If you’ve ever been to a church service before, you have probably heard the old analogy preached “how often do you eat? More than once, right? So you should feed your spirit more than once as well.” This is an often-used statement which highlights the importance of continual spiritual feeding – it’s also a good analogy, quite Biblical in-fact… however the Bible does not stop there. The scriptures are very clear about what – or I should say who we are to continually feed on.
What we will be studying today, is what exactly the scriptures say about feeding on Jesus, how this feeding occurs and how feeding continually on Jesus benefits us. God does not leave any of these details out, because He wants us to know and receive all that He has given to us. So if your spirit has been hungry, or even if you don’t realize that it has been, come, taste and see that the LORD is good, and let’s feed on Jesus today.
Have you ever played a word association game? If I say to you “chocolate” what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Word association games are something that I used to play all of the time. And as humans we tend to associate things with words all of the time. If I say to you “love” what do you think of? What if I say “God’s love”? Many of us associate the love of God with ideas and thoughts of human love. We may associate with with a really good feeling of human love, or we may associate it with a really bad feeling of human love depending on our personal experiences… but most of the time we think and behave and have ideas of the love of God really not being much different than the love of a human.
However I want to share with you the truth of the love of God. His love is far superior and much better than even the best love that any human can ever offer. His love is divine. His love is all-encompassing and His love never fails. Today in this study we will be exploring the Divine love of God and how it is so much better than the love of humans. And by seeing this love, you will be able to approach God with a new attitude, free from fear, free from uncertainty and free from the shifting-sand of human ideas and emotions.
There’s a statement I often say that sometimes offends people… that the Gospel is simple, and there is great simplicity in Christ. This sometimes offends people because they are thinking of the word “simple” to mean stupid. This sometimes also offends people because they have spent their entire lives working hard and studying the scriptures, yet the Gospel is so simple that even a child can understand. So with one single statement I have managed to offend a wide audience. Yet in no way am I suggesting that the Gospel of Christ or Christ Himself are stupid, nor am I suggesting that studying the Gospel is of no value. It may in-fact surprise you to learn that my statement does not originate with me, but it is from the scriptures themselves.
The simplicity of the Gospel of Christ has been largely corrupted in modern Christianity today; replaced by something complicated, convoluted and full of man's efforts… not at all what Jesus intended. This is what we will be studying today. We will be taking a look at what the true simplicity of the Gospel is, and by seeing this we will also be able to see some of the ways man has complicated what God has made simple.
Many believers struggle with their believing… they find it difficult to believe because their human senses and their natural mind and thinking overwhelms them when situations and circumstances appear contrary to the Word of God. It’s true. Everyone has felt that way at one time or another, and then on top of that, we encounter Christians who are all too eager to inform us that because we have these thoughts and feelings, that we are “wavering” and that God will not answer prayer, because of doubting. It then begins a vicious downward spiral of struggling with believing, to being told that because we are struggling that we can’t expect anything from God, and so it just gets worse and worse.
My friend, I’ve been there, and I know the depression and feeling of hopelessness that comes from that desperate tailspin. And today in this study I want to share with you a little-known mental-shift found in the scriptures that will completely change your outlook. When you see the truths in the Bible that we will be studying today, it will lift you out of despair and into peace. It will reinvigorate your belief from hanging over the precipice, to on the very mountaintop. It is my joy to share this with you today.
Let me state right at the very start that this is a controversial issue. Yet though it is controversial, it is also extremely important. The reason for its importance is because aside from salvation, health is the second-most important gift which Jesus paid for us to have. Without health, everything else falls flat. You could have a great family and wealth of every kind, but if you are sick and laid-up all of the time, you will never be able to enjoy any of it. And God does want us to enjoy life, both now in this present time and of-course in the future with Him in Heaven as well.
That’s why He has not left us helpless; He has not left us without provision. In-fact He has paid an extremely high price for us, for our complete salvation: spirit, soul and body. Yet many people are not experiencing this, due to the fact that many pastors and leaders are not teaching the complete message of what Jesus has paid to give us. Many leaders in the church shy away from what they perceive to be a false doctrine of health and prosperity – however the Bible does not make any attempt to hide the reality of what Christ has paid to give us, and how we are to receive it. And this is what we will be studying today… the complete picture of salvation that Christ has paid for us, spirit, soul and body.
There are many different opinions among believers today when it comes to healing. There are entire denominations today that have built complex doctrines around whether God heals today or not. People in general have a hard time believing in the miraculous aspects of God. If they can’t see it, touch it, or feel it, then it is not “real” to them. This of course is nothing new, people have always been this way, and Jesus understands that. In John 14:20, Thomas declared that he would not believe that Jesus was risen unless he saw the physical evidence for himself, which Jesus indeed gave him, but Jesus also said to Thomas, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”
Today we will be taking a look at the healing which Jesus provided for – specifically for your physical body. This is important because there are a great number of believers today who are suffering in their physical bodies. They are suffering with sicknesses, diseases, disorders and pains that God never intended, and He went to great lengths, suffering and dying on the cross, bearing the full punishment for your sin and mine so that we would not have to suffer any longer. As we examine this truth today, we will see how important this truth is to God, and to us as well.
All across the world, good and honest believers have this idea that they must work at “doing good”. They must struggle and strive to “do the right thing”, to make God happy or to prove their love for Him, or whatever the underlying motivation may be; it leads to the same place: a merit-centered, man-centered mentality which is not focused on God, but is focused on self-performance and behavior.
Many believers think that if they themselves or their fellow brother or sister in Christ is failing in a particular area of behavior, that it is due to some sin in their life, or that they are just being lazy and they need to try harder. But is this what the scriptures actually say?
In this study today, we will be taking a look at what God has to say on this very subject, and how God’s diagnosis of the problem of wrong behaviors is not what we might expect. As you see this truth, it will give you a new mindset regarding this issue, and a new confidence in your relationship with God as well.
One of the issues that keep resurfacing in Christian circles today is covenants. Many believers still do not have a fundamental grasp of which covenant they are under today in Christ, or why they cannot have both Mosaic and the Messianic covenants (The Law and Grace). It's interesting to note that while there were many different covenants in the Bible, only the Law of Moses, only the Mosaic Covenant has seemed to persist and be a point of confusion and an area of stumbling for many believers today. Of-course this is not a coincidence, Satan knows all too well, that the strength of sin is the Law which brings about the sting of death as mentioned in 1st Corinthians 15:56. As long as the enemy can keep believers in confusion about their place and position in Christ Jesus, then they will always be weak and vulnerable due to plain and simple ignorance of the truth. And God does not want that.
That's why in this study today, we will be taking an in-depth look at the covenant which we are under today, the Messianic Covenant of Grace in Christ, and we will also be addressing the common areas of confusion that many believers have today regarding the Mosaic Covenant of the Law and how it relates to us today in Christ. By seeing these truths, you will be set free from confusion, able to freely enjoy the Covenant which Jesus has placed you in today.
One of the common misconceptions that I encounter in the discussions I have with believers, is that Jesus' commandment to love one another is actually a reference to the Old Covenant Law of Moses. This tends to confuse people because they believe that Jesus is reinforcing the Mosaic Law, even though scripture is quite clear in many other places about us not being under Law but under Grace. So it seems very contradictory and it often confuses people.
We know however that God is not the author of confusion, and He doesn't want His dearly beloved children to stumble over such fundamental things. That's why today in this study, we will be looking at love through the lens of Grace; love in the finished work of Jesus Christ. By seeing this truth, we will be able to understand the differences between the Old and New Covenants in the area of love, and how indeed God is supplying us completely, even in the area of love.