Tag-Archive for ◊ intimate ◊

10 Jan 2023 Mark (Program #10)

Mark (Program #1) – The Slave-Savior’s Auxiliary Acts for the Gospel Service (1) & (2)

The gospel of Mark is not a book concerning the great doctrines of the Christian faith.  Much more it is a book of many cases that illustrate the reality of the gospel being carried out even lived out by the Slave Savior Jesus.

Early on in the book on the third chapter there is an account of the Lord instructing His followers to prepare a boat so that He can escaped the large crowd, the pressing throng that had come out to Galilee to see this One who was performing miracles and healing the sick.  It was because of the pressing of this large crowd had become a frustration to the real seeking ones who did not desire to be part of great new religious movement but rather longed for a simple, intimate touch with the Lord Jesus Himself.

Chapter 5 shows us such an intimate encounter, “When she heard the things concerning Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind Him and touched His garment, And immediately Jesus, realizing in Himself that power had gone out of Him, turned around in the crowd and said, Who touched My garments?

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01 Dec 2022 Jeremiah (Program #8)

Jeremiah (Program #8) – Israel’s Sin against Jehovah, Jehovah’s Punishment upon Israel (1)

The Lord told the prophet Jeremiah that He held two things against Israel above all else. First, they had forsaken Him, the fountain of living waters. And second, they had hewn out for themselves broken cisterns incapable of holding water. The context of this passage is in chapter 2 of Jeremiah. And in a way can be considered the conversation between a distraught husband and an unfaithful wife. Listen to this sweet and intimate way that Jehovah began His word to Israel, “I remember concerning you the kindness of your youth, The love of your bridal days, When you followed after Me in the wilderness, In a land that was not sown. Israel was holiness to Jehovah, The firstfruit of His increase;” (Jeremiah 2:2b-3a) As we consider these two great sins before Jehovah, sins that did not only plague Israel but also that we ourselves have to be constantly aware of.

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07 Oct 2022 Song of Songs (Program #10)

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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29 Sep 2022 Song of Songs (Program #2)

Song of Songs (Program #2) – Drawn to Pursue Christ for Satisfaction (1)

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!
For your love is better than wine.” (Song of Songs 1:2)

This intimate and tender language might be thought to be from a great love sonnet from Shakespeare or Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Yet it’s actually from the opening lines of the book Song of Songs in the Old Testament. Why is a love poem given precious space in the pages of the Bible? There seems to be no way to understand such a book by studying in a doctrinal or theological perspective. It is purely a book of experience and to understand it properly we must learn to interpret the types and figures.

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05 Jan 2022 1 Thessalonians (Program #9)

1 Thessalonians (Program #9) -The Care of a Nursing Mother and an Exhorting Father

In the tender and intimate letters of the apostle Paul to the young church in Thessalonica, is very interesting to consider what he stresses. In one way these are not high words or deep or even seemingly profound and there is no mention of miraculous things or of works of great power.  Rather the apostle reminds the believers of the normal and upright manner of life in which he and his co-worker were manifested for them when they were together just one short year prior.

Listen to his word again in Chapter 1:5 of 1 Thessalonians,  “For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, even as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake.

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04 Sep 2021 Ephesians (Program #69)

Ephesians (Program #69) -Experiencing the Riches of Christ

Ephesians Chapter 3 is a remarkable Chapter in all of Scripture. For it tells us that the immeasurable, unsearchable and unlimited Christ has now become so close, so intimate and so personal to us that He is actually making His home in our hearts.

This Chapter also tells us that this one is unsearchably rich. In fact it’s by our experiencing Him in this unsearchable riches that bit by bit, day by day, He is able to spread Himself into all the regions of all our inner being. This is the Christ that Paul presents to us in the book of Ephesians. And it is the very Christ that Paul himself experienced and described in many of his other epistles. We will consider the unsearchable riches of Christ on our program today.

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01 Sep 2021 Ephesians (Program #66)

Ephesians (Program #66) – Christ in God’s Economy, Taking Christ as our Person

Many books in the New Testament speak of the mysteries of God. First of all, Colossians tells us that God is a mystery but that Christ is the mystery of God. But then Christ also is a mystery. And so Ephesians tells us that the mystery of Christ is the Church.  Well, you may say what’s so mysterious about the Church?  The Church in reality is where the immeasurable Christ far above all, can still be so small and so intimate that He can dwell within us. Even makes His home in our hearts. Now this is mysterious.  For as the apostle Paul himself put it, “this mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.

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25 Aug 2021 Ephesians (Program #59)

Ephesians (Program #59) – Conclusion

Many great apostles contributed to the New Testament: John, James, Peter and Matthew as well as others. But the bulk of the New testament came through the apostle Paul.

The epistles of Paul in many ways formed the kernel of the New Testament. And it was through Paul also that the Church was spread through out much of the civilized world during New Testament time.

Yet at the end of this book, perhaps his highest work, Ephesians, this great apostle commissioned with the divine revelation in a very touching and intimate conclusion to his letter to the Church in Ephesus shows how much he valued not his own strength or vision or gift but taking his place as a living member in full coordination with the Body. And he asked for their prayers and petitions concerning him.  A very touching fellowship.

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05 May 2021 2 Corinthians (Program #47)

2 Corinthians (Program #47) – Paul’s Vindication of His Apostolic Authority (2)

In the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, he was very bold and at times quite strong in dealing with the many problems that had risen in the church there.  Due to this, he was quite concerned about how the believers in Corinth received his word of loving discipline.  But upon hearing their open and repented heart, he began 2 Corinthians with nine very tender,intimate and pleasant chapters.  But following this, his tone once again become severe.  For in the final four chapters of the book, he is forced to make a defense, even a vindication of his apostleship.  Why did Paul, the clarion of the New Testament economy need to lower himself in such a way before this church which he himself established?   The answer may surprises but it will most definitely enlighten us.

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04 May 2021 2 Corinthians (Program #46)

2 Corinthians (Program #46) – Paul’s Vindication of His Apostolic Authority (1)

The last section of 2 Corinthians beginning at chapter 10, marks a strong contrast to the first nine chapters of this book.  The apostle Paul throughout most of the book was pleasant, intimate and very tender  with the Corinthians believers.  But in this final segment, he is forced to vindicate his own apostolic authority, because both he himself personally as well as his ministry and work had been severely undermined by other so call Christian workers who had come in to distract, damage  and confuse the Corinthians.  Just how does Paul approach this delicate and difficult situation?  Actually seeing the apostle dealing with such a problem is a marvelous window for all of us to see what it is to be a person one with  and living Christ.

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