Wednesday Night Bible Study, Part 1...

Well, I have been meaning to make a few posts regarding what we have been studying on Wednesday nights, but have failed to do so lately. And since the last post concerned chapter 4 of Miles Stanford's The Complete Green Letters, and now we are on chapter 11, I thought I might should get on it.

So I just want to give a brief synopsis of the chapters we have covered up to ch. 11 that we will be looking at tomorrow night. Today I'll focus on chapters 5-7 and tomorrow on 8-10. I really feel like we have covered a lot of ground over these past 6 weeks.

Chapter 5 was entitled "Preparation". In this chapter we focused on the principle that God uses need to bring conformity to the image of Christ (our purpose). Many times this need involves a struggle, involves hardship to get us to the point that we see we must be depending upon God and have the attitude, "Not I, but Christ." One of the greatest struggles involves us understanding the total inadequacy of self, and the total adequacy of Christ.

Chapter 6 was entitled "Complete in Him". Obviously the Him is Jesus Christ. We as believers are complete in Jesus Christ right now! Complete means that nothing can be added. Growth in the Christian life is not about adding anything by our production, but it involves understanding and receiving what God has already given us (like every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus - Ephesians 1:3). And then by depending upon Christ in us, we apply what we have so that Christ's life is seen through our life.

Chapter 7 was entitled "Appropriation". Appropriation simply means application; to take for one's own use; to put into practice. In order to apply, we must "see what is ours in Christ, be aware of our need for it, and then give God the necessary time to work the appropriation into our everday walk." We see what is ours by studying God's Word. Practical life as a believer will make us aware of our need for what is ours in Christ. Again, many times struggle will be involved, and it takes time for us to get from the point of seeing our need to apply what is ours in Christ to the point where we are naturally resting in what is ours in Christ so that the application of God's Word is what characterizes our lives. Application of God's Word demands us to go beyond admiring God's Word and what we have in Christ and who we are in Christ, and get to the point where we are standing on our position in Christ. Stand on the truths of God's Word in faith.

I'll try to look at chapters 8-10 tomorrow.