Jesus is Lord. What does this phrase mean to you? There are those today who see it purely as a title, or a mantra to be repeated. Yes Jesus is Lord, the God of creation and Savior of the world; never forget that fact... but He is also personal, intimate and able to enrich and provide for every area of your life. Some people recoil from this fact, afraid that it will somehow take away from His Lordship.
This misunderstanding of the nature and character of God has held many people in bondage due to them not receiving from Jesus many of the gifts which He desires to give them; and so we will be studying exactly how Jesus fulfills our lives, and we will be letting the Scriptures teach us these things so that there will not be any confusion any longer.
All across the world, ministers are studying hard, stressing and struggling to lead the flock and come up with fresh food to feed the sheep, usually multiple times per week. This term “fresh food” can be a bit confusing, in that it is not that parts of the Gospel are stale – no, God's Word is always fresh, but that the Holy Spirit has a specific word for the people at that specific time, and there are many ministers today who find it difficult to know what that word is and how to deliver it to the people; or worse, they have utterly given-up.
So today, as part of our series on leadership, we are going to be studying how to have an effective ministry that is led by the Holy Spirit (which is the only way one can be truly effective). This applies not only to pastors, but also to every minister and indeed each one of us as well as we go about our day and encounter areas to minister and share Christ with others as well.
Are you under law or under grace today? Ask this question to a group of believers, and you would get a mixed-bag of answers. There is an impressive amount of confusion regarding such a fundamental part of our Christian walk, and God does not want us to be in confusion.
Today we will be studying the covenants which so many are confused about, and through the truth of scripture, we will answer the question of what covenant God has placed us under today, and we will not be in confusion any longer.
Here in America, we value freedom. Freedom to choose this thing or that thing, freedom from oppression and from the shackles of slavery. In my discussions with people, I am occasionally asked how I can believe in such an oppressive book as the Bible; they say that the Bible is outdated, or closed-minded. I have responded by saying that quite to the contrary, the Bible has not oppressed or enslaved me, but it has liberated me and set me free. You see, freedom is just an illusion, if you are still a slave to sin, still a slave to negativity, depression or the lusts of the flesh – and there are a great number of people in churches today even who are still bound by these things.
So today, we will be studying how Jesus Christ can give us true freedom from sin and self, and how as a result of His redemptive work, we can be truly free.
There are so many things in life vying for our attention. Every new product every new item carries with it a promise of making our lives better, easier and more fulfilling. However the excitement of that new thing is always short-lived – usurped when the next new thing comes along... electronics that were new last month are already obsolete this month. Nothing of this world ever lasts.
However there is one – one person – who can give us true fulfillment, not just a temporary satisfaction, but a permanent fulfillment that totally completes us in every way. Today we will be studying how this is so, and how to receive this provision of Jesus Christ into our lives, so that we will not be searching or be entangled by the things of this world any longer.
Have you ever worried about a future event? An expression often used is feeling as though we are “in the path of an oncoming train.” As humans, we tend to project into the future – and we usually envision the worst outcome However as believers in Jesus Christ, we should have a different hope and a different mindset.
The Bible tells us that even though things may seem bleak and we will have pressures of life come upon us, we have access to divine information and a divine source of help which very few have been drawing from, or even been aware of. This is what we will be studying today.
The word “know” is an interesting word. We sometimes use it to refer to personal, even intimate relations, and other times we use it in more of a formal and distant familiarity – as in “I know of him.”
The Scriptures speak of knowing God, in-fact the entire Bible is designed to show us Jesus for the purpose of us knowing Him. Even so, there are a great many believers today who know more of God, than actually know Him. You may have even heard me say that before and wondered about it. So today we will be exploring what it means to actually know God, and how a real relationship with Jesus benefits us in our daily lives.
There seems to be a lot of emphasis these days on relationships. Reality shows typically focus on relationships, new dating websites seem to spring up every month, and more songs are written and more movies are produced about relationships than any other subject.
It should be no surprise then that the Bible has quite a bit to say on this important topic, and while it is an extremely broad issue with many sub-areas, there is one over-arching principle which we will be studying today, and that is the importance of Jesus being the center of not only the relationship, but the center of each persons life. Whether you are single, dating, or married, the centrality of Jesus can not be over-stated, and this relationship with Him is what we will be taking a look at today.
It's almost cliché these days when someone says “faith to move mountains”, it's more of a catch-phrase than a truth. But Jesus was not joking or exaggerating when He said that these things were possible, nor was He speaking in purely spiritual terms.
Today we will be studying the kind of faith which Jesus spoke of when He walked on the earth; we will learn what it is, where it can be found and how to activate it in our lives as Jesus taught us to. At the conclusion of this study, you will have everything you need to accomplish what Jesus spoke of.