Becoming a Mentor

 

“I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”

—John 13:15

“Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.”

—1 Corinthians 11:1

Do you know that every one needs a mentor? Now that word “mentor” is a word that at lot of people throw around quite casually in conversation these days. The word “mentor” really means: “a teacher who teaches by example.”

We learn lots of things by watching how other people accomplish whatever they are doing. Have you ever watched “Mister Rogers” or “Sesame Street” or one of the other children’s programs, when one of the characters shows the viewers how to do something? Then later, you (or your children) tried to do that same thing? Sure you have. You learned because you saw someone else do something and, as a result, you were now able to do whatever they showed you. With practice, you could keep doing that same task until you could do that “something,” too.

Think about how you learned to pray. Maybe the first time you became conscious of prayer, it was your mom or dad who prayed with you. Perhaps, you were a very little boy or girl at the time. I imagine that mom or dad said something like, “Now bow your head and close your eyes and we’re going to pray.” Then mom or dad would bow his or her head and close his or her eyes and pray a prayer with you.

Every time mom or dad prayed with you, he or she would say, “Now bow your head and close your eyes and we’re going to pray.” Pretty soon, you knew that, when it was time to pray, it was also time to bow your head and close your eyes.

At the same time, you listened carefully to what mom or dad said to God when they prayed. Maybe they asked God to give you a peaceful and restful night’s sleep. Perhaps they asked God to protect you, your brothers and sisters, your grandma and grandpa, your uncles and aunts. They may even have thanked God for sending His Son, Jesus, to die on the cross in order to forgive your sins. Eventually, by doing what mom or dad asked you to do and by listening to what they said to God, you learned how to pray for yourself. You learned how to pray by following what mom and dad showed you.

Or, maybe, you didn’t grow up in a praying household and the first time you prayed was as a teenager, or even as an adult. Even then, didn’t you learn how to pray by listening to someone else, or maybe many others, pray? Sure you did.

The lesson for today is that God wants us to learn from each other. And,more so, God wants us to be teachers to all of our friends and all of the other people we see each day. He wants us to show them the right way to do things. God wants us to live our lives in such a way that we can be good teachers—good mentors—to others.

You can learn how to mentor others by always choosing what you know is the right thing to do. We sometimes try to kid ourselves into believing that we have many choices in every situation. The truth is that, in every situation we encounter in life, we really do know, within the depth of our being, what is the right thing to do in each circumstance. That nudging within us is the Holy Spirit. He is hleping us to know what the right thing to do is, in every situation.

God sends the Holy Spirit to dwell within everyone who acknowledges that the Lord Jesus Christ is his or her Savior. The Holy Spirit helps keep us on the pathway that God has laid out before us. The Holy Spirit helps us choose to do the right thing, whenever we must make a choice.

So, we can learn how to be a good and effective mentor by listening carefully for that nudge from the Holy Spirit. Let’s choose to do the right thing, in every case, and we will become a good mentor.

 

_{Copyright © 2026 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

_{More info at www.DeanKWilson.com}

 

Fruit Bearers

 

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

—Colossians 1:9-14

I want you to imagine with me for a moment that you are a farmer. Can you do that? Of course you can. And, on your farm you have a very large field. Your field stretches from way over there to way over here. All through this very large field you have planted fruit trees.

Now planting those fruit trees was only the beginning. Starting in the very early days of spring, you would have to put fertilizer around those trees. You would have to make certain the trees have enough water. You would have to carefully remove any weeds that might grow up around the trees and steal nourishment away from them. You would have to work very, very hard. All through the summer months and into the fall, you would have to care for those trees in the hope that when the time of harvest comes they would produce beautiful, juicy, delightfully tasting fruit.

Now imagine if you were that farmer and you went out into the field at harvest time expecting to find fruit and the first tree you came to had not one piece of fruit on it. Why you would look that tree up and down. You would move branches aside. But no matter where you looked, no fruit.

