Jesus Fellowship: The Gospel of God=Jesus Christ. 10/14/15

Day 286

Today's song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S94AkkW6bpE

No copyright infringement intended.

https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/dramatized/niv/1Thess.2

1 Thessalonians 2

Paul's Ministry to the Thessalonians

2 For you yourselves know, brothers,[a] that our coming to you was not in vain. 2 But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict. 3 For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, 4 but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. 5 For we never came with words of flattery,[b] as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness. 6 Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. 7 But we were gentle[c] among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. 8 So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.

9 For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil: we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. 10 You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers. 11 For you know how, like a father with his children, 12 we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

13 And we also thank God constantly[d] for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men[e] but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. 14 For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews,[f] 15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind 16 by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last![g]

Paul's Longing to See Them Again

17 But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face, 18 because we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, again and again—but Satan hindered us. 19 For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? 20 For you are our glory and joy.

Supplied Life Devotional by Bill Freeman

A church-life disposition October 14th

“That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height.” EPHESIANS 3:17-18

When we have a genuine experience of Christ making home in our heart, we will discover that there is a disposition to live a church life. We are strengthened into our inner man, and the result is that we are “full of strength to apprehend with all the saints . . .” We receive an infused disposition. This disposition is wrought into us to live out a practical church life in which there is the need to keep the oneness of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph. 3:20—4:3). To meet together with all different kinds of believers at different stages of growth in the Lord goes beyond the capacity of our natural disposition. It requires a supernatural disposition. By this infused disposition we can be built up together in the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ.

If we really see by revelation the kind of church that is revealed in the book of Ephesians, we will realize that our natural disposition could never make it. We need divine enablement. It is only by Christ making home in our heart that we could be rooted and grounded in love to the extent that we have supernatural ability to apprehend the vast dimensions of Christ’s love in the church.

For the Lord to gain the church as His Bride, there is the need of an infusion of the divine disposition into our disposition (Eph. 5). To live the church life together requires the divine nature and disposi- tion. No one is naturally born “cut out” for the church life. The church life demands Another life. This is why the Lord told Nicodemus in John 3 that in order to see the kingdom of God, as well as to enter it, it is necessary to be born again. Seeing and entering the kingdom is virtually the same as seeing and entering the church life (Rom. 14:17). The church life is altogether a matter of Another life coming into us through regeneration, and then of our being constantly infused with the disposition that is in that life.