The Teachable Heart: A Six-Month Devotional

By David E. Vitt

The book you are holding is the culmination of twenty years of personal Bible study and hundreds of lesson plans prepared with you, the teachable believer, in mind. Over the years, his students consistently encouraged Dave to make highlights of his lessons available to a wider audience. The outcome is The Teachable Heart Devotional Series.

Like life itself, the devotions come in a random, unexpected orderhelping you grow in thoughtful, practical, and Christ-honoring ways. You will be amazed at what one page and five minutes a day can do. You will be encouraged in your faith, challenged in your walk, lifted when youre down, and comforted in your sorrow. You will be spurred on toward good works yet encouraged to rest in the loving arms of Christ. One page, five minutesyou can do this! Try it and be amazed at what God can do with The Teachable Heart!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781512772746

David E. Vitt

Author, teacher, pharmacist, dad, husband, and life-long student…each role has helped shape the man who wrote the book you’re holding. While Dave has a Master’s Degree in Christian Counseling, plus additional seminary training, he lives in the real world, having worked as a pharmacist, owning his own business for many years. In addition, Dave has been married for nearly thirty years and has raised two beautiful adult daughters. He brings a very real, and always practical perspective to his teaching. His previous works include James – Living a Life of Faith: A Bible Study for Men, and The Teachable Heart Devotional Volume 1. Dave has taught adult Bible study classes for almost twenty years and considers it among the greatest joys of life. He lives in suburban Kansas City with his wife and daughters. Wherever a group of Teachable Hearts gathers, he humbly looks forward to teaching.

Book preview

Day 1 – In The Image of the Same God

My older daughter, Amanda, has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome (a form of autism) since early childhood. She is a wonderfully bright child with a heart of gold – and she sees life through a unique set of lenses.

A few years ago, she randomly asked, Dad, why do others have to put a label on me? I tried to give her an academic response, explaining that it was to help the rest of us try to understand people with similar characteristics, etc. She didn’t buy it for a second. In fact, her response blew me away, and I’ve never looked at her the same in the years since. But Daddy, I’m not sick, she replied, I just think differently than they do. Before I could recover from that profound truth, she went on to add something far too wise for her thirteen years – words that hit me right between the eyes and brought this once pride-filled dad to his knees. Daddy, I was made in the image of the same God they were.

Seems like such a simple truth today, but for years I had let well-meaning people convince me that my precious daughter was a problem to be fixed – as something broken, and as someone who, as her parent, I shouldn’t take pride in. Scripture tells us to delight in our children – yet in my formerly tainted view, I wondered how a parent could delight in something that was damaged. My tendency was to frantically strain and search for the perfect remedy that would somehow make everything ‘better.’

But because of the godly insight of a tender child, I now ignore those telling me my kiddo is a problem, and I have learned to take delight in Amanda just as she is. Turns out that the one God wanted to change….was me.

How do we view those around us – those we see as being the same as us, and those we see as being vastly different? Beginning today, start repeating this truth, They were made in the image of the same God I was.

God created man in His own image… (Genesis 1:27, NASB)

Day 2 – Snow Crew

I was half-way through removing about fifteen inches of snow from my driveway when I heard a voice from behind me – or did it come from heaven? – say, Do you mind if I help? When I turned around, there was my thirteen-year-old neighbor Matthew with shovel in hand. Hmmm - did I mind? That would be, NO, I don’t mind!

We worked together for a while, chatting the whole time. I found out he wants to be a writer, he loves classic rock, and he plays the guitar. Within fifteen minutes, out came two more neighbor boys, Nate, also thirteen, and Jackson, who was ten. (Anybody else having visions of Tom Sawyer and a white fence?) Together we knocked out my drive in no time. And then the most amazing thing happened - they, whose collective ages don’t match mine, decided we should do the widow’s drive next door, and then that of the guy who is dying of cancer at home, and then the elderly couple’s across the street on the corner.

Folks, I saw and heard them turn down money from those willing to pay. The ten- year-old gave the best reply imaginable: No thank you ma’am, I want to do this for you.

My back, shoulders, arms, and legs all hurt after those four driveways - but my heart was sure warmed by these young men. Best snow crew in town!

How can you serve others today?

Serve the Lord with gladness. (Psalm 100:2, NASB)

Day 3 – One Awful Decision

The headline on Monday morning read, Pete Carroll threw away Super Bowl with one awful decision. Ouch!

It was one of the better Super Bowls in recent memory. As an observer who didn’t really care which team won, I watched just for the enjoyment of it. The game was tightly contested the entire time, and the outcome was in question until the final minute of the fourth quarter.

As time was winding down, a receiver on the trailing team made one of the most fantastic circus catches I’d ever seen. His team now had the ball on the one-yard line, plenty of time-outs, and one of the NFL’s best running backs ready to score the winning touchdown. But, instead of handing the ball to him, the coach called for a passing play – and the quarterback threw an interception, ending the chances of victory.

As I drove home from the friends’ home where we’d watched the game, I was reminded of how thankful I am that my awful decisions are not captured on tape and replayed on national television for all to see. I was reminded of what a gracious and merciful God we have; He not only doesn’t replay them, He forgets them and removes them as far as the east is from the west.

The headline for each of our lives could read, Thrown away with one awful decision. But thanks be to God for His amazing grace that redeems us from each and every awful decision (and thought and action) we’ve ever made!

