BE HUMBLE

REVELATION CHAPTER 2

The Letters To The Churches

COMMAND 5 - ABIDE IN ME

REVELATION CHAPTER 1

COMMAND 4 - LOVE ME

Command 3 (Part 1 of 2)

COME TO ME

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LESSON 2 PART 2 Why do we need to repent? His answer is because we all are by our old nature, sinners. Read Luke 5:32. Even though we have a new nature (2 Cor 5:17), nevertheless we do not get rid of our sin nature completely until we die physically. The good news is we have a choice now to sin or not to sin where before we did not have a choice. The bible says we were slaves to sin. Read Romans 6:15-23. The good news is that Jesus removed the power of sin in our lives. Read Gal 5:1. Yes, the yoke of bondage or slavery to sin has been broken; we are free from the power and penalty of sin. Now we are slaves to Jesus Christ. The scriptures say, ‘’Do you not know you are not your own, you were bought with a price’’. What was Jesus’ view of sin? Read the prodigal son (LK 15:13, 15:30) and then when he repents LK 15:21. Notice the words say that sin is an offense against God. That is the essential nature of sin. It is an assault on God. Sin in Jesus' words in the Lords prayer is that it dishonors God and puts a debt on us to restore that divine honor. Praise God, Jesus paid the debt. Read and memorize 2 Cor 5:21. Nevertheless, for us to rely on Gods grace (and we do) and not acknowledge our wrong doings after Christ paid the price is a belittling behavior towards God. We need to restore that fellowship (relationship) with Him, He makes it easy. Read 1JN 1:9. Remember we are not talking about a sin that makes us lose our salvation. You can not lose something you did not earn; God gave salvation as a gift JN 3:16 and Romans 6:23. If it is a gift He will not take it back. We are always Gods children after the new birth. I am talking about like when we disobey our parents or call our earthly father a bad name. We need to apologize. This restores our relationship. We likewise need to restore our relationship with God when we sin. I call this rebound. We need to rebound quickly and often. Repenting means a change of mind that sees Christ as truly beautiful and worthy of our praise and obedience. Read JN 8:42, Lk13:3, 5. What did He mean by perish? The sign of a true believer is the change of heart or repentance that occurs in his heart. In ending this lesson, read the account of the woman accused of adultery in JN 8:1-11. In this passage, Jesus commands this woman to repent. Does Jesus condemn her? What should be our motivation for not sinning?

COMMAND 2 REPENT (LESSON 2 PART 1) Jesus' first command of his public ministry was repent. Repent has to do with an internal change of the heart (really our minds where we do our thinking). It is not sorrow for our sins or mere self improvement. Repent comes from the Greek word metanoeo. Noeo refers to the mind concerning its thoughts, perception of things, attitude towards things and our purpose for doing things. It also includes our motivation behind our thoughts. The prefix meta means a movement or change. Therefore repent means a change in our mind. Read Romans 12:2. Write it down and memorize it Looking back on Lesson 1, this change is brought to us by the Spirit as He washes our hearts turning them from stone and making them hearts of flesh. Our hearts are alive to God and no longer dead. The deeds we do from an uncircumcised heart or unwashed heart mean nothing to God because the motivation and the source will be wrong. Read Lk3:8 and LK3:11. These verses talk about a new behavior. It says bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Read JN15:5-8. Here Jesus says that He is the vine and we are the branches. Without the vine working and feeding us thru the Word the branches do not bear fruit. When we do bear fruit, it is actually God working thru us that brings forth the fruit. His fruit for His glory. We are to be the submissive conduits with no life power to do it outside of the vine. Repentance is not the new deeds it is about the inward change of heart that leads to submissive behavior and obedience toward God. He says in John 15:9 that he who loves me, obeys me and will bear fruit. His spirit and word tell us what to do. Repentance is Jesus demanding that we experience this inward change. When the love for God grows in us we will obey Him more and more and with that He imparts to us His love that gives us a greater capacity to love others. Read 1Jn 2:3. By obeying God and keeping His 2 great commandments Jesus says He will give us joy in our lives (JN 15:11) Next lesson about sin and the battle within us.

