Tag: Mercy

Individual Responsibility, Living in the Image of God

Letter on Christian Living—Paul to Ephesians

Living in the Image of God M05S19

Paul’s letter to Ephesians regarding Christian living provides a three-part message. The first part is a call to Christian living, where he calls every person to depart from sin and turn to Living in the Image of God. Christian living is based on the understanding that God creates every person to represent him in human interactions with others: to interact with others as God would interact with them if he lived in human form among them. The second part of the message declares that the Holy Spirit is our partner for Christian living and enables a person to receive and follow God’s guidance to fulfill his purpose for you in every situation. Paul provides advice on being filled with the Holy Spirit, to understand God’s purpose for you in interactions with others. The third segment of the message provides examples to illustrate the individual responsibilities in human interactions for Christian living; specifically, regarding compassion, peace, mercy, and motivation for and practice of righteousness.

Letter on Christian Living—Paul to Ephesians 22:23

In this bible study, we discuss a section of Paul’s letter to Ephesians, where he provides a three-part message regarding Christian living. The first part of the message is a call to Christian living. Paul calls every person to depart from sin and turn to Living in the Image of God: “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” [Ephesians 4: 22–24].

The second part of the message explains that God provides the Holy Spirit as partner in Christian living [Ephesians 5:17–19]: “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit.”

In the third part of the message, Paul provides examples to describe the individual responsibilities in human interactions for Christian living. The examples include compassion, peace, mercy, motivation for righteousness, and several examples regarding practice of righteousness [Ephesians 5:4–5]: “Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.”

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The Gospel

Value of Testimony

Sharing Appreciation of God:
Christ’s Teaching on Testimony

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We begin a two-part series on appreciation with a discussion of Christ’s teaching on testimony, i.e., sharing appreciation of God. Our understanding is based on his interactions with people he healed: what he instructed them to do or how he received their reaction to the healing. We examine his interactions with a man he freed from demons and a woman he healed of long-term bleeding. We see that he directed both healing recipients to testify about what God had done for them. He gave a direct instruction to the man freed from demons. However, his instruction to the woman healed of long-term bleeding was indirect: he would not stop looking for her until she came forward and testified. We also recall an example on testimony based on Peter’s interactions with his faith family after God released him miraculously from Herod’s prison.

LumoProject.com freebibleimages.org
LumoProject.com freebibleimages.org

INSPIRE OTHERS TO SEEK GOD A testimony inspires others to seek God by sharing with them personal experience that illustrates appreciation for his mercy and power and effectiveness in granting prayers and fulfilling promises. In addition to inspiring others by testifying to one’s personal experience of God, giving testimony also is a way to show appreciation to other people that have shared a person’s concern, either through physical contributions or by helping channel the concern’s to God through prayer. It is important to let such people know that God has granted their prayers and inform them so they would direct subsequent prayers according to need.

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The Gospel

Living in the Image of God: The Beatitudes

Christ’s Teaching on Positive Human Interaction

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The Beatitudes. wikipedia.org
The Beatitudes. wikipedia.org

We begin our study of Christ’s direct teaching with a two-part discussion of the Sermon on the Mount: Christ’s elaborate sermon recorded in Matthew 5–7. The sermon was a teaching on living in the image of God, which we have also described as “positive human interaction:” i.e., living and interacting with people for the purpose of representing God in everything we do and accomplishing the objectives for which he created us. The sermon consists of two parts. In the first part, he provides the principles of living in the image of God. In this study, we identify the principles as eight steps, which are described in the bible as the Beatitudes. In the second part, he describes specific examples of application of the principles.

THE BEATITUDES Part 1 of our two-part discussion focuses on the Beatitudes: the first part of the Sermon on the Mount. The Beatitudes describe eight steps (or principles) for living in the image of God. The first three Beatitudes describe human relationship with God, the third through eighth describe human interactions, with an overlap in the third Beatitude because it applies to both human relationship with God and human interactions.

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