Old Jerry

The way that we are “living letters” is that we will tell others about our Lord Jesus Christ. The way that people “read us” is that they see what we are doing and see the joy in us that they want that also. The reason that it is important to be authentic, not phony, in our lives is because they will be able to read that in us also. The thing that happens when people “read” something in me that they admire and mention is that sometimes they may change their way of living and become a Christian. The way to respond appropriately is to invite them into church or just go and visit them and talk about Jesus Christ.

The sense in knowing God’s fragrant to people who are open to God is to know if they are open to his word. If they are open to his word it makes it easier to talk to them. The way this fragrance is repugnant to people who are closed to God is that they will reject you prior to you even saying anything to them. I do have a tendency to suppress my “fragrance” because some people are allergic to Christian perfume. To people who are open to the gospel I will talk about it but to those that are closed to it I usually don’t mention it.

Satan takes advantage of us when we don’t forgive by not letting us forget what the person did. It burns a whole in our soul and it just like a sore and it keeps festering in us. Some of symptoms in my own heart of unforgiveness are always thinking of a way to get even with the person who offended us. According to Matthew if we don’t forgiven others the Father will not forgive us therefore we are separating ourselves from the Father. To really let go you have to confront the person who offended you and ask for forgiveness. After you have done that you will then be able to turn it over to God.

Being obedient to servants leaders help the church of Jesus Christ because it keeps us united under one head. Then the leader will be able to teach us about Jesus Christ. To be obedient to a self-serving leader hurts the church because he is more interested in advancing his own agenda rather than that of the Lord. I think that I am obedient to those whom God has placed over in the Lord because it is the Lord that placed him there. So to be disobedient to the leader of the church is like being disobedient to the Lord. I think that the relationship between obedience and church unity is necessary so that we will be able to help each other rather than to destroy each other.

To me “lords it over” someone means that you have something against them and in order to control them you will use that against them. The balance between good, strong leadership, micromanaging, and a complete laissez-faire is that a good strong leader doesn’t get into nitty gritty of a person life but he is still able to control the situation. But the dangers of a weak leadership style are that everything goes into chaos and you lose you leadership capabilities.

According to these verses the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives signifies that God has put his seal of ownership on us and that we are His. The Spirit unites us with God be interceding for us during our prayers. He is able to express what we cannot. The promise of a future blessing inherent in the Spirit’s presence is that we will be in the Kingdom of Heaven when the time comes.

I think that Paul has asked the people to pray for him because he needs God’s guidance. I think that it gives us comfort know that other are praying for you and that is what Paul needed. He was going through a rough time in his ministry and needed this comfort. The thing that happened in my life that has helped me enter into a ministry of intercessory prayer is I had a grandson that was born that only weight a little over a pound. It gave me comfort knowing that my church family was praying for him.

Facing a harrowing crisis helps us grow in the Lord because we know that it wasn’t our own power that got us out of the situation. The way that a crisis helped my spiritual life is that I would go to Him more than once a day Him for a resolution to the situation. The value on learning not to rely on ourselves is that when things go really bad you don’t have a resolution and you have to rely on the Lord. It does take a little of you pride away but it does get handled in the correct way. The way that this improves our effectiveness as God’s servant is when it is resolved we will go out and tell people he God had helped us. Maybe this will bring them to Jesus also.

The kind of comfort I receive from my faith in God is one of knowing that He is with me at all times. I know that after the suffering in this life that there is something that is going to be much greater then this waiting for me. The comfort of a daily relationship with God that I get is knowing that if I am willing to give my worries to Jesus, then I have nothing to fear. I have somebody to talk to when I am lonely and needing some company. You can share this blessing of comfort with a brined or relative who is currently suffering by encouraging them to give there to Jesus by taking to Him when things are bad. It won’t take away the pain but it will comfort them if they know that they have a God in heaven willing to listen to them.

The sense that we should love the Church because it is our own body is that we are needed in that body to keep it healthy. We all have a part in the body and if we don’t do our part then that part of the body is sick. The kind of life that produces our actions is that of loving the Lord. If we love him then we will do what He wants us to do. We need to repent of despising the Church and begin to love her so that we can be what God really wants us to be. He gave us his son for all not just for just a few churches.

