Posted on

Gospel of Matthew – They Shall Call His Name Emmanuel

04-They-Shall-Call-His-Name-Emmanuel

This Bible Study jumps into the intrinsic significance of the name Emmanuel, God with us. Today, God being with us is certainly for our encouragement as believers. But God being WITH us means much more than just God being for us.

The attached slides first speak of the meaning of Emmanuel, “God with Us”. Then They go on to speak of the Presence of the Triune God, the Spirit of Reality. Certainly, God being with His people is a theme throughout the whole book of Matthew and even the whole New Testament.

The deepest appreciation and most intimate application of God being with us is His dwelling in our spirit. We must know our spirit, the dwelling place of God today. This is what is covered in the final slide. It is covered in a way that college students can relate.

God’s intention, from His dealings with His people in the Old Testament, through the birth of Jesus as Emmanuel and His wonderful salvation, is that He wants to be one with man. Although not included in the slides, we leave you with this powerful verse from the concluding sentences of the whole Bible.

Revelation 21:3 And I heard a loud voice out of the throne, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will tabernacle with them, and they will be His peoples, and God Himself will be with them and be their God.

Please download the full Bible study in your preferred format.

They Shall Call His Name Emmanuel – PDF

They Shall Call His Name Emmanuel – PowerPoint Slides

Posted on

Our Human Spirit – The Lamp of the Lord

Our-Human-Spirit-The-Lamp-of-the-Lord

The Lord Jesus who is God and who is also the Spirit not only lives in our human spirit, but is mingled with our spirit. The Bible says that God’s Spirit and our human spirit have become one spirit!

“…He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit” – 1 Corinthians 6:17

By this mingling, there is shining. As Christians we want to be the shining ones! Our mingled spirit really is the lamp of the Lord.  Read on to find out how to become so shining! 

Download the full Bible Study in your preferred format:

The Lamp of the Lord – PDF

The Lamp of the Lord – PowerPoint Slides

Posted on

Our Human Spirit – Another Life

Our-Human-Spirit-Another-Life

Our Bible study on the human spirit is becoming more personal. We explore the following questions:

What is your understanding of how one becomes a Christian?
What does the Bible call the life of God – which He gives to us?
How can we receive this life?
Where does the Lord live?
Where is the Lord Jesus right now?

We invite you to dive right in as we think that you will really enjoy this Bible study titled: “Another Life”.

Download the full Bible Study in your preferred format:

Another Life – PDF

Another Life – PowerPoint Slides

Posted on

Our Human Spirit – The Breath of Life

Our-Human-Spirit-The-Breath-of-Life

The human spirit is mysterious. Various people have characterized it in their own special way. What would you say about the human spirit?

Our first topic deals with where our human spirit comes from. By taking a close look at the creation of man in Genesis, we not only see the fact of where our spirit comes from, but we can see how God Himself is so closely related to the human spirit.

Then, before going too deep into our study of the human spirit, we recognize that the Bible makes a clear distinction between the human spirit and the soul.

Download the full Bible Study in your preferred format:

The Breath of Life –  PDF

The Breath of Life – PowerPoint Slides

Posted on

Our Human Spirit

Our-Human-Spirit -Title

Welcome everybody to a new series on our human spirit. We wouldn’t capitalize the word spirit here because we are not talking about the Holy Spirit who is God Himself but rather that special invisible spiritual part that every human being possesses.

The human spirit is most important.  Zechariah 12:1 ranks the creation of the human spirit with the creation of the heavens and the earth.

Thus declares Jehovah, who stretches forth the heavens and lays the foundations of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him – Zechariah 12:1

The human spirit gives us a way to contact God and have fellowship with Him. With our human spirit we worship God, receive God, and serve God. A Christian is a person who has believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Having such a beginning this one needs to know their human spirit and exercise it. The human spirit is also where the church life takes place. Everything in the Christian life and church life is only real in the human spirit.

Inspired by the book OUR HUMAN SPIRIT, published by Living Stream Ministry, we hope you join us in this most interactive and eye opening Bible study. You can join us live or catch up on your own with the published materials below.

Bible Studies

Posted on

Morning Revival Exercises – Pray Reading the Word

Morning-Revival-Pray-Reading-the-Word

Verses for Today

2 Corinthians 3:17 And the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

John 4:24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.

Ephesians 6:17 And receive the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which Spirit is the word of God,

Ephesians 6:18 By means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit and watching unto this in all perseverance and petition concerning all the saints,

John 6:63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.

Fellowship

The goal of morning revival is to get revived and we can get revived by touching the Lord. Because 2 Corinthians 3:17 tells us that the Lord is the Spirit, we know that we have to use our own human spirit to contact Him. Our human spirit corresponds to the Lord as the Spirit. The Lord Jesus even instructs us in John 4:24 to use our human spirit to contact Him!

Did you know you had a human spirit? This is a spiritual organ deep inside you. When you call on the name of the Lord you are exercising your spirit. When you tell Him you love Him you are exercising your spirit. Essentially, whenever you turn your being to the Lord and direct your heart and your speaking to Him, you are exercising your spirit. Reading only with our eyes and our mind, like we do for school, is not enough for us to touch the living Christ who is the Spirit today. What we need is to pray to contact our dear Lord Jesus all the time, even while reading His word.

