Galatians (Program #36) – Sow unto the Spirit for the New Creation

The book of Galatians ends with this marvelous word in Galatians 6:18 “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.”  If grace is God Himself in Christ through the Spirit to be our daily supply, it’s most helpful to find out how to experience such grace be with your spirit. These are the words that we’ll focus on in today’s life study of the Bible.

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Galatians (Program #30) – Crucified to the Religious World

Galatians 6 reveals 2 kinds of people who apparently are seeking after God. One kind boasts in their zealousness towards their religion, and their dutiful observance and practice of law keeping. The Apostle Paul represents the other class of God’s seekers; those who only boast in the cross of Christ.  To which class do you belong?  Stay with us as we look at what it really means to be a New Creation in Christ.

The phrase “a new creation” appears in Galatians 6:15. But, many people may be familiar with the translations that render this phrase as “In Christ we have become a new creature.” Which is it, creature or creation? It is definitely creation…

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2 Corinthians (Program #35) – A New Creation in Christ Becoming God’s Righteousness (2)

The New Testament Ministry described in the epistles of Paul is characterized as the ministry of reconciliation and the ministry of the Spirit. While the Old Testament Ministry is called the ministry of death and the ministry of the letter.

The apostle according to 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and ultimately the believers as well become ambassadors of this New Covenant ministry of reconciliation.

2 Corinthians  5:20, “On behalf of Christ then we are ambassadors, as God entreats you through us; we beseech you on behalf of Christ, Be reconciled to God.”

What is it to be fully reconcile to God according to this verse?  We will explore the New Testament ministry of reconciliation today.

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2 Corinthians (Program #34) – A New Creation in Christ Becoming God’s Righteousness (1)

By the end of chapter 4 in 2 Corinthians the apostle Paul was very matured in the Christian life. His being has been largely transformed to the extend that regardless of his outward circumstances he remained in the peace and rest of the Lord’s presence. Realizing that through the Spirit within him God was working through all things to form him and shape him according to His eternal plan.

Listen to his testimony in verse 16 and 17,  “Therefore we do not lose heart; but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For our momentary lightness of affliction works out for us, more and more surpassingly, an eternal weight of glory,”

Surely this is the testimony of one who is longing to meet the Lord. Yet one thing remain in Paul’s spiritual journey is, as we will see in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, his longing to have his earthly body or tabernacle replaced with a heavenly one.

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1 Corinthians (Program #55) -Dealing with the Collection of the Gift and Conclusion

In his first epistle to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul dealt with eleven serious problems that had overtaken the church there. Then in chapter 15, the next to the last chapter, after dealing with all of these matters specifically he points them to the unique solution to all the problems both of the church life and our human life and that is the reality of the resurrection life of Christ as our portion, the new creation. That brings us to the conclusion of the book, Chapter 16.  And as he begins this final chapter its’ almost as if he puts the Corinthians on the test, the most vigorous of tests to see if his words concerning living in the reality of the resurrection had penetrated. He challenges them on the matter of money and material possessions. And this matter of money is still testing all of His believers even today.  We will fellowship this and see the sweet conclusion to the book of 1 Corinthians.

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1 Corinthians (Program #54) – Dealing with the Matter of Resurrection (3 & 4)

The Bible of course tells us that God created the heavens and the earth and man and all the living things. This is His creation work. But there is another creation revealed in the Bible. Listen to 2 Corinthians 5:17 “So then if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away; behold, they have become new.”

In Christ, God has a new creation. In fact all of His work in the New Testament is centered on and focused in this new creation. There is another verse that implies both of these creations in the most profound way. This time in 1 Corinthians chapter 15:45 “So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul”; the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.”

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Acts (Program #10) – The Propagation in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria through the Ministry of Peter’s Company (5-6)

After Pentecost, there is a new creation on the earth, and that is the most monumental fact of that day. God poured out of His Spirit to create a new entity on the earth, and this is called the Church.

On the day of Pentecost, the first gospel message was preached by a New Testament apostle. Peter, standing with the eleven, unveiled a clear and prevailing word that brought thousands to Christ on that monumental day. The content of Peter’s message remains powerful today, and presents an example of gospel preaching worth our full examination. We continue that examination today on the life study of the Bible.

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Mark (Program #42) – The Death and Resurrection of the Slave-Savior for the Accomplishment of God’s Redemption (4)

As Jesus was hanging there on the cross for six agonizing hours bearing the reproach of man and the judgment of God, He did so as a genuine man. Yes, He was unique among all mankind in that He was without sin even of Himself, but His humanity was the same as ours in every other way.

Yet at the same time He was also God and despite the fact that for the final three hours of His suffering, God as the economical Spirit had to forsake Him, while He took upon Himself the sins and transgressions of every man.

Yet intrinsically and essentially He was and still is God.  This is Christ Jesus, the Lord our Savior. The immortal Who put on mortality.  And this mysterious and marvelous God Man died a death that accomplish what no other death could ever accomplished.

His death accomplish far more than just the forgiveness of sins as we will see today. And in addition to dealing with all the negative things, His death also release the divine life to create the New Man, the New Creation and ultimately to bring in the kingdom of God.

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Song of Songs (Program #10) – The Four Stages of Spiritual Experience in Song of Songs

To enter into the real intrinsic significance of the Song of Songs, we have to first understand that this lovely, short, poetic love story is actually a detailed portrait of the lover of Christ’s personal and intimate experience of Him. The full experience of the believer is shown in the four stages in the book of Song of Songs beginning with pursuing Him, then experiencing the cross and dying to the self, followed by living in ascension and becoming a new creation, and finally responding to the highest call to Christian life – to pass through the veil of the flesh, to dwell in God Himself and allow Him to dwell in us. If we have a clear view of these four stages, we will not only fully understand this book, but we will have priceless understanding that will sustain us through our whole Christian life.

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Song of Songs (Program #6) – Living in Ascension by Discerning the Spirit from the Soul

The theme of the book in the Bible with the title “Song of Songs” is satisfaction of satisfactions. This book portrays the four stages in the experience of the lover of Christ and can be summarized by the following four sections:
1) A lover of Christ should be one who is attracted by His love and drawn by Him in His sweetness to pursue after Him for full satisfaction.
2) A lover of Christ should be one who is called by Him to be delivered from the self through his oneness with the cross of Christ.
3) A lover of Christ should be one who is called by Him to live in ascension as the new creation of God in the resurrection of Christ.
4) A lover of Christ should be one who is called by Him more strongly to live within the veil through His cross after the lover’s experience of His resurrection.

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