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Episodes
Saturday Sep 09, 2023
Saturday Sep 09, 2023
Psalm 9
9:1 I will give thanks to Yahweh with my whole heart. I will tell of all your marvelous works.
9:2 I will be glad and rejoice in you. I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
9:3 When my enemies turn back, they stumble and perish in your presence.
9:4 For you have maintained my just cause. You sit on the throne judging righteously.
9:5 You have rebuked the nations. You have destroyed the wicked. You have blotted out their name forever and ever.
9:6 The enemy is overtaken by endless ruin. The very memory of the cities which you have overthrown has perished.
9:7 But Yahweh reigns forever. He has prepared his throne for judgment.
9:8 He will judge the world in righteousness. He will administer judgment to the peoples in uprightness.
9:9 Yahweh will also be a high tower for the oppressed; a high tower in times of trouble.
9:10 Those who know your name will put their trust in you, for you, Yahweh, have not forsaken those who seek you.
9:11 Sing praises to Yahweh, who dwells in Zion, and declare among the people what he has done.
9:12 For he who avenges blood remembers them. He doesn’t forget the cry of the afflicted.
9:13 Have mercy on me, Yahweh. See my affliction by those who hate me, and lift me up from the gates of death;
9:14 that I may show forth all your praise. In the gates of the daughter of Zion, I will rejoice in your salvation.
9:15 The nations have sunk down in the pit that they made. In the net which they hid, their own foot is taken.
9:16 Yahweh has made himself known. He has executed judgment. The wicked is snared by the work of his own hands.
Meditation. Selah.
9:17 The wicked shall be turned back to Sheol, even all the nations that forget God. 9:
18 For the needy shall not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the poor perish forever.
9:19 Arise, Yahweh! Don’t let man prevail. Let the nations be judged in your sight.
9:20 Put them in fear, Yahweh. Let the nations know that they are only men.
Selah.
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Saturday Sep 09, 2023
Saturday Sep 09, 2023
Romans 12: Living Life
Study 09: Gift of Teaching
How is your church doing at teaching the Gospel truths? How, if you are a teacher, going about it? Teaching is different from preaching. Are you aware of that? While preaching is expressing the mind of God to people, teaching is also training and taking a person or people on a journey from one point to another. That could be a teacher in Bible college, a Sunday School, a home group or other small group as well as one to one discipleship. Teaching is leading people into understanding God’s word.
Calvin describes a bible teacher somebody “who forms and builds the Church by the word of truth.” Does that signify your experience of teaching – by others you hear or even yourself?
Teaching is part of the Great Commission expressed by Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20. So everybody who is a Christian is at some point is to do some kind of teaching - as that is part of evangelism. Evangelism is for all Christians to do – of one kind or another.
Of course some preaching can also be teaching. Teaching is interpreting the Bible to make it understood to both the individual and a group of people. That is expository Bible teaching which is also preaching…
But just because somebody is a gifted teacher, or indeed also a preacher, we are to test the Bible for ourselves. Even if you think that Bible teacher is amazing, test what that person says. Analyse it for yourself and don’t be afraid to disagree with the teacher. Even the finest of Bible teachers would want you to be like that! If a teacher insists that they are right, and there is no discussion about it, then be very wary. In Romans 16:7, Paul writes this about teachers “I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them.”
Conversely, how about next time going up to a teacher, talking to them and giving them some encouragement. But more about encouragement in our next study!
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Friday Sep 08, 2023
Friday Sep 08, 2023
Psalm 108
108:1 My heart is steadfast, God.
I will sing and I will make music with my soul.
108:2 Wake up, harp and lyre! I will wake up the dawn.
108:3 I will give thanks to you, Yahweh, among the nations.
I will sing praises to you among the peoples.
108:4 For your loving kindness is great above the heavens.
Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
108:5 Be exalted, God, above the heavens!
Let your glory be over all the earth.
108:6 That your beloved may be delivered, save with your right hand, and answer us.
108:7 God has spoken from his sanctuary:
"In triumph, I will divide Shechem, and measure out the valley of Succoth.
108:8 Gilead is mine. Manasseh is mine.
Ephraim also is my helmet. Judah is my scepter.
108:9 Moab is my wash pot. I will toss my sandal on Edom. I will shout over Philistia."
108:10 Who will bring me into the fortified city? Who has led me to Edom?
108:11 Haven't you rejected us, God?
You don't go forth, God, with our armies.
108:12 Give us help against the enemy, for the help of man is vain.
108:13 Through God, we will do valiantly.
For it is he who will tread down our enemies.
