Week six already! I hope you've enjoyed reading through this study as much as I have. If you want to review......
Week One
Week Two
Week Three
Week Four
Week Five
Well, let's get started!
Rewind
We have a duty to obey and worship God. Romans 12:1-2 What is the relationship between worship and our obedience?
According to this verse, our obedience is worship. I think many times when we picture 'worshipping God' we think singing to him at church. But, really that's only one way we can worship Him.
How does kyrios relate to the fact that Jesus Christ is God? Why is it such an important title with regard to both His lordship and deity?
In the Old Testament, kyrios was used to translate the Hewbrew word for God. Kyrios, meaning 'Lord', was used consistently to refer to God the Creator and God the Covenant. Jesus is the New Covenant in the New Testament. I think the New Testament translators had no doubt about using kyrios and equating the term to God as Master/Creator and Christ.
If you were asked to defend the deity of Christ from the New
Testament, how would you do it?
Hmm. Tough questions this week! Well, John 1:1 is the verse that always comes to mind about the Deity. I know that a lot of false religions skew this translation to support that they don’t believe in Deity. I think they translate it more as ‘and the Word was a God’. Using all the book’s given verses (and I didn’t look up more), those alone show that ‘kyrios’ is used repeatedly. In many instances, Jesus is refered to as God-‘Lord and God’, ‘the Word was God’, ‘Lord of All’ and Colossians 2:9 comes right out and calls Him ‘the Deity in bodily form’.
Rethink
As slaves we are required to obey Christ in everything. Why is this
such a hard thing for many believers to do? What is the proper
motivation for our obedience to Him?
Our sinful natures want to be lazy and do whatever feels good and is easy, and following Christ’s commands is almost never easy. And, Satan doesn’t want us to obey Christ. He wants to do whatever he can to make disobedience look more appealing. This week my two year old (who is a bit hard headed and stubborn-wonder where he got that from?) was having a fit. He wasn’t doing what I told him to do so when he got in trouble and had to sit on his bed, he kept crying out, “Mommmm….I want you!” And, I found myself saying, “You don’t want me. If you wanted me then you would have obeyed and then you could be here with me.” Well, I think that is pretty accurate of the way we treat Him. We should want to obey Him because we want to be with Him, and be like Him.
Read John 14:15. Genuine believers are characterized by a deep
love for Christ, and that love inevitably manifests itself in
obedience. Why is it impossible to say you love God and then
disobey Him?
I thought a lot about this question this week. It’s hard for me to understand claiming Christ and showing absolutely no fruit or evidence in your life of having accepted Him. If you’ve claimed Christ, then it seems that you clearly understand who He is and what the Gospel says. Right? So, then by not obeying Him, you are knowingly rejecting God. A friend of mine that I’ve known since childhood grew up in the church, and clearly claims that Jesus is his/her Savior (remaining nameless). Undoubtedly saved, it appears. However, this person has absolutely NO fruit of a Christian in their life. As a matter of fact, this person is very sarcastic, rude, and bitter. This person’s social life consists of parties and drinking. I had lost touch with this person and only reconnected a few years ago and was really shocked at what I was seeing in this person. Also, this person has specifically stated that Jesus forgives him/her for acting this way, because he/she isn’t perfect. I’ve been wondering what to make of this. Could this person actually not be saved? I don’t think we can do whatever we want and then spit in God’s face, so to speak, by saying, “Oh, but I’m forgiven!”.
Reflect
If actions speak louder than words, then what is your lifestyle
saying about your love for God?
I find myself repeatedly praying that the fruits of the Spirit would just pour out of me like a fountain. That when people see me, they wouldn’t see me, but they would see Jesus. I especially pray that in light of my relationship with my children.
React
‘The life of a slave results in the ultimate experience of peace and
joy.’
That’s so hard for us in this day and age to comprehend. I think especially here in America, where we so highly value our freedom, and rightly so, it’s just difficult to concede that we’ll be accountable to anyone, much less enslaved to them. But, I guess that’s the point, we are only to be enslaved to Christ, who offers perfect peace, perfect joy and perfect freedom in Him, if we will give ourselves completely to Him. At this point in my life, I can’t imagine life any other way than to be completely His. I try to imagine (and recall) what an unbeliever thinks about accepting Christ. When I accepted Him, I jumped in with both feet. I was an adult. I knew what life was like without Him and I did NOT want that anymore. So, for me, Savior and Lord was simultaneous, even though I might not have been able to verbalize that exactly at that point in time. I just knew that I was ‘all in’, so to speak.
So the question remains, why do people not obey the Lord they’ve chosen to call Savior?
What are your thoughts?
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