God Is the Answer to Fear

Sometimes the Lord calms the storm. Sometimes he lets the storm rage and calms his child. - Unknown


God’s answer to fear is not an argument or a formula. It’s a Person. That’s why he said to Abraham, “Fear not. I am your shield.” God himself is the final answer to every fear of the human heart.

Have you ever wondered why God called himself by the name “I AM” in the Old Testament? Above all else, it means that God is eternally existent and therefore all creation depends on him. God stands alone. No one can be compared to him. He is complete in himself. God doesn't need us but we desperately need him.

God doesn't need us but we desperately need him. Think of it this way. To say that God is the great “I AM” means that when we come to him, he is everything we need at exactly that moment. It’s as if God is saying . . .

I am your strength.     
I am your courage.        
I am your health.          
I am your hope.            
I am your supply.           
I am your defender.       
I am your deliverer.      
I am your forgiveness.   
I am your joy.                 
I am your future. 

God is saying to you and me, “I am whatever you need whenever you need it." He is the all-sufficient God for every crisis.

Pioneer missionary J. Hudson Taylor founded the China Inland Mission in 1865. During the terrible days of the Boxer Rebellion (1898-1901), when missionaries were being captured and killed, he went through such agony of soul that he could not pray. Writing in his journal, he summarized his spiritual condition this way: “I can’t read. I can’t think. I can’t pray. But I can trust.”

There will be times when we can’t read the Bible. Sometimes we won’t be able to focus our thoughts on God at all. Often we will not even be able to pray. But in those moments when we can’t do anything else, we can still trust in the loving purposes of our heavenly Father.

Fear not, child of God. No one knows what a day may bring. Who knows if we will all make it through this week? But our God is faithful to keep every one of his promises. Nothing can happen to us except it first passes through the hands of God. If your way is dark, keep on believing. His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he cares for you.

Scripture: Deuteronomy 31:6; Psalms 46:1; Proverbs 29:25; Isaiah 41:13; Isaiah 51:12; Matthew 10:28; Mark 4:40; John 14:27; 2 Timothy 1:7; Hebrews 13:5; Hebrews 13:6

-thanks to R. Pritchard

Prayer: Dear Jesus Christ, I know that all power and authority on Heaven and Earth belongs to You alone. I come to You today, asking for supernatural divine deliverance from fear. I am facing numerous issues that are scaring me, sometimes tormenting me! I ask You right now Jesus, in faith and with all of my existence, please, please deliver me from all fear. Amen

Have a blessed day! 

Arianna

Music Video - "Love is the Answer" - England Dan & John Ford Coley

Here is a great song from 1979 that was recently brought to my attention by a staff member. The tune is "Love is the Answer" written by Todd Rundgren and recorded by England Dan and John Ford Coley. I think the song has an awesome message for all of us.Yes, Light of the World, shine on me, love is the answer..!  Enjoy!   ~Eve 

Name your price
A ticket to paradise
I can't stay here any more
And I've looked high and low
I've been from shore, to shore, to shore
If there's a short cut I'd have found it
But there is no easy way around it

Light of the world, shine on me
Love is the answer
Shine on us all
Set us free
Love is the answer

Who knows why
Someday we all must die
We're all homeless boys and girls
And we are never heard
It's such a lonely, lonely, lonely world
People turn their heads
And walk on by
Tell me is it worth just another try

Light of the world, shine on me
Love is the answer
Shine on us all
Set us free
Love is the answer

Tell me, are we alive
Or just a dying planet
(What are the chances)

Ask the man in your heart
For the answer

And when you feel afraid
(Love one another)
When you've lost your way
(Love one another)
And when you're all alone
(Love one another)
And when you're far from home
(Love one another)
And when you're down and out
(Love one another)
And when your hopes run out
(Love one another)
And when you need a friend
(Love one another)
And when you're near the end
(Love)
(We've got to love)
(We've got to love one another)

Light of the world, shine on me
Love is the answer
Shine on us all
Set us free
Love is the answer

Light of the world, shine on me
Love is the answer...

To Have True Knowledge of God

Death is not extinguishing the light from the Christian; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come...

