1 Thessalonians (Program #8) -The Church Becoming the Embodiment of the Triune God (2)

One of the essentials for being a Christian is to appreciate the Bible as the word of God. But for most of us our reading and our understanding of the Holy Word fall far short of what it should be.

For instance, take a passage like 1 Thessalonians Chapter 2:12 where Paul tells us that we have been called into God’s own kingdom and glory. Do we really have an adequate appreciation of all that these implies or do we even have a proper understanding of things like God’s kingdom and God’s glory?  Probably we just skim along taking such marvelous word for granted.  But one of the benefits we have in this program each day is that the Lord richly unveils and brings us into deeper realities of His word.

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Proverbs (Program #7) – Coming to Proverbs to Cultivate Our Regenerated New Man

Paul, the apostle tells us that the Bible has the potential to affect us when we read it in two very different ways. In 2 Corinthians 3:6 he says “Who has made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, ministers not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” Do we have this realization when we come to the word of God?  The same words can either become Spirit and life to us or they can become dead letters to us. It all depends on how we come to the Bible and what kind of persons we are that will determine what we receive. We’re all fallen creatures with an old fallen nature and an old life the Bible calls the old man. When this old man comes to the Bible in order to find help to improve itself before God, the result will be predictable, the result of death.

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Proverbs (Program #5) – Touching the Word of God by Our New Man

The book of Proverbs is a wonderful collection of gems of wisdom concerning nearly every aspect of human life. As such, people of many persuasions appreciate Proverbs and often quote these nuggets of wisdom. While we’re thankful for such a book in the Bible, it also presents a dilemma. And that is that an ethical person, even one who has no personal knowledge or experience of our dear Saviour Jesus, can apply these moral precepts to build himself up and enhance his fallen human life. While we may say that society would surely benefit if all men practice these principles and employ the wisdom expressed in Proverbs, yet God’s goal of bringing us, His children, not into an improved condition but into a new creation will be no closer to reality. While we extol God for the wisdom of His word, our real need is not self-improvement but rather that we put off our old man and put on the new man.

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1 Thessalonians (Program #3) – The Triune God Embodied in the Word to Produce a Holy Life for the Church Life (1)

The word of God is so marvelous, the more you discover its’ infinite riches and hidden treasures the more you realize that there is far more to see than we can ever possibly exhaust. Its’ structure, its’ order even the subtle ways in which several passages begin are full of meaning and significance.

For example consider a passage that you may have read hundreds of times and never really stop to consider. Paul begins his letter to the Church in Thessalonica not in a general way, but in way that it is unique from the way he open any of his letters to the other Churches.

“Paul and Silvanus,” he writes, I Thessolonians 1:1, “and Timothy to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.”  Even in a simple greeting we just read we will see there is a lot of meaning here.

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Colossians (Program #39) – Not Defrauded of Your Prize of Enjoyment of Christ

What is your favorite book in the Bible? Maybe many would say the gospel of John or perhaps one of the other gospels. Others will surely pick the book of Revelation with all the exciting things it says about the end times. But what about the writings of Paul, the apostle, which actually make up the bulk of the New Testament? How many of you picked one of Paul’s letters? Let’s see what Paul has to say about his ministry in Colossians 1, it says “Of which I became a minister according to the stewardship of God, which was given to me for you, to complete the word of God. The mystery which has been hidden from the ages and from the generations but now has been manifested to His saints; To whom God willed to make known what are the riches of this glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

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Philippians (Program #44) -The Word of God Being the Embodiment of the Living God

The Bible reveals God’s doing, His deed and His activities included among these are His creation of the universe and all things in it. But also many spiritual accomplishments such as incarnation, crucifixion and ascension are part of His doing.  But the Bible also reveals God’s speaking, a speaking that equals perhaps even surpasses the great and mighty deeds of our wonderful divine and eternal Father. Another wonderful and marvelous life study awaits us.

We want to explore more aspects of the experience of Christ and the practicality and constancy of God’s salvation reveals in this book.  On the one hand this book is so profound. on the other hand it’s practical and experiential, an immediate in daily way if we can get beyond some natural limiting concepts and explore in the light of the Word, the riches of the divine revelation.

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Philippians (Program #43) -Christ, Salvation, the Word of God and Life

Does God only want to save us from perdition? Or does He also want to save us moment by moment and day by day?  Salvation from eternal perdition is wonderful. But after we are saved eternally we need a daily practical salvation.  Stay with us for some practical fellowship today to help us in our Christian walk every day.

We are going to focus on the pattern that Christ set up for us and is described in Philippians by the apostle Paul.  more…

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Philippians (Program #40) -To Participate and Enjoy the Riches of Christ by Receiving the Word of God

In a well-known verse in the book of Colossians the apostle Paul says “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.”  How does the word dwell in us?  In 3:16 Paul gives a secret, but not many Christians today enjoy this secret practically in their daily living. So we are devoting today’s program from the life study of the Bible to help all of our listeners and ourselves included into this secret.

We are talking about “how to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly in all wisdom, with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.”   The subject comes from the book of Philippians as we are studying about the Spirit living in us and Christ living in us and then from that to fill out the very experiential view of Christ in Philippians Brother Lee came to Colossians concerning the Word dwelling in us.  Where he makes the link that for the practical way for the Spirit to dwell in us is for the Word to dwell in us. So these two things together are really two aspects of one way or one means for us to experience Christ and to let Christ lives in us.

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Job (Program #14) – The Significance in the Sequence of Job and the Psalms

As Christians we all hold the Bible as the infallible and inspired word of God. But not only are the words themselves divinely inspired even the arrangement of the book also bears God’s direct involvement. Take for instance the sequence of the various books in the Bible. Many do not actually follow the historic timeline yet the sequence in the divine record is truly marvelous. Consider the book of Job and the book of Psalms. They are separated by nearly a thousand years historically but Psalms immediately followed by Job in the Bible. What the Bible sequence reveals is that the divine revelation is not static, but rather shows a progression.  A progression that should also be matched in our experience.

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Ezra (Program #4) – The Need for Ezras—Those Skilled in the Word of God

Ezra and Nehemiah are the recovery books of the Bible. That’s because they talk about the recovery of Israel, God’s people, in the Old Testament back to Jerusalem from captivity in Babylon. Today we are going to see the crucial need in this recovery for Ezra and many that would follow his pattern today.

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