Connect and share insights

Connect and share insights on conversion - and 

the reality of a holy presence working in your mind...

Interpreting the coat of many colors

From Jacob's call to experience and wrestle with God...to his son Joseph's call to go deeper and deeper daily in a personal knowledge of God that would sustain him anywhere, we see Scripture's unified lesson that:

God calls each of us.

As we grow in faith and continue to re-read Joseph's story, it becomes much more than this one story featuring a colorful coat.

It becomes for me a personal call to discipleship in its most bare essence.  It becomes a personal call to see who God is with my own eyes of faith, to experience it, to see its consistency, and to see in it Jesus' walk, and every Christian's walk.

Our study, rightly done, will continue to drive us further into understanding how God works, His will - and our alignment to it.  

Scripture presents us with very special content designed to deeply engage our hearts.  Its unified thread of meaning becomes more and more visible as we embrace the approach that (i) looks for unity among its messages, and (ii) responds to its self-revealing Divine authority, which calls us - as God, Christ, and Savior - in a personal journey of faith.

The call is specifically tailored to us and its impact is searching, compelling, and continuing. 

Will we answer? When will we answer? And how? 

Our need to answer is this soul-changing part of the right approach to Bible study and interpretation.  At some point, Bible study requires a response.  As its content becomes clearer and clearer, we must respond definitively to its basic presuppositions:
(1) THE REALITY OF THE SELF-REVEALING DIVINITY - GOD,
(2) THE MORAL CALL TO BELIEF,
(3) THE CRISIS OF SIN, and
(4) A CALL TO PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION.

*May God's Spirit Be With You As You Study – And Experience His Guiding You Into His Will*

Garments of Grace and experiences with the Divine

A focus on the truths in Scripture - the actual words and Spirit-breathed meanings - guides us into a unique experience with the supernatural!

Let's consider the reality of the Scriptures: they speak of themselves as being from Divine origin.  They entered into human relationship and time - not through man's initiative but because of God's! 
---> Scriptures claim Divine origin and Self-Authority
As such, their messages speak through appointed people with one unified voice of Divine inspiration - a thread carries throughout the corpus to reveal the work of God in the human experience, an ultimate work that carries its right and reason within its own claim of Godhead.
---> Scriptures claim Divine unity and Self-Authority

Therefore, believers must diligently and devotedly seek the mind of God in its truths.  Digging deep into the Word leads us into deeper understanding of its truths, and opens our hearts (minds) to a direct and unfiltered personal encounter with the Spirit of the Divine. 
---> Scriptures have the capacity to provide humble students - believers and seekers - with personalized inspiration and guidance for a converted life of faith.

SMALL GROUP STUDY FELLOWSHIP -
The Next Three Weeks

As we look at God's will for our lives through Bible study strategies, my prayer is for us to (1) see our highest model in Jesus, (2) understand and apply his approach to study and interpretation, and (3) build and develop our personal strategies for study and encountering the mind of God in our study.

Let's start this weekend by looking at the profound truths about our human condition given in the story of the Fall of Man.

And God saith, `Let Us make man in Our image, 

according to Our likeness, and let them rule over fish of the sea, and 

over fowl of the heavens, and over cattle, and over all the earth, and 

over every creeping thing that is creeping on the earth.' (YLT Gen 1:26) 

PREVIEW OF SCRIPTURE TRUTHS:

• God reveals His heart through this truth about his creative act - He wanted us to be like Him, he intended us for relationship and responsibility

•  Later, as we read the account of the Tree of Good and Evil, we see that Scripture also reveals a reality about freedom, and the importance of willingly existing in His realm of obedience order and love by including choice in the human condition.

• Finally, we see the heartbreaking choice made by our original parents, and the touching scene of God clothing them in skins - that God's heart was set (from the foundation of the world) and prepared to care for and restore fallen humanity.

What is the purpose and effect of Scripture's truths for the believer - for you?  

How can Scripture guide you into His will?

*May God's Spirit Be With You As You Study – And Experience His Guiding You Into His Will*