It was a hot, August day in 2004. Eighty-two-year-old Edna sat in her living room sipping an iced tea. I sat facing her holding a glass of cold water. The 40-year age difference between us didn’t bother Edna or me; we’d known each other for years. She was my spiritual mother. Each week we studied …
Series Archives:
60202 2. In the Image of God
In order to fix my broken life, God had to change the way I thought about Him and the way I thought about myself and others. He had to reintroduce Himself to me as a God of love. First John 4:16 tells us, “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, …
60203 3. Adam and the Fall
Before the fall, Adam and Eve had a Spirit-to-spirit connection with God. God did not live in them, but He walked with them. In the Garden of Eden, everything for Adam and Eve’s full life—their perfect relationship with God, self, others and the world—came through their relationship with God. Adam and Eve’s spirit, soul and …
60204 4. Moses and the Law: “You Shall Love”
After the fall, God could no longer express His love and care for Adam and Eve as He had in the beginning. All of humanity was living in a broken relationship with God. Now people were living with their eyes opened to the knowledge of good and evil. Because people had no connection with God …
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60206 6. New Covenant: Faith Promises
Jesus didn’t just show us a new way, He made it possible for us to live in that new way. He gave us the New Covenant to replace the Old. In the New Covenant we receive from God by faith. It is a two-step process summarized clearly in First John: “And this is His commandment: …
60205 5. God’s Solution: “This is My Beloved Son
Tragic as it was, God used the fall, and the struggles of the people in the Old Testament, to display His sacrificial love. Without the fall, love would not have been able to express itself in complete, grand form. God’s love reached down to us when Jesus became a man and took our place by …
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60208 8. Paul’s Warning : “O Foolish Galations!”
Today many Christians understand that a mix of grace and self-effort will never save us. Martin Luther clearly taught the truth that we are justified by faith alone. Eternal life is not earned by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus as the Son of God. However, Luther did not teach Jesus’ New …
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60209 9. Glorified: Radiating God’s Love
Many Christians today understand that we are justified by Christ alone. A justified person knows that their sins are forgiven and eternal life is theirs. But, far too few of us really understand that we are also glorified by Christ alone. In Romans 8:29-30, Paul tells us, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to …
60210 10. Transformation Awaits!
Up until that hot August day at Edna’s in 2004, I had stayed busy, living my version of a “good” Christian life by trying to love God and others. I’d lived this way because deep down in my soul, I thought I had to earn God’s love by doing “good” things and avoiding evil ones. …
60207 7. New Covenant: Love Promises
As mentioned in the prior chapter, the New Covenant includes two parts: “[1] believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and [2] love one another as He gave us commandment (1 John 3:23). Throughout the New Testament we are repeatedly reminded of faith and love. Faith alone isn’t enough to life a full …