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Discuss verses and passages in the Bible.

  1. Why Do Some People Have Such a Hard Time Reading and Understanding the Bible?

    Why Do Some People Have Such a Hard Time
    Reading and Understanding the Bible?


    One who does the Lord’s work must speak accurately. He should not be careless in his words. Only thus can he become a mouthpiece of the Lord and avoid many difficulties. We are deeply distressed by the fact that many times God’s workman lacks restraint in speech, with the result that brothers and sisters relish his storytelling and his judgmental words but despise his preaching of God’s word. Do not think that it does not matter if we speak wittily with our brothers and sisters today. Indeed, our speech may be very amusing. But wait until we stand up to preach the word of God, and then shall we see how
    they take it to be as amusing as was our storytelling. People will fail to respect what we say anymore.

    One brother may speak and people listen, while another may speak and nobody listens. Why this difference? Do they not speak the same words? The word is of God all right, but one of them has spoken differently from the other in ordinary days on other matters. Let us recognize the fact that if two of us speak differently concerning other matters, and even though we both may speak forth the same word of God, the power of God’s word will be different one from the other. For a person who speaks carelessly and without restraint in his daily speech will witness the same effect upon his hearers when he later preaches God’s word. It will be as loose and powerless as before.

    Let us not easily forget what we have learned from Scripture that a fountain does not send forth from the same opening both sweet water and bitter. It cannot yield up sweet fluid on one occasion and bitter fluid on another. Bitter water is always bitter. Though its bitterness may be somewhat diluted, it still remains bitter nonetheless. Note, too, that in mixing together clean and dirty water, the latter does not turn clean; instead, the former becomes dirty. Many brethren find that their power has been sapped not because they have done wrong in preaching God’s word but because they have spoken wrongly in daily matters; so that no one will listen to them when they stand up to preach. Please be well advised that words uttered on the platform follow the words spoken off the platform. If you speak unwisely away from the podium, your speaking from the podium will be totally diluted, and the sweet water will have been turned bitter by you. We need not daily
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  2. Can a Person be Sanctified by Trying to Keep the Law?

    We reckon therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Romans 3.28.
    The concepts towards the law in today’s church are of two opposite kinds:

    (1) People are saved by grace and not by keeping the law; but to attain sanctification we must keep the law.

    (2) Again, people are saved by grace and not by keeping the law; and hence we need not keep the law after we are saved, though we do keep the commandment of grace.

    The latter concept is correct. The gist of the Letter to the Romans is that no sinner can be justified by the works of the law; while the theme of the Letter to the Galatians is that no saved person can be sanctified by the works of the law.

    These two letters have sufficiently proven that neither justification nor sanctification comes by the works of the law.
  3. What is the Fruit of the Spirit of Love, Joy and Peace?

    by , 03-31-2011 at 12:04 PM (Faithful Follower of Jesus)
    The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace . . . Galatians 5.22

    In examining the fruits of the Holy Spirit—which express Christian witness—we shall readily see that they are none other than selfless acts. What is love? Love is loving others without thinking of self. What is joy? It is looking at God in spite of self. Patience is despising one’s own hardship. Peace is disregarding one’s loss. Gentleness is overlooking one’s rights. Humility is forgetting one’s merits. Temperance is the self under control. And faithfulness is self-restraint. As we examine every Christian virtue, we will discern that other than being delivered from self or being forgetful of self, a believer has no other virtue. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is determined by one principle alone: the losing of self totally.

    I have been a Nazirite unto God from my mother’s womb; if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man. Judges 16.17

    Samson was a man who was full of power. The source of his power was in his hair. And as soon as his hair was shaved, Samson’s power was lost. What was there about his hair to make him powerful? This hair of Samson’s, we must remember, was the hair of a Nazirite. And a Nazirite in Bible times was one who was fully consecrated to God. And hence all real spiritual powers derived from the measure of one’s consecration to the Lord. If our consecration is superficial, we shall be like a paralyzed person who has no power. But if our consecration to God is absolute, we will find the power. Therefore, no matter how and where we seek, we must be mindful continually that power is conditional upon man’s consecration.

    But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves. 2 Corinthians 4.7

    Do not think that there is very little in the earthen vessel, which metaphor Paul uses to refer to our physical body. We learn from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian believers that there is a tremendous treasure in our earthen vessels. But do we actually believe it? God’s children ought to know what they have obtained at the moment of new birth. It may have taken only a minute to have received the Lord and been born again but it will need thirty or forty years beyond that moment to discover what each received in that one precious moment. No child of God can fully know on earth the
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