So you would move on to the next tree. You would look up and down, move branches, but—wait a minute—no fruit. Hey, what’s going on? At the third tree, no fruit. At the fourth tree, no fruit. Not one tree in all of your orchard has fruit. What a terrible disappointment. All that work, and nothing to show for your effort.

In John 15:8, Jesus tells us that we have to make certain our lives do not become like trees that do not bear fruit. We have to respond to the love of the Christ that occupies our hearts by living out that love in our service to others.

Through acts of kindness to others, by doing what we know is right, by sharing what we have with people in need, we show that Christ’s love lives in our hearts.

We have to always remember that because God loves us so much, He sent His Son Jesus to be our Savior. Our response to this great act of God’s love is to make certain we show His love to the people with whom we come in contact.

Every time we say a kind word to someone, or give someone a cheerful smile, we show them Christ’s love. Every time we give someone less fortunate than we are a part of what God has given to us, we show them Christ’s love. Every time we tell someone that Jesus loves them, we show them His love.

 

_{Copyright © 2026 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

_{More info at www.DeanKWilson.com}

 

In and Through Our Savior

 

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

—John 14:6

Almighty God, to whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
—Book of Common Prayer 1662 (translation)

What does it mean, when we acknowledge all of the above requests we make in prayer to God by using the phrase “through Christ our Lord”? And, what impact does this acknowledgement have on our daily walk of obedience with Him?

Jesus told his disciples in John 14:6:

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

In these few words, the Lord Jesus Christ declares Himself the sole means by which we connect with God. The use of the definite article, “the,” leaves room for no other way to God. Jesus is the only way!

As bold as this declaration may seem, and as disappointing as it may appear to followers of all other religions, the Son of God declares Himself the definitive point of contact. In the reality of our daily lives, this confirms that—as we strive to obediently follow the pathway God has laid out for us—everything we do, everything we say, everything we accomplish, in fact, everthing we are comes through Jesus. He becomes the enabling pathway.

In John 14:26, Jesus declares:

But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

So, God gives believers in Jesus the Holy Spirit to dwell within us and to become an internal counselor who will strive with us as we seek to enter into all things through the Lord Jesus Christ.

No matter what kind of trial or difficulty we may have to face, our sustaining encouragement and our exit strategy comes through Jesus. He is the One who enables us, by the Holy Spirit, to draw sustenance from Him to face the time of trial. He is the One, by the Holy Spirit, who directs our pathway along the road of obedience to His will and His written Word. He is the One, by the Holy Spirit, who will protect us from the onslaught of our enemies and will confirm for us the support of our friends.

And, part of the beauty of His Abiding Presence is the reality that He fulfills, moment-by-moment, His promise from John 15:5-8:

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

We must remain in Him. We must move through Him. We must experience through Him. We must enjoy through Him. We must love through Him. We must obey through Him.

God accomplishes His will and purpose, in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Likewise, we accomplish God's perfect will for us, in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. All that we have and all the we are comes as a precious gift from God, in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.

To walk the pathway of obedience, we must follow the writer of Hebrews’ instruction in Hebrews 12:1-3:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Join me, won’t you? Let us live this day, in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us allow the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit to carry us along the pathway of true obedience that God has laid out before us, to release every obstacle that arises into the protective arms of Jesus, and to experience the joy of His peace.

 

_{Copyright © 2026 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

_{More info at www.DeanKWilson.com}

 

Magnify and Glorify

 

“O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together.”

—Psalm 34:3

Almighty God, to whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
—Book of Common Prayer 1662 (translation)

What does it mean to “worthily magnify” God’s holy Name? And, how in the world do we do it?

A strong correlation exists between this quotation from the Book of Common Prayer and the admonition of the Lord Jesus Christ when He quotes from the Mosaic Law in Mark 12:28-31:

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

In this passage Jesus affirms that we are to love the Lord our God:

• with all our heart—our emotional being
  
  
• with all our soul—our spiritual being
  
  
• with all our mind—our intellectual being—and
  
  
• with all our strength—our physical being.
  
