Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Wednesday in the Word

This has been a wonderful Wednesday in the Word! All of our classes resumed on today! I was extremely excited about teaching Bible Class and Sunday School teacher's meeting again. When it was time for our "Hour of Power" class, I was presently surprised with the attendance. Our class was very insightful and a blessing to be involved with.

When it was time for Sunday School teacher's meeting, I was bubbling over with joy over something that the Lord had revealed to me! The lesson for this Sunday is a very great lesson entitled, Preparing for Commitment, taken from Judges 13. This is the story of the events preceding the birth of Samson.

There were several things that popped out at me, but I will just share a few of them in this post. The first thing I saw was an excitement about the Word of God. The wife of Manoah received a Word from God that she was going to have a son. This was great news to her because she was barren! She was genuinely excited about this Word from God. I f we will be committed Christians, we must become excited about the Word of God. I wonder about the level of excitement about the Word of God that exists in some churches today. There is never a problem filling up a concert or an athletic event, but many times we are hard pressed to find people who are genuinely excited about the Word of God!

Now her excitement was demonstrated by what she did next. Her excitement led to evangelism. She immediately went and told her husband about all of the wonderful things that she had heard from the Man of God. If our excitement is authentic, it will lead us into doing something other than being excited. Often times there are emotional moments that end up with empty meaning because there has been no action. We can sing, shout, or fall out, but what do we do when that is done? She went and told her husband! We see evangelism all in this. When we are excited about God, we don't have a problem telling others about His goodness, His faithfulness, and His mighty acts toward us. We must be committed to telling others about the good news of Jesus Christ!

The last thing I would like to lift here is Manoah's eagerness to respond to the Word of God! As soon as he heard this, the text records that he went into prayer! This was not a prayer of doubt, but of faith. He went to God to ask Him what was he supposed to do as a result of hearing the Word of God. I asked the class how often do they go home after church and ask God about what they are supposed to do as a result of hearing His Word. I also asked about how many are praying for God to show them what to do when preaching is taking place. The lesson ends with a very simple biblical principle. Manoah's wife did what God said and as a result, she got what God said that she could have!

Bible Study was off the chain! I wish I could share the whole lesson with you. We continued in the book of Romans. Today we looked at Romans 3:1-8. Previously we dealt with how God deals with the heathen and the hypocrite. Today we dealt with How God deals with the Hebrew. The Jews believed that they had certain advantages and privileges because they were God's chosen people. Paul quickly refuted this by letting them know that neither their rites or religion could save them. So then the question was asked, "What advantage has the Jew, or what benefit is there from circumcision?" Paul responded by saying that the advantage they had was that they had the oracles of God committed to them. What an advantage!!! These things that they put their trust in could not save them but, they identified them as children of God. We need to be mindful of this same truth. Remember the context, "The just shall live by faith!"

I like how how lesson ended with verse 8. Paul was accused of teaching that you should do evil, so that good may come. I like how Paul handled this, he didn't! He gave the matter over to God to let Him handle it! How much further along and better would we be if we would do just that? Paul did not validate or qualify their statements, he just gave them to the Lord. We waste too much time chasing down gossip and rumors. You can never stop people from talking about you. However, you can make sure that what they are saying is not true.

Today was a great day and I thank God for it! Pray for me as I have another day full of meetings!

3 comments:

Pastor Rev. Ray E. Owens said...

Excitement, evangelism, eagerness, my God reverend, next time I am going to tell my Sunday School teachers, just look at Witherspoon's outline on his blog for Sunday School, great job rev.

Keep running,

Owens

Pastor Lance A. Mann said...

That has to make a Pastor feel good when his expression of biblical exposition. Great job as usual Spoon.

Lance

Clinton Smith said...

Good work, Doc Spoon!