4. You are there to lose your life and gain the teacher’s.
Your life is not about you. You are learning how eternal life worked in Jesus and will work in you. Jesus said, “Whoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it”. Mark 8:34-38 To gain His life is to be made new. When you are made new, you are His creation, created new in Christ Jesus. That makes you true sons and daughters of God.
5. Love the truth of God.
Truth is the ultimate freedom. Having the truth makes you free from the captivity of fear and false hope. Truth erases the divisions of many and unites them as one. This unity is why the truth has to be the standard by which you live your life. To know the words of Christ and to continue in them is to live free of lies. Living in this freedom is the only way to learn correctly. You do not have a pure gospel when the truth is mixed with lies, and false teachings will emerge from the mixture. If we are to obtain eternal life, it will be the truth that gets us there.
Remember:
You are the clay in the work of the potter’s hand. Isaiah 64:8
You are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:10
Jesus said, “Learn of Me”. Matthew 11:28-30
To add to this teaching, it will be of some value to also learn the things that can hinder you from learning. Below are three things that will help you discern what hinders you from learning eternal life.
What Hinders You From Learning?
1. You bring your own expectation of what you think you should be learning.
In other words, you judge yourself to see what you think you need, and then you form what is being taught to justify fixing yourself. Paul said that “you know nothing of yourself; it’s the Lord who reveals the hidden things of darkness”. Trust the Lord, your teacher, to teach and reveal precisely what you need. 1 Corinthians 4:4-5
2. You think you already know enough.
In the seven churches of Revelation, the church of the Laodiceans believed that they already had what they needed. This way of thinking makes you lukewarm and unteachable. And besides that, you are miserable, poor, and blind, and you don’t even know it. Buy from the teacher and let Him anoint your eyes and open your ears to everything the Lord has for you. Let Him teach you who you are and forget who you think you should be. Revelation 3:17-18.
3. You are not a doer.
You just say, “I don’t understand,” and complain about the teacher while saying that His teaching is not working for you. God gave His people, the children of Israel, a chance to learn faith and trust in Him so they could be people of doers. Faithful men and women who served God with all their hearts. But instead, they only complained and spoke evil against God and Moses, saying that God was trying to kill them and not help them. Numbers 21:5. There must be no complaining and lots of doing. Be a doer by doing everything the teacher commands you to do.
Learning should not be hard. We pick classes and subjects based on what we want to learn in the world. With God, it’s not that way. God has made you be a vessel of His will. Learning only gets complicated when you resist His will to seek your own. To love Jesus is to obey His commandments. And following His commandments will lead you to a life that will take you far beyond any life that your own will could ever give you.
There are many other things to say on this subject, but if you continue in the simplicity of this teaching, you will find yourself learning that even you can experience the fulness of God’s Spirit.