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Friday Sep 08, 2023
Friday Sep 08, 2023
Romans 12: Living Life
Study 08: Gift of Serving
Did you know serving is a gift? Wow! Is this serving only a gift for some people or for all people? Some people do have a gift of serving and are particularly adept at doing it! However, serving is for all Christians – whether they specifically have this gift or not!
This serving is by offering assistance to other and in that way, we also serve God. We are to serve wholeheartedly, not just other Christians, but all others including our enemies – those that despise and ridicule us. Serving others is a way of loving others. Serving is love in action. Serving is love getting it’s hands and feet dirty in service of others.
When we as Christians serve and help others, we are emulating of course the greatest servant of all, Jesus Christ. For it is through serving, that the Christian Disciple reflects the greatest servant of all - Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came to serve and to give his life for others.
As Jesus said in Mark 10:45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
The Christian life is not to be static or inactive, but rather it is to be dynamic and active. The word ‘servant’ is used at least 500 times in its various derivations. Spiritual growth comes from serving, rather than being served. This is because what ever is given in service of God and others, faith grows and Jesus Christ gives back even more. Serving others is a sign that you, as a Christian Disciple, trust God and are having faith in Him.
When you, as a disciple and partaker of Jesus Christ, serve in any capacity, then God’s honour is released. This is done because service shows the beauty and glory of Jesus Christ to those being served and to those watching. That is to be our motive for service. Serving is never about what you can get out of it. When that is the motive, God is patently not glorified. God’s glory and supremacy is the goal of all those who would call themselves a Christian Disciple.
So go … serve. As Christians, we are all commanded to serve God.
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Thursday Sep 07, 2023
Thursday Sep 07, 2023
Romans 12: Living Life
Study 07: Gift of Prophecy
Now Paul comes to the expression of the Roman Christians faith – their gifts! First of all we have prophecy! Much debate is made of what Paul means here by this word “prophecy!”
Calvin’s opinion is that Paul means any one skilfully and wisely performed the office of an interpreter in explaining the will & mind of God. For example, preaching. That is in his own words “hardly anything else than the right understanding of the Scripture, and the peculiar faculty of explaining it, inasmuch as all the ancient prophecies and all the oracles of God have been completed in Christ and in his gospel.”
Others insist that prophecy is the prediction of future events as pre-thought by the mind of God, such as occurred at the beginning of the church and recorded for us in the New Testament. Yet others, would insist that prophecy was only those writing what we have as the New Testament today, and that this gift of prophecy has expired and is no longer in use for today.
I am of the mind that it is both the correct explanation of God’s mind in preaching and the speaking of future events… Whether we preach or predict, we prophecy and Paul exhorts his readers, the original and also us today, to use our faith to speak God’s mind and will. That is what the prophets of the Old Testament did – revealed God’s mind and will to the people.
That is our job today too – revealing God’s mind and will to people – not just in preaching and in prophecy, but also in evangelism – telling others what Jesus, the Son of God, did in his birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension. Preaching and prophecy are gifts from God and are the outworks of faith of the believers who have those gifts.
Tomorrow – another gift - serving!!
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Wednesday Sep 06, 2023
Wednesday Sep 06, 2023
Psalm 6
neither discipline me in your wrath.
6:2 Have mercy on me, Yahweh, for I am faint.
Yahweh, heal me, for my bones are troubled.
6:3 My soul is also in great anguish.
But you, Yahweh-how long?
6:4 Return, Yahweh.
Deliver my soul, and save me for your loving kindness' sake.
6:5 For in death there is no memory of you.
In Sheol, who shall give you thanks?
6:6 I am weary with my groaning.
Every night I flood my bed. I drench my couch with my tears.
6:7 My eye wastes away because of grief.
It grows old because of all my adversaries.
6:8 Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity,
for Yahweh has heard the voice of my weeping.
6:9 Yahweh has heard my supplication.
Yahweh accepts my prayer.
6:10 May all my enemies be ashamed and dismayed.
They shall turn back, they shall be disgraced suddenly.
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Wednesday Sep 06, 2023
Wednesday Sep 06, 2023
Romans 12: Living Life
Study 06: Gifted Graciously!
As we saw in our previous study, part of the Christian life is that each of us has special abilities and gifts! Paul uses the illustration of the human body! Your body is made up of many parts, each with a distinct purpose and function! So it is with the Church – Christ’s body! We have these gifts, each of us, because of God’s amazing grace toward us!
All Christian Disciples have Spiritual Gifts, for “in his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well.” (Romans 12:6). God the Holy Spirit, through His infinite wisdom, mercy and grace bestows these gifts that belong to Him, upon Christian Disciples! What is the purpose of these gifts? These gifts are to be used primarily to bring glory to God and to extend His Kingdom here on earth! They are opportunities for Christian Disciples to serve other people. If these gifts are not being used for God’s purposes, then they are meaningless.
