Tuesday, June 7, 2016
Ephesians 1 ~ I. Greetings (1:1-2 ~ II. The Divine Purpose: The Glory and Headship of Christ (1:3-14) ~ III. Prayer That Christians May Realize God's Purpose and Power (1:15-23)
Ephesians 1 NLT
1 This letter is from Paul, chosen by
the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. I am writing to God’s holy
people in Ephesus, who are faithful followers of Christ Jesus.
2 May God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ give you grace and peace.
3 All praise to God, the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.
4Even before he made the world, God loved us
and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.
5 God decided in advance to adopt us
into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is
what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
6 So we praise God for the glorious
grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.
7 He is so rich in kindness and grace
that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.
8 He has showered his kindness on us,
along with all wisdom and understanding.
9 God has now revealed to us his
mysterious plan regarding Christ, a plan to fulfill his own good pleasure.
10 And this is the plan: At the right
time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything
in heaven and on earth.
11Furthermore, because we are united with
Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance,
and he makes everything work out according to his plan.
12 God’s purpose was that we Jews who
were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God.
13And now you Gentiles have also heard the
truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he
identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long
ago.
14 The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he
will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his
own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.
15 Ever since I first heard of your
strong faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for God’s people everywhere,
16 I have not stopped thanking God for
you. I pray for you constantly,
17 asking God, the glorious Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you
might grow in your knowledge of God.
18 I pray that your hearts will be
flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given
to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.
19 I also pray that you will understand
the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the
same mighty power
20 that raised Christ from the dead and
seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.
21 Now he is far above any ruler or
authority or power or leader or anything else—not only in this world but also
in the world to come.
22 God has put all things under the
authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of
the church.
23 And the church is
his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things
everywhere with himself.
Monday, June 6, 2016
Galatians (6:11-18) ~ V. Conclusion and Benediction
Galatians 6 NLT
11 NOTICE WHAT LARGE LETTERS I USE AS I
WRITE THESE CLOSING WORDS IN MY OWN HANDWRITING.
12 Those who are trying to force you to
be circumcised want to look good to others. They don’t want to be persecuted
for teaching that the cross of Christ alone can save.
13 And even those who advocate
circumcision don’t keep the whole law themselves. They only want you to be
circumcised so they can boast about it and claim you as their disciples.
14 As for me, may I never boast about
anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my
interest in this world has been crucified, and the world’s interest in me has
also died.
15 It doesn’t matter whether we have
been circumcised or not. What counts is whether we have been transformed into a
new creation.
16 May God’s peace and mercy be upon all
who live by this principle; they are the new people of God.
17 From now on, don’t let anyone trouble
me with these things. For I bear on my body the scars that show I belong to
Jesus.
18 Dear brothers and
sisters, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.
Galatians Chapter (5:1;6:10) ~ IV. Practical: Practice of the Life of Liberty and Faith
Galatians 5 NLT
1 So Christ has truly set us free. Now
make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the
law.
2Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are
counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no
benefit to you.
3 I’ll say it again. If you are trying
to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in
the whole law of Moses.
4 For if you are trying to make
yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from
Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.
5 But we who live by the Spirit eagerly
wait to receive by faith the righteousness God has promised to us.
6 For when we place our faith in Christ
Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is
important is faith expressing itself in love.
7 You were running the race so well.
Who has held you back from following the truth?
8 It certainly isn’t God, for he is the
one who called you to freedom.
9 This false teaching is like a little
yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough!
10 I am trusting the Lord to keep you
from believing false teachings. God will judge that person, whoever he is, who
has been confusing you.
11 Dear brothers and sisters, if I were
still preaching that you must be circumcised—as some say I do—why am I still
being persecuted? If I were no longer preaching salvation through the cross of
Christ, no one would be offended.
12 I just wish that those troublemakers
who want to mutilate you by circumcision would mutilate themselves.
13 For you have been called to live in
freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your
sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.
14 For the whole law can be summed up in
this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
15 But if you are always biting and
devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another.
16 So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide
your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves.
17 The sinful nature wants to do evil,
which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us
desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two
forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out
your good intentions.
18 But when you are directed by the
Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.
