LESSON
42
The Armor of God
Part 2
5 MAIN
THINGS THAT THE WORD OF GOD DOES (Cont.)
5.) It leads to godliness.
Titus
1:1(NIV) Paul, a
servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's elect and
the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness.
The Word leads you to
godliness. All we have to do is
repent. The Word makes you godly as long
as you respond properly to it.
Godliness means you
become like God.
Jer. 31:33 But this [shall be] the covenant that I will make with
the house of Israel; After those days, saith the
LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their
hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
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God has covenanted with
us and He will write His Word upon our hearts and our minds.
Jer. 32:38 And they
shall be my people, and I will be their God.
When we choose to walk
in repentance to the Word, God writes the Word of God on our hearts and causes
us to walk close to Him.
Ezek. 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will
I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and
I will give you an heart of flesh.
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God will give you a new
heart. God will put His Word upon your
heart. He will cause you to obey His
commands. He will put His fear in you so
you will not depart from Him.
The Word of God will
create a godly life inside of you. God
has not left your Christian walk up to you.
He did it all on the cross.
John 14:6 Jesus saith unto
him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but
by me.
John 1:1-4,14 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. The same was
in the beginning with God. All things
were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light
of men. ... And the Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only
begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
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You cannot separate
Jesus from the Word of God.
There are three words in
the Greek to describe the Word:
1.) Logos - the person of Jesus; the
very thoughts of
God.
2.) Rhema - a word
spoken by God.
3.) Graphe - the
written word.
All the Graphe came from the Rhema. All the Rhema came
from the Logos.
The Logos is the
embodiment of the Word of God. Jesus
doesn't simply believe the truth. He
is the truth. There is only one
truth; He is Jesus. Outside of Jesus
there is no truth.
When truth speaks (the Rhema) things happen.
Man heard the Rhema Word of God and wrote it
down, creating the Graphe. The Graphe is
simply the written form of the Logos, which is Jesus.
When you are reading the
Word, you are literally reading the essence of Christ. The Word is the creative power of God. The Word penetrates the hearts of men. The Word will so recreate your heart, it will cause you to obey Him.
God never intended for
you to struggle. God never gets glory
when you struggle. He only gets glory
when you overcome. When you are
struggling it is because you are getting in the way of the Word of God. God said He will do it. Your struggling hinders you from doing the
will of God. You are trying to do something
in your natural self which you cannot do.
It's easy to obey
something you already want to do. God
gives you a heart after Him, which hates sin.
You don't sin because a rule and regulation told you not to. You don't sin because you don't want to.
Your recreated heart
wants to live for God. When the truth is
made manifest in your heart and mind you will easily yield to Jesus. Only truth can stand.
Mark
Truth is the foundation
to your relationship with God. To the
dimension that you have accepted God as truth is the dimension to which you can
walk in the depth of relationship with Him.
Until you believe God to be absolute truth, you will always waiver in
your Christian walk.
Rom. 3:4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a
liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be
justified in thy saying, and mightest overcome when
thou art judged.
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No matter how
convincing, real, apparent, or visible something may seem to be true, if it is
outside of God, it is a lie.
Luke 8:23-25 But as they sailed He fell asleep: and
there came down a storm of wind on the lake; and they were filled [with water],
and were in jeopardy. And they came to
Him, and awoke Him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then He arose, and
rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm. And He said
unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid
wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is
this! for He commandeth even
the winds and water, and they obey Him.
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Jesus looked at the
circumstance and knew it to be a lie.
Thus, He looked at the winds and the waves and told them to line up with
the Word of God. Jesus had nothing to
fear because what His circumstance told Him was a lie; what His Father had told
Him was truth.
God is true and everything else is a lie.
To doubt is to mistrust
God. Doubt in essence is a form of
idolatry. Doubt is a process of exalting
something else above the Word of God.
Doubt is believing, but it is believing in a
lie.
Matt. 14:25-32 And in the
fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw Him walking on the
sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and
they cried out for fear. But straightway
Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be
of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.
And Peter answered Him and said, Lord, if it be thou,
bid me come unto thee on the water. And
He said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the
water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw
the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying,
Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth [His] hand, and caught
him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou
doubt? And when they were come into the
ship, the wind ceased.
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It's an
impossibility for Jesus to do anything else other than the Word of
God. He is the Word. To believe anything else other than the Word
of God is to exalt your feelings or what you see above the Word of God. Don't call your circumstance a truth and God
a liar.
Doubt
needs to be repented of.
The thought of doubt is
not the sin. It is the holding on to
doubt that becomes sin.
The devil hits us with
doubt. We have a choice to reject doubt
by standing firm on the truth of God, or we can receive doubt and reject the
Word of God.
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It's God's Word that
comes, penetrates, exposes, judges, and when sin is repented of, sets you
free. God puts His faith into us so we
can stand strong. Our minds are girded
up. Don't let thoughts of doubt run
around in your mind.
God never told us to ask
for forgiveness in order to get to heaven.
He said to repent. Forgiveness is
an automatic flow from repentance. When
true heart repentance comes you are set free.
Admit it and quit it. Most of us
go to counseling because we want to whine our way around quitting it. We want to justify ourselves by still being
in it. We don't need tons of counseling
sessions we need the Word.
The Word will set us
free. Allow the truth of the Word to be
an offensive and defensive weapon for you.
An offensive weapon by
using it against the Devil to resist his lies that try
to deceive you and mislead you. And against the circumstances of life that are
always trying to get you to not trust God and His Word.
As a
defensive weapon to purge your heart and mind of all the deception of the world
and keep you from believing a lie.
In Review:
1. List
5 Main Things that the Word of God does?
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2. List
and define the three Greek words used to describe the Word?
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3. Why
do Christians struggle in their Christian walk?
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4.
Explain doubt.
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5. What
circumstances in your life are you choosing to believe other than the Word of
God?
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6.
Complete this sentence.
Forgiveness is an automatic flow from
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