I have a question for you…"If you knew you were going to die, what would you talk about?" You see, one thing that really jumps out at me when I read the book of 2 Peter is that Peter knew that he was about to die. Peter wrote this letter in 66 AD. He died, at the hands of the Romans, one year later. And it seems that Peter knew, as he set out to write this letter, that his time was very short. Look at what he wrote near the start of his letter -

(2 Peter 1:13-15) I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.

So let me ask you again… if you knew you were about to die, what would you want to pass on? What would you consider the most important truth to pass on? Hopefully it would concern the things that actually matter… the truth of the Lord Jesus, salvation by grace and eternal matters. Well, anyway, thankfully for us Peter had time to write about the things that mattered to him. So with that as an introduction, let’s look at the things that mattered to the Apostle Peter.

(2 Peter 1:1) Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours.

Now, I can imagine Peter, knowing that the time of his death is at hand, looking back over his whole life… where he has come from, and where he has come to. And so he starts by calling himself Simon Peter. On the one hand, he’s still Simon – A simple fisherman with a mouth big enough to fit a foot in! And yet, on the other hand, he is Peter – an Apostle of Jesus Christ, a shepherd of God’s sheep and fisher of men.

It is crucial that you see and understand these two natures within you as well. On the one hand, there is who you are in the natural - the old Simon… someone very capable to say, and do, the wrong thing! And yet, there is also who you are in the new creation (if you have been born again) – the new Peter!... a spotless, righteous, dearly loved child of God. It is important that we see both!

Peter then wants to remind his readers that there are no 2nd class citizens in Christianity. He writes ‘to those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours.’  While we all have a tendency to place certain people on a pedestal, Peter was quick to point out that all Christians have obtained the same precious faith, the same precious privileges. Peter will pick this theme up in greater detail in verse 4 so we’ll leave it at the moment.

Here's the main point! (2nd Peter 1:2) "Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord."

How much do we need God's grace in our life? How much do we need his favor and enabling to be present with us? We struggle and strive, lacking peace, yet this verse tells us that God's grace and peace can be multiplied... It can be increased! But look at how Peter says it can be multiplied-it is in the knowledge of God. Peter emphasizes this a lot! But that is where the problem comes in.

You see, there's been a “dumbing down” of Christianity in our generation. And it is causing all sorts of problems, because as Peter says above, God's grace and peace is directly linked to the knowledge of God. As D. L. Moody once said ‘I prayed for faith and thought it would strike me like lightning. But faith did not come. Then one day, I read – “Now faith comes by hearing. And hearing the word of God.” I had closed my Bible and prayed for faith. I now began to study my Bible and faith has been growing ever since.’

Therefore, the main point that Peter wants to address first and foremost, is this topic of true knowledge. This enabling and grace of God is activated in our life through a true, Biblical, knowledge of the Almighty God. And yet, let us not think that this knowledge is merely knowing or understanding facts. As we shall now see, this knowledge is not just factual, it is practical. True knowledge cannot be divorced from it’s outworking in our lives.

(2 Peter 1:3) His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.  

As Peter makes clear in verse three, we’re not just talking about knowing ‘things’. We’re talking about knowing the Lord, and the practical outworking of his life in us. Someone has once said, ‘the Bible was not given for our information, but for our transformation.’ Peter would wholeheartedly agree. For him, the knowledge of God relates directly to ‘things pertaining to life and godliness.’

This true knowledge of God is to have an impact on our mundane everyday lives. So right about now, you are hopefully asking yourself, ‘then what is the link between the knowledge of God and outworking of his divine nature with in us?’ And that, my friend, is a very good question! I'm glad you asked it.

(2 Peter 1:4) Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

Verse four above, gives us the link between the knowledge of God and the outworking of his nature within us. The link is His precious promises in the word of God. Peter says it is through these promises that the divine nature can free us from the corruption that is in the world.

So what do we do with the promises of God? Have you faced the situation lately, were you have had to count and trust in the promises of God? You might remember in Pilgrims Progress, when Christian is trapped by Giant Despair in the dungeon of doubting castle, that he finally frees himself after he finds in his pocket a key called ‘promise’!

The promises of God have always been the key to escaping from doubting castle. You see, it is by meditating on God's promises that frees the Holy Spirit to work His life, His peace, His joy, and His enabling, into your life. It is what King David instructed us to do in Psalm thirty seven when he wrote ‘Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.’

