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The Word of God – Showing us that God is Loving

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Verses for Today

1 John 4:8 He who does not love has not known God, because God is love.

1 John 4:9 In this the love of God was manifested among us, that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might have life and live through Him.

1 John 4:10 Herein is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son as a propitiation for our sins.

1 John 4:11 Beloved, if God has loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another.

Fellowship

The 10 commandments are found in chapter 20 of Exodus. In verse 12 God commands us to honor our father and mother. In verse 13, that we shall not kill, in verse 14, that we shall not commit adultery, and in verse 15, that we shall not steal. Look through all the rest of the commandments. You will see that they strongly testify that our God is loving.

[Exodus 20,] verses 12 through 14 reveal that God is a God of love. If we do not honor our parents, it means that we do not love them. Likewise, if we love others, we shall not steal from them. In Matthew 22:37-40 the Lord Jesus answered His opposers by implying that the whole law is fulfilled in loving God and man. We must not only love the Lord with our whole being, but we must also love others as we love ourselves. In Galatians 5:14 Paul says, “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If we consider the Ten Commandments in depth, we shall see that God’s love is revealed in them (Life Study of Exodus, p. 598).

If the whole law is fulfilled in loving God and man, then this really is telling us that God’s law testifies that our God is a God of love.

God’s nature is love, and therefore His love is unconditional. God loves everyone, even the unlovable ones… We love those who love us but what about those who are mean to us or different from us? God loves everyone including those who are not like us or those who do not always obey Him. (Church in Irvine, Lessons, God is Love).

The highest expression of God’s love is revealed in the New testament. God loves us and does not want us to suffer the punishment for sin. It was out of His love that He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to die for us. We should all realize the following three things. 

1) We are all sinners; this means that there is something in us that causes us to do the evil that we don’t want to do. The commandments show us a high standard and expose our fallen condition.

2) Jesus paid the price for our sins. When we believe in Him, He forgives us and takes away all our sins (1 John 4:10). Furthermore, He gives His eternal life to us (1 John 4:9). This is the love of God and it is real love. No other love compares to this. 

3) God does not require the sinner to become sinless before coming to Him. God loved the sinners first and took the first step in coming to them. When we consider our close family, our relatives, friends, and even our enemies, we have to realize that God loves them. He loves every human being and even came to be a man to die for them. Keeping God’s love in mind and enjoying and experiencing God’s love affects the way we see and treat others.

With a heart full of respect, honor, and worship for God’s love, you can sing hymn 30. Stanzas 1 and 3 are included here.

1
What love Thou hast bestowed on us,

We thank Thee from our heart;

Our Father, we would worship Thee

And praise for all Thou art.

3
Thou gavest Thy beloved Son

In love to come and die,

That we may be Thy many sons,

As heirs with Him, made nigh.

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The Word of God – Seek the Lord While He May Be Found

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Verses for Today

Psalm 119:2 Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, / Who seek Him with all their heart.

2 Timothy 2:22 But flee youthful lusts, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

Fellowship

The kind of person we are determines how we receive God’s words that are in the Bible. For the word of God to be life to us, we need to be God’s seekers. This means that whatever we might do, in that thing, we want to gain God. Whether we read or we pray, we are not interested in anything but seeing, touching, and gaining God Himself.

The writer of Psalm 119 was such a seeker. Many Christians are not familiar with the term “seekers of God,” even though this concept is biblical. According to Psalm 119, seeking God is related to keeping the law. If you try to keep the law without having a heart to seek God, your efforts will be in vain. This was the serious shortcoming of the Judaizers at the time of Paul. Trying to keep the law without seeking God with their whole heart, they failed in their endeavor to fulfill the law’s requirements. If we want to walk according to God’s law, we must seek Him with our whole heart. We can pray, “Lord Jesus, show me what it means to seek you with my whole heart.” (Life Study of Exodus, Msg 56, Section 1)

In 2 Timothy 2:22 Paul charged Timothy to flee youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. This indicates that the Lord’s seekers must be His callers.

We call on the name of the Lord by our spirit, yet it must be out of a pure heart… Our heart must be purified, and the heart includes all these things: motive, intention, purpose, will, decision, sensation, feeling, and thought. The heart must be pure in all of its constituents. Then we can call on the Lord purely.

