Bible Studies

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61. The Head of the Church by Jon von Ernst  
    Throughout His time on earth, Jesus continually taught His disciples. One lesson He stressed to them repeatedly was that of His unique place as head of the assembly, the church. He stressed that no one should exalt themselves over any other person in the church.
    Not only did Jesus stress this matter repeatedly to His disciples, He also confronted the religious leaders of His day concerning their arrogant ungodly behavior.
    This is why these Christians, assembling together as the true church, tolerate no person usurping the headship that is reserved only for the Lord, Jesus the Christ.
    
    
62. One New Man, The Church by Jon von Ernst  
    This is something that every believer, Jew and Gentile alike, needs to be keenly aware of. Jesus accomplished God?s eternal purpose on the cross by making the two groups into one new man in Himself. God?s eternal purpose is to have one body, prepared as a bride, without spot or wrinkle. It is for this bride that Christ is returning. God?s eternal purpose is that of a loving father longing to have a spotless bride to present to His son. This is the ultimate expression of God?s love.
    
    
63. The Blessedness of Giving by Jon von Ernst  
    One of the great things about giving directly to the poor is that it requires us to look to the Lord for direction about who to give to and how much and when and how to give. When someone tithes to their church, it is easy. It does not require any relationship with the Lord. Basically, they are just paying someone else to seek the Lord and decide where and how their money should be distributed.
    When someone desiring to keep the law tithes to their church, they may feel that they have done their legally required religious duty. They may feel they have paid their share, and they might expect that the poor will be taken care of and that they themselves will receive a well-prepared and well-delivered sermon, as well as a well-maintained facility. Tithing can give a false sense of righteousness without any real relationship with the Lord.
    However, all are greatly benefited when each looks in faith to the Lord. Some will be greatly blessed as they look to the Lord for the provision of their needs. Others will be greatly blessed when they look to the Lord for where, when and how much to give. Living by faith and giving by faith are very important aspects of growing in Christ.
    
    
    
64. Remember the Sabath by Jon von Ernst  
    What does it mean for a believer to ?Remember the Sabbath?? It means to cease from our own works and totally rest in the completed redemption work of Christ. It means to honor Christ by believing in Him and setting Him apart as holy, believing that His blood is sufficient for our justification.
    
    Being set free from the dominion of sin and empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit to live a holy life in full obedience to God is the essence of the Sabbath rest. It is here, abiding in Christ, our Sabbath, that we truly have rest because He is our peace.
    
    
65. Understanding Salvation by Jon von Ernst  
    When Jesus, as the Spirit of Truth, comes to indwell our spirit, He makes us alive to God. He becomes our life and has promised that he will never leave us (Hebrews 13:5). We have been saved by this salvation of our spirit. This aspect of eternal salvation is completed when our spirit is born of the Holy Spirit.
    This, however, is not the end of the salvation process. It is just the beginning. When we are born again, our spirit is made alive; we have been saved. We now embark on the next phase of the salvation process, the salvation of our soul.
    Now the Lord begins to work within us to transform us, to change our desires, how we think, and talk, and act. God begins the life-long process of conforming us to His image.
    He accomplishes this purpose of transformation, of conformation, by teaching us to hear His voice and to obey His speaking as we look to Him and submit to Him as Lord.
    
    
66. Reconciliation and Freedom by Jon von Ernst  
    God looked at Abel and saw that he trusted in the shedding of the blood. God looked at the children of Israel at the Passover and saw that they trusted in the shedding of the blood. God looked at those under the Law of the first covenant and saw that they were trusting the blood. Today God looks at us to see if we are trusting in the blood that was shed when Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice for our sins.
    When God saw the blood applied by faith to the door posts and lentils, He passed over them and they were not harmed by the angel of death. When God looks at us today, He looks to see if our faith is in Christ and in the blood he shed for us.
    
    
    
67. Separation from God by Jon von Ernst  
    By Adam?s one act of rebellion and disobedience, we were all constituted as sinners. We were made sinners because through Adam?s one act, the nature of mankind was changed. Our nature was transformed in the moment of disobedience from innocence to sinfulness. We now sin because we are sinners by nature. There is a thing within us that is not good. It is this sin within us that causes us to sin. The sin within us causes us to do the things that we don?t want to do. Mankind has become slaves to sin.
    
    
68. Receiving the Holy Spirit by Jon von Ernst  
    I believe that many people never received the Spirit when they believed because they never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. They had merely heard the gospel of repentance. They may have been led to feel sorry for their sins. They may have been baptized in water. They may have even gone through the motions of repeating a prayer asking for forgiveness and asking Jesus to come into their heart. But through this entire process, they never even heard that there was a Holy Spirit.
    
