Teachableness

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." — Matthew 11: 29.

The first virtue of a pupil is docility and willingness to be taught. What does this imply? A consciousness of his own ignorance, a readiness to give up his own way of thinking or of doing, and to look at things from the teacher’s standpoint, quiet confidence that the master knows and will show him how to learn to know too. The meek and lowly spirit listens carefully to know what the teacher’s will is, and at once hastens to carry it out. If this is the spirit in a pupil, it must be the teacher’s fault if he does not learn.

And how it is that, with Christ as our teacher, there is with so much failure so little real growth in spiritual knowledge? So much hearing and reading of the Bible, so much profession of faith in it as our only rule of life, and yet such a lack of the manifestation of its spirit and its power? So much often of honest earnest application in the closet and the Bible circle, with but little of the joy and strength God’s Word could give?

The question is one of the utmost importance. There must be some cause why there are so many disciples of Jesus who think they honestly desire to know and do His will, and who yet by their own confession and the evidence of those around them, are not holding forth the word of life as a light in the world. If the answer could be found to the question, their lives might be changed.

Our text suggests the answer: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Many have taken Christ as a Savior but not as a Teacher. They have put their trust in Him as the Good shepherd who gave His life for the sheep; they know little of the reality of His daily shepherding His flock, calling everyone by name, or of thus hearing His voice and following Him alone.They know little of what it is to follow the Lamb; before everything to receive from Him the lamb nature, and to seek like Him to be meek and lowly in heart. It was by their three years’ course in His school that Christ’s disciples were fitted for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and the fulfillment of all the wonderful promises He had given them.

It is under the personal teaching of our Lord Jesus and through that docility of the meek and lowly heart, which daily waits for and receives and follows that teaching, that we can truly find rest in our souls. All the weariness and burden of strain and failure and disappointment then gives way to that divine peace that knows that all is being cared for by Christ Himself.

That taking of Christ’s yoke and learning of Him His meekness and lowliness of heart, and with that, the teachableness that refuses to know or do aught in its own wisdom, is to be the spirit of our whole life, every day and all the day. But it is especially in the morning hour that this is to be cultivated, and deliverance sought from self and all its energy. It is there, while occupied with the words of God and of Christ and of the Holy Spirit, that we need daily to realise that these only profit as they lead to, and are opened up by, the personal teaching of Christ.

It is there that we daily need to experience that only as the living Lord Jesus “in him the whole fullness of deity dwells,” in whom all our life and salvation are gathered up, Himself comes near and takes charge of us, that His teaching can be received. And it is there that we must definitely ask and cultivate the teachableness that takes up His yoke and learns of Him. Once again, the teachableness is everything. If it be true of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the Spirit of Christ Jesus, “He will teach you all things,” and if His whole life and work in us is a Divine teaching, it is equally true that our whole life must be a Divine teachableness. So only, can our daily oneness with God’s word, and our daily life be what our Lord Jesus can make it.

Unlearning is often the most important part of learning: wrong impressions, prejudices and prepositions are insuperable obstacles in the way of learning. Until these have been removed, the teacher labours in vain.

The knowledge he communicates only touches the surface: deep under the surface the pupil is guided by that which has become a second nature to him. The first work of the teacher is to discover, to make the pupil see and remove, these hindrances.

There can be no true and fruitful learning of Christ where we are not ready to unlearn. By heredity, by education, by tradition, we have our thoughts about religion and God’s Word, which are often the greater hindrance in proportion to our assurance that they are indeed the truth. To learn of Christ needs a willingness to subject every truth we hold to His inspection for criticism and correction. Humility is the root virtue of the Christian life. The law is absolute in God’s Kingdom: “He who humbles himself will be exalted.” Our disappointment in striving after higher degrees of grace, faith, spiritual knowledge, love to souls and power to bless, is all owing to this. We have not accepted the humility of Christ as the beginning and the perfection of His salvation. “Gives grace to the humble.” has a far wider and deeper application than we think.

Docility is one form of humility. In the morning watch, we place ourselves as learners in Christ’s school; let docility, let humility be the distinguishing mark of the learner, and, if we feel how little we have of it, let us listen to the voice that says, “Take My yoke upon you,” and, for all that this implies: “learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.