In Your Bible Read This Out
Loud
Titus 2:11-14
Memorise This Verse
Hebrews 10:24 ‘Let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love
and good deeds’.
Afterwards Talk About This
As individuals, what do you believe the good works are that God has prepared
in advance for you to do (Ephesians 2:10)
Something To Do Before Next
Time
In prayer, ask God to reveal the good works that he has prepared
for you.
Written
Diploma Work
Write one side on why the body of Christ should be
financing good deeds.
Meditate Word By Word On This
Verse
Ephesians 2:10
We saw in the previous section
that when someone becomes a Christian they enter the Kingdom of God and gain
access to the privileges that are the right of every Christian. Having
established that God prospers us to meet our needs (not our greeds), it
would appear that there is a second reason that God wants to prosper us
namely, that we will have extra money to invest in the good deeds of his
Kingdom. When someone becomes a Christian, Holy Spirit will come and live
within them and guide them as the below scriptures show.
John 14:17
‘But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you’
1 Corinthians
6:19 ‘Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who
is in you’
Romans
8:11 ‘He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your
mortal bodies through his spirit, who lives in you’
As a result of the indwelling of
Holy Spirit, when someone becomes a Christian their nature is transformed
into the divine nature of Christ as Holy Spirit will constantly direct a
person to act in a Christ like manner. For example, speaking of Holy Spirit,
Jesus himself said in John 16:15 ‘The spirit will take from what is mine
and make it known to you’. The main characteristic of this divine nature
that Holy Spirit will inspire a believer towards is love, as ultimately God
is love (1 John 4:8). This truth of the divine love nature being given to us
by Holy Spirit is spoken of in Romans 5:5
‘God has
poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given
us’
So what difference does this
divine love nature make? how will a Christian who can now live their lives
with a divine love act differently from a non-Christian who is limited to
living at best with a fallen, corrupted human type of love? An attribute of
true divine love is that it will always be accompanied with, and expressed
by, good deeds which are performed to glorify God and attract others to him.
In the same way that when a good seed is planted in soil it will produce
fruit, when the love of God is planted in someone’s heart it will always
produce good deeds. In fact, as you scan the scriptures regarding good deeds
you can discover that not only love, but faith and wisdom will also cause a
Christian to perform good deeds.
Hebrews 10: 24
‘Let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good
deeds
2 Thess 1:11
‘By his power he may fulfil every good purpose of yours and every act
prompted by your faith’
James 3:13
‘Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good
life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom
There surely will be a longing
in every Christian to satisfy this God given desire to live and act and
perform deeds and expressions of love to glorify God and attract others to
him. Not just individually, but as corporately we finance and perform good
deeds we can accomplish much more together than if we all worked and served
on our own. We will find our true nature and our God given identities as we
perform personal acts and good deeds and invest our money into corporate
outreaches that demonstrate the love of God. Titus 2:14 is a brilliant
picture of this which shows that Jesus has redeemed for the Father a new
race of people who used to be eager to be sinful and wicked, but are now
eager to do good works.
‘Jesus Christ, who gave
himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a
people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.'
So, since every Christian has
been given a nature that is eager and desires to do good deeds and works,
God will also provide an outlet and means to express this desire. In fact,
God has been so meticulous in his planning of the good works that each of
his children should walk in, that before he created us in our mother’s
womb, and in fact before he created the world, he planned and formulated
them. Since God has gone to such lengths to prepare these good works surely
it is the obligation to find out what they are, to perform them and also to
finance them and invest their money into them. The below scripture from
Ephesians 2:10 shows both the mystery of God who knew us and planned our
lives before we were born and his calling for his children to perform good
deeds.
‘For we
are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God
prepared in advance for us to do’.
Finally, having argued
previously that God puts money in our hands to meet our needs and not our
greeds, he will also put money into our hands to fund the good works that he
desires us to undertake. The below scripture is taken from the greatest
discourse on money in the whole bible it shows the desire of God to prosper
us that we might finance these good works. We can conclude then that the
same God who put his spirit in us, gave his nature to us, gave us a desire
to do good works, planned these good works before the creation of the world,
will also release finances to us to fund these good works.
2
Corinthians 9:8 ‘And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that
in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in
every good work’.
A
House of Prayer for the Poorer Nations
Pray for
Armenia
3,519,569 people, very long history of
Christianity.
Has potential to release many missionaries
if funds can be released.
© www.operationworld.org
|