Hi Everyone
Here’s the notes for last Friday’s Bible study.
Yes, the notes for the last few weeks are a little late, but they’re on the way…
Blessings!
Chris
The Answer
Why Are We Christians?
The time is short and the end is near. Whether our Lord returns soon or we go, it is all in a matter of thousands of days. We need to be sharp about the things of God.
The question I ask is this: What are we Christian for? Is it just to go to heaven? If so, the objective has been met and no further seeking is needed on our part.
I would say this: we are Christians to ultimately become like Him, that soul starts to reflect clearly what the Spirit truly is.
When that happens, the same attractiveness of Jesus is manifested, along with His glory, and the World around us.
Luke 4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” (NKJV)
Today, the Spirit of the Lord is upon us. We are “Christ-ians” – little Christs. We are like Him in every way in the Spirit, not just moral. The part of us growing spiritually is that Christ is formed in us, that what is true in our Spirit is believed in and manifested through the soul, acted in the flesh (Gal 2:20).
In this, we become like the one we are intimate with. In this, we start to realize more and more that all our needs are met in this relationship with the Lord.
Truly, this is the answer we have in our hands today. It is not for us to run out now and try this in our own strength. We all want to see revival that would bring true peace to all but it comes when people are hungry for the Lord, not hungry for good deeds. The first will automatically lead to the second (see James 4:3).
Let us all go all out completely for Jesus, to know Him and come into an encounter with Him, like the early Christians did, and truly become His witnesses.
Our Motivation
God sees the heart and He works through it. Motives are everything. When our motives are aligned with His, we will work through love.
1 Corinthians 13:1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. (NKJV)
Outside of love, much of what happens in Christiandom is wasted effort. I myself have been involved in many evangelical crusades, religious activities, programs and events outside of love. Perhaps it was because of social standing, or because I felt it would make me more accepted by God (He has already! It’s called grace). There I times I’d have been in these because they were the Christian thing to do! Paul does not mince his words - if we do anything for any reason other than for love, it profits me nothing!
Begin and End Well
Begin in Spirit end in Spirit. When we first came to the Lord, it was in the Spirit. We had to believe the Words of Jesus (John 6:63) for salvation. Going on to living our lives, we again have to be careful not to try to “live more Christian” or like some people say, “live by Christian values”.
Galatians 3:3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? (NKJV)
We have to live each day connected to the Lord, by faith in His Word. The real power is not in doing good works. It is in believing His love and what this has purchased for us through the blood of Jesus. We need to grow in grace, know Him, know His love
2 Peter 3:18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen. (NKJV)
Ephesians 3:19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (NKJV)
It is when we start to know His love that we become increasingly full of Him.
Only by His Love
On the flip side, we can’t love without His love
1 John 4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (NKJV)
1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us. (NIV)
We need to seek to know Him more all the time, that His love becomes the source of our love, that we might love more.
It is not just cold intellectual understanding, mental assent of the Word. We need to live by the real belief and experience of His love seen in the manifestation of His promises given to us in the Word.
Love Manifested in Power
When we start to understand more and more of the promises He has given us, the New Creations we have become because of the finished work of Christ, we start to experience the Luke 4:18 experience!
Mark 16:20 And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen. (NKJV)
The Lord work with them, not against them. Not bringing trials into their lives to test them. Signs, supernatural occurrences, followed them everywhere like the Lord promised (Mark 16:17, John 14:12).
We must never be satisfied with coming to church and attempting to be “better Christians”. We must always hunger for the things of God, have a spiritual hunger that the Lord says will draw blessings. David as an example longed for God. He did not hunger for good works, but for the very presence of his loving God, for he knew that with God he had the answer to all things.
The Spirit Within
Today God is in us, with us, for us and never against us. He has made us into Kings and Priests…
Revelation 1:5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, 6 and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (NKJV)
… with the specific task of reigning on earth! Yes, when the glory of God manifests, we reign, not because there are no more problems but because we can live a life beyond them. We live for purposes that extend into eternity. When fully submitted to Him (dead to self), we truly live the life of freedom He meant for us to live, where He is our everything and by Him alone we live.
Revelation 5:9 And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, 10 And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth.” (NKJV)
Read it, Believe Him
There is much to be said about simplicity of faith. We need to simply read and believe. There is much in the Word that seems out of this world and in fact is. John 15:7, Eph 1:18, Eph 3:20 are a few to start with. If we only go by what we can see, then we are walking by sight, not by faith. Worst of all, we must never find theology to disprove the Word of God, to remove its power.
2 Timothy 3:1 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! (NKJV)
There will be those who will have a form of religion, but deny that we have the same power, not only as the Lord had (John 14:12) but that the Apostles and the early believers had (Acts 2:43, Acts 6:8).
Bear Fruit, Awesome Ones!
John 15:7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. (NKJV)
When
- we come into a relationship with the Lord (abide in Him) and
- dare to believe what the Word says (words abide in us),
- we can ask what we desire (because we know His will 1 John 5:14).
- When these prayers are answered, the Father is glorified.
- This is what the Lord calls “bearing fruit” and
- in so doing, we are His disciples.
On the contrary, if
- we don’t know His Word or don’t dare to believe in it (e.g. praying for miracles) and
- we don’t come to know Him and are engaged in living out “Christian morals/principles”,
- we won’t dare to ask, or if we do, they won’t be done.
- God does not get glorified and
- Are by the Lord’s own definition not bearing fruit.
- As a serious indictment, the implication also is that we are not His disciples.
We are awesome people – the Saints, the Holy Ones (“hagios” in Greek, same word used in the word "holy" in “Holy Spirit”). When increasingly more of us realise the incredible power that has be endowed in us, the less we will make excuses for the lack of ability the we have in the flesh and walk by the Spirit. It is in this that increasingly, we will see people being saved.
Once there are enough of us this way, we will once again have revival in our land.
