Bible Study

Isaiah 57:15

    [15] For thus says the One who is high and lifted up,

        who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:

    “I dwell in the high and holy place,

        and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit,

    to revive the spirit of the lowly,

        and to revive the heart of the contrite.

Zephaniah 3:17

    [17] The LORD your God is in your midst,

        a mighty one who will save;

    he will rejoice over you with gladness;

        he will quiet you by his love;

    he will exult over you with loud singing.

Luke 1:49-50

    [49] for he who is mighty has done great things for me,

        and holy is his name. 

    [50] And his mercy is for those who fear him

        from generation to generation.

Psalm 71:18-19

    [18] So even to old age and gray hairs,

        O God, do not forsake me,

    until I proclaim your might to another generation,

        your power to all those to come. 

    [19] Your righteousness, O God,

        reaches the high heavens.

    You who have done great things,

        O God, who is like you?

God’s Power on Display

PRAY OVER THIS

“…but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:24

 

PONDER THIS

How is Christ “the power of God and the wisdom of God”? The Jews wanted power and the Greeks wanted wisdom. Paul said, “Okay, you want wisdom? You want power? I’ll tell you where power is. I’ll tell you where wisdom is. It is in Christ crucified.” How is Christ crucified the power of God? Do you know that the greatest demonstration of power is not when God made the world and the universe and everything? The greatest demonstration of power is the salvation of the soul.

Now, you may not believe that. You may say, “Oh, that’s preacher talk.” But it’s true: the greatest power on Earth is the power that can save a poor, lost sinner. That’s the reason the Apostle Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is …” What? It is “the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16). Oh, what mighty working miracle power! God created the worlds with a word. That’s all; He just spoke. But to save a soul, He had to hang His darling Son upon a tree, upon a cross. Dear friend, there is no greater power than this power that can transform a life.

Have you experienced the power of salvation? If not, how do you need to respond to God today?

If so, how has the power of the Gospel brought about real change in your life?

PRACTICE THIS

Make a list of the ways your life is different after coming to know Christ than it was before you met Him.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Our Good Is His Glory

“But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:6)

One common objection to Christian Hedonism is that it puts the interests of man above the glory of God — that it puts my happiness above God’s honor. But Christian Hedonism most emphatically does not do this.

To be sure, we Christian Hedonists endeavor to pursue our interest and our happiness with all our might. We endorse the resolution of the young Jonathan Edwards: “Resolved: To endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.”

But we have learned from the Bible (and from Edwards!) that God’s interest is to magnify the fullness of his glory by spilling over in mercy to us — to us sinners, who desperately need him.

Therefore, the pursuit of our interest and our happiness, even if it costs us our lives, is never above God’s interest and God’s happiness and God’s glory, but always in God’s. One of the most precious truths in the Bible is that God’s greatest interest is to glorify the wealth of his grace by making sinners happy in him — in him!

When we humble ourselves like little children and put on no airs of self-sufficiency, but run happily into the joy of our Father’s embrace, the glory of his grace is magnified and the longing of our soul is satisfied. Our interest and his glory become one.

When Jesus promises in Matthew 6:6, “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you,” this is a reward he wants us to seek. He does not lure us with joy we shouldn’t have! But this reward — this joy — is the overflow of turning away from human praise, and going into our closet to seek God.

Therefore, Christian Hedonists do not put their happiness above God’s glory. They put their happiness in God himself and discover the glorious truth that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

John Piper 

Bible Study

Acts 3:26

[26] God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.”

Mark 8:38

[38] For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

1 Corinthians 1:18

[18] For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Psalm 40:9-10

    [9] I have told the glad news of deliverance

        in the great congregation;

    behold, I have not restrained my lips,

        as you know, O LORD. 

    [10] I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart;

        I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;

    I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness

        from the great congregation.

God Helps Us Understand

PRAY OVER THIS

“Make me understand the way of Your precepts; so shall I meditate on Your wonderful works.” Psalm 119:27

 

PONDER THIS

I love the passage in Luke 24 in which the Lord Jesus, after His resurrection, was walking with two disciples, who were forlorn and dismayed, on the road to Emmaus. And then in Luke 24:45, the Bible says, “And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.” My mind has camped on that verse many a time. I thought, O God, do that for me. He opened their understanding so they could understand the Scriptures.

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” What does that mean, “the natural man”? It means the soulish man, the psychological man. The man apart from the Spirit of God can’t understand the Bible. He may be able to give you the names of the kings of Israel. He may make an A on a history test on the Bible. He may even be able to articulate the doctrines of the Bible in his own way. But he will never know the real message of the Bible until the Holy Spirit of God turns the light on in his soul. The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. That’s the reason that when we come to this book, we must lay in the dust our intellectual pride and say, “Lord God, speak to me.”

What are some things you’ve learned from and about the Bible that have been revealed by God and not by man?

What does this indicate about the things you should ask of God as you come to His Word each day?

PRACTICE THIS

Take time to pray and ask God to reveal to you the things of His Word that only come through His Holy Spirit and not through the wisdom of men.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Power of a Superior Promise

I shall walk in freedom, for I have sought your precepts. (Psalm 119:45, my translation)

An essential element of joy is freedom. None of us would be happy if we were not free from what we hate and free for what we love.

And where do we find true freedom? Psalm 119:45 says, “I shall walk in freedom, for I have sought your precepts.”

The picture is one of open spaces. The word frees us from smallness of mind. “God gave Solomon . . . breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore” (1 Kings 4:29). The word frees us from threatening confinements. “He brought me out into a broad place” (Psalm 18:19).

Jesus says, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). The freedom he has in mind is freedom from the slavery of sin (John 8:34). Or, to put it positively, it is freedom for holiness.

The promises of God’s grace provide the power that makes the demands of God’s holiness an experience of freedom rather than fear and confinement. Peter described the freeing power of God’s promises like this: “Through [his precious and very great promises] you become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (2 Peter 1:4).

In other words, when we trust the promises of God, we sever the root of corruption and sinful desire by the power of a superior promise.

How crucial is the word that breaks the power of counterfeit pleasures! And how vigilant we should be to light our paths and load our hearts with the word of God!

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105). “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11).

John Piper 

Bible Study

Job 32:8

    [8] But it is the spirit in man,

        the breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand.

James 4:4-8

[4] You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. [5] Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? [6] But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” [7] Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. [8] Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Romans 8:7-11

[7] For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. [8] Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

[9] You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. [10] But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. [11] If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

1 Corinthians 1:18

[18] For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.