new testament | Hi, I'm Jonathan 'J5' Harris.

There’s something in us that makes us passive and weak to the things of God

Today in Romans chapter 8, we’re going to talk about being free from sin and death.

Romans 8 is a chapter of experience, and the death here is NOT the physical death to which we are subject in the old creation. So when we talk about being freed from death, we’re not talking about some kind of miraculous cure for our mortality. Or some premature deliverance from the power of death in a physical way.

Death in Romans 8 is a terrifying and powerful spiritual source and force that has its source in Satan, the origin of death. In Hebrews 2, Paul talks about the Devil…the one who has the might of death. The death in Romans 7 and 8 is that issue of sin in the flesh which weighs upon us and weakens us and darkens us and eventually deadens us…especially as we endeavor to pursue the Lord.

Sin with its law incites us in the flesh to do things contrary to God. But death works to weaken us when we are interested or burdened in carrying out something in the Lord and for the Lord.

There’s something in us that makes us passive and weak to the things of God. We need to call it by its right name; it’s death, and God and His organic salvation has a way of deliverance from it…a way to overcome it…in Christ as our resurrection life. So we need to pay attention to this. It has a lot to do with our daily experience of Christ in Spirit.

Listen! Behold, the sower went out to sow

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Here is a mystery; Jesus as (1)The Sower. (2)The Seed. (3)And the Kingdom. All the three are just one wonderful all-inclusive Person. Mark chapter 4 is a definition of what He did in the preceding 3 chapters. After He live…moved…ministered…in the 3 chapters He jumped in the boat, and He gave them at least 2 or 3 parables. These parables indicate the very significance of what He did in the preceding 3 chapters.

Listen! Behold, the sower went out to sow. Whatever He did there, that was the sowing. A sowing of the seed. Apparently, He was a preacher because He preached the Gospel. Apparently, He was a teacher because He taught the Truth. Apparently, He was the one who cast out the demons and healed the sick…

But actually, whether the Preacher, the Teacher, the Caster, the Healer or the Cleanser…HE WAS THE SOWER! Consider a little bit. When the Lord Jesus touched Peter’s mother-in-law and healed her, do you think that’s all? I don’t believe so. That touching…that healing…was a sowing. Something of the Lord Himself was sown into that mother-in-law. There was the Reality.

When He touched the leper and cleansed him, don’t you believe something from the Cleanser has been sown into the cleansed one. And from the time they got healed, there was a change in their being. You see, Peter’s mother-in-law got healed…right away, she served. And the leper…right after being cleansed, he moved in a different way. And that indicated something got into them!

The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life

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Human history has witnessed many great moral and ethical teachers…Plato, Socrates, Confucius…just to name a few. The Bible also contains wonderful teachings of morality and ethical behavior, but no one save the Lord Jesus Christ Himself ever claimed…as He did in John 6…that the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.

We all need to ask ourselves this fundamental question: Is God’s word to us just a book of ethical and moral teachings, or is it a book that brings us to spirit and Life?

God is making sinners into sons

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The central thought or message of Romans is that God is making sinners into sons to be the members of the Body of Christ expressed in local churches.

At the beginning of the book, we have a thorough exposure of fallen human kind. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Then we have a marvelous revelation of God’s complete salvation…His judicial redemption. And then according to Rom. 5:10 much more we are saved in His life. Now we are becoming sons of God,…those mature in the divine life…to be members of that Body of Christ described in Romans 12. And the universal Body of Christ which is uniquely one is expressed in all the genuine local churches on the earth. This is the message of Romans. It’s not just about justification. It’s about sinners who are sons. These sons are members of the Body of Christ, and the Body of Christ is expressed in the church life.

His ministry was the ministry of Jubilee

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In Luke, the start of the ministry of the Man Savior was chapter 4 with Jubilee, and the Jubilee concept should govern the writing of all the following chapters. Now you come to chapter 9, 5,000 men with their wives…children, if they would be dismissed with hunger, there would be no more Jubilee. This one and than one would complain. “Nearly the whole day, I didn’t get any food.” Would this be Jubilee? This would be famine. The people would be full of hunger. But after the feeding there was real Jubilee.

The Lord sent the 12 to spread His ministry. What was His ministry? His ministry was the ministry of Jubilee. There would be no poor ones. All poor ones would be filled up. There would be no more captives. All captives would be released. And all would be brought back to the enjoyment of God. What is this?

This is Jubilee declared in chapter 4. Twelve (12) baskets of leftovers. This is Jubilee. In the kingdom of God could there be some kind of hunger? No! Jubilee. In the Jubilee there would be no hunger, but satisfaction. Everybody would be satisfied and there still would be some left over.

The disciples approach…in Luke chapter 9…was to ask the Lord to send the crowds away so that they could provide food for themselves. This approach really is in the principle of the law. The law places requirements on man. In order to fulfill the law, man has to do something out of himself to meet those requirements. There is no supply from God to meet the requirements of the law.

But the principle of Grace…which is the New Testament principle…is that God supplies man with everything that man needs to fulfill the requirements of God and also to satisfy man’s inner hunger. God doesn’t ask us to do something; He asks us to receive what He supplies.

So in this story here (Luke 9), the Lord asked the disciples to make the people recline in groups of 50, and then the Lord proceeded in a wonderful way…under Gods’ blessing…to feed this great crowd of people…to supply every one of them so that not one of them was hungry. Everyone was fully satisfied. And there was an overabundance of supply. This is the real Jubilee. When everyone has his hunger fully satisfied and still there is something left over. This is God’s New Testament Gospel. This is God’s New Testament economy.

The Lord cared more the relief of the suffering than He did the ritual of religion

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By the time Jesus was ready to begin His earthly ministry, a well established God-ordained religious system was firmly entrenched in the land of Palestine. But as the very God Himself who was the fulfillment and reality of all of the components of that established religion, you would think that He would have taken great care to approach the leaders of that religion and to bring them into His ministry. But the record of the New Testament reveals quite the opposite. The gospels, and particularly the gospel of Mark, reveal that Jesus showed no interest in maintaining the old religion with its traditions and rituals…even those that were among the ones that God had originally instituted such as the Sabbath.

Rather Jesus offended the religious community to the uttermost by breaking the Sabbath regulations repeatedly. It is apparent that the Lord cared more the relief of the suffering than He did the ritual of religion.

What a beautiful picture of the kind of salvation He is here to provide.

Saints, the Bible reveals to us three (3) big enemies to our Christian life…sin, Satan and death.

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Saints, the Bible reveals to us three (3) big enemies to our Christian life…sin, Satan and death. And all of these 3 take advantage of our fallen flesh to frustrate us, but God’s approach to our flesh may surprise you. Check out today’s podcast on the book of Romans for insight into our experience of dealing with the flesh and the secret of how to reign in life over these 3 enemies.

Galatians chapter 4 is a wonderful chapter focusing on two (2) divine sendings

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Galatians chapter 4 is a wonderful chapter focusing on two (2) divine sendings. God first sent forth His Son…but not only so,…He also sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. These 2 sendings in Galatians 4 are our topic on today’s podcast.