In conclusion, even in the first four verses of second Peter, that we have looked at today, we see an entirely different Peter from the one presented to us in the Gospels. The young rash, self dependent fisherman of the Gospels has been transformed by the Holy Spirit and his dependence upon the divine nature. The lack of understanding, so prevalent in his youth, has been replaced by a true knowledge of the workings of God in a believer’s life.

And, as he approaches the end of his life, Peter has written to us to remind us of that which is most important in these last days. Can I ask you whether that which was important to Peter, is important to you? Where does the knowledge of God rank in your life? Where does the outworking of his divine nature through your life sit in your priorities? How precious is the word of God, and the promises of God, to you? These things that we've seen today in the first four verses of 2nd Peter lay the foundation for not only the rest of the book, but for our lives as well!

Scripture: Philippians 4:19; John 15:7-8; 2 Corinthians 1:20; Romans 8:28; Psalm 37:4; John 3:3; 2 John 1:2 

-special thanks to I. Gordon

Prayer: Father in heaven, lead me from death to life, from falsehood to truth. Lead me from despair to hope, from fear to trust. Lead me from hate to love, from war to peace. Let peace fill my heart, my world, my universe. Amen.

Bless you always!

Marilyn

God Is Speaking...Can You Hear Him?

Dr. Tanya Marie Luhrman, a psychological anthropologist at Stanford University, retells an old joke: When you talk to God, we call it prayer, but when God talks to you, we call it schizophrenia.

But in her special report for CNN, Dr. Luhrmann offers a surprisingly supportive scientific analysis of evangelical Christians who claim that they have heard God speak to them. She concludes by stating, "Science cannot tell us whether God generated the voice that Abraham or Augustine heard. But it can tell us that many of these events are normal, part of the fabric of human perception."

There you have it: If you hear God speak to you, you might not be crazy after all. Dr. Luhrmann concludes with a powerful example of hearing Jesus speak: "When the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. sat at his kitchen table, in the winter of 1956, terrified by the fear of what might happen to him and his family during the Montgomery bus boycott, he said he heard the voice of Jesus promising, 'I will be with you.' He went forward."   -CNN, December 29, 2012, Tanya Marie Luhrmann 

The main question today is not, "Is God speaking?" God is speaking all the time. The question is, are WE listening? The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day to day poor poor speech, night by night comes knowledge. That's speaking of natural revelation, but that's one way of God speaking trying to get our attention. But it says the word of the Lord was rare, why? Because no one was listening.

And so how can we know when God is speaking, how do we know which voice is ours and which voice is God's? What aids our ability to hear the Lord's Holy Spirit? Well, lets get our Bibles out and read 1st Samuel, Chapter 3 and try to get an answer.

There are a few verses that just jump right out at you in this text, at least they do to me and they all have to do with hearing God or not hearing God. In Verse 1 it says, "In those days the word of the Lord was rare." Verse 7 is another one of those standout verses, "Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord because the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him." And then Verse 10 the one that many of you know, "Speak Lord, for your servant is listening." Again, the main question is not, Is God speaking? God is speaking all the time. The question is, are we listening?

If you read before Chapter 3 you will see a chilling account of people who were most supposed to be listening, but who were the most deaf: The priesthood, Eli and his sons. The point I am trying to make about being able to hear God speak is that we must be ready to hear. Why? Because spiritual knowledge begins outside of ourselves. Samuel did not yet know the Lord. Why? Because the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. (This point is worth remembering!)

To Samuel, the voice came three times and he didn't understand. Yet many people report in retrospect God trying to get their attention repeatedly before truly responding in faith. And isn't our whole spiritual growth measured by a sense of progressive attending. Every time God speaks we have the option of openness or closedness  It's at the point that we keep saying, "Yes, Lord," that we move forward.

Whenever we say, no I don't think so or I am not sure I want to hear this, we regress and we go stale. Revelation and response; revelation and response, revelation and response; it is a continual thing, which is why Jesus said after teaching the Parable of the Sower--four different responses about hearing God's word.

Therefore, there needs to be a readiness to listen accompanied by an honest response to what God is speaking. When God is speaking to us many times, the way to discern is very specific; it's pinpointed on a certain thing. When God called Moses he said, "Moses!" and when God called to Samuel he said, "Samuel!" and the third time he said, "Samuel, Samuel."

