WISE – Covenant

Partake – Words In Scripture Explored – Covenant

Gday and welcome to Words In Scripture Explored! The word for today is Covenant.

Look at your money! On British money are the words “I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of five [ten/twenty/fifty] pounds. In fact you can even take old British banknotes to the Bank and cash them in for modern money! Promises!! That’s what a covenant is – a promise between two parties.

Covenants in the Bible

Covenants were common in all kinds of life, and not just between God and humanity. For instance where a powerful nation had taken over a weaker nation, a covenant was in place to give benefits from the powerful nation to the weaker nation, such as protection as well as sanctions if the weaker nation rebelled.

About God’s Covenants

Each covenant between God and humanity showed God promising to do something and commands for mankind to follow! When an Old Testament covenant ended in failure, it was always due to mankind’s inability to obey God! Such as when Adam & Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thereby breaking the covenant made with God. The Edenic Covenant was therefore terminated and now God needed to make another covenant with Adam (Genesis 3v14-21). In the Old Testament we have six covenants between God and humanity: Edenic, Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, and the Davidic. They all had several things about them:.

• God always took the initiative.
• God always gave His solemn promise to fulfil His promise.
• God always waited for a free response from humanity, without coercion or force.

New Covenant

As a Christian Disciple today, you are living under the the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31v31-34)

Four features of this covenant are: God transforming you; God being your God and you being His; God living inside you and leading you; your sins are forgiven and removed

This new covenant is sealed only through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. His blood ensures the truth of this New Covenant. There is no other way for this New Covenant to be sealed except through Jesus’ blood alone. This New Covenant finalizes what the Mosaic Covenant could only point to: the follower of God living in a righteous life conforming to God’s holy character.

Whenever you celebrate Communion or the Lord’s Supper, you celebrate this New Covenant between God and yourself, for it symbolizes this New Covenant, which guarantees salvation! So go tell somebody else today about how God will make them new, forgive them, live inside them, and transform them, if only they come to Him in repentance.

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WISE – Sanctification

Partake – Words In Scripture Explored –Sanctification

Welcome to WISE! The word for today is sanctification.

Cleaning

Next time you are in a supermarket, count how many products there are on the shelves for cleaning! Oodles and oodles of them! Each one of them promising to make whatever is being cleaned, new again! Sometimes cleaning is hard work – particularly getting little boys or puppy dogs to take a bath! Cleaning and being cleansed, is a major part of living the Christian life! This is known as sanctification!

Sanctification

For as a Christian Disciple, you have been sanctified (Hebrews 10v10); washed clean (1 Corinthians 6v11); and are being transformed into the image of Jesus Christ and conformed to His likeness (2 Corinthians 3v18, Romans 8v28-29). You are to be a living sacrifice, transformed by the renewing of your minds (Romans 12v1-2). This holiness is the pursuit of moral excellence and is by necessity a high standard (1 Thessalonians 4v3)

Transformation

This process of sanctification is where God the Holy Spirit transforms you into the likeness of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 7v18), as the fruit of the Spirit, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control”, is produced in your life as a Christian Disciple (Galatians. 5v22-23).

Your status

Your condition before God as a Christian Disciple is: ·

• Set apart for God – separated from sin. ·
• The attainment of moral holiness.

In principal,you are a saint, and God has already declared you sanctified ·

• You have been made holy (Hebrews 10v10) ·
• You are washed and sanctified (1 Corinthians 6v11)

Your practice

In practice, and in order to reflect these God given truths, as a growing Christian Disciple in the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, you should be ·

• Perfecting holiness, freed from the contamination of sin (2 Corinthians 7v1) ·
• Engaging in a continual process of becoming more like Jesus Christ (Romans 8v29; 2 Corinthians 3v18)
• Transforming your character by the renewal of your mind (Romans 12v1-2)

Life Long

This life-long process of sanctification is maintained by devotion to righteousness (Romans 6v19); with a desire and firm decision to live a life totally submitted to God. This is done by a work of God (1 Thessalonians. 5v23, Philippians 2v13), as you submit to the indwelling Holy Spirit. Sanctification is God’s way of showing He loves you. This sanctification is God showing you His love for you in action. He loves you far too much for you to remain as you are, but initiates and maintains this lifelong transformation into the very image of your Master, Jesus Christ, as you submit to Him. Sanctification can sometimes be a hard process, but the pursuit of righteousness and transformation is worth it, because by allowing yourself to be transformed and sanctified, you are also showing God how much you love Him.

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88. Partake – The Christian Disciple and Doctrine

88. Partake – The Christian Disciple and Doctrine

Paul writes in Titus 2v1: “You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine.“

In a lot of churches today, the word ‘doctrine’ is unfashionable. Doctrine belongs to a time gone by, they say, and new experiences of God and miracles from God are the way forward for the church. Some churches teach only what they think people want to hear, tickling the ears instead of exposing them to biblical truth led by the Holy Spirit. Paul wrote about this in 2 Timothy 4:3 “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” Is that not indicative of where some parts of the church, particularly in the west, are today? Teachers preferring to tickle the ears of their listeners, instead of stirring people into living transformed lives for Jesus Christ.

What is Doctrine?