  

In other words, we are to love God with the totality of our being. Love for God must flow from each one of the four modalities of our being. In fact, we cannot begin to truly love others until we first love God.

In John 21:15-19, Jesus confronts Peter and they reconcile following Peter’s denial on the night Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. In this exchange, the Lord Jesus probes to find out whether or not Peter has come to understand that the agape—God-breathed love—that He requires comes only through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. We don’t really get a glimpse of whether or not Peter truly understands until some days later when Peter preaches his famous sermon at Pentecost, as recorded in Acts 2:14-41.

In and of ourselves, we simply cannot worthily magnify God’s holy Name. But, as we receive the life-transforming power of the Risen Christ, the Holy Spirit enables us to fulfill the call of the Psalmist in Psalm 34:3 KJV:

O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together.

In the quiet of the early morning hour, when we first stir from a night of rest, we must make the volitional decision to surrender our will to the enabling power of the Holy Spirit. Then, and only then, can we begin our day in the full confidence that the Enabler will empower us to worthily magnify God’s precious and holy Name.

 

_{Copyright © 2026 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

_{More info at www.DeanKWilson.com}

 

Loving Perfectly

 

… The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

—Galatians 5:6b

Almighty God, to whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
—Book of Common Prayer 1662 (translation)

What does it mean when we ask God to help us “that we may perfectly love Thee?” And, what impact does this request have on our daily walk of obedience with the God who loved us enough to send His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die on Calvary’s cruel cross in our behalf?

You see, that’s the point. God has literally poured out His love toward us. Scripture makes that crystal clear. Notice what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 5:8:

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God always makes the first move. He draws us irresistibly into His love, mercy, and grace, by the power of the Holy Spirit. At the beginning of human life on this earth, God gave mankind an opportunity to remain obedient in the Garden of Eden. In response, Adam chose to sin. That sin condemned all mankind to eternal death.

But, God’s love would not leave us in that dreadful state. He made provision to reconcile us to Himself through the precious blood of His Son. Jesus’ death on the cross paid the penalty for our sin. And, Jesus’ resurrection from the grave secured our eternal home in heaven, once our life on this earth comes to an end.

Can we conceive of any response to the overwhelming love of God more appropriate than loving Him with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength? No, of course not.

Even in this matter of loving God in return, He has not left us to flounder our way along without help. Once again, the Holy Spirit enables us to love God with the sinless perfection that can only come by way of His cleansing. Moment by moment, day after day, as we yield our selfish human wills to His perfect divine will, He sweeps away the natural, sinful evil that permeates our beings. As a result of such cleansing, we can now perfectly love God.

In Galatians 5:6b, Paul writes:

…The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

We express our faith principally through love. Love for God and love for our fellow humans.

Several times in this series of blog posts, I have made reference to Jesus’ own words in Mark 12:28-31:

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Again, we can see how important love is to an obedient walk with God. The authors of the Book of Common Prayer have expressed a very critical truth. God desires our love as a fitting act of obedience and also as a fitting expression of our gratitude for His magnificent love He extends to us.

I don’t know about you, but I take enormous comfort from knowing that He has already made provision to faithfully keep me on the pathway of obedience that He has laid out for me each day. And, I am quite certain that the best way to begin, and to end, my day with God is to simply speak these words to Him: “I love you, Lord!”

 

_{Copyright © 2026 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

_{More info at www.DeanKWilson.com}

 

Cleanse Our Thoughts

 

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

—2 Corinthians 5:17

Almighty God, to whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
—Book of Common Prayer 1662 (translation)

What does it mean when we ask God to “cleanse the thoughts of our hearts?” And, what impact does this request have on our daily walk of obedience with God through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ?

