Patsy Laycoax

Q3. (2 Corinthians 1:10-11) Why does Paul ask people to pray for him? Because Paul knows the value of intercessory prayer not only for the ones being prayed for but also the ones doing the praying. It increases our faith and brings us closer to one another. How do the prayers of others have an effect? It increases the faith of all those praying and is an encouragement to keep on praying. What happened in your life that has helped you enter into a ministry of intercessory prayer? I was delivered from the sin of gluttony 4 years ago and now I interceed for others who are in bondage to that sin. Also I really relied on the prayers of others when my daughter was missing and we did not know where she was. She was grown and had left on her own but she was not mentally well, God brought her back home after 5 months, this was several years ago but today she is well and serving the Lord!

The kinds of perils that early christians were exposed to were physical persecution such as thrown to lions or burned at a stake. The kinds of perils christians are exposed to today in this country is mostly ridicule, sometimes sued in a court of law, loss of friendships. But in some countries they face more severe persecution such as being jailed,loss of family, loss of job and some even being put to death. This passage reassures us that no matter what we face we are more than conquerors and nothing will separate us from His love! We christians overwhelmingly conquer despite the obstacles we face because no matter what the obstacle anywhere from ridicule even to death, is not a defeat but a victory for us and the church of our Lord Jesus Christ because it testifies to the one who loves us , strengthens us, and is always with us,no matter what we are facing even unto death.

The significance of the statement if God be for us, who can be against us is no matter how powerful or strong anyone or anything that opposes us, God is stronger and more powerful, He will protect us against lies or anything else that is thrown at us because we are His, we belong to Him. Our enemies are the world, the flesh and the devil. The world is this worldly system of believing lies and doing things contrary to God, the flesh is our own sinful nature. The saying may be true that we are our own worst enemy. The evidence presented that God is for us is the giving of His only begotten Son to die on the cross for our sin. This statement makes me feel very unworthy, and very humbled but also so grateful, thankful and full of joy that words cannot express. It affects hope in that my expectation of spending eternity with God and all He has prepared for us is heightened tremendously. It allows me to act like I belong to God, I am His child. I am not my own, I have been bought with a price that Jesus paid so willingly. Therefore I want to please Him more than anything else I could desire. Graciously gives us all things refers to all the gifts we have recieved from the Lord. Our salvation, joy, peace, security, all the fruits of the Spirit and all the future things He has prepared and is preparing like our future glorification. Praise God!

To be conformed to the likeness of His Son means I take on the character of Jesus, my life points to Him. In practical terms in our lives it involves loving others as Jesus loved, forgiving others no matter how many times they wrong us, being patient, actually all the gifts of the Spirit. Paul supports this statememnt with ideas of our destiny because when God saved us, He also determined that we should live as His Son, our life should be a reflection of Jesus, that is our destiny. Paul supports this with ideas of brotherhood with Jesus in that we shall partake in the same inheritance as Jesus which is to be raised from the dead and live with God forever.

The actual promise contained in Romans 8:28 is that all things, no matter what they are will work together for my good. It means I can trust Him with everything that happens good or bad because He will take those happenings and turn them for my benefit. The two qualifications for the recipients is to love the Lord Jesus Christ and to respond to the Spirit's calling us to do God's will. This verse gives me hope because I know I need not fret or worry when things take place that are not pleasant or even sin, that God will use those to bring about my good and to bring glory to Himself.

The Holy Spirit inspires us to pray "Abba Father" by prompting our spirit to call God, Father or dad. The significance of calling God, Father or dad is it shows we have a very personal and intimate relationship with Him. If we don't have some kind of personal assurance of our salvation then we spend all our time feeling guilty and insecure and fail to grow in the Lord and our love for Him. We receive assurance through believing His Word and seeking Him through prayer. He will hear us and answer by giving us the assurance that we are His.

By focusing on the lord we will mortify or put to death the deeds of the body through the Spirit. But it also requires a little self-discipline to put our focus on the Lord but the lord supplies that too when we go to Him for His strength. For example when I am tempted to overeat or have thoughts I shouldn't have or any sin, I go to the Word of God or recall scripture i have memorized,meditate on it and ask for strength from the Lord, next thing I know i have forgotten about eating or whatever temptation it might have been. To be led by the Spirit is to deny our flesh and do as Jesus would have us do, no longer rebelling against him,but waiting upon Him to lead us in the way we should go. What this looks like in actual practice is the same as mortifying the flesh, we can't do one without the other or we will fail at both. We have to be led by the Spirit to have strength to mortify the flesh but we must be willing to do both.

