Learn today, earn Tomorrow

Text: Prov 20: 15
More Lessons: Luke 2: 42-49
Bible Reading in One Year: John 18-21

One of the major preparations a man can make for advancement in destiny is in the place of learning. A man who wants to advance, needs a preparation and that preparation is education. In Luke 2:42-49 we read about Jesus in the early stage of His life sitting amongst doctors of law, asking and answering questions. Daniel also was a man great in the place of learning. In Babylon they needed young men who were without blemish, well favoured, skillful in wisdom, cunning in knowledge and understanding science . You may think that with such qualities, he would have started off straight away but they were to come and be taught the learning and tongue of the Chaldeans. (Dan 1: 4)

Many people want to become great but they want their greatness to begin from the roof. You can't climb a tree from the roof. To be great, there must be a period of sitting to learn. If you want to lead, learn to read. Readers are leaders. When you read, you find out how to do it and how not to do it. Learning is by reading and studying first the Bible and then books on varieties of subjects. Believers should know that they need to be learned both in physical and spiritual things. How much you learn today will determine your earnings tomorrow. Anybody who wants to learn must be humble and teachable at heart; he must be observant and willing to ask questions.

Don't just sit down all through a meeting; ask questions on what you don't understand. Also be observant. The attitude of being observant is one thing that is missing in many Christians. Anywhere I go, I observe if there is something to learn there. I ask myself, 'Is there something they do here better than the way I used to do it?' Don't just listen to messages, observe how they are preached; don't just read books, observe how they are written. So that when it is your turn, you can do better. Observe!

Humility is a price that must be paid to learn. Do more of listening than speaking. Some sit with their pastor and go off bragging, instead of them to sit down and say, 'please, what do you see to this?' and let their pastor do the talking. Anybody who will learn must be somebody who can listen. Do more of listening than talking.

Other aspects of a heart that will learn include denying oneself of some pleasures in order to learn. Buying materials that will aid learning and improve your life instead of spending money on irrelevancies.

I encourage you to put on these virtues and start learning in preparation for the advancement that God has proposed for you right before the foundation of the earth.

Prayer/Action
* Ask the Word to quicken your ears to hear, your eyes to see and mind to learn.
* Pray that God will give you a humble heart to learn.
* Lord, help me to be a good leader by cultivating a reading lifestyle.

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Be Teachable

Text: Matt. 18:1-6.
More Lessons: Matt. 13:11-17
Bible Reading in One Year: John 14-17

One attribute that endears children to their teachers is their teachableness. Little children are so teachable that if you teach them a wrong concept, it will take a long time to get them to unlearn it. They will disbelieve their parents and cling to their teacher's instructions and doctrines. Little wonder that Jesus in today's reading exhorts His followers to be like little children. In other words, be teachable, which implies a willingness to acknowledge your inabilities, ignorance and lack of skills. It involves being humble and willing to sit under the one who knows better and learn. Jesus calls,

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls Matt. 11:29.

Christ is the best teacher whose teachings are with authority and life changing power as testified by His disciples. They enjoyed and profited from the teachings of Jesus through the help of the Holy Spirit. You must acquire the attitude of the disciples,

...as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us.... Lk. 11:1.

Being teachable has several advantages
1. It helps to avoid waste of time in ignorance over what you lack skills to do.
2. It leads to increased knowledge for the learner.
3. It adds skills to you as you put yourself under the appropriate instructor.
4. It reduces stress that comes from lack of the know-how.
5. It leads to success without struggle.
6. It is the key to inherit eternal life.

When you stop learning, you stop growing, spiritually and physically, because no man is created an island of knowledge. Somebody always knows something you do not know, and you always know what somebody does not know, it is in exchanging what you know for what you don't know that you become better informed and greatly empowered. Never refuse to learn because knowledge is power; seek for knowledge, buy it, make it a part of all you do. Don't allow any opportunity to learn pass you by. It is one way to be great.

Prayer/Action
* Reject unteachable spirit out of your life.
* Tell the Lord to grant you a teachable spirit like little children.
* Declare that no counsel of hell will prevail over your day.
* Ask God to increase you in knowledge and understanding.