The Church is “glorious” or “resplendent” because it Christ that the head of the church. He is the one that is preparing us to be His bride. I think that Paul is talking about the present era of the Church because the verse said the Christ is preparing us to be His bride.

The word of God works in the cleansing, purifying process by encouraging us to forgive one another. It also reforms us that our savior has been through similar situations and can understand what we are going through. The word of God should be implemented in a congregation to achieve these purposes by the preaching of the word. We can use this purification without relying upon the threats of hellfire by the love of our God.

The thing that constitutes “holiness” of the church is Jesus Christ. He is the one that sacrificed for us. The church is only holy because of Christ’s sacrifice for her. We had nothing to do with it. We can be holy by just knowing that we did not have anything to do our salvation except to accept the grace of Jesus Christ.

The meaning of that Christ “gave himself up” for the Church is that he died on the Cross for us and gave himself for our sins. This teaches us that God gave us his son and I don’t know of anybody that would do that for a bunch of sinner. So He more commitment to us than I will ever understand. This sacrifice was an altruistic because He had nothing to gain for this commitment except to make it so that we could be with Him in eternity.

I think that “submission” means in regards to the Church’s relationship to Christ is that we are doing the things that Christ wants us to be doing. He always gives us the skills to do what He wants us to, so it is easy to submit to Him. Even my own submission to Christ means that I am in daily contact with him and look to him for guidance. I think that a congregation that actually took seriously submitting its corporate life to Christ would be unstoppable. Christ being the Head of the Church means that we are always looking to Christ of the problems we face and to go to Him with our plans.

The purpose of constructing a healthy local congregation is so that we can grow in the truth and be able to go out and tell others about how loving God really is.

From the strategic point of view, the reason that it is vital that pastors focus on “equipping the saints for the work of the ministry” rather than on serving as paid chaplains to the flock is because they are so few. If they have everybody in the congregation telling others about Christ then more and more people would hear of Him. They ways that Jesus trained his disciples for “equipping….for ministry” was to be with them at all times and teach them especially in a language that they understood.

Pastors and teachers build up the Body by teaching the bible and by everyday experiences that we all have. We have got people in the church that has a pastoral and teaching ministry who are not ordained clergyperson. The effect that they have on the Body is that when a teacher or a pastor is gone, then they can take over. Sometimes it is good to hear another person speak to us.

An evangelist in my local congregation looks like a person that shares the gospel with others. Sometimes they can be too pushy even though they are sincere and are really looking after the other persons here after. The local church evangelist functions by talking to the new people that are just visiting and telling them about Jesus Christ. They can build up the church Body by their knowledge of the bible and helping others understand what Jesus Christ is all about.

I don’t know much about apostles since I thought that they were first century people. I have not thought of a modern day apostle. But as it goes for prophets I think modern day prophets’ helps us to understand what might be happening in the future and therefore build us the church by helping us keep our eye on Jesus Christ.

The way that verse 7 teaches that all Christians have received spiritual gifts is by saying that each one of us has been given the Spirit as has been appropriated. In light of the clause in Ephesians 4:16 it means that everyone of us has been given a special gift so that as a whole, the Church, can function and do the things that God has wanted us to do.

I have tried not to judge other Christians because I have belonged to what some called a cult and I learned more while I was in it than I ever did when I went to a big church. We were always in the bible but we used the bible to confirm what we believed and not to use the bible to guide us. Once we learned to use the bible to guide us and not just confirm our belief we learned a great deal about God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. I can understand what others are going through.

The sense that “one baptism” should unite us rather than divide us is we have all be been baptized in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We have not been baptized into a church. We can maintain the unity of the Spirit and still disagree with other Christian groups about the administration of baptism by realizing that they too are baptizing in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Striving for unity won’t blur our faithfulness to Biblical understanding it should help us to better understand what the Bible is saying. We can balance the two by knowing that we are all studying the same book.

The seven elements that unite all Christians are one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God the Father of all. The one that is most compelling to me is the one hope. Without hope we would be wandering through this earth with nothing to look forward to. The one Spirit is also compelling because that means we are all united under God and that we can count on each other.

The one that brings about the unity is the Holy Spirit. He maintains it because it is of the Spirit. I think that a “bond of peace” is that one that you have with a fellow Christian. According to the wording in Verse 3 the Christian unity is to be a prime goal because it says to make every effort.