In the deep recesses of our hearts, we harbor a great deal of information and, even more so, our feelings about that information. The Bible often uses the word “heart” to refer to the centrality of our being. You might say that our heart represents the core of our self. So, holding all this information—or dare I call it “data”—in our hearts, makes inspecting the nature of that data quite important to our well-being.

The data we hold, or harbor, in our hearts affects all the modalities of our self: emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and physical. Every aspect of our lives receives influence from that which we harbor in our hearts.

If we hold things of beauty, grace, charm, and holiness in our hearts, our being will reflect those positive qualities. If we harbor evil thoughts, evil desires, evil memories, evil intentions, then our being will reflect those negative qualities.

By asking God to “cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit” we invite our Precious Father to sweep through the core of our being and brush out all that’s evil and sinful. Since what’s removed must be replaced with something else, as the Holy Spirit sweeps out the evil and sinful, He sweeps in the holy, righteous, and good.

We get a strong sense of this activity from Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 5:17:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

Part of what happens, when we receive the gift of salvation, through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ sacrificed on Calvary’s cruel cross, is that the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within our hearts. He, then, can respond to our request to “cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.” We don’t have to do anything, but ask Him. Just ask!

I encourage each one of us to begin each day—even before we get out of bed—by praying the simple prayer you will find by clicking here. My dear friend and spiritual mentor, Rev. Dr. David R. Mains, wrote this prayer many years ago and shared it on his radio broadcast: The Chapel of the Air. Letters he received from listeners indicated that this prayer has helped thousands of people begin their mornings by confidently stepping out on the pathway God has laid out for them that day.

Please join with them, and with me. I’ve prayed this prayer for over 50 years. And, while I have often fallen short of God’s best for me, He has always proven Himself faithful to me. I have learned to trust God implicitly. And, each one of us can learn this important truth, as well.

Why not start today, right now. Let’s just bow our heads, pray the simple prayer I’ve suggested in the paragraph above, and watch how God will “cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.” We’ll be really glad we did.

 

_{Copyright © 2026 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

_{More info at www.DeanKWilson.com}

 

Secrets!

 

“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

—John 1:12-13

Almighty God, to whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
—Book of Common Prayer 1662 (translation)

What does it mean that from God “no secrets are hid?” And, what impact does the reality of this truth have on our daily walk of obedience with our God of Love, of Mercy, and of Grace?

As a child, do you remember how you felt when someone told you a secret? Pretty early in our lives, most of us learn the power that comes from knowing something that others don’t know. In fact, quite early in our lives, most of us also learn that secrets offer a most powerful way to manipulate others.

“I know something you don’t know!” chanted that nasty little tike that lived around the corner from the home in which I grew up. Secrets have the power to hurt. Secrets, sometimes, also have the power to heal.

When a dear friend comes to you with a very serious problem and, in confidence, shares with you. Holding that information in strictest confidence, while you pray earnestly for God to help your friend deal with his or her problem, can offer a healing balm to soothe a wound of the soul.

Even in our own lives, in the deepest recesses of our hearts, we often harbor secrets that we feel we can share with no one. That’s the beauty of this declaration from The Book of Common Prayer. The same God “to whom all hearts be open, all desires known” is also the God “from whom no secrets are hid.”

When we become a child of God, the Holy Spirit comes to live within us. No longer do we have the ability to harbor secrets from God. He knows us in the most intimate manner possible. He knows our thoughts, He knows our hearts, He knows our desires, and He knows our secrets.

Today, as we continue to journey along the pathway that God has laid out before us, let us take courage in knowing that the God who knows our secrets will grant us wisdom, knowledge, and understanding to deal with whatever circumstances occur in our lives. The power of the indwelling Holy Spirit will enable us to face every challenge and overcome every obstacle. So, we can breathe a sigh of relief. We can rest in God’s love, joy, and peace all through this day.

 

_{Copyright © 2026 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

_{More info at www.DeanKWilson.com}