    Since believing, they may have joined a church. They may have begun reading the Bible. They may have made vows about living for the Lord and ceasing from sin. Yet, instead of embarking on lives overflowing with love, joy, and peace, they have experienced lives of struggle and frustration. They continually try to be better. They try to please God. But they find they do not have the power or the ability to do it. They need the Holy Spirit!
    
    
69. Understanding Scripture by Jon von Ernst  
    The Scriptures are spiritual and must be spiritually understood. The natural man is not able, not having the Spirit of Christ within him, to understand the Scriptures, because, being spiritual, they are discerned only through the Spirit. They just don?t make sense to the natural man. It does not matter how well educated you are or how many degrees you may have. Without the Spirit, you do not have the ability to understand the Scriptures.
    
    Many people today, however, are sold on the importance of studying the Scriptures, of poring over them, of analyzing them, because they think that in doing so they will find a deeper understanding of God and of His ways. But they are unwilling to come to and completely trust in the One of whom the Scriptures speak, the One that has the power to give them life and to give them understanding.
    
    If we know the power of God, Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit dwelling in our human spirit, God, by this power, will teach us all that is ours in Christ. He will reveal the truth in Scripture to us.
    
    
70. Following in His Steps by Jon von Ernst  
    When, by faith in Christ Jesus, we are born again, baptized in the Holy Spirit, we not only experience our sins being forgiven and ourselves being reconciled to God, we also begin to experience the ?much more? that God has provided for us in Christ Jesus our Lord. We begin the process of sanctification, the process of being saved by grace through the power of His life working within us to accomplish God?s will within each of us.
    
    This will begins to be accomplished in us as we enter into a relationship with the Father. This relationship with the Father creates within each believer an innate desire to please Him in all things.
    
    In pursuing this desire, we begin to experience, more and more, God?s incredible love for us. We find that the more we demonstrate our love for His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, by submitting completely to His authority as Lord, and obeying Him, the more we come to experience and understand this amazing love that God has for us.
    
    
71. An Intimate Relationship by Jon von Ernst  
    Christ died and rose again that we might experience the same intimacy as He had with the Father. Christ endured to the end, empowered by the Holy Spirit to both know and to do the Father?s will.
    
    He did this that we might now freely partake of this same oneness that He had with the Father, the most intimate relationship possible for any human being to experience. Praise the Lord, this intimate relationship is now freely available, by faith, to every person in Christ!
    
    
    
    
72. An Intimate Relationship by Jon von Ernst  
    Christ died and rose again that we might experience the same intimacy as He had with the Father. Christ endured to the end, empowered by the Holy Spirit to both know and to do the Father?s will.
    
    He did this that we might now freely partake of this same oneness that He had with the Father, the most intimate relationship possible for any human being to experience. Praise the Lord, this intimate relationship is now freely available, by faith, to every person in Christ!
    
    
    
    
73. Worthy of the Kingdom by Jon von Ernst  
    The apostles understood that we are in a spiritual battle. They understood that the flesh is warring against the Spirit, and the Spirit is warring against the flesh. Therefore, they repeatedly warned believers to be careful about how they lived.
    They begged them, they implored them, and prayed for them that they would walk worthily of God, that they would be counted worthy to enter His kingdom. They exhorted them that they would not sin, that they would not love the world.
    
    
    
74. Take Heed Lest You Fall by Jon von Ernst  
    Paul is speaking to believers that have been grafted in and have become part of the body of Christ. He warns them not to be arrogant, but to fear.
    When he says not to be arrogant, he seems to be referring to those that believe it is not possible for themselves to be cut off. He reminds them that they stand by faith and that those natural branches that have been cut off were cutoff because of unbelief.
    He charges them to consider God?s kindness and severity. Severity towards those that have fallen, but kindness toward you, if you remain in His kindness. Otherwise they, the Christians in Rome, would also would be cut off.
    It is amazing how God?s word, when taken at face value, can cause us to tremble!
    
    
75. He Will Never Forsake Us by Jon von Ernst  
    Whenever we see the word ?if? used, we need to be aware that the one thing being mentioned is contingent on the other thing being mentioned. If you continue faithful, you will not be cut off. However, if you do not continue faithful, you will be cut off.
    
    
76. No One Can Take Us Out of His Hand by Jon von Ernst  
    Once we are born again, the most crucial thing we must keep in mind is the absolute necessity of enduring to the end, that we finish the race, that we finish our course. We must lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us and run with perseverance.
    We do this by looking away to Jesus, by keeping our focus on Him. We do this by encouraging one another daily, while it is called today, so that none of us is hardened by sin?s deception, so that none of us fall into the same pattern of disobedience as those that rebelled and fell in the desert.
    
