Tag-Archive for ◊ divine life ◊

18 Mar 2024 1 Corinthians (Program #19)

1 Corinthians (Program #19) – Growth in Life Needed (2)

In first Corinthians the apostle Paul confronts the difficult situation in the church there in a very wise way. He first identifies that their problems would due primarily to a shortage of the growth in the divine life. Although they had received the initial gifts of the divine life and the Holy Spirit they were still infants or babes in Christ.

He then unveils to them the marvelous progression of God’s economy. First they need to realize that they are all plants growing on God’s farms. Then the goal is to be built up together into a building and finally that this building is destined to become God’s dwelling place, His temple.

How about you and me? Have we received such a vision, such a revelation or are we like the Corinthians satisfied to remain in our spiritual infancy and hang on to personal preferences in our own traditions?

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16 Mar 2024 1 Corinthians (Program #17)

1 Corinthians (Program #17) – The Church, God’s Farm, God’s Building (2)

The believers in Corinth in the early church were rich in many things. They have received the initial gifts of the divine life and the Holy Spirit. They were enriched in all knowledge and they even have many miraculous gifts in their midst.  Yet Paul referred to them as infants or babes in Christ. How could that be with all that God had given them?   Primarily is because they neglect the mater of life and growing spiritually in the divine life. So, the apostle Paul points out to them in clear types and pictures the importance and necessity of the divine life.

Listen again as his words are so full of references to life and growth:

3:5-9 “What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Ministers through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave to beach one of them. I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth.  So then neither is he who plants anything nor he who waters, but God who causes the growth.  Now he who plants and he who waters are one, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.  For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s cultivated land, God’s building.”

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08 Mar 2024 1 Corinthians (Program #9)

1 Corinthians (Program #9) – The Fellowship of Christ

A superficial reading of 1 Corinthians often leads to the conclusion that is a book focus mostly on outward problems and situations. Actually this book is one of the riches in the New Testament with marvelous passages touching the profound aspects of Christ, the Spirit and the church. The first 3 chapters are particularly profound with a number of unique and significant terms employ by the apostle Paul as he ministered the riches of Christ to a church that surely was in need of an infusion of the divine life. Such a ministry is found in verse  1:9, where Paul says “God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

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09 Feb 2024 Romans (Program #51)

Romans (Program #51) – The Flesh and the Spirit

The Bible reveals to us three big enemies to our Christian life: sin, Satan and death. All of these three take advantage of our fallen flesh to frustrate us, but God’s approach to our flesh may surprise you. That’s the focus on today’s Life-Study of the Bible.

In these chapters in Romans, we’re seeing the three enemies and how they are seen as enemies that reign over us. In Romans 5:21, it mentions that sin reigned in death. In 5:14, it says “death reigned”. We learned from the book of Acts that Satan has some kind of authority like the power of darkness. These are the three big enemies. Now, in 5:17, we are promised that those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through Jesus Christ. more…

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30 Jan 2024 Romans (Program #41)

Romans (Program #41) – Saved in Life from Sin and Worldliness

We can draw water from the wells of salvation and we can be saved day by day in His life. The Bible is a book of life. The gospel of John reveals Christ as life to us but Romans brings us fully into the experience of this life.

This is easily one of the most important portions of the Bible for our Christian life. What is the most marvelous relationship that we’re going to see between the gospel of John and the book of Romans? John shows us that Christ as life meets the need of every man’s case – whatever our case is, whatever kind of need we have, whatever kind of condition or situation we’re in – Christ as life meets our need! But John doesn’t show us in particular the way we can experience Christ as life.  more…

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27 Jan 2024 Romans (Program #38)

Romans (Program #38) – Law in Romans Seven and Eight

Romans chapters 7 and 8 are the most crucial chapters to every Christian in understanding how to live a vital Christian life.

Paul was speaking frankly concerning his experience, what he was doing, what he could do and what he couldn’t do. If ever there was a man that could be good, that was equipped to be good, to fulfill the law and be obedient, this would have been Paul. Yet he met with such experience that he ended up crying “What wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from … this death?” (Romans 7:24) Many many believers identify with that – we feel that we have tried, that we’ve worked, we’ve tried plan A and then we heard plan B. We go from plan to plan, thinking that something is going to finally make this Christian life vital and real to all of us. And, some things help in a little bit and the it seems like somehow the things get shorted out and sometimes disastrously so and yet many times we get up and start again.  more…

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12 Jul 2023 Acts (Program #17)

Acts (Program #17) – The Propagation in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria through the Ministry of Peter’s Company (12)

Peter’s life and work made the divine life so real and present in his situation that even the angels saw it and pointed it out. He said, “Peter, Go, Stand, and speak all the words of this life.”

Acts chapter 5 verse 14 says, “believers were all the more being added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women”. Because of this, the high priest and all those with him rose up and were filled with jealousy. And they laid their hands on the apostles and put them in public custody.  A genuine move of the Lord through His Spirit. And the jealous reaction of the religious establishment. We will see the results on today’s life study of the Bible.

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18 Jun 2023 John (Program #44)

John (Program #44) – Life’s Prayer (3)

We are one divine human incorporation in the Triune God. Surely, our Oneness is not just a “getting together” or a kind of “joining something”. It is the Oneness of the Triune God.

In John 17, you have a list: 4 verses, mentioning something of the Oneness. Verse 11 says, the Oneness is in the name of the Father. The reality of the Father’s name is the Father’s divine life. So, the first factor of the genuine Oneness is the name of the Father with the Father’s divine life. Then verse 21, this is deep verse, so profound! “That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that You have sent Me.” The point here is this. The Oneness is in the Triune God. When we are all in the Triune God, then in the Triune God, we have the Oneness. But, here we have to pay attention to this fact. How could we be in the Triune God? Through His death and resurrection…

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02 Jun 2023 John (Program #29)

John (Program #29) – Life’s Issue and Multiplication (1)

In the divine life there is a longing for the kind of church life portrait in chapter 12 of John.  But unfortunately, religious concept inclines us very much in another direction.  It’s striking that the Lord Jesus went to a little house to have His church life.

It surely is a pleasant message on a very pleasant matter; the miniature of the church life portrait in the first part of John 12.  For you have Martha and Lazarus and Mary together with the Lord Jesus enjoying kind of feast together.  Two or three things are very striking about this.  One is the fact that it follows the record of the raising of Lazarus and since everything in this gospel virtually is a sign, the scene in chapter 12 is also a sign of the genuine and proper church life as an issue of resurrection.

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31 May 2023 John (Program #27)

John (Program #27) – The Need of the Blind in Religion – Life’s Shepherding

Our good Shepherd laid down His human life for us in order that the divine life could now be imparted to us.

John 10 is the direct continuation of the events in chapter 9. And together, they form a case of the need of the blind in religion. In chapter 9, there was a man blind from birth. And, the Lord gave him sight by the Lord’s being the light of life to him and by the anointing through His speaking. This took place on the Sabbath day. And, healing on the Sabbath was something prohibited, not by God, but by the religionists.

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