How's your heart?

Leading a Bible study or teaching Sunday School can be a lot like the work of Samuel in the Old Testament. The prophet/seer/judge of Israel encountered a young man who was looking for some lost donkeys. But when Samuel got through telling him what would God would do through him, Saul was literally changed forever.

Saul turned and started to leave, God gave him a new heart, and all Samuel’s signs were fulfilled that day.  When Saul and his servant arrived at Gibeah, they saw a group of prophets coming toward them. Then the Spirit of God came powerfully upon Saul, and he, too, began to prophesy.

People get involved in Bible study or Sunday School for a variety of reasons--perhaps there is peer pressure to do so, perhaps they hope to meet new friends, maybe they want to set a good example for their children.


But as teachers and leaders, we should have the desire that Samuel had for Saul--to see him changed and transformed forever as the Holy Spirit came to live in the young man! Our goal as Bible teachers should be the same as the desire that Paul expressed for the church at Galatia when he wrote, "My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you..."


We should desire to see Christ formed in our learners, to see them being transformed by the renewing of their minds as they fight to avoid conformity to the world (Romans 12:1-2).


The good news with regards to the story of Saul and Samuel is that it is more possible for this to happen in our time than it was in the Old Testament. In those days, the Holy Spirit indwelt a limited number of spiritual leaders as God spoke through prophets and priests. But today, God is willing to speak to all of us through His Son Jesus (Heb. 1:1).  Our bodies become temples of the Holy Spirit, whom God has placed in us (1 Cor. 6:19-20).


How do we work for this kind of transformation in the lives of our learners?  I think we must first seek this kind of spiritually vibrant life for ourselves before we can see it produced in others. Saul sought out Samuel because he heard that he was a man of God. Do people seek us out for the same reason? Are we allowing God to rule and reign in us?


But just as importantly, we must see spiritual transformation as something that only God can do. As Jesus pointed out in today's New Testament reading, "For no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me, and at the last day I will raise them up. ⁴⁵ As it is written in the Scriptures, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me" (John 6:44-45).


Father, help me to be about your business today--that of seeing lives changed and transformed as people come to your Son and are in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit. Amen!