Ephesians (Program #22) – The Breaking Down of the Middle Wall of Partition

The Bible in Romans tells us very clearly that Christ’s death on the cross resolved any conflict that exists between us and God. Roman 5 :1 “Therefore having been justified out of faith, we have peace toward God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  And how we worship Him and praise Him for making such peace. But there is another peace that was accomplished through the redeeming death of Christ and Paul talks about this peace in Ephesians chapter 2:14 “For He Himself is our peace, He who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of partition, the enmity, abolishing in His flesh the law of the commandments in ordinances, that He might create the two in Himself into one new man, so making peace.”

This specifically is not talking about peace between us and God. This is talking about peace between bitter and fierce enemies, peace between man and even between races and it is a crucial aspect of the salvation that we had received.  We’ll talking about this peace today on our life study of the book of Ephesians.

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Ephesians (Program #12) – Sealed with the Holy Spirit

Of the three in the Godhead, the Holy Spirit is the most mysterious and the least known. Yet the Bible tells us that the Spirit functions in many definite ways. For example, it is the Spirit that broods over us before we’re saved; it’s the Spirit that convicts us, bringing us to salvation; the Spirit gives life; the Spirit also teaches and guides us into all the reality. But Ephesians gives us at least two additional functions of the Spirit in 1:13-14 “In whom you also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in Him also believing, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise, Who is the pledge of our inheritance unto the redemption of the acquired possession, to the praise of His glory.” These verses tell us that the Spirit seals us and also that the Spirit becomes the pledge of our inheritance.  The sealing and pledging Spirit is our subject today and in the next program on this life study from Ephesians.

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Galatians (Program #44) – Walking by the Spirit as Sons of God (1)

Galatians, much like the book of Romans, reveals God’s salvation to us in a most dynamic and marvelous way. We are saved by faith, through grace and fully according to the operation of the Spirit and not by the works of law. But the revelation of the New Testament and of these books especially does not stop here. There is a goal to this salvation, a wonderful goal, that should become our goal as well. This was the deep burden of the apostle Paul in Galatians.

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Galatians (Program #12) – Christ Crucified

The Christ of our salvation is the crucified Christ. As Christians if we are living according to law, attempting to please God by our own behavior, then we have no need of the One who was crucified and resurrected for us. Listen to Paul’s words in Galatians 3:1: “O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly portrayed crucified?” Please stay with us as we focus today on the crucified Christ on this life study of the Bible.

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2 Corinthians (Program #10) – The Ministers of the New Covenant (3)

The apostle Paul speaking about himself prior to his salvation refer to himself as the chiefest of sinners or the foremost of sinners, yet this one who had been the great persecutor of the church eventually becomes the chiefest among the apostles.

How did God accomplish such a reconstitution of Paul?  Was it His miraculous work transforming him in an instant? Or was it the constituting work of the Spirit over many years?

2 Corinthians chapter 4 is the key chapter in providing answers to this profound question.

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Exodus (Program #139) – The Sanctification of Aaron and His Sons to be the Priests (9)

As Christians we all know that our salvation in Christ is presented throughout the pages of the New Testament.  The gospels show us the savior in His humanity and the epistles open up the content of God’s eternal plan and purpose.  So why then do we even need the Old Testament?  Is it just for the stories and lessons that we can learn by studying the inspirational lives of great men?  The answer must be an emphatically “No”.  For it is in the Old Testament that we can see  many details concerning Christ and our own experience of Christ that cannot be seen in the New Testament.  These details like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle when properly assembled present us the most complete picture of the riches of a genuine life in Christ.  Don’t miss today’s life study of the Bible.

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1 Corinthians (Program #4) – Christ and His Cross the Unique Solution (1 & 2)

The Bible reveals that all believers have been called by God. If we were not for this calling we were never be saved. Salvation is not something we can stumbled into on our own

But what we have been called into? 1 Corinthians chapter 1 tells us  “God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Our calling is into the fellowship of His Son. But 1 Corinthians also tells us that the greatest frustration to that fellowship is division. Division became the problem in the 1st century church. And look today how great this problem is to the fellowship that should be our day by day enjoyment and experience. A fellowship that is in Christ and that should be universal among all the members of His one Body. The fellowship of His Son is our topic today.

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Romans (Program #55) – Designation by the Spirit of Holiness

Romans 10:12 says, “The same Lord is Lord of all, and rich to all who call upon Him.” Whenever we call upon the dear, sweet name of our Lord Jesus, He is the life-giving Spirit, applies all of His unsearchable riches to us, thus transforming us from sinners in the flesh to sons of God in the spirit for the Body of Christ.

In God’s plan of salvation, we begin as sinners. And upon our believing into Him, we experience His forgiveness. But God’s goal is not just to have forgiven sinners; His goal is to have sons. For sinners to become sons, we need the riches of God’s salvation applied to us, and that’s the focus of our Life-Study of the Bible today.

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Romans (Program #18) – Sanctification in Life

Salvation is a much bigger word than we might have thought.   It solves not only man’s problem of sin but also God’s problem concerning the satisfying of His divine attributes, of righteousness, holiness and glory.

In today’s life study, we will have a brief but very descriptive review of the three major areas of the first half of Romans; that was our justification, sanctification and glorification.  God’s salvation includes all three of these.  But it seems that we focus primarily on justification and then rapture when we will be glorified with Him.  Why is the matter of sanctification has been either overlooked or much misunderstood in the history of the church?

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Romans (Program #11) – The Gift in Christ Surpassing the Heritage in Adam

We praise the Lord for His redemption, that He redeemed us judicially, but there is much more. He wants to save us day-by-day in His life by the dispensing of His life into us. This is the much more Christian life.  Our salvation begins with God forgiving us of all of our sins, but His full salvation includes much more than this. It includes His life freeing us from the power of sin.

This is a tremendous life-study because we move into a significant new section of Romans.  So far, we’ve seen God’s condemnation and His justification. The first few chapters of Romans unveil God’s condemnation on mankind generally, then on the self-righteous particularly, then we see His condemnation on the religious specifically, and finally on all the world totally. more…

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