What is this trying to tell us about God? That God is good at remembering names? Yes and no, that we have a God that desires to be known on a first name basis and when God came to Moses he revealed who he was. I am who I am. I will be what I will be, in a self-disclosing, intimate dialogue kind of way; and he wants to do that with all of us.

In fact, when Moses and somewhat with Samuel, both of them in both accounts, God tells them what he is about to do. Jesus says, "I don't call you slaves anymore. I call you friends, because a servant doesn't know what his Lord is about to do." Samuel, this is what I am about to do. Moses, this is what I am going to do and it reflects Psalm 25:14, "The Lord confides in those who fear him. The secret of the Lord is for those who fear him."

People are caught up in a rat-race of living. It's not the whip of an Egyptian taskmaster, but the whip of greed or covetousness or preoccupation with things that enslave. The call to Moses and the call to Samuel is a call to each one of us to partner with God, to deliver others from the things that bind them, from the things that enslave them. The call to Samuel is the call to speak a word of hope to a generation gone deaf, so that they too might come out of isolated living into community.

I mentioned this earlier, but it is worth repeating: To hear God speak we must be ready to hear.Why? Because spiritual knowledge begins outside of ourselves. Samuel did not yet know the Lord. Why? Because the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. But dear readers, what is our excuse..?

Scripture: John 10:27; Romans 10:17; Hebrews 4:12; John 8:47; Jeremiah 33:3; Luke 11:28; Hebrews 2:1; Galatians 3:5

Prayer: Gracious Lord, we do thank you for your promise that you would lead us into all truth, that the Holy Spirit would bring to our remembrance and our mind that which is of you; and we pray that you would indeed open our ears because it is very, very hard sometimes to hear you Lord; and at other times we honestly don't want to hear you, so use this message to help us to hear a little better, so that we might know how much you love us and care for us and call us; in Jesus name. Amen.

-special thanks to Rev. George Antonakos 

Have a blessed week, 

Mary Beth

God Can Revive Us!

The Christian Science Monitor ran a fascinating report on the changing landscape of church attendance in one of the most spiritually cold places in the country—the New England area.

While traditional churches are declining, evangelical and Pentecostal groups are doing just the opposite. "They're expanding their footprint in what statistics show are America's four least religious states: Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts."

But here's the real exciting, challenging, or encouraging angle on this story: the growth is coming from "immigrant vitality." New, spiritually vital ethnic congregations are "buying warehouses and remodeling them."-The Christian Science Monitor, December 23, 2012, G. Jeffrey MacDonald

"I have frequently remarked, that in any revival of religion, it is not often the children of pious parents that are brought in, but those who never knew anything of Christ before." -Charles Spurgeon 

The world is looking for God. Tragically and ironically, as the world is looking for God, God’s people are asleep in their pews, asleep in religious traditions and lethargy. The Church is definitely ready for revival! The world wants and needs to know “how to” come to God and worship God, not with man’s opinion but with a “thus saith the Lord.” The world wants to hear God. The world wants models of authentic Christian living. The world wants to see God. The world for all its longing for the word of God is empty of information about God.

Today churches are full of people, but many are empty of God. Too many of God’s people have a self–sufficient spirit, an apathetic heart, and a dead disobedient lifestyle. Can these bones live again? Why is it that we have people coming to church more, but experiencing it less? They have not confessed their sins. They are spiritual corpses, dry bones. You may now be wondering how one becomes aware of this "dryness" in spirit and faith? I'd like to share some possible symptoms of this with you:

1. When there is no desire for Bible study and prayer.
2. When spiritual conversation embarrasses you or is avoided.
3. When you rationalize sin.
4. When you can quote scripture and attend service, but it doesn't make a difference in your life.
5. When you life revolves around money.
6. When it no longer bothers you that others are in misery and spiritually lost.
7. When worship and service to God does not excite you.
8. When you don’t have blessed assurance.

A wonderful example of spiritual revival from the Bible is Ezekiel. He was a man of God confronted with a congregation of God’s people who were discouraged, displaced and spiritually dead. The circumstances were ripe for revival. God took Ezekiel to a mountain top and gave him a visual aid of revival. Read Ezekiel 37:1–14. Revival is the process of bringing to life that which once was alive, but is now at the point of death. “Can these bones live again?” Ezekiel obeyed God, preached to those dry bones and then God breathed his spirit back into their bodies, God revived for himself a mighty army.

