Teachability = Leadability
A lack of teachability is the greatest threat to the Church.
Love is growing cold because hearts are growing hard. Your heart is your mind, will, and emotions. For anything to come in and soften your heart, you must be willing to move, add to, or yield whatever is already there.
As arrogance increases, teachability decreases.
2 Timothy 4:1-5 NKJV — I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
Jesus was rejected in Nazareth, His hometown, because the residents were familiar with the man Jesus, but found His teachings unfamiliar and humbling. They didn't want to be humbled by someone they knew (or anyone else, for that matter).
Luke 4:22-30 NKJV — So all bore witness to Him, and marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth. And they said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” He said to them, “You will surely say this proverb to Me, ‘Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in Your country.’ ” Then He said, “Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. “But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land; “but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath, in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. “And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” So all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust Him out of the city; and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff. Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way.
A humble heart would have done exactly the opposite: it would say with amazement, where did this fine boy learn these new things?!
The flesh cannot truly be humble. It can act humble, but it cannot be humble. Most settle for an act rather than a changed heart. God knows the difference. Right now, God knows.
Knowledge increasing and a global surge of travel mark the main realities of the end time increase in trouble.
Daniel 12:1-4 NKJV — “At that time Michael shall stand up,
The great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people;
And there shall be a time of trouble,
Such as never was since there was a nation,
Even to that time.
And at that time your people shall be delivered,
Every one who is found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,
Some to everlasting life,
Some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine
Like the brightness of the firmament,
And those who turn many to righteousness
Like the stars forever and ever. “But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”
Knowledge increasing is NOT the same as teachability increasing. In fact, a wealth of knowledge typically results in a reaction of jealousy, doubt, and rejection! This is because of selfishness and pride. Very few people are teachable. They are the ones generally growing in satisfaction no matter what happens. Circumstances become classrooms for the teachable.
2 Timothy 3:1-7 NKJV — But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Always in the act of collecting information but never really being teachable. An act of religion, but lacking the humility of a soft and teachable heart... To let the true power of God, His leadership, in.
This will bring the greatest judgment the church has ever seen.
God is unwilling to NOT speak in this season, because His desire is that none would perish. He is giving people in the Body of Yeshua over to their own arrogance.
As the church stops up it's ears to hard truth (the Bible is a warning to believers, not the world) God will increase the judgment of the church.
Both wheat and tares are maturing all around us... in us.
It's easy to act teachable and really only be listening for what I already agree with. It takes the Holy Spirit to actually make me teachable.
If you would like to grow in righteousness in this season, you have to be willing to see where you are unteachable, and then tell God you are not ok with it.
Luke 11:1 NKJV — Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”
The disciples could have thought, "we are the best prayer partners for Jesus, because He chose us."
Jesus chose the disciples because they were teachable, not because they were experts.
Mark 2:17 NKJV — When Jesus heard it, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
God rejects experts. Always. There is truly no such thing as an expert on the subject of the infinite God! It will take all of us revealing God to each other forever to even scratch the surface of who He is, what He is doing, and what His living word actually means.
The disciples Jesus chose realized that they walked with God himself. They knew Him and had the humility to recognize He had something they didn't have, and they asked for it.
Many will be great in their own minds in these days, but Yeshua will say He never knew them. They thought they had no personal need, only information to distribute to others.
The kingdom of God isn't deflected onto others. That is how human kingdoms work. Other people shouldn't be the targets of my presumed expertise. The Kingdom of God is a witness-based kingdom. I must be the target of whatever I know to the point I produce the fruit of humility.
The kingdom of God emerges from witnesses shining, the humble beholding, and an internal fire catching.
It isn't a kingdom of experts. It is a kingdom students... Forever beholding and becoming.
The cancer killing the church is self-leadership. If you can't be taught something new, you can't be led somewhere different. The flesh will not enter the Kingdom.
I don't trust or listen to anyone who isn't teachable, themselves. But, some of my favorite places to receive revelation is from grandmothers and grandfathers that still listen to the Spirit in others, children who prophetically pray, women who search the scriptures to catch glimpses of Jesus, and men who admit they don't have all the answers.
Dead trees cannot produce fruit... Only the living, sap-filled, green-with-life trees can produce fruit.
Matthew 7:19-23 NKJV — “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “Therefore by their fruits you will know them. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
For a tree to bear fruit it must take in the basics and let the miracle of life happen... it has to take in light, water, and nutrients.
A good question to keep pondering is, "What have I learned from someone else in the Body of Yeshua today, or even this week?" This month? This year? I should be able to quickly answer this question.
What do you consider yourself to be an expert in? Whatever I think I am an expert in isn't of God. He cannot be contained.
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