John (Program #41) – The Work of the Spirit unto the Mingling of Divinity with Humanity (2)

You come into this chapter (John 17); it’s like stepping into a room where a Godly person is praying and you feel uneasy to interrupt Him. And, you certainly don’t want to come in to inject any thought of your own. So, there’s a holy atmosphere here, of the communication in the divine Trinity that only the Holy Spirit can make known to us.

I believe the prayer, in John 17, is very very significant, mainly because it comes at the end of a long message that the Lord Jesus gave to His disciples just before He went to the cross. Chapters 14, 15, and 16 give us the message that the Lord Jesus spoke on His way to be crucified. So, this of course is a very significant portion of the Word of God, particularly in the Gospel of John. And, after that long message, then He closes with this prayer. And, this prayer is so meaningful that unless you really pray it, or I should say, read it prayerfully, you will not know what its subject is.

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John (Program #38) – The Organism of the Triune God in the Divine Dispensation (2)

When He speaks to us, we have to keep it. When His word abides in us, then right away, we are abiding in His love. So, just by saying Amen to His speaking, love will fill us, and we will find the prevailing way to love the Lord Jesus and abide in His love.

The very striking point in John 15 to me is the illustration of the vine and the branches. There’s no other plant that could adequately illustrate the life flow that exists between the Lord and His believers. The Lord said, “I am the vine, and you are the branches.” Could any other illustration make it more clear? Then, what God is producing is an organism, not an organization. The “I am” here is Christ when He said, “I am the vine.” And, the “you are” is that part of the vine known as branches. Christ, the Son, is the very center of God’s economy, and He’s also the embodiment of all the riches of the Father.

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John (Program #36) – The Dispensing of the Triune God for the Producing of His Abode (4)

This is so critical for our experience of Christ to continually say, “Lord Jesus, I love you.” And according to these verses, when you tell the Lord that you love Him, He says “I will love you also, and My Father will love you. I will manifest myself to you. And, not only that, the Father and I will come to you and make an abode with you.”

Thus far, we’ve seen that John 14 is a very mysterious chapter. In verse 2, the Lord says, “In My Father’s house are many abodes”, and this verse has been misinterpreted and misunderstood by many people. What we have seen from the Holy Bible is that the Father’s house is the Church. 1 Timothy 3:15 tells us the Church is the house of the living God. And, in the Church, which is the Father’s house, are many abodes. These many abodes are the many members of the Church as the body of Christ, who are the many dwelling places of Christ. Each believer in Christ, as a member of His body, which is the Church as the Father’s house, is a dwelling place to Christ…

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Luke (Program #36) – The Ministry of the Man-Savior in His Human Virtues with His Divine Attributes from Galilee to Jerusalem (16)

It’s interesting that the greatest difficulties that the Lord Jesus had in His earthly ministry was not dealing with sin.  It was dealing with religion.  We would think that religion should help people come to God.  But all too often what we find is the same thing that the Lord Jesus found; not only the religion not help us to find God it frustrates and even stumbles us from coming to God.  It is in this context in Luke 17 that the Lord said “woe to him who stumbles.  It’s more profitable if a millstone is put around his neck and he is hurled into the sea than to stumble the little ones.”

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Luke (Program #28) – The Ministry of the Man-Savior in His Human Virtues with His Divine Attributes from Galilee to Jerusalem (7)

Peace is surely a vital aspect of the divine life of Christ. When we receive Him as our life and savior, we all experience peace within, peace with God, and even peace with one another. So what did the Lord Jesus mean in Luke 12 when He said, ” I have come to cast fire on the earth… Do you think that I have come to give peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” This is a mysterious portion of the Word to understand. Yet, surely it matches many of the experiences of His seeking ones. We’ll explore this passage on today’s life study of the Bible.

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Luke (Program #26) – The Ministry of the Man-Savior in His Human Virtues with His Divine Attributes from Galilee to Jerusalem (5)

We are all familiar with the Lord’s prayer.  It is covered in both Matthew and Luke.  But it’s interesting that here in the gospel of Luke immediately following the Lord’s marvelous training of His disciples not just merely in how to pray but how to pray themselves into God, He find Himself in a conflict with demons and dealing with mass rejections.

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Luke (Program #25) – The Ministry of the Man-Savior in His Human Virtues with His Divine Attributes from Galilee to Jerusalem (4)

In Luke 11, the disciples find the Lord Jesus praying to the Father. They take the opportunity to ask the Lord to teach them how to pray. No doubt thinking that if they receive the proper instruction then they would soon enter into a realm where they received answers to all their prayers. Well, we need to ask ourselves, what is it to pray? Is it just to make our needs and requests known to God and then wait in faith for Him to grant all of our requests? Well, we will get light today from the Gospel of Luke chapter 11 that we have likely never received. We come to this message from Luke on today’s life study of the Bible.

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Luke (Program #24) – The Ministry of the Man-Savior in His Human Virtues with His Divine Attributes from Galilee to Jerusalem (3)

There is a small village just outside of Jerusalem called Bethany. It was the home of two sisters named Martha and Mary, who not only loved the Lord Jesus deeply, but were compelled to serve Him as well. This should be the case for any true lovers of the Lord Jesus after we have experienced His undying love for us. We should not only love Him in return, but be filled with the heart’s desire to serve Him.

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Luke (Program #17) – The Ministry of the Man-Savior in Galilee (8)

The progression in the gospel of Luke is truly marvelous. Chapter 7 concludes with several very touching stories of sinful people being forgiven and drawn to the Lord Jesus in love. Surely their cases match our own. Then after teaching His follower with parables we come to the most interesting passage in chapter 8, where the Man-Savior instead of acknowledging His flesh mother and brothers, identified His chosen ones, His believers as His real family members and relatives.

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Luke (Program #8) – The Preparation of the Man-Savior with His Divinity (7)

Following the account of the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in Luke chapter 3, there are two very interesting items. First of all, the genealogy of Jesus – beginning with Jesus and working its way back to God. The second is the temptation or the testing of Jesus – forty days in the wilderness with Satan directly tempting the Lord, yet Jesus in His perfect humanity, fully withstanding every temptation and thereby defeating God’s enemy. But it’s interesting that the Lord was led there to face that temptation by the Holy Spirit. We will look at both the genealogy of Jesus and His passing this test of tests in today’s life study of Luke.

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