We need preaching and teaching!

We need to listen to the preaching of God’s Word because God can minister to us through His Word. He can give us revelation. He can give us understanding. His Word is living and active. It can bring conviction. It can produce a lightness of spirit. It can cause deliverance to the soul. 
However what need to see is that we need to be taught from the Word of God as well. To be taught means that we do something more than just listen. When do we say that we have learned something? It is when we begin to do it and gain practice in it. The teaching can benefit only when it is accepted and worked out. In fact, the teaching has no power in itself. It can work only when it is heard and applied. It begins its activity only when the hearer says yes to it. 
Why do we need the teaching?  It is the equipment on which we build our spiritual muscles. When we obey the teaching, we are allowing the Holy Spirit to form our inner man. We are allowing the seed to grow. We are becoming more and more like Jesus. 

The shadow and the substance!

It is important to have a clear picture regarding the way the Old Testament saints approached God. They are some who even think that any one in the Old Testament times could approach God only through the priests and in the temple only. What we need to know that the Law of Moses was given as a shadow of the heavenly reality of worship and prayer. People could enter into the actual (heavenly) presence of God even in those times e.g. Daniel who prayed from his room thrice a day. However two things have to be noted regarding the shadow and the substance (true worship) - 

1. The people could not assume that the shadow was the substance. Meaning that just by doing the rituals prescribed, they could not enter into the actual reality of the presence of God. It pointed to the substance but was not the substance itself. 

2. The shadows could not be laid aside even though the O.T. saints could have a foretaste of the substance. Even David had to follow the prescribed ordinances even though he received an understanding that sacrifices were not what God was satisfied with. They had to use the shadows even while reaching out for the substance. 

Not just the fruit!

When we think of the sin of Adam and Eve in the garden, most of us see it as a simple act of disobedience and some even wonder why God had to censure in such a manner. Well, among a few things, what we sometimes do not see is that Eve primarily fell to that temptation because she began to have visions of grandeur. She heard that she would become like God and she toggled with that dreadful suggestion before giving in to it. Another thing that we do not usually notice is the name of the tree itself. God did not just tell them not to eat of that tree but He also gave them the name of the tree so that they would know why it was forbidden. Do we realize that evil entered the world because Adam and Eve allowed it to happen through eating the fruit? It was not just that they began to know about good and evil. They began to know about good but was unable to bring it about in a consistent manner. In the same way, they started to know about evil but was unable to prevent it from taking over. What they did not realize is that only with God's help could they succeed either in doing good or in fighting against evil. Evil came in only because man chose to let it enter and so, man ultimately is responsible for its progress as well even though the devil schemed to bring it in.