HOMESCHOOLED
In the Classroom with God
August 2nd, 2023
See, I’ve been in the classroom lately. With God. And while the lessons have been extremely difficult, excruciatingly painful, exhaustingly real, they also are the purpose of a patient Teacher’s Lesson Plan—extravagantly designed for my good and ultimately His use. And He is (home)schooling me so I may know that He has my best interests strategically in sync with the beat of His heart.
TODAY’S LESSON: the Thumbprint of God
Is 49:15-16, ‘”I could never, no never, forget you. Can’t you see? I have carved your name on the palms of my hands! Your walls are always My concern.”’(TPT)
Most everything in life requires a plan, a format, a manual, handbook, study guide, textbook, workbook. Making a schedule, keeping a journal, developing routines, following a day planner—all of it can radically transform your life, and upon establishing a habit to order your life, the methodology can become comforting even—a formula which may not work for anyone else, but it works for you.
Most every student learns to be successful in school, passing classes, receiving credits, completing courses and accomplishing goals toward getting degrees, maybe a bachelor’s or even a master’s, requires studying. In my era, we had textbooks, and from those studies, we took pop quizzes and tests and finals, until we aced it, passed or sometimes even failed. Now, things are different, I imagine, but, whether one uses a study guide or peruses what resources are available online, one must still study to learn, to achieve degrees and certificates and licenses.
Even devising plans for your life, to help one be better at something, to become a better person, or more savvy, or to unlearn something which became ingrained that might no longer be beneficial, or to master something we are good at, even a DIY project, necessitates a workbook or handbook.
So, to build a house, one needs plans, a blueprint. Have you ever attempted to read or understand a blueprint? They contain codes; all Greek to me or seemingly written in hieroglyphics, but to a builder, easily discernible. With that sketch, however, magnificence is created; mansions are built, dream homes are constructed.
You have a purpose and so do I. That is the ‘blueprint’ God has designed of your life which He alone knows how to read. He is building something brilliant. He is creating a masterpiece every day you allow Him to work on you. From the beginning of time, the God of the Universe was sketching you out. He dreamt of you, His heart beat for you. He fashioned you of dirt, and breathed His breath in you, and when the time was perfect, He caused your need for Him to rise up inside of you, so that your longing for Him drowned out every other noise this world makes, where all you could hear was His cry for your soul to come home. The blueprint He made of you is like no other. You are His prize, His ‘treasure’; you hide great worth, exquisite valuables are hidden within you.
That is why the enemy of your soul is hellbent to destroy you. His greatest desire is to break in and rob you of every bit of worth God has placed within you. Have you ever watched the News, and oohed and aahed about a thief who busted into an abandoned house? No! That’s because that story doesn’t exist. Burglars only burglarize properties where it is believed they will reap great reward, find wealth, steal riches, shoplift valuables. The enemy of this world is a thief, and he has come to ransack and plunder your very being, to strip you of your worth and pilfer through the promises your God has spoken over you. He is intent on embezzling great riches from your soul and robbing you of everything of value your Father placed inside of you. You have tremendous significance the enemy is determined to disrupt, destroy and annihilate, so why wouldn’t he break inside to rob you of all the worth hidden inside, which you may not even realize exists in you.
The Lover of your soul is even more dogged and tenacious to save what is of value and worth to Him. He is so inclined, He stopped at nothing to get us back. When it didn’t go so well for us, and the enemy busted in, He gave His only Son for you and me, to redeem us from the slave pool, to buy back everything the enemy stole. He is in the restoration business. If He builds incredible masterpieces, He can also repair what was broken and wasted and tossed away like trash. He did not build you so you could someday become a shack, a rundown shanty, let go by you and others who may not have cared about your worth.
He created you for greatness, and because there is wealth He hid inside you, He desires to unearth it, to excavate it, to mine it, for immense investment, for a considerable return. In fact, He infused you with so much importance that there is a price tag on your soul, one Satan is trying to heist. If everything the Creator of the Universe placed inside you comes to life, it will be catastrophic for the enemy of this world. Thus, he is intentional to hijack every plan your God has for you. He is going to loot and defraud you, and he will stop at nothing to deprive you of every good gift your Father has in a storehouse for you.
You can say no to the plunderer today. You have every right to protect what is yours, what belongs to you that is buried inside you. Just like you have a security system at your house, you also have a security system all around and within you, and this is the Holy Spirit Who surrounds you and fills you with His protection plan. He will not let anything come against you that you don’t allow. In fact, in God’s Word, one of the promises He speaks over you and I is, ‘No weapon formed against you shall prosper (Is 54:17a, NKJV).’ He is a good God, and He is a Master Builder, and the blueprint of your life, He not only designs, but He also gave everything to protect..
2 Corinthians 4:8-9, ‘We are pressed on every side by troubles, but not crushed and broken. We are perplexed because we don’t know why things happen as they do, but we don’t give up and quit. We are hunted down, but God never abandons us. We get knocked down, but we will get up again and keep going.’ (TLB)
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT:
Name three ‘valuables’ the Lord God placed inside of you that are of great worth? ____________
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What can you do today to use those ‘valuables’ for God’s glory and to help someone else? ______
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‘I hear the Lord saying, “I will stay close to you, instructing you and guiding you along the pathway for your life. I will advise you along the way and lead you forth with My eyes as your guide. So, don’t make it difficult; don’t be stubborn when I take you where you’ve not been before. Don’t make Me tug you and pull you along. Just come with Me!”’ (Psalm 32:8-9, TPT)
