Changing as the Spirit Leads

I study my Connect Group lesson all week long before I teach it. I read it on Sunday night, then look over it daily during my quiet time. Then Saturday mornings, I devote at least 3 hours to compile it, I read it out loud and sometimes I get so excited I just have to stand up and give God the glory!

This past week it was all about the authority of God's Word. God's Word being the only book we should search for answers to our problems, answers to questions...and also, if we really want to challenge ourselves...read a portion and dissect it word for word and look the meanings up in the Greek or Hebrew.

I prepared my lesson on the knowledge that the Jewish believers had The Word they knew...the Old Testament. How their parent's made their children--from the age of 5-- memorize the WHOLE Old Testament. And now, in this "New Testament" church, Jewish believers were trying to get the Gentile Believers to adhere to all the laws and rituals that the Jews had, for hundreds of years adhered to (this was their heritage!). After all these hundreds of years it was so difficult...they couldn't conceive how the death of Christ would be an atonement for their sins when the Law that had been set up with Moses had them sacrificing clean animals for their uncleanliness--according to the Word they had memorized.

God, however, put a little 'wrench' in my lesson yesterday. A Jewish woman, who is not a believer came to our class. After she introduced herself... I remembered that I had read a note she had written on one of the first time visitor cards: "I'm Jewish, is it okay if me and my family attend your church?"

...I realized in the middle of my lesson I needed to change my verbiage. I didn't need to soften the Bible's truth, but I needed to allow God to use Truth in the only way He could...and I needed to step aside and just be quiet.

As I'm talking about Paul admonishing Timothy to stop the Jewish people from forcing the Gentiles into circumcision (because the Jews said that that was the only way they would/could receive the Holy Spirit---and that would be evidence that they had received the Holy Spirit) God put a picture in my mind of the torn curtain in the tabernacle. Man performed circumcisions...God Himself ripped the veil.

I was able to take what could have been a very hurtful (Ouida-made) explanation of the Jews behavior and demonstrate through God's illustration of the torn veil, how the old laws had been replaced with the new "Covenant". . . How God allowed His son to come to earth to tear away the old traditions, rules & regulations and become the only atonement necessary for sins. The veil between God and man had been ripped and now the Holy Sacrifice of Jesus Christ took away the "necessity" of the many laws and sacrifices of the Covenant made with Moses. Jesus IS the New Covenant. I explained that this was a new thing for these Jewish believers...having been 'steeped' in tradition for all these hundreds of years... but also, we needed to look at their traditions too, to better understand the brevity of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross.

We need to be more family oriented like the Jewish people...more traditional in our 'rituals (prayer, family study time, quiet time, bible study)' and less legalistic about rules and regulations that have nothing to do with a true relationship with the Sacrificial Lamb of God.

And we need to seek Truth. Truth...the person of Jesus Christ. Seeking Truth just on Sundays isn't going to fulfill us. Truth everyday... then Truth will certainly set us free from traditions, rules & regulations.

Was any of that in my lesson plan? No. But... it was in God's plan!

She left our class excited...one of the ladies in the class had given her "A New Believer's Bible" and she held that Bible like we should hold the Word of God...like a treasure.

I have so much to teach and so much to give----but I have so much more to learn.