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Post by Cindy on May 2, 2021 11:39:34 GMT -5
Galatians 3:15–29.
Application: We cannot earn God’s love, our salvation, or His blessings. He chose to love us and save us when we still hated Him and wanted nothing to do with Him. We were saved by believing in Jesus, that He could save us from our sins. Part of belief is recognizing that Jesus is God and agreeing that He’s your Master and you’re His slave and will therefore obey Him. (To do that you must know His Word well.) We’re also unable to maintain our relationship with Jesus through any kind of works. We are saved and justified through faith and we are to live by faith, not sight or works. Faith also makes us the sons and daughters of God and a spiritual child of Abraham, and therefore heirs of the promise to Abraham. Just as faith guided Abraham, so it must guide us too.
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Post by Cindy on May 18, 2021 8:44:11 GMT -5
Galatians 4:1–7.
Application: Many Christians today act like they’re still slaves to sin, but they no longer have to be. We have been freed from our old master, Satan and are now the adult Sons of God! (the word translated “sons” is an adult son in the original language.) The title of sons means that we now have full access to all the rights, privileges and spiritual resources (2 Corinthians 9:8) of a son of God. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit dwell within us so we may even participate in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). The Holy Spirit is always drawing us toward Jesus and the Father and to the God’s Word. We need to immerse ourselves in God’s Word so we will know what we have and how to use it to glorify God.
Galatians 4:8–20.
Application: We should always tell our brothers and sisters in Christ the truth, even when it may cause them pain, sorrow, or embarrassment. Those who are truly saved will welcome the truth because they really are living for Christ and not themselves. We really are our brother’s (and sister’s) keeper and need to help them grow in Christ.
Galatians 4:21–31.
Application: We are the children of the promise just like Isaac was. Why in the world would we want to go back to being slaves like the children born the ordinary way? Children born the ordinary way will persecute us but that will just make our inheritance seem that much better.
Galatians 5:1–15.
Application: We need to stay alert and stand firm in our faith, and not allow ourselves to be tricked into trading our freedom to work for our salvation. Christ has set us free from our sin nature; we can now choose to love and serve others. We need to respond to the Holy Spirit and do what is right instead of following our sin nature.
Galatians 5:16–26.
Application: Now that we are saved we must live by the Spirit, meaning we need to let the Holy Spirit guide us in our daily life. We should see the fruit of the spirit in our life and be able when we look back to tell that it’s growing. We should see sin becoming less frequent too. These things give us another avenue to examine ourselves regularly by to be sure that we are growing in our faith and producing the fruit that pleases God and brings Him glory. For sinfulness if quite obvious but then so is the fruit of the Spirit. When we live by the Spirit we automatically don’t do the things our sinful nature wants to do because they’re the opposite of what the Spirit does. In fact, the longer we walk in the Spirit, the more disgusting the desires of the sinful nature becomes to us.
Galatians 6:1–10.
Application: We are to gently and lovingly help rescue and restore other believers who are captive to sin. But we must also be careful realizing that we could wind up in the same condition. We should regularly examine ourselves against our Lord’s life and teachings to make sure we are in the faith and living lives pleasing to Him. We should keep in mind the law of sowing and reaping too as it never fails. Therefore we should keep on doing good as often as possible, giving sacrificially too.
Galatians 6:11–18.
Application: None of our works prove we’ve been saved, nor does anything we say. The only thing that proves it and the only thing that matters is that we have been changed and made a new creation. Not that we just try harder to be good, but that God has changed us from the inside out, making us into a new creation.
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Post by Cindy on May 18, 2021 8:51:04 GMT -5
Ephesians 1:1–23.
Application: God chose us and has given us a purpose for our life. He’s also given us everything we could possibly need to live a victorious life in Christ. That doesn’t mean we won’t have trials, He tells us that we will have them. It means that we will receive His help to get through those trials and that He will use them for our good. We should also realize that the power God showed when He raised Jesus from the dead is the very same power that He uses to help those who believe in Him. Finally, we should praise the Lord for all He’s done, all He’s doing and all He will do for us. He surely is good, all the time!
Ephesians 2:1–10.
Application: Know we’ve been saved by God’s grace and not anything we’ve done. Now that we are saved we need to live as though we’re saved. Each day we should strive to be more and more like Christ.
Ephesians 2:11–22.
Application: Jesus has given us the fantastic gift of salvation; peace with God through His blood. He gives this to all who believe, and all are made into a new creation in Him, so they are no longer separate people or divided by race, color or anything else as they are now one in Christ. This makes us free from many things that had divided us before we were saved. All of us who are saved are fellow citizens of heaven and members of the family of God! On top of all of that, the Spirit of God now lives within us and will stay within us forever! Individually and together we are becoming a dwelling in which God lives and influences others through us on earth! How awesome is that????
Ephesians 3:1–13.
Application: When we’re saved we become one in Christ. No one is better then another; there is no longer any Jew or Gentile or Greek or American, black or white, male or female, etc. Now all who are saved are equal in Christ. We don’t get to choose our ministry just as Paul didn’t get to choose his. God chooses what we will do and what gifts He will give us and He alone will enable us to carry out our calling. So we should not think more of ourselves when it’s all God’s doing. God does things in this way to show His glory, wisdom and power to the angels (both holy and demonic) through the body of Christ, the Church. (and we are all part of the Church!) We can also now approach God confident that He will help us.
Ephesians 3:14–21.
Application: We should pray this for ourselves and all our loved ones!
Ephesians 4:1–16.
Application: We are to work hard to be selfless and live a life of love, and peace, always speaking the truth; but speaking it with love. We are to be humble, gentle, and patient and not bicker with others. We are to do our best to keep the unity of the Spirit in the Church. On our own this would all be impossible, but because we have the Spirit of Christ dwelling within us, and His power working in us and through us, making us more like Him every day, we can make a lot of progress toward our goal of Christlikeness. We become more like Him by studying His Word daily, through daily prayer, and worship, and by fellowship. (and of course by practice as well. We are to use the gifts the Lord gives us to help build up others not to tear them down.
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