    
    
77. Eternal Security by Jon von Ernst  
    Do not be deceived. You are not in the Spirit unless the Spirit of Christ is in you. If the Holy Spirit does not live in you, you are not truly a Christian, you are still in the flesh. It does not matter what you believe, if the Spirit of Christ is not in you, you are none of His. You must be born again, born from above, born of the Spirit.
    If someone?s professed salvation experience contradicts the entire counsel of scripture, they are not really saved. If we have been deceived into thinking we are saved, when the scriptures assure us that we are not, then the teaching of ?once saved, always saved? is irrelevant. The teaching of eternal security for that person would more accurately be expressed as ?never saved, still lost.?
    
    
78. Escaping the Devil's Trap by Jon von Ernst  
    By faith in Christ, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has now set him free from the law of sin and of death. The condemnation of slavery to sin has been removed through his baptism into Christ?s death by faith in Jesus. Having been baptized, by the Spirit, into Christ?s death, the believer is now made alive unto God, by that selfsame Spirit, to walk in a new way of life.
    
    
79. A Wretched Man by Jon von Ernst  
    Paul could not be more clear. Those who practice the works of the flesh will not inherit the kingdom of God. Those who practice evil will not inherit the kingdom of God! Genuine Christians are led and empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit to live holy lives, to live just as Jesus lived.
    
    
80. Set Free to Walk by the Spirit by Jon von Ernst  
    Praise God! As genuine born-again Christians, not only are all of our past sins forgiven, but even more glorious, we are no longer enslaved to sin. Sin no longer has dominion over those that are in Christ. By Christ?s death and resurrection, genuine Christians have been set free from bondage to sin.
    
    
81. No Condemnation by Jon von Ernst  
    Because we have experienced so little revelation, because we have experienced so little teaching directly by the indwelling Holy Spirit, we have a very limited understanding of the scriptures. The typical Christian today is virtually ignorant of the scriptures. Most of what we know is what some person has told us. And most of what we have been taught has never been challenged.
    With much of what we have been taught, we have never attempted to verify by searching the scriptures to see if those teachings are true or false. Therefore, we, the church, have become very susceptible to being led astray by false teachings.
    
    
82. Knowing the Truth by Jon von Ernst  
    The secret to being delivered from the deception of these false teachings is to know the scriptures and the power of God, the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within the born-again believer. The secret is to know the truth, to know Christ.
    We must meet Jesus. We must have a genuine, living relationship with Him wherein we come to know Him as both Lord and Christ. It is not enough to know about Jesus. We must know Him personally. We must live in a close intimate relationship with Him as our Lord and Master.
    
    
    
83. A Righteous God by Jon von Ernst  
    Here Paul is addressing the problem in the church of how believers see the sinners in the world living in the wretchedness of their sins and they judge them, even though they themselves, the believers, do the same things that they judge. In the church, we are often quick to judge the sinfulness of those in the world while we wink at the sin in the church, the sins being committed by the professing Christians.
    Paul?s point in this passage is that there is no favoritism with God. He is not a respecter of people. Whether you are a believer or a nonbeliever, He will judge each one righteously.
    
    
84. Unmerited Favor by Jon von Ernst  
    Once anyone responds to God?s compassion, His free offer of love and mercy, by obeying God and believing in the one He sent, God immediately pours out His grace upon them. He cleanses them from their sins. He sets them free from the condemnation of slavery to sin and fills the cleansed vessel with His Holy Spirit. This power of God works in the believer?s life filling them with unexplainable joy, restoring them to fellowship with God by empowering them to hear God and obey God.
    
    
85. No Respecter of Persons by Jon von Ernst  
    If you are a professing Christian, but have been living by the lusts of the flesh, doing the same things the people in this corrupt sinful world are doing, you need to repent, and you need to repent now. Today is the day of salvation. God tells us in Genesis 6:3, ?My Spirit will not strive with man forever.?
    
    
86. Grace by Jon von Ernst  
    Now that we have obeyed the good news, the gospel of the kingdom, we begin to receive of the many blessings that God has prepared for us in Christ. Being reconciled to God, justified by the blood of Christ, having our sins forgiven by His love and mercy, God begins to pour out His grace richly upon those that have obeyed the gospel and joined works of obedience to their faith. It is by this grace that we are now being saved.
    
    
87. That He Might Have Mercy On All by Jon von Ernst  
    Now here is a word that deserves some consideration as to what the writer intended it to mean. What exactly is meant by the Greek word ?eleos? that is translated as mercy. God has imprisoned all in disobedience that He might have mercy on all.
    
    
88. COME AS A LITTLE CHILD: Study, Matthew 18:2-4 by linzy bruno  
    "Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as a little child, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."
    
    
89. LAWS WERE MADE FOR THE LAWLESS by linzy bruno  
    "But when they arrest you and deliver you up, do not worry beforehand, or premeditate what you will speak. But whatever is given you in that hour, speak that; for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit." (Mark 13:11)
    
    
90. I AM A SPIRIT by linzy bruno  
    "For all that is in the world--the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life--is not of the Father but is of the world." (1John 2:16)
    
    

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