Second Timothy 2:22 implies that we need to call on the Lord with the Lord’s callers. Sometimes we call on the Lord just by ourselves. This exercises our spirit and we receive more of the Lord, but not as much as when we call with some others. To have a corporate calling on the Lord helps a lot. In order to exercise our spirit, we have to recover the practice of calling on the name of the Lord. We need to exercise our spirit so that we may receive the Lord more. Then we can live a godly life to manifest God. (Basic Lessons on Life, Chapter 18, published by Living Stream Ministry)

Gods seekers love God and call on His name out of a pure heart. Let us open our mouth, full of love for the Lord in our heart, and say, “Lord Jesus!”, “Oh, Lord Jesus”, “dearest Lord Jesus!”. Isaiah 55:6 says, “Seek Jehovah while He may be found; / Call upon Him while He is near.”

A song to help us seek the Lord

Seek the Lord while He may be found,

Call upon Him while He is near:

Let the wicked forsake his way,

And the unrighteous man his thoughts:

And let him return to the Lord,

Unto our God,

And He will abundantly pardon,

He will abundantly pardon you—

Return to the Lord.

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The Word of God – The Letter Kills but the Spirit Gives Life

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Verses for Today

2 Cor 3:6 Who has also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, ministers not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

2 Cor 3:14a But their thoughts were hardened; for until the present day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant.

Fellowship

Reading the Bible is a necessary practice for all believers. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says that, “All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, That the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.” Therefore, what is found in the Bible is the best content available in the whole world. Do not think that you can scroll on your electronic device until you find something better than what is found in the Bible; you cannot. We wholeheartedly recommend the reading of the Bible.

Having said this, we have to know that there are two ways to take the Bible into us. One way results in life and the other way results in death. Let us check our experience. Why is it that we sometimes don’t delight in reading the Bible as much as we should? If the Bible is so rich in content, why is it that it can sometimes even give us a dead feeling? Some ardent studiers of the Bible can even become enemies of God and begin to breathe out threatening and murder. This is because, when taken in for mere knowledge, the letter of the Bible can become death to us.

On the contrary, when we pray to contact Jesus Christ who is the life-giving Spirit, the words of the Bible can become spirit and life to us. We experience something like a flowing river, refreshing us and supplying us. One way is to take the words for knowledge, and this results in death. This is just like Adam and Eve taking from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The other way is to come to the Lord Jesus while we read, seeking to receive life. This is just like man coming to eat of the tree of life.

As Paul said of the Jews, there is a veil upon their heart in the reading of the Scriptures (2 Cor. 3:14). They are veiled by their tradition and by their natural concepts. In their experience the Bible thus becomes a book of dead letters. Like the ancient Pharisees, scribes, and Judaizers, they handle the Word without directly contacting the Lord. Instead of exercising their spirit, they rely on their natural understanding. Furthermore, they are often zealous to maintain their religious tradition. But whenever we come to the Word, we need to contact the Lord. As we come to the Lord in the Word, we need to hunger and thirst for Him and seek to enjoy Him. This seeking after the Lord is well expressed in the lines of hymn 812:

I come to Thee, dear Lord,
My heart doth thirst for Thee;
Of Thee I’d eat, of Thee I’d drink,
Enjoy Thee thoroughly.

Just to behold Thy face,
For this my heart doth cry;
I deeply long to drink of Thee
My thirst to satisfy.

In our reading and pray-reading of the Word, we should seek the Lord’s glorious, radiant face. Then in our experience the Word of God will be a source of life supply and nourishment… (Life Study of Exodus, Msg 56, Section 4)

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Gospel of Matthew – Matthew 16:18 – I Will Build My Church

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In this Bible study we have 3 questions and two readings. We will dig deep into the significance of the church in this and the following few Bible studies. We believe this is the right time for the Lord to unveil us further concerning the church. Let us get into it in a prayerful way.

Questions for Fellowship

1. When you were a kid, what did you think was the meaning of
the word “church”?
2. How has your realization of the church changed over the
years?
3. If someone asks you for some steps they can follow to begin
to have a personal time with the Lord, how would you answer
them?

Readings

Seeing The Church

Matthew 16:18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.

The Church as the Body of Christ

Ephesians 1:22-23 And He subjected all things under His feet and gave Him to be Head over all things to the church, Which is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.

Bethel

 

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Gospel of Matthew – You Shall Call His Name Jesus

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And she will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins. – Matthew 1:21

In this Bible study we cover three things.

  1. The Meaning of the Name of Jesus
  2. The Double Cure
  3. Calling on the Name of the Lord to be Saved

The material is comprised primarily of verses. The fellowship in the groups when going over this Bible study together should bring out the depths, the riches, and the application for us today.

