Old Jerry

In behavioral terms according to these verses I would classify myself as wanting solid food. I keep on growing because I study the Bible daily. I am always finding things that I hadn’t seen before so that is what is taking me to the next step. These Bible studies bring a lot of light to the world of God.

We can have the mind of Christ when we are diligently reading the Bible and attending bible classes and attending church so that we can fellowship with those who also love the Lord. By having the Holy Spirit circulating through our minds the thoughts that we have will reflect the Spirit of God.

My understanding of the rhetorical standards of his day was for the elite. But Paul wanted more than the elite to come to Jesus. Paul would have had to repackage the message in order to preach the word and that probably would have misled some of the followers. Paul could do miracles at times and that was the demonstration of the power of the Spirit. It was the Spirit that had rescued him.

The way that Christ represents God’s wisdom is that Christ in God and God is in Christ. So the wisdom, righteousness, holiness and redemption came from God. These are the same qualities that we should want for our lives.

I think that one of the areas that non-Christians in our culture stumble over the basic gospel of Christ is that he is God. They can’t believe that He was sent down to this earth to die for our sins. They also don’t believe in his miracles. We can try to bridge this gap by showing what God is doing for us today my pointing out his the miracles that is doing today. I don’t know if I would call that watering down the gospel I think that it is presenting in just a small dose at a time so they can understand it. The reason we can’t escape the tension between culturally-relevant communications and changing the essence of the message is that in order to communicate the message we need to use the language that they are used to.

Homosexuality is to be admired when the Bible teaches against it. Abortion is a woman’s right when the Bible teaches that it is murder. Getting drunk and doing drugs is ok when. Coveting you neighbors stuff.

I don’t think that I see a division on our congregation but of course there is division in the Christian community because we are different denominations. If there weren’t differences then we would all be one denomination. Some of the cause of division in Corinth was the person that they were following. They should have all been following Christ but instead they were bragging about following a certain person. I think that cause of division in our churches today is our pride. We are proud because we are a certain denomination. We can agree with one another for the essentials and I don’t think that is what separates us. I think it is non-essentials that get in the way of our coming together.

The gift that God gives us to ensure that we continue in faith until the end is the Bible. He also has given a church so that we can fellowship with other believers to increase our knowledge in God. It requires our active participation to receive its full benefits because we need to keep our minds on things that are holy instead of things that are worldly. If we don’t keep our minds on God then the world will take us over.

I can’t think of many or of anytime that I have thank God for the blessings of those who don’t like me, or are actually my enemies. When Paul thanked God for the gifts of those who are at odds with him I think that was quite a bold move. That took quit a man to thank God for the gifts that were at odds with him. Paul is thanking God for the speaking and knowledge that they have about the Good News of Jesus Christ.

To be “called to be saints” means that we belong to God. A saint according to the Bible is anybody that belongs to God. I think that the reason that it is comfortable for to say that we aren’t saints is because we have always been taught that saints are perfect Christian people. We are expected to follow God and do the things that He wants us to do. The world expects us to be perfect and not sin because are followers of Christ. They have always got their eye on us so that they can scream and shout that Christ is dead.

Diotrephes character flaws seem to be a selfish domineering leader of the church. He don’t like to have is leadership put in doubt. But a person can be a strong pastoral leader with our developing these traits. We have one leading our church right now. I think that the best ways that you fight the tendencies in yourself toward pride and a controlling spirit, it can be fought by prayer and having a prayer buddy that understands what you are going through.

The reasons for supporting Christian workers in their ministry is so that they can teach the world of God and not have to be concerned about making a living. The reword that come with becoming a “co-worker” is that we will reap the same reward as the missionary. The Christian worker would have devoted part of their time trying to support themselves if they didn’t have the support of the church.

The reason that the Apostle John tells his readers to refuse hospitality to false teachers is so that they won’t be able to spread the false gospel to the people. By refusing hospitality to a congregation means that they would not be given a platform in which to spread their false gospel. The border between tolerance and stupidity, when it comes to false teachers is that they might be able to convince you of their false teachings. So if you don’t listen to them they cannot spread false teaching. I don’t know the reason that denominations split. Sometime is just the personality of the pastor or somebody in the body has convinced them that they are being taught a wrong doctrine.