The words translated as “doctrine” are found frequently in the letters written by Paul, chiefly in what are called the Pastoral Epistles: 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus. Doctrine is the study of God, as revealed through the pages of the Bible. The more the Christian Disciple learns about the God they choose to follow, the more

• The Christian Disciple will be able to deal with the daily pressures of living in a society ever distancing and alienating itself from God;
• The Christian Disciple will continue learning and understanding the very nature of God and be able to both act and react, rightly in varying circumstances
• Will continue to develop the relationship between themselves and the God they serve

Who is Doctrine for?

Doctrine is for all Christian Disciples,

• regardless of the level of academic achievement (or none);
• regardless of the length of time they have been a Christian Disciple;
• regardless of their status in the church they attend, whether the Christian Disciple is a church leader or an ordinary church member who sits in the congregation.

Doctrine Matters

So, for every Christian Disciple, doctrine matters. Doctrine matters because what you believe about God, ultimately affects how you will behave. If the Christian Disciple has solid, biblical doctrine being practised in their life, they will live a life of total obedience to Jesus Christ. For the Christian Disciple is to hunger and thirst after righteousness (Matthew 5v6) and this can only come about through the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit. As the mind is renewed and transformed (Romans 12v1) with teaching about Jesus Christ, and the Christian Disciple puts into practice what the mind learns, the life of the Christian Disciple is transformed. Then people will ask questions. Questions regarding the reason why the Christian Disciple has been transformed. Questions asking about the reason for the hope the Christian Disciples hold onto. That way the Gospel and Good News of Jesus Christ is spread. That is one of the ultimate reasons why doctrine is important – it is also evangelism.

Learn and practice

The need to learn and practice true biblical Doctrine is ultimately important when faced with persecution for being a Christian Disciple. If the Christian Disciple’s faith is based on anything less than the belief in Jesus Christ as both God and Man, then ultimately that foundation will break, and there can be no hope. If the Christian Disciple is only seeking to have their ears tickled with what they want to hear, then enduring persecution for being a Christian Disciple is much harder than if that Christian Disciple has had a solid Doctrinal teaching about living the Christian life. With solid Doctrinal teaching, the Christian Disciple has hope, and an unending hope, enabling them to endure persecution.

True or false

Another reason, learning solid doctrine is important is so that the Christian Disciple will be able to discern true Apostolic & biblical teaching from the false teaching of heretics and those who want to lead Christian Disciples astray. Titus 1v9: “He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.” Or as Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1v3 “As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer.” Or further on 1 Timothy 6v3-4: “If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, he is conceited and understands nothing.”

Christian Discipleship is fulltime, for 24 hours of the day, every day. The Christian Disciple is to partake of righteousness as commanded by our Lord Jesus Christ, as well as other things as commanded and instructed in the Bible. The Christian Disciple, can engage in Active Daily Discipleship, through learning true Biblical doctrine. By learning biblical doctrine, the Christian Disciple will be enabled to start discerning true beliefs from false beliefs and ultimately engage biblical doctrine into living a life worthy of Jesus Christ. Experiences and miracles are important, but to base Christian Discipleship upon them and not on solid biblical doctrine, produces a rollercoaster effect and not the constant reliance on the indwelling Holy Spirit for direction, guidance and trust.

For more to think about please do read for yourself the book of Titus. It is 3 short chapters and won’t take very long. Ask yourself the following questions, writing them down if you can, and see how you respond or react to them. Then why not share your answers with your spouse or a close friend, so that you can pray over any issues together.

Q1. How does what I believe about God, change the way I live for God?

Q2. As I look back on my Christian life, can I notice discernable differences in how my life has changed as I put into practise my beliefs?

Q3. When engaging with others, do I seek to have my ears tickled with what I want to hear or do I seek to be exposed to apostolic truths about the God I profess to serve?

Finally, here are a couple of recommended books to help your study of Doctrine. Both of these are well written, easy to read, easy to understand and pack a punch.

• Knowing God by JI Packer
• Basic Christianity by JRW Stott

Thank you.

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Partake – WISE – Adoption

Category: Partake, Partake, bible, Christian, BBW, “Big Bible Words”

Partake – Big Bible Words – Adoption

G’day! Welcome to Partake Big Bible Words. The word for today is adoption.

Imagine you are an orphan left on the streets. You are hungry and thirsty. Begging for scraps of food. Your last job you were treated like a slave, so you escaped. Even your only friend, a stray dog, has abandoned you! You are friendless, lonely and miserable.

Then one day a big stretch limousine pulls up beside you. You recognize the limousine. It is the one you scratched with a key because you were bored and belongs to the enemy of your former boss. The driver asks you to get in, and reluctantly you do. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The limousine drives and eventually goes through some large gates and there is a huge house on top of the hill.

The owner is there to greet you. He tells you that you are now part of his family now, if you want to be. You have no need to go back to begging for scraps. You are part of his family now, with all the legal standing as one of his children.

That is adoption in the Christian sense. If you are a Christian, God has accepted you as a member of His family with all the legal standing of an heir and a true son or true daughter.

The bible says in Galatians 4:7 “Now you are no longer a slave b ut God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.”

Because of adoption, we know that:

• God purchased us from slavery into a family (Ephesians 1v7)!
• God will supply all our needs, just as all good fathers always do!
• God comes to live inside us!
• We are reconciled with God, even though once we were His enemies (Romans 5v9)!
• We have transformed relationships with others and ourselves!
• We now seek His honour rather than our own!

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