Episodes
Monday Oct 10, 2016
THE BENEFITS OF A CHRISTIAN (2 Peter 1:1-2)
Monday Oct 10, 2016
Monday Oct 10, 2016
We live in a world full of apostasy. False teachings abound. Satan is seeking to destroy the church from within. The Christian life is more than just a birth. It is a growth, and it is a development. The key to a victorious Christian life in the midst of apostasy is found in the last verse of the book of 2 Peter.
2 Peter 3:18
18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.
KJV
You will not be able to live for God unless you have a knowledge of the Word of God. Yet, we need to have more than simple knowledge about Christ, the kind of knowledge we find in a library book. Rather, we are to have a super knowledge of Jesus. To have this kind of knowledge of Christ is to know Him better than your closest loved one. To know Him, is to know life eternal. First comes salvation by the grace of God, then as we begin to know Jesus, we gain peace in Jesus.
In our lesson today, we find that in just the first two verses of this book we are told of some truly marvelous benefits of being a Christian. We have a like precious faith, made precious by the object of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is through our faith in Christ that we have obtained all the righteousness of God. Our sins have been wiped clean, and we have a standing before God as completely righteous. Then, by the grace of God we obtained our salvation, and being justified by God’s grace we can have the peace of God because we have a super-natural knowledge of God. We have a personal relationship with the Creator of all things, the almighty God. But not just any personal relationship, we know Christ better than we know our own spouse because the Holy Spirit resides in our hearts. He constantly speaks to us of the things that Christ tells Him to share with us, and He speaks to us when we are all alone.
Amazing, huh? Listen to this new series of podcasts to see the rest of what God has in store for us in this little book.
Sunday Jul 24, 2016
THE KEYS TO A HAPPY LIFE (1 Peter 3:8-12)
Sunday Jul 24, 2016
Sunday Jul 24, 2016
When I chose the title to this lesson, I decided to do an internet search on the phrase, The keys to a happy life. If you can imagine, there were lots of people out there who are ready to tell you what the keys to a happy life are. I saw titles like, 14 keys to a happy life, 10 keys to happier living, 21 keys to a happy life, and one from Psychology Today saying The key to living a happy life today. As I looked at these my first thought was that for there to be so many results in this internet search, there must be a lot of people looking for happiness. That may seem obvious, and I didn’t need to an internet search to know that this was true, it was just a confirmation of my thoughts. Happiness, true happiness, can be elusive in this secular world that we live in.
The thing that all of these sites had in common was that it hinged on you, how you thought about events, what you focused your thoughts on, how you were to let the less important things go by and not worry about them. Living for the “now” as one site put it. It was all about you, and what you could do for yourself. You were in control of your happiness, and I am not going to deny that some of this is true, we are in control of how we deal with life’s tragedies. But the wonderful thing about being a Christian is that we don’t have to face life alone. We have the Holy Spirit of God living within us. We have His power to depend on. We have His wisdom to guide us, and we have His love and joy to fill our lives with true happiness. Yet, many Christians totally ignore this benefit, and look to the secular world for their happiness. If I were to be able to see the hits on those search results, I would bet you find just as many Christians looking at them as you do non-Christians.
Let me tell you something really important here, they are all looking in the wrong place. There is no true, eternal, happiness away from God. He alone can give us the type of joy that overwhelms us. We just have to look to Him for that happiness which already exists within us. The wonderful good news is that we already have the key to happiness within us, we just have to activate it. So in today’s lesson we are going to close out this section on how a Christian is to live a life of submission to the various authorities and laws with the goals of glorifying God and winning others to Christ, and then we are going to talk about God’s five keys to a believer’s happy life. I say a believer’s happy life, for it is only the believer that has the Holy Spirit of God living within them.
How many men and women today, who are involved in living for the things of this world, suddenly wake up and find that it’s not worth it? Life is monotonous, and life is not worth it. No wonder they commit suicide in growing numbers every day. It is not until you come into a right relationship with God that you can live life to its fullest, and find the happiness that we all seek after.
Sunday Jan 24, 2016
REDEMPTION THROUGH GRACE (1 Peter 1:2c-d)
Sunday Jan 24, 2016
Sunday Jan 24, 2016
So when we are facing times of terrible persecution, or difficult trials, when things are so bad that they are out of our ability to control, what are you most grateful for?
Certainly, I am grateful for a loving God who cares for me, watches over me, and provides for me. I am grateful for the power of the Holy Spirit living within me. I am grateful for the promises of God that we find in His word, such as, that we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)
So this verse is interesting because it doesn’t promise that all things work together for the good of all men, it puts a qualifier on this promise. What is that qualifier?
You have to be someone who loves God, and someone who is called according to His purpose. This means that if you want to claim the promise of this verse, that no matter what you are going through, that it will work out for your good, then you must meet the requirements of this promise. And in order to meet those requirements you must be saved, a born again child of God.
So, the first thing that you need to have in order to face persecution, trials, or difficult times in your life, is the certain knowledge that you have been redeemed by God, and that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Master. This is the basic minimum for this promise to be true.
The next most important thing that I believe we need is the grace of God. When I am facing a difficult time, the one thing that I cherish most from God is His grace. It is His grace that allows me to be forgiven. It is His grace that allows me to be justified freely before God. It is His grace that allows the blood of Christ to wash my sins away, in spite of the sin in my life. That is God’s grace.
This leads us to the third thing that we must have to face persecution. The result of knowing that we are saved, and that God’s grace has been bestowed on us, is the peace of God in our hearts. When we have God’s peace in our heart, we have comfort in the knowledge of God’s provision for us.
So salvation, grace, and peace, are what I consider the three most important things that I must know, claim, and be sure of, when I have hard times. Everything else that God is going to do for me flows from these three Biblical truths. The presence and power of the Holy Spirit resides in my heart because of the redemption and grace that God has given me, and it is because I am redeemed, and that I am the recipient of God’s grace, that God’s peace is there, as well.
Listen to this podcast to learn what it means to be redeemed by God, and to have God’s grace and peace, to give us comfort during times of persecution.
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