God will bring revival to our land, our people, the church, if we humble ourselves, pray and turn from our wicked ways. Now is a great time for revival!

Scripture: Proverbs 14:34; Matthew 6:33; 2 Chronicles 7:14; Matthew 4:4; Psalm 51:12–13; John 21:17; Revelation 3:15–22; Psalm 85:6

-special thanks to Mitchell Skelton  

Prayer: Father God, in the name of Jesus, I come into Your presence with great thanksgiving. Thank
You for Jesus, who died to save me and many; thank You for the Holy Spirit, who helps me
pray with the right motives; thank You for Your Bible, that I may breathe in Your Word and come into a closer relationship with You. I exalt You. I come before You boldly as Your beloved child and confess my sins to You, in full confidence that You will forgive them if I have truly repented.  I have forgiven those who have wronged me, and ask Your blessings on them. Amen

May God bless you!

Riley

Saturday Scripture Gold with Bibi: How Do You Hear the Voice of God?

How good a listener are you?
1) Since you think about four times faster than a person usually talks, do you use this time to think about other things while you're keeping track of the conversation?
2) Do you listen primarily for facts rather than ideas when someone is speaking?
3) Do you avoid listening to things you feel will be too difficult to understand?
4) Can you tell from a person's appearance and delivery that there won't be anything worthwhile said?
5) When someone is talking to you do you appear to be paying attention when you're not?
6) Do certain words and phrases prejudice you so you cannot listen objectively?
7) When listening are you distracted by outside sights and sounds?  
-Leadership, Vol.1, No. 4, p. 99

We all listen to the voice of someone. As humans this is inescapable. John Donne (1572-1631) wrote, “No man is an island.”? We come into this world listening to the voice of our mother and father. As children we hear the voices of relatives and friends. Growing older, we listen to teachers and preachers, newscasters and commentators. In adulthood the cacophony of voices that bend our ear can be staggering and in an information society, there is no end of the voices to which we can listen. Such has been the case for centuries. Luke’s inspired pen records “For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing”? (Acts 17:21).

There is a point, however, where we must stop listening and start acting. And we should be clear, the voices to which we listen will affect the decisions that we make and the actions that we take in life. The Bible teaches that there is no action taken by man without there first having been a thought in man’s heart. Jesus said, “A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things”? (Matthew 12:35).

What we believe will affect how we act. We don’t act in any way without first having thought about it. And so our actions reflect the voices to which we have been listening and the voices to which we have been listening become the conventions that shape the decisions of our lives whatever direction our lives take.

If we are honest with ourselves, we will confess that there is no such thing as unconventional thinking and unconventional wisdom. There is no new thinking that can be done that hasn’t, in some shape or fashion, been done. Solomon very wisely confessed this before he began his treatise on ethics (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10). It is a deception to think that my thoughts are objectively unconventional; the truth is that one’s thoughts are only unconventional to some while they are conventional to others.

Whether we consider our thoughts conventional or not depends upon the voices to which we are listening and even this is only our perception of whether our thoughts are conventional or not because in the final analysis there are only two voices, two conventions, that exist. Yes, there are only two voices in this world that truly speak: the voice of God and the voice of Satan, the voice of truth and the voice of error, the voice of righteousness and the voice of sin (Matthew 21:25).

Satan speaks with many voices from many places and with many advocates appearing as if he has multiple ideas and multiple choices; this is pluralism and while it appears wise, it is a deception. It is a deception because truth cannot exist in the confluence or the synthesis of multiple thoughts. If it is true that truth can only be discerned in the synthesis of plural thoughts, then one of those thoughts from which truth must be discerned is that truth cannot be discerned in the synthesis of plural thoughts.

How can it be true that truth must be discerned both from multiple thoughts and not from multiple thoughts? It cannot. We must conclude that pluralism is inherently self contradictory and that truth can only come from one voice, namely, the voice of God.

So, how do we hear the voice of God? There is only one way to hear the voice of God and thereby know the mind of God, namely, through the revelation of God’s mind by His Spirit. If someone can know the mind of God outside of revelation, I’d like for them to explain how. Scripture says that no man knows (independently from revelation) the mind of God except the Spirit of God reveal it to him (1 Corinthians 2:11).

