Geometry And Jesus

Dear Friends,

I am one of those people who learns by doing. It was something I discovered in high school as I was trying to master geometry. No matter how many times I listened to the teacher explain the Pythagorean Theorem, I never really understood it until I tried working the problems myself. Then it made sense to me.

However, it wasn't until I was in my mid-30's that I realized that my learning style applied to my spiritual life as well. In other words, I found that I understood what God's Word was telling me so much more when I actually started “living it out”. It’s not that I didn’t get any benefit from reading the Bible, it's just that what I was reading became so much more real when I tried putting it into practice. So for example, my faith increased as I tried living more by faith. My patience grew as I practiced being more patient. And my ability to love others increased when I was intentional about choosing to love them.

Clearly, I’m not the first person to realize the benefit of “learning by doing” when it comes to God’s Word. It’s a system God has had in place for a long time. Jesus came to this earth to be a living, breathing example of how children of God are designed to live. So He showed us how to love and care for each other by loving and caring for others. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus showed us what obedience looks like. On the cross, He showed us what love looks like. And in the resurrection, He showed us what victory looks like. Jesus showed us all of that, and so much more. BUT - when He was getting ready to leave this earth, His last words of instruction were to “go and do”. It's an instruction to take everything that has been seen and heard from Jesus, and put it into practice. To actually do it. James 1:22 puts it like this:  “Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers.”

Seems pretty clear. God wants us to learn more about what it means to live for Him by actually putting into practice what it is we're learning about Him. Which makes sense, because actually doing what we've studied helps us to truly see the depth of what it is that we've learned.

So today, let's ask God to help us to become “doers of God's word”. Let’s ask Him to help us take what we know, and put it into practice each and every day so that we will not only grow in our understanding of God, and how He designed us to live, but so we’ll daily become more and more like Jesus.

Amen?

Daniel