The Monday Memo from John Stanko

Memo 978: Lunch Break

This week, let's take a look at the story of the woman at the well in John 4 for our next lesson in how to unlock the power of your thinking. I am going to skip over Jesus' discussion with the woman and go directly to the aftermath when His disciples returned with lunch. From there, we read

Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor" (John 4:27-38).

Let's take a closer look at this passage to see what we can learn.

SURPRISE, SURPRISE

When the disciples returned, they were in for a few surprises. The first was that Jesus was alone and speaking to a woman, a Samaritan woman no less—something rabbis had regularly taught should not be done with a Jewish woman. John reported decades later when he wrote his gospel, "For Jews do not associate with Samaritans" (John 4:9b). Notice the present tense in that the Jews still wanted nothing to do with Samaritans years after Jesus was no longer on the scene. That's how deep their hatred and disdain were for that race of people. Perhaps their surprise was also that this woman would be interested in anything Jesus had to say—or that she could even comprehend it.

Then the disciples were surprised that Jesus wasn't hungry. I would assume they went to get lunch because they were all hungry and in need of an afternoon pick-me-up, but there was Jesus, obviously enthused and no longer interested in the food they had purchased. By the way, I wonder where they were able to get food in the heart of Samaria that would meet their Jewish requirements? I would assume the Samaritans, who were part Jewish, kept kosher laws like they did but we don't know that for sure. Any way, they had run their errand but Jesus seemed not to be hungry. He said He had food to eat they didn't know anything about and that was to do the will of His Father.

A BIGGER SURPRISE

I have often taught that an indication of your life purpose is to be able to do something and forget what time it is even if it's time to eat. If you can play the piano and realize, "Oh my it's 3 p.m. and I missed lunch," then the piano has something to do with your purpose. Your purpose fulfills the statement that "man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord" (Deuteronomy 8:3b). Jesus' purpose was to "seek and save the lost" (Luke 19:10), so when He engaged this woman in His purpose, He was not as hungry as He had been when the disciples left. The same is true for you when you are in your purpose.

Yet, the disciples were in for an even bigger surprise, for their lunch break turned into a two-day revival:

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers (John 4:39-41).

Jesus and His entourage had left Judea after a heated exchange with the Pharisees and thought they were heading back to Galilee when an unexpected ministry opportunity opened for them in Samaria. Jesus had promised they would be fishers of men but they assumed it would be in their homeland, not in the territory of their enemies. As if they had not had enough surprises for one day, Jesus told them they were about to reap a harvest from the seed He had planted in the woman's heart when many came out to see Him for themselves. Those men who went to fetch lunch were suddenly helping pull in a catch of souls for the Kingdom.

That is the final point of this story. When you are in your purpose, God wants you to fulfill it more than you do. Just like Jesus did in this story, He goes ahead of you to prepare hearts and minds. You are harvesting purpose fruit for which you did not plant or water—Jesus did that on your behalf. He wants you to bear fruit in your purpose, so He will promote and stir up interest in others for your presence. All you have to do is show up and reap the rewards, just like these men did in Samaria.

What can you do and forget to eat lunch? Where does the joy of the Lord overpower your physical needs and give you energy to perform and produce? Where is it that when you show up, good things happen for and to you? Where do you get the sense you are enjoying the fruits of someone else's labor? That's due to nothing you have done; it's simply the harvest due to the seed Jesus has sown in the minds and hearts of your "audience." Just be prepared to constantly be surprised at what you can do in Him or rather what He will do for you (and where He will do it) that will bring you purpose success. Have a blessed week!

Memo 977: Thought Missionaries

Yesterday, I was recording a new series that will soon be posted on my mobile app, which by the way you can download here for free and begin to enjoy hours of teaching videos on purpose, creativity, and leadership—among other topics. During the recording, I was talking about how important it is to get in touch with your heart and not just your head or intellect if you are going to discover your purpose. It is the heart where God writes His commandments. It is the heart where the Spirit of God communicates with His children. It is the heart that fuels the mouth as Jesus informed us: ". . . For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of" (Luke 6:45b). This is a perfect introduction to the next Memo I had scheduled weeks ago, which is the story of Jesus instructing His disciples about forgiveness in Matthew 18. Let's go there now.

HOW MANY TIMES?

In Matthew 18, Jesus taught His followers how to confront sin in the church: If a person sins, go to him, and if they don't listen, take a delegation, and so forth. It is interesting Peter rightly concluded Jesus was not only addressing church discipline but forgiveness, for he asked the Lord some time after His teaching, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?" (Matthew 18:21). It seems Peter was coming to the Lord expecting some kind of commendation for his question since in his mind he was proving he had figured out how to do what Jesus had taught them to do.