19 When you follow the desires of your
sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful
pleasures,
20idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling,
jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division,
21 envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and
other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone
living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
22 But the Holy Spirit produces this
kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness,
23 gentleness, and self-control. There
is no law against these things!
24Those who belong to Christ Jesus have
nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and
crucified them there.
25 Since we are living by the Spirit,
let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.
26 Let us not become conceited,
or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.
Galatians 6 NLT
1 Dear brothers and sisters, if another
believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly
help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the
same temptation yourself.
2 Share each other’s burdens, and in
this way obey the law of Christ.
3 If you think you are too important to
help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important.
4 Pay careful attention to your own
work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won’t
need to compare yourself to anyone else.
5 For we are each responsible for our
own conduct.
6 Those who are taught the word of God
should provide for their teachers, sharing all good things with them.
7 Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the
justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant.
8Those who live only to satisfy their own
sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those
who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit.
9 So let’s not get tired of doing what
is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t
give up.
10 Therefore, whenever we have the
opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of
faith.
Sunday, June 5, 2016
AFWIS TV # 8 ~ Psalm 23, The Lord is my Shepherd
Published on Apr 9, 2014
AFWIS TV Program # 8
The Lord is my shepherd! I do not need a thing. Praise GOD!
The Lord is my shepherd! I do not need a thing. Praise GOD!
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Galatians Chapter 3-4 ~ III. Doctrinal: Justification of the Doctrine of Liberty and Faith
Galatians 3 NLT
1 Oh, foolish Galatians! Who has cast
an evil spell on you? For the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death was made as clear
to you as if you had seen a picture of his death on the cross.
2 Let me ask you this one question: Did
you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of course not! You
received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ.
3 How foolish can you be? After
starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect
by your own human effort?
4 Have you experienced so much for
nothing? Surely it was not in vain, was it?
5 I ask you again, does God give you
the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obey the law? Of course
not! It is because you believe the message you heard about Christ.
6 In the same way, “Abraham believed
God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.”
7The real children of Abraham, then, are
those who put their faith in God.
8 What’s more, the Scriptures looked
forward to this time when God would declare the Gentiles to be righteous
because of their faith. God proclaimed this good news to Abraham long ago when
he said, “All nations will be blessed through you.”
9 So all who put their faith in Christ
share the same blessing Abraham received because of his faith.
10 But those who depend on the law to
make them right with God are under his curse, for the Scriptures say, “Cursed
is everyone who does not observe and obey all the commands that are written in
God’s Book of the Law.”
11 So it is clear that no one can be
made right with God by trying to keep the law. For the Scriptures say, “It is
through faith that a righteous person has life.”
12 This way of faith is very different
from the way of law, which says, “It is through obeying the law that a person
has life.”
13 But Christ has rescued us from the
curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon
himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures,
“Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”
14 Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed
the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are
believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith.
15 Dear brothers and sisters, here’s an
example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or amend an
irrevocable agreement, so it is in this case.
16 God gave the promises to Abraham and
his child. And notice that the Scripture doesn’t say “to his children, ” as if
it meant many descendants. Rather, it says “to his child”—and that, of course,
means Christ.
17 This is what I am trying to say: The
agreement God made with Abraham could not be canceled 430 years later when
God gave the law to Moses. God would be breaking his promise.
18 For if the inheritance could be
received by keeping the law, then it would not be the result of accepting God’s
promise. But God graciously gave it to Abraham as a promise.
19 Why, then, was the law given? It was
given alongside the promise to show people their sins. But the law was designed
to last only until the coming of the child who was promised. God gave his law
through angels to Moses, who was the mediator between God and the people.
20 Now a mediator is helpful if more
than one party must reach an agreement. But God, who is one, did not use a
mediator when he gave his promise to Abraham.
21 Is there a conflict, then, between
God’s law and God’s promises? Absolutely not! If the law could give us new
life, we could be made right with God by obeying it.
22 But the Scriptures declare that we
are all prisoners of sin, so we receive God’s promise of freedom only by
believing in Jesus Christ.
23 Before the way of faith in Christ was
available to us, we were placed under guard by the law. We were kept in
protective custody, so to speak, until the way of faith was revealed.