The danger of “running ahead” of Christ’s teachings to “deeper truths” is that you end up not having the truth. We will come up with things that will control others so that we will look great. To “abide” or “continue” in Christ and his teachings is to be reading the Bible and meditating on the word. We should be talking to God daily. This is the only way that we will not be deceived by the false teachers.

John exhorts his “children” to “keep yourselves from idols” because we are to be worshiping the true God. If we don’t worship the true God then we will not have eternal life. There are all kinds of idols that will distract us from God. I think that the biggest thing is money and material goods. But the **** of the heart is right up there with those. I think that the idol that competes for God’s attention in my life is ****.

The two conditions to answered prayer in 1 John is God’s will and our obedience. The way to determine God’s will is to be reading the Bible. It is in there that we can learn what his will is and what it is not. Probably we won’t get the answer we want if we are motivated by our will and not that of God’s.

The difference between the sayings is to say that the Christian Church is saving you which are not true. The Church may direct you to Christ but you have to accept it. But to say that you have life in his Son means that you will have eternal life because it through the Son that we have eternal life. We should be teaching that Jesus is the only one who can give us eternal life. All we have to do is have faith that Jesus is the savior of the world. Religion teaches us the rituals we should follow which aren’t bad because they keep reminding us that we are in Christ. But we have to have the faith that we do have eternal life. I think that everybody has faith in something but that faith will not save them for eternal life. But to have faith in Jesus is to have eternal life.

A defeatist mentality is that of thinking that everything and everybody is against them. They don’t know that Christ has already overcome the world. They have no hope. A person that believes in Christ believes that Christ has overcome the world and we are with Christ and with him we have overcome this world also.

I think that the kind of fear that we should have toward God is that we don’t love Him enough. I think that we should fear that we don’t spend enough time with him. The kind of fear that is extinguished by his love perfected in us is the fear of his return. We don’t have to fear that because we know that he loves us is watching out for us.

I think that the statement that “God is love” is so important because then we know that He will always look out for us. Since God loves us then we know that He will always be looking out for our interests. Since we are created in God’s image but fell that means that we need to get back in the grace of God. We can’t stand to be out of his love since we are in his image. If we don’t forgive then how can we love? We can’t love somebody and hate them at the same time therefore we need to forgive them.

The thing that is us that is greater than false prophets and even Satan is the Holy Spirit. God’s spirit is stronger than anything that we can obtain. The way that we can overcome Satan and all the false prophets is be going to God and asking for his help. This knowledge should remove all fear and we can live our lives knowing that God is going to take care of all these things for us.

I think that is important that we believe that Jesus was from God in the flesh is because that shows us God’s love. It is also important to know that that Jesus died for our sins and that not even the animal sacrifices could do that for us. We need to have the gap filled for us to cross over from this body to eternity. Satan wants us for his own but we know that Jesus died for our sins then Satan can’t have us. The implications of the fact that Jesus could live out his divine life in a human body like ours is that we know the he knows what we are going through. He was tempted like we are but He did not give into sin and that is important.

I think that the relationship between obedience and answered prayer is that God always answers our prayers but I think that He gives us a “yes” answer more often when we are obedient to Him. We do not “earn” God’s favor through obedience but I think He is more apt to give us an affirmative answer if we are obedient.

To “lay down you life for your brothers” is to know them and be will to do most anything for them. We here about people lay down their lives for others especially in the military. But it also true for the people that lay down their lives for somebody in a car accident. I am not in a large congregation but I think that the best way to get to know of few of the people in the congregation is to join the small groups and pray and play together.

Anger can turn to hatred in our hearts when we are always thinking about what it was that got us angry. We keep on reiterating the anger and then it turns to hatred. The ways that anger and hatred relate to murder is that we are wishing that the person was dead. We don’t any part of that person so we avoid them. A way to get rid of stored-up anger in our heats is to talk to the person and resolve the differences. We can let them know what made us angry at them because they may not even know what the problem is.