Why would Peter have asked what he did, assuming he would win Jesus' approval and affirmation? It is because the rabbinical teaching of the day was there was to be no forgiveness extended for a third offense. Peter, therefore, was showing Jesus how far he was willing to go with His teaching, forgiving three-and-a-half times more than the rabbis had suggested. In modern terminology, Jesus then "blew Peter's mind" by putting a damper on Peter's show of magnanimity, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times" (Matthew 18:22). Let's take a quick look into Peter's mind to see what we can learn to help us with our current theme of how to unlock the power of our thinking.

UNLEARNING

Peter had probably heard for most of his life, "Forgive once, forgive twice, but no more." He thought about it and that "truth" had taken root, so to speak, in his mind. Think of that teaching as a thought missionary. The concept took up residence and began to build a community of thoughts around it, just like a missionary who goes to another culture to make or teach converts. Eventually that forgive-twice thought built a village and then eventually a town and a city of similar, supportive thoughts.

Therefore, when Peter heard Jesus' teaching, he was looking for a way to add His teaching as a friendly neighbor to his existing cluster of forgiveness thoughts. However, Jesus would not allow Peter to do that and closed out his teaching by taking Peter out of his head and into his heart: “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart" (Matthew 18:35). In this case, Peter needed a new heart thought that would become another thought missionary, going into Peter's mind to displace the old thought about limited forgiveness. That new thought would then need time to create its own village of supportive thoughts to help apply and live out Jesus' teaching.

In other words, Peter had to unlearn what he had learned and with the help of his heart, re-educate his mind to think anew. He needed to send new thought missionaries that did not make sense based on what he had been taught but would in time equip Peter to express and flow in Jesus' new directives. You are in need of the same thing. When you read, "Be generous," if you don't unlearn what you think you know about generosity, you will do what Peter did. You will go to the Lord with the new "percentage" level of your giving, thinking you are being magnanimous, only to hear the Lord say, "I don't want 10%, I want it all!" If you don't unlearn your assumption that you are too young or too old to do God's will, your mind will also be blown when the Spirit says to you, "I want you to go here or there." If you don't send some new thought missionaries to convert your old thoughts, when you read that Jesus commands you to forgive your enemies who hurt you, you will say, "No way!"

Are your heart and mind working together to renew and re-educate your mind? Are you sending thought missionaries in the power of the Spirit from your heart to your head? Are you willing to have your mind blown with new thoughts that can then take up residence and ease out the old to create a new colony of beliefs that will lead to new actions? I hope you are for there is no other way but to unlearn and then relearn what you need in order to be transformed into a new creature conformed to the image of Christ. Have a blessed week!

Memo 976: Born Again Again

This week, let's move on from the stories of Jesus feeding the multitudes to Jesus' encounter with Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel. In this story, we read that Nicodemus approached Jesus to find the most recent word from this man of God. John reported,

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” Jesus answered, "Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit" (John 3:1-7).

Let's look at some of the highlights of this story and then see how they contribute to our current theme of how to unlock the power of your thinking.

WHAT WE KNOW

Here are some things to consider about this story:

1. Jesus was accessible. We don't know how Nicodemus came to or found Him, but Jesus was willing to meet with him after His regular "office hours." All teachers and preachers should model their connection with the people after this because people need help connecting with or comprehending the messages and words they hear.
2. Nicodemus did not ask any questions to start. He simply came and affirmed that Jesus was a man from God. He had come perhaps to receive the latest word from the Lord to add to his own body of knowledge from which he taught.
3. Nicodemus was the teacher in Israel. In verse 10, Jesus said, “You are Israel’s teacher.” In the Greek, there is a definite article before teacher, which should be translated, "You are the teacher of Israel." Nicodemus had a lot of experience and a reputation as a gifted teacher of the Law. He must have had a following and a reputation for Jesus to know who he was.
4. After Jesus spoke, Nicodemus had a lot of how questions. Jesus said he had to be born again of water and spirit and the great teacher responded with "how can? . . . he cannot? . . . can he? . . . how can?" (John 3:4, 9). When confronted with a teaching that did not fit his system, Nicodemus desperately looked for any way not to have to relearn what he had given his life to learn, apply, and teach.

Nicodemus was a Pharisee, who had over a period of 125 years of their existence as a movement, made the Law a conglomeration of rules that were to be followed with external acts of righteousness. Jesus basically told him his system was worthless and incomplete without an encounter with the "church" who would eventually water baptize Jesus' followers and the Spirit who would lead and guide Jesus' followers.

