Learning from Christ

I love learning new things and especially those that concern life. I can say that the people I hold close to my heart are those from whom I have learnt things or those that have taken time to teach me new things. One of these people is my daddy. I have acquired so much knowledge and life skills from him. One of the things I have learnt from him is how to plan, budget and make small notes. I remember while growing up, we used to do so much budgeting and planning together. Furthermore, my dad always had a notebook and a pen with him and he would always note down everything. Having spent so much of my life with him while growing up, I realized that I acquired all these from him. I have always found myself budgeting, planning and writing down everything about me. I can’t tell you how many notes books I have because they are so many and my phone adds up to the list too.

Talking about learning, I am reminded about Christ and his disciples. The bible tells us that Jesus chose twelve disciples that he walked with in his physical life on earth. Among these disciple however, there were three of them that you would always find him with. Simon Peter, who was one of them was always with him and always desired to be with him, that he at one point in life decided to walk on water just to be where Jesus was. Because of this continued spending time with Jesus, Simon Peter learnt who Jesus really was and also gained a lot from him.

The bible says in Acts that on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down on all of them, Peter had the boldness to speak on behalf of the disciples. However, he did not just speak to defend the apostles but also spoke about Jesus. There is no way he would have spoken about Christ if he had never known him. Peter was fully aware of whom Jesus was and no one would change his mind about Christ. That is why despite of the arrest and much suffering that he went through after Jesus had gone to heaven, he never denied Jesus at any point.

My brief story, the story of Peter and many other stories including mentor-mentee relationships that we all go through, are all signs that most of the things we learn in  life only happen when we spend time with those we are learning from. Sometimes we do it unconsciously while other times we deliberately decide to take time and be with them to learn.

 In our Christian life, we always desire to be like Christ. We desire to love like him, forgive like him and even be holy like him. However, many of us fail to realize that the same theory of spending time with the person we want to be like applies in our relationship with Jesus Christ. It requires of us to take time (set aside some time) and be with him to learn from him. Spending time with him requires us to deliberately set aside all other things and just be with him. Being with him only occurs when we go in His presence in worship, praise/thanksgiving and studying His word to hear from Him. In these moments, we get to hear him through His word and even directly through His still small voice. In these moments, he reveals to us our diseases of the heart and helps us to deal with them. He reveals to us who he really his and shows us how we can be like him. These are the times that he makes us sensitive to all things that we are able to know what is right and stick to it and what is wrong that we may avoid it. 

Some things can never be learnt or transformed in us unless we choose to spend intimate moments with Christ for Him to change them. This therefore calls for us to deliberately set time to be with God.  I encourage you to take time and learn from Christ. I can promise you that, it is best to set aside time from your daily schedules to be with Him because once you get used to doing that, you never want to be away from him.

God bless you and keep growing in Him.