COMMAND 1 PART 3

Although Jesus says He marvels that Nicodemus does not and should know about being born again from the scriptures there is reason for him to be baffled. The mystery is revealed in verse 3:8. The new birth accordingly is like the wind. It presents itself under its own power with its effects but you do not see it coming. In essence we do not cause ourselves to be born again. The Spirit does that and the Spirit is free and works in ways we do not understand. The scripture states that it is a gift from God. Read Romans 6:23. It is not a human decision to live a more moral life and it is not something we try because it sounds good or that we are looking for a change. Nor, is it something we have always had. It is not something our parents can give us or that we acquire through a sacrament. Read John 1:13 again, I think it is pretty clear. So even though we do not ask for it or deserve it, we must receive it when it is offered. We receive it as a gift. The new birth is a radical supernatural calling that is out of our control. It is the greatest of miracles, better even than going back into your mother’s womb and being born all over again. It is a calling to follow Jesus. It is a one and only time calling; to be a soldier for Christ and to be a sojourner in a foreign land (here on earth). It makes us citizens of heaven. It places us as adoptive sons into the royal family of God. It writes our names in the book of Life, unable to be removed forever. God promises us that He will bring about a change that will allow us to be like Christ and to finish His good work here on earth. No one can snatch us from the fathers hand JN 10. For some the new birth happens slowly like a long labor or a gentle breeze and for others like me it comes like a hurricane force. For the apostle Paul it was at the time he got knocked off his horse and saw the heavens open and for the woman at the well it happened over a discussion about water and suddenly she got it (JN chapter 4). One thing we do know is that it will only happen if you look away from yourself for answers and look toward God. Jesus states that he who seeks me will find me (the wind will eventually blow their way). Nicodemus asked how can this be and did not ask why it has to be this way. The Roman road explains why? These verses are doctrinal verses to help you understand salvation as God planned it from the beginning. Good to memorize as many as you can so you can share the Good News to those who the Spirit leads you to do it. . Those seeking and searching for a relationship with God, even if they do not quite know what it is they are looking for. Romans 3:23, 5:8, 6:23, 8:1, 2, 10:9, 10.

COMMAND 1 PART 2: I think it is important to understand the heart of the fallen man (adamic nature, old man, the flesh, depraved, and spiritually dead). Scriptures teach us nothing more clearly than the truth that man is basically and naturally sinful, and that the heart of his sinfulness is self- will. From birth to death the natural inclination of every person is to look out for oneself. That is to do, to have and to be what he wants. At the root and heart of sin is the ego and mans desire to serve himself. He is the ruler of his own life and embedded deep in his soul, in a profound way that he can not reason, he sees God as his enemy and in conflict with his self interest. He has fallen this way genetically, inherited this nature that gets worse with each successive generation. The heart of the sinful nature is corrupt. Its philosophy, standards, dispositions, thinking pattern, desires, hopes and dreams are all formulated on this genetic bent that is a profound mutation of how we were made in the image and likeness of God. Basically we have become blind to be able to see God. We are born deaf to hear God and our hearts care not to seek him. We allow his consideration from an intellectual and superstitious sense. Yet buried in that sinful nature is a fear of something stronger than ourselves. We must contain God by doing all in our subliminal power to keep Him in the form of our acceptance as someone that can only be helpful to us in times of need. In essence we fear him but have no capacity in the fallen state to know or love Him, never mind submit to Him as Lord and savior of our life. There is an indignity that the fallen nature has about not being good enough to be accepted by God. The indignity has nothing to do with feelings of God being merciful but in honesty has to do with our own feelings of self worth, value and fallacy of controlling our own fate. The Adamic nature started with the fall in the garden when man like his predecessor Satan, wanted to be like God. At that moment we became sons of Satan and members of the kingdom of darkness. What are we dark to? The person of who God is, the understanding of his love, the understanding of having no need outside of him, and the feeling of completeness without wants. In the darkness we have no understanding of the factual position of not possessing a sin nature and being in perfect harmony with Him. We are so DARK in the fallen state that none of these things matter because we have no inclination in this nature to care anything about them. Besides we can no longer hear God, see God, nor is He with us. We have been cut off by choice. Thank God that the second Adam, Jesus Christ, came to us sinners to save us from this doom and transfer us into the kingdom of the Son that He loves. We have been born again into the family of God by the redemptive price of His Son. At some point we will cover why even though we are born again that we still sin. Hold on for now, in time it will become understandable. The point is made in the verse from Ezekiel 36 25:27. The sprinkling of water is the process of sanctification in which the Spirit which gives us birth changes our heart (where we do our thinking and express our will). The reading in Ezekiel states He will give us a heart of flesh (here meaning alive to God) and replace our heart of stone (unable to perceive or be alive in relationship to God).The dead can not see. In not seeing they can not see the invisible kingdom He has on earth or understands His words in scripture. They can not feel His personal presence in their lives, nor as dead men neither is it desirable. Gods kingdom is foolishness to them (1Cor 1:18), mythical and boring. Jesus in this passage sees all humanity in two parts, those who are born once of the flesh and are spiritually dead and those who are spiritually "born again" by the Spirit. Those born again are spiritually alive to God and once born again can start to understand his word, see his kingdom and feel his presence. More than that, their new heart has a desire for the things of God. That is why it is important to feed upon Gods word that you can grow in the knowledge of Him. By knowing who He is one will fall more in love with Him. Read Luke 9:60 and Luke 15:24 in their context and see if your new spiritual eyes can see what God is saying about the dead. Who are they? Find the parable of the sower in the gospel of Mark and see if you can understand it. What seed do you want to be? If the seed is the Word of God then how important is the study we are doing? Who wishes to snatch the seed? Why? Notice that the apostles wondered why other people did not understand his teachings. Notice His reply.