THE LESSONS

What can we learn from this story to help us unlock the power of our thinking?

1. You must often unlearn what you have previously learned. An incomplete teaching or a good teaching you incompletely processed will lodge in your brain and build a supporting cast of characters that will act to prevent you from getting to the whole truth. Nicodemus had to unlearn how he had processed the Law and relearn it in the power of the Spirit.
2. You must be willing to unlearn and then relearn. This requires a process of being born again again where your mind is concerned. Over the years, I have had to re-evaluate my conclusions where women in ministry, giving, and the role of the church are concerned. I had two choices: stubbornly maintain outdated or erroneous conclusions (asking like Nicodemus, 'how can this be?') or accept the fact that my original thinking needed to be "baptized" (drowned even) in Jesus' name and examined and restated by and through the Spirit. In order to be right, sometimes I had to admit I was wrong.
3. You must be willing to take what you know to Jesus and allow Him to speak into it. Be careful not to over-spiritualize that process. This requires you do more than listen to a weekly sermon and read the latest fad book on some spiritual discipline. This means you are always on the hunt for renegade thoughts and attitudes that need to be corralled and tamed: ". . . we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5b).

There is no easy way to take every thought captive except to become child in your thinking again and again. You must constantly realize you are always the learner, never finished. The good news is that God is with you in the process because the Spirit lives in you. Where have you become like Nicodemus, confident in what you know and your reputation for that knowledge? Where are you confronted with positions and conclusions contrary to what you think? Is your response "how can?" or "speak, Lord, for Your servant listens"? If you want to unlock the power of your thinking, then you will need to pay attention to where it may currently be locked into incomplete or stale thoughts so you can free it to think new ones. Have a blessed week!

Memo 975: Mind Leaven

I need one more week to finish our look at the miracles called the feeding of the multitude or the loaves and fishes. Our objective in this series is to learn where and how our thinking has put limitations on God and ourselves as His servants. After Jesus had fed the crowd and the leaders confronted Him to demand a sign from heaven, we read this story:

When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread. “Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” They discussed this among themselves and said, “It is because we didn’t bring any bread. Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? How is it you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matthew 16:5-12).

Let's unpack this passage to see what we can learn to help us in our study of the limitations our thinking can have where the things of God are concerned.

'WE FORGOT THE BREAD'

Jesus had just had another tense encounter with the Jews and left them to get into the boat with His team. His mind was on the discussion He had just had so He warned the men to be careful and on guard against "the yeast" of their leaders. What is yeast? It is something small you introduce into bread dough that causes a reaction so the dough will rise or increase. Leaven is always negative when used in the Bible and often represents sin or an unhealthy influence. Jesus was warning His followers to avoid anything that could enter their being and cause a negative reaction or ungodly conclusion. What was that in this case? It was the bad teaching or thinking of their leaders.

Unfortunately, Jesus' mind was on one topic, but the disciples had their minds on something else: lunch. They had forgotten to bring bread so even though Jesus had just taken a little and fed thousands, they were preoccupied with what was important to them and not Him in the moment. Despite the fact that God Himself was speaking to them, they did not and could not comprehend what He was saying because they were distracted by their own thoughts. If that happened to them, I assure you it can happen to us.

Notice the difference between how Jesus responded to the leaders and how He responded to the men. He took His time to explain what He was trying to say after a gentle rebuke, while He played hide-and-seek with the leaders, refusing to give them a direct answer. That is good news for you and me, for we desperately need Jesus' insight and patience if we are going to unlock the power of our thinking by removing our preconceived notions of what we think we know or what we think He said.

CLARITY

The good news is that God wants you to have clarity of thought and understanding, but it's not always easy to obtain. For that to happen, you must surrender your infatuation with or absorption in three things:

1. Your provision. When God speaks to you, it is difficult not to jump to how questions: How will this work out? How will I get paid? What should I do? God will show you what to do but He has made one thing clear: He can and will provide for you regardless of where you are or what He asks you to do. Remember your past so you can have confidence today.
2. Your future. The disciples were concerned they would not have the provisions they needed for where they were headed. God will be on the other side of your lake no matter where He is taking you. See point number one and again, remember your past.
3. Your beliefs. The fact that Jesus was warning them about teaching they had heard all their lives meant they had been infected with a spiritual virus that had impacted all their "files." It was important for them to examine what they believed, why they believed it, and then upgrade their software and remove anything inconsistent with His teaching. I have a pastor once say to put your conclusions on a bulletin board and not in concrete, for then it is much easier to remove and replace them.

