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Pray for Your Community
Heavenly Father, I pray today for our community. All around our church live many people who do not know You as their Lord and Savior. Some may know much about You, but they have not surrendered their lives to Your control. Others may actually not know much about God and the Gospel. Some may hate You. But I know that You love them and want each one to trust in You as Lord and Savior.
Therefore, Lord, I pray for the good of my community. Lord, break into the routine of this community to demonstrate Your love and grace. Through tragedies that may come, I ask for Your abiding peace to overshadow us. Create a hunger for Yourself that will not be satisfied by worldly success and pleasure.
Help our local church then to provide the witness necessary to attract lost people to You. Draw them by the power of the Holy Spirit and change them by Your grace. This I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The Life of a Christian
Lesson 11 - February 12, 2017
Focus Text: Romans 12:1-13
Central Truth: God's grace obligates us to offer our lives in worship.
Objective: By the end of this lesson my students should be able to list three ways they can be more diligent in service to God or others.
Lesson Outline:
- A Life of Consecration (Romans 12:1, 2)
- A Life of Cooperation (Romans 12:3-8)
- A Life of Service (Romans 12:9-13)
The Gospel, by Matt Chandler
https://youtu.be/BVpLCnpuUYA
Why are our attempts to earn our salvation futile?
In "Biblical Perspective" Gordon Snider writes:
The perfect obedience of Christ is a standard that no man on his own can equal. When man compares himself with Christ, he sees how totally impossible it is for him to “establish [his] own righteousness.” Christ did not destroy the law, but His perfect obedience made it forever impossible for man to claim his own righteousness as a reason for salvation. But notice the qualification — to every one that believeth. Once a man believes in Christ as Savior, he abandons any attempt to attain righteousness by his own merit. For those without faith, Christ is not the end of the law for righteousness. They, like the Jews of verse 3, continue the vain effort of salvation by works.
Source: Studies in Romans: Adult Teacher's Insights, page 59.
What does it mean to confess Christ as Lord?
and publicly.
In "Word Focus" Glenn McClure writes:
In the New Testament “confession” is understood as a proclamation (profession), as a confession made openly and publicly. “Confession is a sign of repentance (conversion) and thus a mark of the new life of faith” (D. Furst, Dict. of N.T. Theology). It is also seen that a public confession of sins means that the one who confesses is also being set free from them.“ When someone either places himself on the side of Jesus or separates himself from Him in the sight of those who know him, he makes a decision on which God will act in judgment. The believer is so completely included in fellowship with Jesus that his confession before man . . . is regarded as though it had been made before God’s judgment seat. In such a context ‘confession’ includes not only what a man says but also his obedience which has become visible in his whole life” (Furst in Dict. of N.T. Theology).
Source: Studies in Romans: Adult Teacher's Insights, page 58.
Understanding God's Salvation
In "God's Word for Today" William Snider writes:
Paul's emphasis on the redeeming work of Christ flows out of his intense burden for the Jewish people. Reflecting upon his own background as a Pharisee, he could appreciate that they were zealous for what they understood to be God's purpose and method, but they had misunderstood and twisted the plan to emphasize the human rather than the divine. Their insistence upon the obedience to the law had, in fact, revealed their impotence to keep the law. Yet they had wrapped themselves in self-righteous robes and pronounced themselves acceptable to God. The result was an ethical (and racial) arrogance. The true salvation process is to admit sin and come to Jesus for divine forgiveness. It is a purposeful acknowledgment of Christ as the sole source of salvation and faith in His death to accomplish this purpose. For the Jew, this was to reject their system of religion which had major implications for past and present. Accepting Christ for salvation is no less radical now.
Source: Studies in Romans: Adult Teacher's Insights, page 58-59.