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No Longer Gentiles

Text: Eph.4:17-24
More Lessons: Col.3:3-6
Bible Reading in One Year: John 11-13

The day you truly gave your life to Jesus, your citizenship changed. In the spiritual realm you were moved from the clan of the Gentiles into the family of God, Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: Col.1:13. Gentiles are people who have no portion in God. They are outside of Christ, therefore they have no hope of enjoying the promises of God (Eph.2:12). They are like dogs who can only stay outside and not permitted to enter the house. When Rev. 22:15 says, But outside are dogs.... it refers to Gentiles who do not deserve mercy (1Pet.2:10), but are objects of the wrath of God. In the realm of the spirit, Gentiles don't count; anything can happen to them and nobody will be held responsible. They are slaves of the gods they serve; and just as the slave master is free to do whatever he likes with his property, so is satan, the head of the clan, free to do what he likes with his subjects. Gentiles live for the pleasures of their flesh which their master imposed on them. They have become so consumed by the passion of their flesh that their understanding has become darkened; alienated from the life of God, they are spiritually blind, have lost every sense of feeling, given over to all works of uncleanness, and filled with greed (Eph.4:18-19). But the good news is that you have been brought into the fold of God, But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ: Eph.2:13. It is a privilege to be in Christ Jesus.

So much has been invested in the making of the believer that it will be a great abuse of rights and privileges and a disservice to oneself to contemplate the way of the Gentiles. The Scripture reading today admonishes the believer not to follow the way of the Gentiles, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness: Eph.4:21-24.

Since you no longer belong to the gentile family, you are to live a separated life from them in every way. Although they may think it strange that you do not flow with them and may persecute you, the Scripture says they shall give account to God who will judge the quick and the dead (1Pet.4:5). God encourages you to purge yourself of gentile characters and attributes, come out from among them and separate yourself. Nothing about the unbeliever should give you reason to envy him, rather seek to open their eyes of understanding so that they may come out of the flood that is carrying them to damnation. You are light and must continue to walk in the light. Only those whose gentile root has not been properly cut off, being dogs, go back to their vomit.

Prayer/Action
* Lord, purge me of the character of the Gentile.
* Denounce the old nature and confess your new citizenship.
* Ask for grace to always do what is right even if you are being persecuted.

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Declaring the End from the Beginning

Text: Isa 46:10-11
More Lessons: Rom. 4: 17-22
Bible Reading in One Year: John 7-10

Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: Isa. 46: 10.Faith is all about the audacity to declare the end from the beginning. There is power in your ability to proclaim what you want to see before it ever comes to the physical. Those who want to see things before they declare them are not walking in the Christian faith.

In the world, people say seeing is believing but for Christians, believing is seeing. Because you believe it, you will see it. The people that hinder the move of God in a place are always those people who want to see everything before they believe. God did not see the earth and the heaven before He declared them. He spoke them into being. Nothing happens in the physical except it has been concluded in the spiritual. If you want a miracle, start declaring the end from the beginning. If you insist on seeing it to in the physical before you declare it, you will lose it but if you declare things from the spiritual realm ever before you see them, you will have them. ...Before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were: Rom 4:17-18.

In the Christian faith, we are blind to our environment; we walk by faith and talk by faith.When God is building a structure; while the foundation is not yet on ground physically, He is already talking about the roof. God does not start from the foundation, He starts from the top. By the time you see the foundation in the physical, just know that the structure has been completed because God completes His own structures before their foundations are ever laid. That is why the Bible talks about some things God has finished before the foundation of the world.

Some get discouraged because they have been declaring things they have not seen them. It is not the day a baby is given birth to that it was conceived. As there is a period between the conception and the day of delivery, so also is there a period of time between the day you start declaring a thing and its realization. So you have to continue to say it until you see it.However make sure your declarations are according to the Word of God. Our victory is in declaring what God's word says. . If God has said it, He will surely bring it to pass by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie. (Heb 6: 18)

Prayer/Action
* Father, I declare a successful end for every present situation I am going through
* Ask the Lord to complete everything that concerns you.
* Declare the Word of the Lord over specific situation in your life, declaring the end of it to be in accordance with God’s Word.

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