October has a national emphasis we need …

If you did a search for “national day of …” or “national month of …” you would find days and months designated as national dates for numerous emphases, many of which are important and worthy of our heightened awareness.

Others aren’t.

But did you know October is “national Learning and Development Month“?

I think that’s one designation we need to heighten our awareness of.

After graduating high school or college, many people want to be done with learning. We have an attitude that we’ve put in our time with education, now it’s time to live. But many of us didn’t use that time all that well, like this tidbit suggests:

A college freshman was giving her friend a tour of the college she attended. She pointed out the various recreational sights in the area and the numerous places for eating out. When they returned to the dorm, the freshman reminded her visiting friend that they needed to be quiet because her roommates were studying. Before they entered the room she whispered to her friend, “All they do is study. Honestly, I don’t even know why they came to college.”

Truth be told, many of us aren’t very good at learning, kind of like the guy in this story:

Two pals are sitting in a pub watching the eleven-o’clock news. A report comes on about a man threatening to jump from the 20th floor of a downtown building. One friend turns to the other and says, “I’ll bet you ten bucks the guy doesn’t jump.”

“It’s a bet,” agrees his buddy.

A few minutes later, the man on the ledge jumps, so the loser hands his pal a $10 bill.

“I can’t take your money,” his friend admits. “I saw him jump earlier on the six-o’clock news.”

“Me, too,” say the other buddy. “But I didn’t think he’d do it again!”

The world has changed. In the 21st century, if you’re not a lifelong learner, and if you don’t continue to update current skills and learn new ones, you’ll find yourself severely limited or left behind in the marketplace.

Of all the people on the planet who should be devoted to “learning and development,” it should be Christians. That’s because the very definition of a Christian is someone who is a student or learner of Jesus Christ. As His disciples, our entire lives are to be devoted to being students of Jesus who, by the transforming work of the Holy Spirit and our cooperation with His work as ardent students of the Bible, become more and more like our Master over a lifetime.

Learning and developing is the epitome of the life of a follower of Jesus!

In fact, scripture teaches our learning should engulf our lives:

“Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts,” Colossians 3:16.

And we should persist with learning and developing throughout our lifetime until …

“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church,” Ephesians 4:11-15.

How are you actively a student/learner of Jesus Christ? What are you doing to continue learning and developing throughout all stages of life?

Scotty