God’s Power Tools – #7
Our most powerful tool in teaching empowers and enhances the use of all the other tools. It could easily be compared to a battery; it powers and recharges all the power tools God has placed in our hands for ministry. Our seventh power tool is love.
God’s desires a relationship through us with each child; His love will flow to us then through us to them. Like a lantern it will project His light and dispel the lies of darkness which bombard them daily.
How do we learn to wield this tool, to cut a path through the tangle of lies embedded in a child’s heart? Only love can unlock the heart so that we reach the core of their beliefs about themselves and about God?
According to 2 Peter 1:5-8 we must intentionally work on our relationship with Jesus. We begin with faith and add to that excellence, then knowledge, this will enable us to develop self-control which needs perseverance if we are to become godly. Godliness will naturally be expressed through brotherly kindness and if we continue on this path it will lead us to true unselfish love.“8 For if these things are really yours and are continually increasing, they will keep you from becoming ineffective and unproductive in your pursuit of knowing our Lord Jesus Christ more intimately.”(NET Bible)
In John 13 Jesus gave a new commandment and explained the great impact it would have in this world. “I give you a new commandment—to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.”(NET Bible) Love reveals who is and who isn’t one of His followers.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 is a warning.“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but I do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I give over my body in order to boast, but do not have love, I receive no benefit.”(NET Bible)
Love was not meant to be just an emotion that we feel. Love in action becomes a powerful tool. God’s love innovates, motivates, captivates, articulates, and emulates an understanding of Who He is.
Expressed through our prayers, our Bible study, our spiritual gifts, our words, our lifestyle, our tone, our body language and yes even our emotions, love will define us. It enhances and empowers teaching to surpass the mundane ordinary classroom style. It reveals truth to even the youngest mind. We must never forget that“God is love,” 1 John 4:16b (NET Bible) without love we dare not teach His Word.
Suzi Ciliberti
Suzi Ciliberti works for Christar, a Missions Agency that plants churches among least-reached Asians worldwide. She served in Japan for two years as a single missionary and another nine with her husband and two children, then the family returned to the states. She and her husband have been serving in the US Mobilization Center since 2000. As a part of the Member Care Department, Suzi is consultant to families with children. She has been working as a children’s teacher since she was 17 and began her training under Child Evangelism Fellowship. She has taught in the church, as a school teacher for two years in a Christian elementary school, and as a speaker for adults training to work with children. She has also trained children, who are a part of families that work overseas, in their identity in Christ. She brings 44 years of teaching experience to her work. She loves creative writing as well as teaching and has found great fulfillment in combining the two as she blogs for Heartprints. She finds it a great privilege and joy to serve the Lord and His people. One of her favorite verses is Deuteronomy 4:10b, "Gather the people to Me, and I will let them hear My words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children."
