Week 10 - RE: Jesus

This week in summary

Day 1 : Jesus Did It	1 Peter 1
Day 2 : Jesus Paid It All	1 Peter 2
Day 3 : Real Belief Causes Real Action	1 Peter 3
Day 4 : Prepare	1 Peter 4
Day 5 : Planning	1 Peter 5

Jesus Did It

Would you really want to oppose God? Isn't God the one being you don't want on your list of enemies? Likewise you don't want God to consider you His enemy. SO how can we make sure we're in good standing with God? What do we need to do to be acceptable to God? The following verses will explain how to secure our position with God:

For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. 1 Peter 3:18

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all 1 Timothy 2:5-6

By the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. Romans 5:19

One act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. Romans 5:18

But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:5

We have now been justified by His blood. Romans 5:9

While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son. Romans 5:10

[Jesus] was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Romans 4:25

God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Thessalonians 5:9

When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Titus 3:4-7

We have been justified through faith; we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ Romans 5:1

For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. Colossians 1:19-23

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God 2 Corinthians 5:21

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed 1 Peter 2:24

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us: "We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." 2 Corinthians 5:17-20

I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you. Isaiah 44:22

He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. Hebrews 9:12

And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation." Revelation 5:9

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace. Ephesians 1:7

Christ obeyed God our Father and gave himself as a sacrifice for our sins to rescue us from this evil world. Galatians 1:4

The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Mark 10:45 & Matthew 20:28

Did you notice a trend there? All those verses describe what Jesus did to make us acceptable to God. It turns out there's nothing we can do to put us in right standing with God. Everything God requires of us, Jesus accomplished. The entire work of putting us on God's good side was done by Jesus. This is the purest form of faith:

Jesus did it.

Reading Today: 1 Peter 1

Jesus Paid It All

"It is finished!" - Jesus

There was once a cataclysmic separation between God and humans. Humanity tried to bridge the separation. We even tried to build a tower to reach God in the belief that God lived just past the clouds and if we could just build high enough we would be in his presence. We were fools. But for all the wrong assumptions of ancient humanity they did get one thing right: God is worth it.

For humanity there is no higher pursuit than God's favor. The problem is there is nothing we can do to acquire it. We could no more invoke the attention of God than a dead ant on a highway can force a hurricane to turn around.

God is substantially different from humans. He is spirit, we are flesh and blood. You might as well use a magnet to move wood. God is all powerful, he sustains himself. With a word God created humanity and with a word he can end us.

We were created to be more than flesh and blood. We were created to be physical and spiritual beings. It is part of the human condition that we were meant to be part of a divine community. You + God + many others. But long ago we died spiritually leaving only in the flesh without a way to connect to a divine community. We made the same choice that our ancestors did, to choose our own council and reject God's wisdom. We abandoned God. Our spirit died. Separate from God, a human is just a corpse with a fading heartbeat.

WE NEED GOD.

So our dilemma: no other pursuit in life compares to God, but we who are physical can't make any progress on a spiritual matter. So some give up pursuing God, others take to a religion in hope that it may take them one step closer to God's favor. All our attempts are fruitless. We are left with a divine frustration.

So God came to us. He became human. Real human: flesh and spirit. He showed us how to live again. Then He resurrected the spiritually dead. Whatever outstanding debts and grievances that stood between humanity and divinity, it was paid when Jesus was assassinated on the cross. All that separated us from God was done away with. Everything we need to find favor with God was provided by Jesus. There is nothing left for us but to believe and live in the reality that God created. We can either live in the reality that all is forgiven and God has a better plan for us than we could possibly imagine, or we can live in the delusion that our physical efforts can earn an audience with the supreme being of the universe.

There is nothing more we can do to earn God's favor. Jesus paid it all. Believe.

Reading Today: 1 Peter 2

Real Belief Causes Real Action

You can tell what a person really believes by the actions they take. The person who truly believes airplanes are unsafe will choose another way to travel. Authentic belief causes real action.

Our entire spiritual life is a response to what Jesus did. Think about that for a moment.

But Jesus didn't connect us to God so that we could go back to ignoring God. What's the point? The moment we truly believed that Jesus restored our place with God we are changed. How can we continue living like nothing changed? Everything changed!

No, Jesus sacrificed greatly to give us a new life in the Spirit. We don't need his sacrifice to pursue a life of the flesh. If we claim to believe in Jesus there should be some observable indication in our life.

Love doesn't leave someone in the gutter.

After a real connection with a guru - you should walk away with a new perspective. A close encounter with someone as significant as Jesus should change you. Only a great fool comes away from Jesus unchanged.

What changed when you first began to trust Jesus?

What today is the Spirit of God compelling you to change to be more like the example of Jesus?

Reading Today: 1 Peter 3

Prepare

Take time today to prepare to facilitate your study group.

Reading Today: 1 Peter 4

Planning:

Identify 3 opportunities facing you right now that may advance your purpose and vision
1
2
3

Identify 3 threats facing you right that hinder your purpose and vision
1
2
3

Write a specific prayer and a plan in each of the four boxes:

	Strengths	Weaknesses
	Strengths - Opportunities	Weaknesses - Opportunities
Opportunities	Prayer: Plan:	Prayer: Plan:
	Strengths - Threates	Weaknesses - Threats
Threats	Prayer: Plan:	Prayer: Plan:

Reading Today: 1 Peter 5