On the last slide, you’ll find a charge to sing Psalm 116:12-13. Here is the music and lyrics:

What shall I give unto the Lord
For all, for all, for all He’s done for me?
I’ll take the cup of salvation,
And call, and call, and call upon the name
  of the Lord.

Please download the full Bible study in your preferred format.

You Shall Call His Name Jesus – PDF

You Shall Call His Name Jesus – PowerPoint Slides

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Morning Revival Exercises – Telling the Lord that you Love Him

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Verses for Today

Mark 12:30 And you shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart and from your whole soul and from your whole mind and from your whole strength.

1 Corinthians 2:9 But as it is written, “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not come up in man’s heart; things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

Fellowship

When we we wake up in the morning, our heart may not be turned to the Lord and our mind may naturally rush to things other than the Lord. We always need to warm up our heart with love toward the Lord. Telling Him that we love Him surely warms our heart and turns it toward Him! In fact, this is one of the easiest yet most enjoyable exercises we can do! Try to do this every day when you wake up, before you do anything else, even before you get out of bed: say, “Lord Jesus, I love You!”. What a sweet and even romantic start to your day! “Lord Jesus, I love You!” You wont’ become a religious Christian in this way. You’ll become a romantic Christian.

Then once you are up and begin having a definite time with the Lord you can try telling the Lord once again:

“Oh Lord I love You, I really love You.”

Other Suggested prayer:

“Lord, I love You. Attract me, that I may love You more. Rekindle my love for You this very day. Every day I want my love for You to be fresh and sweet. Come and make Your home in my heart. You are the One I desire.” (Life Messages, vol. 2, p. 206)

Here is a song you can sing to the Lord!

You shall love the Lord with all your heart
You shall love the Lord with all your soul,
You shall love the Lord with all your mind,
With all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.

Oh, Lord I love You for all the things You are!
Oh, Lord I love You for all the things You do!
Oh, Lord I love You. Help me love You more,
With all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind.

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2021 Fall College Conference

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Topic: Christ’s Deep Longing and Good Pleasure
November 5th-7th, 2021, Glorieta, New Mexico

2021-Fall-College-Conference-Collage

4 Takeaways:

  • The Bible is a romance revealing that God desires a bride and is working to gain her; we
    must respond to God’s desire by loving Christ in a personal and affectionate way.
  • The first couple in the Bible, Adam and Eve, presents a picture of God’s desire to be one with
    man and of all that He did to gain the church for Christ as His counterpart.
  • Christ gave Himself for the church in order to sanctify her through the washing of
    the water in the Word, making the church His beautiful bride.
  • We as the Lord’s bride must earnestly desire for the Lord to come back while also sounding
    the call for sinners’ salvation so that the consummation of the divine romance can be reached!

We also learned a new song based on (Mark 12:30)

(Part 1)

You shall love the Lord with all your heart,

You shall love the Lord with all your soul,

You shall love the Lord with all your mind,

With all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind!

(Part 2)

O Lord, I love You for all the things You are!

O Lord, I love You for all the things You do!

O Lord, I love You. Help me love You more,

With all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind!

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New School Year Welcome and The Meaning of Human Life

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

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

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Christians on Campus at the University of Utah – 2018 Spring Break Trip

This much anticipated Spring Break trip took us through the following cities:
Colorado: Denver, Boulder, Estes Park
Wyoming: Lyman

When we were in Denver on Thursday and Friday morning of the trip we gathered together before going sight-seeing. Those morning times were full of fellowship and worship. We released our spirits in praise to the Lord like never before, especially as we sang Psalm 30:11-12 “Thou hast turned my mourning into dancing for me…!”

Here are the lyrics of this song:

Thou hast turned my mourning into dancing for me;
Thou hast put off my sackcloth;
Thou hast turned my mourning into dancing for me,
And girded me with gladness;
To the end my glory may sing praise unto Thee,
And not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto Thee forever.

Listen to the tune here: https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/h/1334

In Denver we also visited the Red Rock Amphitheater where we sang some songs from the stage!

Boulder is such a colorful town! We hiked and went tea tasting, of course!

During the Christians on Campus Mountain States College Cconference at Estes Park, every student from every campus prepared a one minute point of truth. One person shared on 2 Corinthians 4:7 “We have this treasure in earthen vessels…”. According to the verses surrounding this verse, the light of God is what brings the treasure into us, the vessels. This Treasure is Jesus Christ! What is needed, is for us to open our minds to God. This is like a camera opening the shutter to let the light in and then the light burns the image onto the film! Lord Jesus, We’d like to turn to you again and again, and gain You more and more!