Tag Archives: teachable

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How is Your Heart?

Proverbs 28:14 (Jubilee Bible 2000), “Blessed is the man that fears God always, but he that hardens his heart shall fall into evil.”

A hard heart is a very dangerous thing. A heart that is hard does not hear the voice of God, it is not teachable or humble and quite frequently it is full of pride. We harden our hearts or allow them to get hard for all different reasons. The most common one is that we are afraid of getting hurt. It’s a self protection mechanism, part of our fallen human nature.

The only problem is that we are only harming ourselves not helping. What we foolishly see as protection actually keeps the One away who wants to protect us. In fact the Comforter can’t even comfort us and heal those past hurts. A hard heart becomes like a stainless steel container that houses bitterness, anger, unforgiveness, and all kinds of ugly junk. If you let it stay hard long enough, it becomes incapable of love.

Have you ever seen the experiment where someone dips a soft petaled rose into liquid nitrogen? They then dash it onto a table top and what happens? It shatters into a million little rose colored shards.

“It’s the hard things that break; soft things don’t break. It was an epiphany I had today and I just wonder why it took me so very, very long to see it! You can waste so many years of your life trying to become something hard in order not to break; but it’s the soft things that can’t break! The hard things are the ones that shatter into a million pieces!” – C. JoyBell

Ok, so maybe you realize your heart is hard, or on its way to diamond plated, what do you do?

First repent. Ask God to forgive you for the sin of self preservation, for putting yourself first, for doubting that He could or would heal you and protect you.

Next, soak it in the word. Look up scriptures about how much He loves you and how important it is for our hearts to be soft, teachable, pliable, and humble. Memorize them if you have to. Tell someone about it so that they can encourage you and hold you accountable.

Years ago a friend of mine and I agreed, after a conversation about the condition (hardness) of our hearts, to occasionally ask each other, “How is your heart?” I can’t tell you how much that helped me. We actually ended up not asking very often, but the thought that she might kept me searching my heart and asking God to help me keep it soft. The outcome was that for a while, some things really hurt! But the good news was that it only proved that my heart was tender again. So when I loved, I really loved!

How is your heart today, my friend?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Am I Teachable?

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Philippians 2:2-4 (NASB), “make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”

Our Senior Pastor, Dr. William Hohman, teaches about humility quite often. One of the things he often says is that “humility means you are teachable”. A humble person admits that he or she doesn’t know everything and is open to sound teaching. Many times over the years as an employee, a manager, a parent, and a teacher, someone would know of an easier way to do something that still got the right results. Most were thrilled to learn and to save time or energy, I know I was. Some insisted their way was best, too proud to admit that there might be an easier way and continued to do things their own way. It works both ways as well. There were times that the so called “easy way” ended up with more work in the long run, or didn’t get the right results, but stubbornly, those who knew the short cut wouldn’t admit the fault in their efforts.

Our Father knows a better way, for everything. His way may not always look too easy, or it may look way too easy to believe in any results, but it is always better. I wish I had a dollar for every time I gritted my teach and dug in my heals, and insisted on doing things my way, only to have it come back to bite me in the rear parts!

I have always loved to learn. Pretty much anything. I loved the new books, pencils, classroom, assignments, and even test day. Loving to learn doesn’t make me humble or teachable. Admitting that the teacher or professor is trying to teach me a better way does. Opening my heart to the Father, allowing myself to be led by His Spirit and not thinking too highly of myself makes me humble. The Holy Spirit can teach me all things when I am humble. He, or anyone else, can’t teach me anything if I already think I know everything.

Humility isn’t a lack of confidence. It isn’t low self-esteem.

Ken Blanchard, in his book “Lead Like Jesus” says: “Humility is realizing and emphasizing the importance of others. It is not putting yourself down: it is lifting others up. Humility gives credit to forces other than your own knowledge or effort when a victory is won or an obstacle is overcome…Jesus’ humility didn’t come from lack of self –esteem, love, power, or ability. His humility came from the fact that He knew who He was, where He came from, where He was going, and whose He was.”

With that confidence in who we are, where we are going, and Whose we are, we can’t help but be humbled.

James 3:13-16 (Message Bible), “Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here’s what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn’t wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn’t wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn’t wisdom. It’s the furthest thing from wisdom—it’s animal cunning, devilish conniving. Whenever you’re trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others’ throats.”