No, we do not have to sin, we have been set free by Jesus Christ. No, we are not compelled to sin but we sometimes choose to sin and we also can sin without realizing at the time it was sin but if we are living filled with the Spirit, that doesn't happen because the Spirit is guiding us. If a christian is filled with the Spirit then they can go 2 hours to 2 days without sinning or longer. It is when we fail to be filled with the Spirit that we sin and in fact it is a sin to not be filled with the Spirit because God's Word commands us to be. Eph. 5:18. I think christians got such a defeatist attitude towards sin by not being filled with the Spirit and so they naturally found it hard not to sin. It didn't come from scripture, although we all do sin sometimes because scripture says if we say we have no sin, the truth is not in us, 1 John 1:8. Only Jesus lived a sinless life.

No it is not possible to be a christian without the Holy Spirit residing in us. Romans 8:9 The difference between the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the fullness is anyone who is a geniuine christian is indwelt by the Holy Spirit but not all geniuine christians are full of the Spirit. To be full of the Spirit we must be living in close fellowship with the Lord,submitting to His will and a shining light that points others to Jesus. We remain full of the spirit by consistently being in God's Word, obeying it and in much prayer, keeping close fellowship with the Lord.

To set our mind on the things of the Spirit is to be determined to let the Holy Spirit guide us in all that we do, even our thoughts and attitudes with a love and trust in the Spirit of Christ. We do this and recognize we are doing it by going to God's Word and letting it guide us. Most of the time the mindset of the flesh is habit but we have to be deliberate to make our mindset on the Spirit. The Holy Spirit has a big part, He is the one who speaks to us, guides us and convicts or comforts us in what we are doing,feeling and thinking. No, we cannot live by the Spirit by force of will because our will is flesh and against the things of the Spirit.

Obedience to the law cannot save us because we are incapable of keeping the whole law perfectly. Our sinful nature or flesh is the weak link and the law does nothing to change that. What it takes to save us is to have power to overcome our sinful nature which Jesus has provided for us with his death and resurrection. Through him if we are one of his, we are given a new nature to overcome sinful temptations.

I think Paul describes himself in Romans 7 and to all others like him. It has to be someone who loves the law of God so it would not be unregenerate man. Even though we love God's law and are growing in our walk with the Lord, we still have sin to contend with everyday. Even mature believers have sin to contend with and if we don't keep our eyes on the Lord, we will find ourselves in bondage to it again and only the Lord Jesus can deliver us. But this shouldn't be the normal life of mature believer even though he has to fight against sin everyday, he will be an overcomer through the Lord Jesus Christ. Maybe this was Paul before becoming a mature believer as it would be for all immature believers.

Total depravity is the belief that no good thing dwells in our flesh, we all have a corrupt nature. We may do good things but we either have the wrong motive or it leads to our being prideful in what we have done. So yes, some of God's original goodness can show through but it will be marred by wrong motives or lead to the sin of pride. Total depravity means there is no part in us that is still perfect as God created man. Modern man believes we are basically good because to admit otherwise would hurt his pride. We don't want to think we aren't good and in need of someone to save us but the Bible teaches even our righteousness is as filthy rags so we are incapable of doing good with pure motives and not letting pride slip in. We are all sinners by birth and by choice and in need of a new nature that only our Savior Jesus Christ can provide.

The law does a good job of revealing our sin to us,showing us what sin is but it is powerless to save us or teach us how to overcome sin. The law is like a mirror, we look at our selves in a mirror and see a dirty face but the mirror has no power to cleanse our face and so it is with the law, we see our sin revealed to us but the law hasn't any power to change us. Through the law I see I have sinned but I am still powerless to change. The problem is now that I know certain behaviors and thoughts are sin, what can I do?

We would not be better off not knowing that we should not covet because there would still be consequences to that sin, one of which is that it displeases God and we would miss the blessing of obeying the Lord and drawing near to Him. The flesh responds to being told not to covet by coveting all the more because there isn't any good thing in our flesh, it is totally corrupt. We only overcome sin by the power of the Holy Spirit.