If each of us is serving as we ought, using the gifts and talents that God has given, then God is being praised and His kingdom here on earth being extended. We are one body – the Church! We belong to each other – even if we don’t particularly want to be! That is connected with our previous study about each person thinking of themselves appropriately – not too highly and not too lowly.
So each of us has gifts, given by God freely to those who are following Him. We have them due to His generous grace upon each of us. WOW!
We start looking at each of the gifts in this list in our next study! See you then!
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Tuesday Sep 05, 2023
Tuesday Sep 05, 2023
Romans 12: Living Life
Study 05: Be Warned
Perhaps when Paul says “Don’t think you are better than you really are”, Paul is looking back at how he used to be! He was then a man called Saul, a proud and zealous man for God, a Jew of Jews! A man eager to please God by persecuting these Christians! No more though! Now called Paul, he was an apostle and emissary sent by God to preach the Gospel throughout the world! Just as he was told at his conversion just a few short years ago when he was on the road to Damascus to pursue and persecute the early church. It is not only privilege and authority from where Paul speaks from, but also grace – grace from God… It is grace alone that Paul was changed from the path of being the persecutor to being one of the persecuted.
We must not think too highly of our selves, our skills, our abilities over-estimating or exaggerating either our strengths or our weaknesses. We are to think of ourselves with honesty and with self-accountability! That is why it is also good to be accountable to others. That could be a good friend, or your home bible study group.
As Christians, we are to think of ourselves rightly – not be so high and mighty that we can fall off our own perch. We are to think of ourselves appropriately and not with lustful pride! Faith here means a special gift which God has given everybody who is following His Son, Jesus Christ. But we start to talk about gifts in our next study!
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Monday Sep 04, 2023
Monday Sep 04, 2023
Romans 12: Living Life
Study 04: Transformation
When you became a Christian, if you are one, is that God is transforming you into the image of Jesus Christ. That is part of what the Apostle Paul has been saying and in the preceding verse 1, had encouraged them in response to this news, to worship God with all their minds and their bodies. It is transformation of mind and body! That is worship! How do we do that, you may ask? It is a fundamental of living a Christian life – transformation! WOW! The process of transformation starts with the Holy Spirit who lives within you, who is your seal of salvation and is the agent of change in your life. This transformation starts in the mind through reading the Bible and praying! Listening to God is part of prayer! Are you aware of that?
Of course the world we live in has many different values to that of the Christian or indeed the universal church. People will try to get you to not change and get you to compromise and adopt or maintain habits and behaviours that are distinctly not Christian. But we, as the Church, are to resist this. We can resist in the power of the Holy Spirit. Because if we resist in our strength and confidence in ourselves, then we are destined to fail. But by using the power of the Holy Spirit, who lives within you remember, we can prevail, overcome temptations and be transformed into the image of God the Son, Jesus Christ…
What are you personally struggling against? What is your church struggling with? Accede to the impulse of the Holy Spirit who is quietly urging you, prompting you and encouraging you. Then as you learn to listen to His urges, you will as Paul acknowledges, know what God’s will is for you in your life – not only transformation but also what you are to do and how you are to go about it to the praise and glory of God – Father, Son and Spirit.
We hand not just our bodies over to worship Jesus, but also our minds! What you input to your mind will dominate your mind! Sins start in the mind, then transfer to your will. Remember, if you are struggling with sin, confess it quickly to the God and ask to be continually filled and controlled by the Spirit! If the church were to be a lighthouse to the world, this world would be changed to the glory of God and God alone! Worship God – body, mind and will. Part of living life wholly for God in the 21st century.
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Click on the appropriate link below to subscribe, share or download our iPhone App!Sunday Sep 03, 2023
Sunday Sep 03, 2023
Psalm 3
A Psalm by David, when he fled from Absalom his son.
3:1 Yahweh, how my adversaries have increased!
Many are those who rise up against me.
3:2 Many there are who say of my soul,
“There is no help for him in God.”
Selah.
3:3 But you, Yahweh, are a shield around me,
my glory, and the one who lifts up my head.
3:4 I cry to Yahweh with my voice,
and he answers me out of his holy hill.
Selah.
3:5 I laid myself down and slept.
I awakened; for Yahweh sustains me.
3:6 I will not be afraid of tens of thousands of people
who have set themselves against me on every side.
3:7 Arise, Yahweh! Save me, my God!
For you have struck all of my enemies on the cheek bone.
You have broken the teeth of the wicked.
3:8 Salvation belongs to Yahweh.
Your blessing be on your people.
Selah.