Learning from Jesus - Part 1

I love to learn and to grow through learning; as I continue to learn, the Spirit of God lovingly reminds me that learning can be either life-giving or deadly. For it to be life-giving in the full sense of the meaning, it must be in Jesus and from Him. I don't mean by this that our growth in knowledge has to be only about "spiritual" things nor that it has to be in what we typically imagine to be a "spiritual" setting (such as a religious institute or church gathering, etc.), but that whatever we're learning is intended by God to expand our capacity to receive His love and truth and in turn, to love Him and others.

When learning is driven by lust for knowledge, it feeds the fleshly sense of "right" and "wrong" and sets me up in pride to judge others as "wrong/lesser" and myself as "right/greater"; on the other hand, learning that is from Jesus and is dependent on Him leads the learner to meekness and lowliness of heart towards God and towards others. The apostle Paul, in dealing with the priority of love over certain knowledge, says in I Corinthians 8:1: "Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that 'all of us possess knowledge.' This 'knowledge' puffs up, but love builds up."
   
I believe that because of the fall, there are limitations to what we are meant to know, and that God in His kindness and mercy wants to protect us from knowing independently of Him. Knowledge is a form of power and control; man's eating of the tree of knowledge and later his building of the tower of Babel was his insistence on going beyond those loving boundaries in order to be in control. The access to knowledge that we have today through technology is an expression of the full flowering of the quest for knowledge and control, and we are increasingly exposed to information that humans aren't meant to be able to process/digest properly apart from Jesus.

As followers of Jesus, we are not immune to this temptation. Even in our quest to know Him, there are times when He leads us away from external sources of knowledge (such as books - even the Bible, internet, TV, recordings of teaching, etc) for awhile and invites us to rest in Him; it may be for minutes, hours, or days (each case is different). The point is to listen and obey and trust that He knows when and how much external input is growing my capacity for love and humility and not simply "puffing me up"!

Next week I want to follow up on this with Matthew 11:25-30 where I believe we can find some practical help from Jesus about learning from Him. Have a great week, and God bless you!