The last item may be the most difficult of all, for it may require you either to unlearn what you heard that was not quite right or to correct how you received what was right until you turned into something it was not meant to be. For example, you could have heard a teaching point that you need to "give it to the Lord." You heard that but assumed it meant you must do nothing and God will do everything in regards to your life situations. That was not bad advice, but you misapplied it and now must go back and unlearn and relearn what God meant when He said it.

I cannot emphasize strongly enough that if the disciples misunderstood Jesus and He was talking to them face to face, then you have misunderstood God even though the Spirit lives in you. That does not mean you are all wrong: far from it. It means that God is with you, like He was with the men in the boat, to steer your thoughts to the right conclusion but only if you allow Him to do so. The only thing required of you is that you submit your thoughts to Him and be open to adjustment, whether slight or drastic. If you will do that, you will have unlocked the power of your thinking because you refused to stubbornly hold on to any conclusion but joyfully submitted it to the Master's inspection for approval or correction. Have a blessed week.

Memo 974: A Sign

Let's continue the Unlocking the Power of Your Thinking series with another look at the story of the feeding of the multitude. This time we will examine the days following that miracle. Immediately we read that the leaders came to Jesus to test Him:

The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven. He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,' and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.' You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Jesus then left them and went away (Matthew 16:1-4).

These are remarkable verses that tell us much. Let's get started.

A SIGN

Jesus had just fed a multitude with a few loaves and fish, but the Sadducees and Pharisees were not impressed. (By the way, those two parties or movements loathed one another, but here they came together to try and trick Jesus, asking Him for something they didn't believe He could produce.) You see, the Jews thought the devil could do signs on earth, which would include feeding a multitude, but they were asking for something more dramatic. They wanted to see the sun stand still or some other "sign from heaven." They were asking Jesus for an absolute and indisputable public demonstration of power. When you ask God for repeated confirmations of His will for your life, you may be doing the same, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Jesus basically responded by saying, "There are signs all around you, signs from heaven, and you don't know how to interpret them. Oh you can predict the rain when you see God's creation acting in a certain way, but you are not able to figure out who I am and what I represent from those same signs." He then accused those leaders of being in bed, so to speak, with other gods by referring to them as "adulterous." It's not that they had abandoned their God; they had simply taken on mindsets and attitudes to supplement their worship of Jehovah. Later, James wrote that when we are friends with the world, we are also "adulterous" (see James 4:4).

Jesus did promise His opponents a sign but it would be the sign of Jonah, who was swallowed by a whale where He spent three nights to think about God's will. Jesus was going to follow Jonah's example and "disappear" for three days only to return to establish His kingdom and lead His followers to eternal life. When you pray for a sign to confirm God's will, you must remember that you have already received the sign of Jonah. If you believe in the Resurrection, then you can believe God for anything—money, healing, ministry opportunities, your own business, or healing of relationships. After all, if God can raise the dead, He can do any and all things and you have your sign that God is with you: "And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you" (Romans 8:11).

"I'M DONE"

Then Matthew 16:4 reports something remarkable, a turning point in Jesus' ministry. Matthew wrote that "Jesus left them and went away." From that point on, Jesus was no longer trying to debate and woo the Pharisees and Sadducees. After this encounter, He said, "I'm done. You are stiff-necked and hard-hearted, and I am withdrawing from you. With all the evidence, you have no interest in following Me or My ways. Even a sign from heaven would not cure your unbelief.  By rejecting Me, you have rejected the Father."

It can be difficult to accept that Jesus was "done" with anyone and, of course, He did not withdraw completely. He was still present from time to time, but He spent more and more of His last days preparing His disciples rather than trying to argue and win over the leaders, who had said in essence they were done with Jesus as well. Nothing He could have done would win their favor and loyalty, including coming back from the dead

The good news, as we will see next week, is that Jesus immediately took His disciples, went away, and began to prepare them more completely for what was to come. That is good news for us is that we are among that company with whom He still works to help us be on guard against as He was to call the leaven or teaching of the Pharisees. That teaching or leaven is really the thinking of the Pharisees to which we are all susceptible.

How about you? Are you asking God for a sign before you accept what's in your heart to do? Did you ever realize you have your sign, which was Jesus's Resurrection? It was His Resurrection that showed you God's power on your behalf. It was the Resurrection that eventually led to the outpouring of the Spirit, who now lives in you to empower you to carry out God's will for your life. It was the Resurrection that positioned Jesus at the Father's right hand where He is praying and interceding for you. You have the sign of Jonah and you don't need a bizarre manifestation so you can be sure you won't look foolish or fail as you step up and out in God's purpose for your life. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is their worldview that God owes you a full explanation before He expects you to take the steps of faith. Have a blessed week!