Here are some examples. If you reply to the Word of God with an “Amen Lord,” that is to contact the Lord. If you begin to read a verse with, “Oh, Lord Jesus,” and then read the verse, then this is also an excellent way to contact the Lord, that is, to touch the Lord through prayer as you read. 

There is not one way to pray-read. Ephesians 6:18 shows us that we should receive the Word by means of all prayer. This means all kinds of prayer. When pray-reading, you can be calling on the Lord, confessing, or petitioning the Lord. All prayer is good. In fact, using John 6:63 as an example, you can say to the Lord, “Lord, It is the Spirit who gives Life; Lord, You are the Spirit and You give life. Lord, give life to me!”

Those who have tried pray-reading have discovered that it is one of the quickest ways to get out of our selfishness and into the enjoyment of God. God has put His very thoughts into the Bible. By praying and reading the Bible, His selfless, loving, and pure thoughts get into us and can even become our thoughts. This is a part of sanctification. By pray-reading, we are being sanctified! Moreover, John 6:63 tells us that the Spirit gives life. Therefore, whenever we pray-read, we not only receive God’s thoughts, but even His life.

Do practice contacting the Lord while reading His word. If there are several verses that you read, pick one and linger there, praying with the words from that verse, and contacting the Lord Jesus. This is an excellent way to be revived morning by morning. 

Posted on

New School Year Welcome and The Meaning of Human Life

A-Life-full-of-meaning-and-without-anxiety-cropped

Our guest speaker addressed this important question:
What is the Meaning of Human Life?

New-School-Year-Welcome-The-Meaning-of-Human-Life

Below you will find some of the lyrics to the songs and the verses that were read in the meeting.

Seek-ye-first-the-kingdom-of-God-Song-Sheet Ecclesiastes-3-11-and-12-1-verses

Posted on

About the Believers – The Human Spirit

Zechariah 12:1 The burden of the word of Jehovah concerning Israel. Thus declares Jehovah, who stretches forth the heavens and lays the foundations of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him,

John 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Ephesians 2:22 In whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in spirit.

Ephesians 5:18 And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissoluteness, but be filled in spirit,

Ephesians 6:18 By means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit and watching unto this in all perseverance and petition concerning all the saints,

Romans 1:9a For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of His Son

Romans 8:16 The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.

2 Timothy 4:22 The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.

Fellowship to help us know Christ and pursue Him

God created us with a human spirit for good reason. The human spirit matches God’s Spirit so that God can dispense Himself into us. We know from John 4:24 that God is Spirit, and by all the verses above (and so many more) we also see that we have a human spirit. By it we contact God and receive Him! John 3:6 shows us that the part in our being where we were born again was our human spirit.

A hymn titled “There’s a Life That’s Deeper than our Mind” talks about touching our human spirit. In this hymn there is also a call to the Christ who is in our spirit to come make home in our heart– that is, to spread out from our human spirit to our whole being. (You can see the lyrics to the whole hymn here: https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/ns/217 ).

When we touch our spirit—such a thrill!
This is far beyond emotion, mind, and will—
It’s within our hidden part—
Come, make home in all our heart;
Let Your presence flow as rivers deep within.

All the genuine spiritual experiences in our Christian life are experiences in our human spirit.

We may have previously thought that we were only made of an inner part and an outer part, but the Bible reveals a third part, the human spirit. How wonderful it is to discover our human spirit!

We invite you to read this excerpt on the human spirit. It is only a small portion from a series of lessons designed to impart the truth of the Bible to young people.
https://www.ministrysamples.org/excerpts/THE-HUMAN-SPIRIT-2.HTML

 

Download the MP3 of this post  or play it below.

Posted on

About the Believers – Saints

1 Corinthians 1:1-3 Paul, a called apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Sosthenes the brother, 2 To the church of God which is in Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, the called saints, with all those who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, who is theirs and ours: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Fellowship to help us know Christ and pursue Him

A saint is simply a believer, one who has the life of God. The apostle Paul had no problem calling the believers in Corinth saints. The church in that place was one with many problems, yet the apostle still called them saints. Saints refers to those who were redeemed by Christ’s blood. Since this is so, you also may boldly say, “I am a saint!”. This does not mean that God is finished with us. He still needs to spread through all our being, through our mind, emotion, and will.  This process is called sanctification and all the saints are in this process. 1 Thessalonians 4:3 says, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification.” The first step of our Christian life is also the first step of our sanctification. This happened already when we believed in the Lord Jesus and received His life. This is why the apostle refers to the saints as those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus.

We were chosen by God, predestinated and called– to be holy. We know this from Ephesians 1:4. You might say that this is what the Christian life is all about.  To be holy is to be separated from everything common. It also means to be filled with the One who is holy. Holiness is God’s nature. Only He is holy. God begins the process of making us holy when He comes in to be our life. This happened when we believed in the Lord. He came into our deepest part, into our human spirit. John 3:6 says, “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” We cannot deny that our regenerated human spirit is filled with the life of God, with the One who is holy. 

1 Thessalonians 5:23 says, “And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”. We are sanctified in Christ Jesus in our spirit, and we are in the middle of being wholly sanctified as He spreads to every part of our being.

May we come to Him again and again, and let Him spread. A song that encapsulates 1 Thessalonians 5:23 is God is spreading in my being. God sanctifies us, even as we sing spiritual songs like these.

This is another great song that conveys the burden found in the introduction to 1 Corinthians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2LSMXNq7gw

Download the MP3 of this post or play it below.