COMMAND 1 - YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN

I have chosen the commands of Jesus as the subject of these Bible studies. While most organizations profess a statement of faith, I believe this can be divisive to the body of Christ. Focusing on debatable doctrine to identify with a particular religious sect is not what Jesus emphasized. Neither should a statement of faith dictate a set of rules that could be interpreted as legalistic. Likewise to develop a creed using words of our own when the master has pontificated on all that we should believe and is both self ambitious and belittling to the Lord. Jesus did not come to establish different groups of people with different believes but called us to be his disciples. In so doing, he commanded us if we were to be his disciples to deny ourselves and pick up our cross and follow him. Hence, as followers of Jesus we should follow his commands. The first command I thought we could look at is one you are familiar with. John 3:3." Truly, truly I say unto you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" Here in chapter 3 of John, Jesus is speaking to a Pharisee of the ruling class, a wealthy religious man who is impeccable as a man by human standards. As a Pharisee he is expected to be an expert in both the written as well as spoken law. The written word would have been the Old Testament. This is why Jesus says He is astonished that Nicodemus is befuddled about what Jesus meant when he sys "you must be born again." Nicodemus did not understand the Lords reply but notice in his questioning in 3:4 that he did not ask why but was concerned about how one becomes born again. Jesus responds in verse 10, are you not the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Jesus was insinuating that if you indeed know the scriptures then you should know what I am talking about. You see God had promised His Jewish people a day when he would cause his people to be born again. Probably the clearest scripture is in Ezekiel 36:25-27 and here in John 3:5, Jesus is echoing the words in Ezekiel. Read it now. See how: born again: is described as birth from water and Spirit. Those 2 words are also linked in Ezekiel 36:25-27. God promises cleansing from sin and the gift of a new human spirit by the presence of His own Divine spirit. Jesus thinks Nicodemus should make the connection between his demand to be born again and Ezekiel’s promise of a new spirit and the gift of God's Spirit. But he does not. So, Jesus explains further by describing the role of God's spirit in bringing about this new spirit: That which is born of Spirit is spirit (JN 3:6) Please read the 3rd chapter of John, What is the role of the water in Ezekiel 36? What does He mean by that which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of Spirit is spirit (if you read Genesis chapter one and consider the dictum” after its kind it may help you along with Romans 5:12-21). Remember flesh is what we are by nature. It refers to ordinary humanity. By our first birth we are only flesh. This is how we experience life; it is spiritually lifeless and can only be experienced in the flesh. The fallen nature of the flesh has its own philosophy, dispositions, self interest and inclinations to sin. So also is Nicodemus despite being considered a perfect man in his society, who receives admiration from those around him. Also read Romans 6:23 and 1 Corinthians 1:18.