Certainly, no man has seen (i.e. understood) God; it is only the Son of God who has declared Him (John 1:18). The only way to know God’s mind is if God reveals His mind to man through inspiration (1 Corinthians 2:12). And there is only one inspired source of truth from the mind of God, the Bible.

To whose voice are we listening: the voice of pluralism or the one voice of truth? May God help us to learn that true wisdom comes from listening to and obeying God’s truth.

Scripture: John 8:47; Mark 4:24; John 10:27-28; Philippians 4:6; Revelation 3:20; Luke 8:18; Psalm 119:105; James 1:22;  Isaiah 42:23

-Special thanks to Kevin Cauley

Now, let's pray...

O Father, give us the humility which realizes its ignorance, admits its mistakes, recognizes its need, welcomes advice, accepts rebuke. Help us always to praise rather than to criticize, to sympathize rather than to discourage, to build rather than to destroy, and to think of people at their best rather than at their worst. This we ask for in thy name's sake. Amen

Until next time...

Have a blessed week!

Bibi

Bible Study Snacks, Acts 15:1-12

Hi, everyone!

Happy Friday, and welcome back to another presentation of Bible Study Snacks! As always, I thank you so much for joining me as we walk together through the richness of God's spoken word, and wisdom. I pray that today finds you in good health and strong in faith!

This week, I would like to continue our study of the Book of Acts, with Chapter Fifteen, Verses 1-12.

I have designed these studies to be brief, yet packed full of good information for everyone regardless of your level of biblical knowledge. I might add that these quick studies make perfect small group discussion starters, as well!

As always, I whole-heartedly believe in the importance that any Bible study should begin with prayer. If you have your Bible ready, let's pray together...

Heavenly father, please guide us as we study your Word today; I pray that our hearts and our minds will be open so that we will not only receive your Gospel, but learn from it as well; you are the Light of the world, Lord, and your Spirit will illuminate our path as we journey through your teachings. In the name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior. Amen

If you are taking notes for yourself, or using this for a bible study with others, here are the objectives for this week's lesson...

OBJECTIVES: This week, the reader will...

1) See how the early church dealt with the issue of circumcision and the Law of Moses

 For your convenience, here is a summary Acts 15:1-12... 

This chapter records a pivotal event in the early church, confirming that what Jesus accomplished on the cross was the creation of one new body, in which both Jews and Gentiles were to have the same access to God through faith in Jesus Christ and not the Law of Moses (cf. Ephesians 2:11-18).

Men from Judea come to Antioch teaching the necessity of circumcision and keeping the Law. Paul and Barnabas dispute this, and the decision is made to send them to Jerusalem to talk with the apostles and elders. Along the way, Paul and Barnabas describe the conversion of the Gentiles which causes great joy (1-3).

At Jerusalem Paul and Barnabas first report to the whole church. When Pharisees who are believers say that circumcision and keeping the Law of Moses is necessary, the apostles and elders meet to discuss the issue further. After much dispute, Peter speaks of how God chose him to be the first to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, how God acknowledges them by giving them the Holy Spirit, and how God makes no distinction, purifying their hearts through faith.  Peter thus questions why they should put a yoke on the Gentiles that even they themselves are unable to bear. Rather, by the grace of the Lord both Jews and Gentiles can be saved in the same manner.  Barnabas and Paul again report the miracles and wonders God has done through them among the Gentiles (4-12).

REVIEW QUESTIONS:  

1) What were some people from Jerusalem teaching the brethren in Antioch? (Acts 15:1)
2) Who disagreed with them? What actions were taken? (Acts 15:2)
3) On the way to Jerusalem, what did Paul and Barnabas do? (Acts 15:3)
4) When they arrived at Jerusalem, with whom did they first meet? What did they tell them? (Acts 15:4)
5) Who then stood up, and what did they say? (Acts 15:5)
6) Who then came together to discuss the matter? (Acts 15:6)
7) Who spoke first? What did he say? (Acts 15:7-11)
8) Who spoke second? What did they say? (Acts 15:12)

After completing this week's study, go back and read through the material again. Take your time and read each topic and scripture reference as many times as you feel necessary. Keep in mind that by doing this, you just might see something new that you overlooked the first time around!

As we journey through the Bible together, I will continue to pray that God’s message will come through to you loud and crystal clear. Until next time, I wish everyone a blessed week!

God bless you!  

Sheri