Category: Bible Study

IS HE LORD OF YOUR BODY?

“Just as you formerly enslaved your bodies to impurity and licentiousness for their degradation, make them now the servants of justice for their sanctification.” —Romans 6:19 The bodies of those baptized into Jesus are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19). The Lord wants us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices to Him (Rm 12:1). The Lord commands us to make ourselves, including our bodies, His slaves (Rm 6:22). Then our bodies will be slaves to righteousness (Rm 6:19, RNAB). This will result in our sanctification. Otherwise, our bodies will be slaves to impurity and to lawlessness (Rm...

TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES

“Do you suppose…that you will escape [God’s] judgment?” —Romans 2:3 If we sin and are too stubborn to repent, we are storing up wrath for Judgment Day (Rm 2:4-6). This wrath includes fury, affliction, and distress (Rm 2:8-9). Yet to those who have repented and totally given their lives to the Lord, to “those who strive for glory, honor, and immortality by patiently doing right” (Rm 2:7), the Lord gives eternal life (Rm 2:7). Eternal life includes “glory, honor, and peace” (Rm 2:10). Although we are so small in the universe and our time on earth is so short, our...

SOMETHING GREATER (LK 11:32)

“The Lord has made His salvation known.” —Psalm 98:2 God can work through us or despite us. Certainly, He would prefer to work through us. However, lest we think that we are irreplaceable, the Church holds up Jonah as a sign for us (Lk 11:29). The fruit which God produced through Jonah was remarkable, for an entire city repented and turned to the Lord (Jon 3:10). But first Jonah had to spend three days “buried” inside a great fish (Jon 2:1). Then on the third day, Jonah received a new life, a foreshadowing of Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead on...

LOVE’S GROUND-BREAKING

“Please let me, your servant, have two mule-loads of earth, for I will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice to any other god except to the Lord.” —2 Kings 5:17 When Naaman, the healed Syrian general and leper, took two mule-loads of Jewish dirt back home with him, he was literally breaking new ground in his relationship with the Lord. We too must guard against “getting in a rut” in our love for the Lord. We must always be seeking to grow more deeply in love with Him, or we put ourselves in danger of falling away from loving Him...

HOW TO LIVE THE LIFE OF BLESSING

” ‘Rather,’ He replied, ‘blest are they who hear the word of God and keep it.’ ” —Luke 11:28 Elizabeth proclaimed of Mary: “Blest are you among women and blest is the Fruit of your womb” (Lk 1:42). Mary herself prophesied: “All ages to come shall call me blessed” (Lk 1:48). “While [Jesus] was saying this a woman from the crowd” confirmed Mary’s prophecy (Lk 11:27). The woman called out: “Blest is the womb that bore You and the breasts that nursed You” (Lk 11:27). Jesus agreed that His mother was blessed, but not so much for motherhood as for...