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace. (Ephesians 1:7, NASB)

Day 4 – She Was Only Thirty-Six

She was only thirty-six. The three young children draped over the edge of her casket were each less than ten. Inside, their mother and my only sister – Bernadette. Only three weeks earlier she was busy about her life like anyone else. She was running errands, keeping house, carting young children everywhere – completely unaware of the massive tumor inside her brain. Her doctors were stymied; medicine offered no answers. Men and women of great faith offered sincere prayers on her behalf, with some claiming promises of healing from God’s Word.

As a fairly young Christian, I found the days between her diagnosis and death utterly confusing and rather hopeless. I was beginning to doubt in the dark what God had told me in the light. Medicine was failing, and apparently faith was too. What I was sensing must have been similar to what the disciples felt on that Saturday between the cross and the empty grave. They’d seen the man they wanted to be king brutally killed and placed in a borrowed tomb. And all their hopes and dreams were buried right along with Him. Or so they thought.

The truth is, they didn’t know what was coming (despite having been told) any more then we know the final outcome in our own earthly stories. While it wasn’t what we asked for or wanted, Berna received a perfect healing, one she had already accepted and welcomed. Her final words to me, spoken in the recovery room following the last failed surgery, were ones of great faith and hope: You’ll be so happy for me, Dave – I’m going to be with my Jesus. Berna died as she had lived – for her Jesus! She knew then, and experiences today, the realities of Easter – that hope follows hopelessness. Life follows death.

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14)

Day 5 – Fear, Faith, and Fences

It’s not the parts of the Bible I don’t understand that trouble me, it’s the parts I do that get me. I don’t know who originally said it, but boy can I relate. Such was the case this week as I studied 2 Thessalonians. Near the end of the first chapter, Paul prayed, among other things, that they would "fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified…" (1:11-12, NASB).

Honestly the phrase the work of faith in power really challenged me because Christ is not going to be glorified much in the works that I can pull off in my own strength. What Paul described were those works that require both our faith and His power. I’m haunted by that because I am not a man currently known for having tremendous faith.

In fact, I’m much more like the African impala that can jump to a height of over ten feet and cover a distance of greater than thirty feet with a single bounce. Yet this magnificent creature can be kept in an enclosure in any zoo with only a three-foot-high wall. Do you wonder why? They don’t escape because they won’t jump if they are unable to see where their feet will land. I’m afraid that describes me all too well. Perhaps it describes you, too?

Truthfully, many of us have more fear than faith. If from the beginning we can’t see the end – and the logical path in between – we just won’t jump. Yet we’re told that without faith it’s impossible to please Him (Hebrews 11:6), and that we’re to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Perhaps you’ve been presented with opportunities to do big things for God, but they don’t make sense to you; they’re not completely logical. In short, you can’t see where your feet will land. But He wants you to run and be free of fear – not to be contained by three-foot-high fences. Remember: faith isn’t the absence of fear – faith is the answer to fear.

Day 6 – The Greater Need

I decided to take a long, brisk walk for some much needed exercise and to clear my mind. That long, brisk walk quickly turned into a long, slow talk with my neighbor who lives less than one hundred yards from my house. As I reached the corner, I saw her sitting alone in her driveway and before I knew it, my feet were headed toward her.

I didn’t feel up to talking at the time, but I sensed the Lord nudging me to go. The truth is, we’ve lived three doors away from each other for over twenty years and we’ve never been more than casual acquaintances. I hadn’t seen her since the day the neighborhood kids and I shoveled the snow from her driveway after hearing her husband was too ill with cancer to do it himself. I hadn’t seen him in several weeks, so up to her lawn chair I walked. The immediate smile on her face told me I had made the right choice.

She grabbed my hand as I sat at her feet, and for the next hour she told me about the passing of her husband and the loneliness that she’d been experiencing since. I heard about her adult children and grandchildren, the last few weeks of her husband’s life, and her concerns about the future. I smiled frequently, squeezed her hand often, and an hour later thanked her for giving me the opportunity to sit and talk with her. I had set out on my walk to fulfill personal needs, but God had a better mission in mind.

Take a mental walk through your neighborhood – are there any widows or widowers who would love a visit from you?

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress… (James 1:27)

Day 7 – Keys

It was past time for my kids to have house keys of their own, so I stopped by one of the local stores and had a couple made. As I stood at the counter, I was overwhelmed by the number of options available. There were Disney Princesses, ladybugs, monkeys, M&M’s and a host of others. I chose a key for each girl and handed them to the key-making guy. The employee stood there for a moment and looked at me like I had two heads before finally concluding that I just wasn’t getting it.

Apparently, he needed the original to get started and I was still holding it! As the machine ground away, I thought about the similarities that exist between Christians and keys. We come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. Our personalities, looks, and abilities may all differ. However, if we’re going to be effective, there must be a likeness to the Original.

Like those keys, everything that is not of the Master must be ground away. Only when we resemble our Father in heaven will the grinding process be completed. The process may be painful, but it’s necessary – so try not to fight it. Remember, He has a purpose for every second spent in the grinder.

…we all… are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory… (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Day 8 – On The Couch

As I write at my parent’s dining room table, there’s somebody sleeping on the couch in the next room. The house is packed with family, and one unlucky soul ended up on the couch.

Upon closer inspection, I discover the person on the sofa is none other than my mom. The oldest one in the house, and the owner of the home, had given up her room to some of her grandchildren! Had I known, I would have offered her my spot. But I think she would have insisted otherwise; she has always put others ahead of herself. Quietly, without drawing any attention to the sacrifices – she just places others