Christian Growth From Flesh to Spirit

From Flesh to Spirit - amazing journey!

God’s command to worship Him in a special way during Sabbath not only signifies our obedience to our Lord, it plunges us into the framework for experiencing Him: sanctification.


Bible Study Points: SCRIPTURE’S LIFE-CHANGING SIGNIFICANCE
THE POINT: THE NEWLY-SEEN TRUTH AND REALITY ABOUT GOD.   As we continue in obedience to God’s commands and claims on our lives he brings us deeper into relationship with Him.  One key change that happens in us moves us from experiencing our lives through self and flesh to experiencing our changing lives through Him and His spirit.


THE SIGNIFICANCE: THE STUDY AND INSIGHT
A Word for me.  In Exodus and Deuteromony’s Sabbath commands I see that worship forms part of the continuum of a life of obedience.  Sabbath worship is a special illustration of our heart of obedience and its love response.  This response that God asks of us really can be seen as a guide for sin-blinded humans to know how we should relate to what he is like and what he really wants - respectful, focused time together! Not so unreasonable...


This life of obedience can be also understood as the ongoing experience of sanctification.  Sanctification then becomes the framework for the heart of my Christian experience, my daily experiences with God.  Paul clearly points to this journey of obedience in 2 Corinthians 5 in: the movement from “flesh” to “spirit.”

The passage.  Paul’s 2 Corinthinans discourse describes the view of the Christian who has learned to live spiritually.  Verse 16-17 shows the outcome: Christians who no longer relate to each other “after the flesh” or an outward human point of view.  “Yea, even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.” “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.” 

The Context.  This creature is new - transformed.  How? In our steadfast looking to Jesus Our Savior, we experience the spritualization or sanctification process only experienced through focusing on Him, that can move us from living enslaved to “fleshly” concerns to being daily focused on looking for pathways to heaven in all experiences.  

As Paul illustrates, whether the Christian actively ministers or sleeps in death, the aim has been to serve God faithfully (6-9).  And he further emphasizes, “whether we be beside ourselves (crazy) it is to God: or whether we be sober  it is for your cause,” which continues to give service to God (13).  

The outward concerns, even of preserving their human life, become less important than serving God faithfully.  This Christian has plunged deep into the experience of sanctification and moving from fleshly to spiritual living: even death becomes but a threshold to an ultimate resurrection and being with God. 

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

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*

Learning to study the Bible effectively is critical!

How do Scriptures lead us into a deeper experience with God?
How does Spirit-guided study reveal what God has for us in our personal circumstances?


- - >  the deeper experience comes from BETTER UNDERSTANDING 

by using basic reading, comprehension and analysis effectively

by becoming familiar with expert methods that work for you


- - > spirit-guided study is DIRECT and UNFILTERED 

because we are able to penetrate into layers of meaning below the surface ones

because we are resonating to meanings the Spirit is guiding us to based on where we are in our present circumstances

Here are four points about effective study:

ONE:  Effective study happens with the right attitude:  as we recognize that it is a personal interaction with God's Truth

-- as we allow His Spirit to lead us into the Truth


TWO:  effective study gets us to a key point , principle, or "reality about God"

THREE:   we know the point is significant, meaningful, life-changing, by studying/ analyzing the Scripture itself
-- we learn to see the surrounding texts, passages, chapters -- structure and context explains itself
-- we learn to see related reference texts in other areas of the Bible --  the entire message is unified

-- we learn to accept Scripture as a collection of historical events, that yet provide universal meaning across time -- meanings are stable and unchanging.

FOUR:  effective study results in insight 

- -> we can then see the personal relevance of what we study for our specific circumstances 

- -> we become diligent and careful and fulfill its design to build our experience with God and strengthen a life of faithful service to Him.

I saw from this new quarter's first study of how God covers us, how Paul and David's experience with God - and their personal styles - each contributed uniquely to the truth that God covers our sin with his righteousness:

Paul in his Romans discourse borrows from David's language to highlight THE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE of the forgiven believer.

Paul's immediate concern in his chapter 4 discussion, however, is the BROAD AVAILABILITY TO ALL PEOPLE of a relationship with God - if the person will live a life of faith, belief in Jesus.

I saw how powerful was their testimony for God in their lives - the heart-rending vulnerability and depth of David's relationship with God and Paul's unwavering commitment and passion to share the gospel of a Lord who saved Him.

The lesson's point that we are covered by Jesus' righteousness comes alive in these testimonies from two friends of God.  My study so far applies the exciting principles of effective study that are being shared here 

--> looks at the key passages in their context to gain full understanding of what David and Paul are saying 

--> links Paul's discourse to David's to reinforce the unity of the message about the impact of Jesus' righteousness in our lives, and 

--> seals understanding of the eternal message about the role of Jesus's righteousness to save sinners.

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

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