24 Let me put it another way. The law
was our guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made
right with God through faith.
25And now that the way of faith has come, we
no longer need the law as our guardian.
26 For you are all children of God
through faith in Christ Jesus.
27 And all who have been united with
Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes.
28 There is no longer Jew or Gentile,
slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And now that you
belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and
God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.
Galatians 4 NLT
1 Think of it this way. If a father
dies and leaves an inheritance for his young children, those children are not
much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they actually own
everything their father had.
2 They have to obey their guardians until
they reach whatever age their father set.
3 And that’s the way it was with us
before Christ came. We were like children; we were slaves to the basic
spiritual principles of this world.
4 But when the right time came, God
sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law.
5 God sent him to buy freedom for us
who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.
6 And because we are his children, God
has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba,
Father.”
7 Now you are no longer a slave but
God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.
8 Before you Gentiles knew God, you
were slaves to so-called gods that do not even exist.
9 So now that you know God (or should I
say, now that God knows you), why do you want to go back again and become
slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world?
10You are trying to earn favor with God by
observing certain days or months or seasons or years.
11 I fear for you. Perhaps all my hard
work with you was for nothing.
12 Dear brothers and sisters, I plead
with you to live as I do in freedom from these things, for I have become like
you Gentiles—free from those laws. You did not mistreat me when I first
preached to you.
13 Surely you remember that I was sick
when I first brought you the Good News.
14 But even though my condition tempted
you to reject me, you did not despise me or turn me away. No, you took me in
and cared for me as though I were an angel from God or even Christ Jesus
himself.
15 Where is that joyful and grateful
spirit you felt then? I am sure you would have taken out your own eyes and
given them to me if it had been possible.
16Have I now become your enemy because I am
telling you the truth?
17 Those false teachers are so eager to
win your favor, but their intentions are not good. They are trying to shut you
off from me so that you will pay attention only to them.
18 If someone is eager to do good things
for you, that’s all right; but let them do it all the time, not just when I’m
with you.
19 Oh, my dear children! I feel as if
I’m going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until
Christ is fully developed in your lives.
20 I wish I were with you right now so I
could change my tone. But at this distance I don’t know how else to help you.
21 Tell me, you who want to live under
the law, do you know what the law actually says?
22 The Scriptures say that Abraham had
two sons, one from his slave wife and one from his freeborn wife.
23The son of the slave wife was born in a
human attempt to bring about the fulfillment of God’s promise. But the son of
the freeborn wife was born as God’s own fulfillment of his promise.
24 These two women serve as an
illustration of God’s two covenants. The first woman, Hagar, represents Mount
Sinai where people received the law that enslaved them.
25 And now Jerusalem is just like Mount
Sinai in Arabia, because she and her children live in slavery to the law.
26 But the other woman, Sarah,
represents the heavenly Jerusalem. She is the free woman, and she is our
mother.
27 As Isaiah said, “Rejoice,
O childless woman, you who have never given birth! Break into a joyful
shout, you who have never been in labor! For the desolate woman now has more
children than the woman who lives with her husband!”
28 And you, dear brothers and sisters,
are children of the promise, just like Isaac.
29 But you are now being persecuted by
those who want you to keep the law, just as Ishmael, the child born by human
effort, persecuted Isaac, the child born by the power of the Spirit.
30 But what do the Scriptures say about
that? “Get rid of the slave and her son, for the son of the slave woman will
not share the inheritance with the free woman’s son.”
31 So, dear brothers
and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman; we are children of the
free woman.
Friday, June 3, 2016
Galatians Chapter 1 and 2 ~ I. Introduction (1:1-10) ~ II. Personal: Authentication of the Apostle of Liberty and Faith (1:11;2:21)
Galatians 1 NLT
1 This letter is from Paul, an apostle.
I was not appointed by any group of people or any human authority, but by Jesus
Christ himself and by God the Father, who raised Jesus from the dead.
2 All the brothers and sisters here
join me in sending this letter to the churches of Galatia.
3 May God the Father and our Lord Jesus
Christ give you grace and peace.
4 Jesus gave his life for our sins,
just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in
which we live.
5 All glory to God forever and ever!
Amen.
6 I am shocked that you are turning
away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of
Christ. You are following a different way that pretends to be the Good News
7 but is not the Good News at all. You
are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ.
8 Let God’s curse fall on anyone,
including us or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of
Good News than the one we preached to you.
9 I say again what we have said before:
If anyone preaches any other Good News than the one you welcomed, let that
person be cursed.
10 Obviously, I’m not trying to win the
approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be
Christ’s servant.
11 Dear brothers and sisters, I want you
to understand that the gospel message I preach is not based on mere human
reasoning.
12 I received my message from no human
source, and no one taught me. Instead, I received it by direct revelation from
Jesus Christ.
13 You know what I was like when I
followed the Jewish religion—how I violently persecuted God’s church. I did my
best to destroy it.
14 I was far ahead of my fellow Jews in
my zeal for the traditions of my ancestors.
15 But even before I was born, God chose
me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased him
16 to reveal his Son to me so that I
would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles. When this happened, I
did not rush out to consult with any human being.
17 Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to
consult with those who were apostles before I was. Instead, I went away into
Arabia, and later I returned to the city of Damascus.
18 Then three years later I went to
Jerusalem to get to know Peter, and I stayed with him for fifteen days.
19 The only other apostle I met at that
time was James, the Lord’s brother.
20 I declare before God that what I am
writing to you is not a lie.
21 After that visit I went north into
the provinces of Syria and Cilicia.
22 And still the churches in Christ that
are in Judea didn’t know me personally.
23 All they knew was that people were
saying, “The one who used to persecute us is now preaching the very faith he
tried to destroy!”
24 And they praised
God because of me.
Galatians 2 NLT
1 Then fourteen years later I went back
to Jerusalem again, this time with Barnabas; and Titus came along, too.
2 I went there because God revealed to
me that I should go. While I was there I met privately with those considered to
be leaders of the church and shared with them the message I had been preaching
to the Gentiles. I wanted to make sure that we were in agreement, for fear that
all my efforts had been wasted and I was running the race for nothing.
3 And they supported me and did not
even demand that my companion Titus be circumcised, though he was a Gentile.
4 Even that question came up only
because of some so-called believers there—false ones, really —who were secretly
brought in. They sneaked in to spy on us and take away the freedom we have in
Christ Jesus. They wanted to enslave us and force us to follow their Jewish
regulations.
5 But we refused to give in to them for
a single moment. We wanted to preserve the truth of the gospel message for you.
6 And the leaders of the church had
nothing to add to what I was preaching. (By the way, their reputation as great
leaders made no difference to me, for God has no favorites.)
7 Instead, they saw that God had given
me the responsibility of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as he had
given Peter the responsibility of preaching to the Jews.
8 For the same God who worked through
Peter as the apostle to the Jews also worked through me as the apostle to the
Gentiles.
9 In fact, James, Peter, and John, who
were known as pillars of the church, recognized the gift God had given me, and
they accepted Barnabas and me as their co-workers. They encouraged us to keep
preaching to the Gentiles, while they continued their work with the Jews.
10 Their only suggestion was that we
keep on helping the poor, which I have always been eager to do.
11 But when Peter came to Antioch, I had
to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong.
12 When he first arrived, he ate with
the Gentile believers, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some
friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was
afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of
circumcision.
13 As a result, other Jewish believers
followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their
hypocrisy.
14When I saw that they were not following the
truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since
you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a
Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish
traditions?
15 “You and I are Jews by birth, not
‘sinners’ like the Gentiles.
16 Yet we know that a person is made
right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have
believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of
our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever
be made right with God by obeying the law.”
17 But suppose we seek to be made right
with God through faith in Christ and then we are found guilty because we have
abandoned the law. Would that mean Christ has led us into sin? Absolutely not!
18 Rather, I am a sinner if I rebuild
the old system of law I already tore down.
19 For when I tried to keep the law, it
condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its
requirements—so that I might live for God.
20 My old self has been crucified with
Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this
earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for
me.
21 I do not treat the
grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with
God, then there was no need for Christ to die.
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