Your Works or God's Grace?
Heb 7:18-19 (NIV) The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.
Rom 6:14 (NAS) For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.
Rom 9:30-32 (NKJ) What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone.
Eph 2:8-9 (NIV) For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no-one can boast.
Self Worth or Bought With a Price?
Mat 10:29,31 (Wey) "Do not two sparrows sell for a halfpenny?.. Away then with fear; you are more precious than a multitude of sparrows."
1 Tim 2:5-6 (Wey) For there is but one God and but one Mediator between God and men--Christ Jesus, Himself man; who gave Himself as the redemption price for all ..
1 Cor 6:20 (NKJ) For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.
Self-Image or Christ's Image?
Rom 8:29 (KJV) For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
2 Cor 3:18 (Wey) And all of us, with unveiled faces, reflecting like bright mirrors the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same likeness, from one degree of radiant holiness to another, even as derived from the Lord the Spirit.
Pr 16:18 (NKJ) Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.
Self Righteousness or Christ's Righteousness?
Plp 3:9 (Wey) Not having a righteousness of my own, derived from the Law, but that which arises from faith in Christ--the righteousness which comes from God through faith.
Rom 10:3-4 (Phi) They do not know God's righteousness, and all the time they are trying to prove their own righteousness they have the wrong attitude to receive his. For Christ means the end of the struggle for righteousness-by-the-Law for everyone who believes in him.
Rom 3:19-28 (Phi) We know what the message of the Law is, to those who live under it--that every excuse may die on the lips of him who makes it and no living man can be beyond the judgment of God. No man can justify himself before God by a perfect performance of the Law's demands--indeed it is the straight-edge of the Law that shows us how crooked we are. But now we are seeing the righteousness of God declared quite apart from the Law (though amply testified to by both Law and prophets)--it is a right relationship given to, and operating in, all who have faith in Jesus Christ. For there is no distinction to be made anywhere: everyone has sinned, everyone falls short of the beauty of God's plan. A man who has faith is now freely acquitted in eyes of God by his generous dealing in the redemptive act of Christ Jesus. God has appointed him as the means of propitiation, a propitiation accomplished by the shedding of his blood, to be received and made effective in ourselves by faith. God has done this to demonstrate his righteousness both by the wiping out of the sins of the past (the time when he withheld his hand) and by showing in the present time that he is a just God and that he justifies every man who has faith in Christ Jesus. What happens now to human pride of achievement? There is no more room for it. Why, because failure to keep the law has killed it? Not at all, but because the whole matter is now on a different plane--believing instead of achieving. We see now that a man is justified before God by the fact of his faith in God's appointed Saviour and not by what he has managed to achieve under the law.
Live for Self or Die to Self?
Rom 6:2-11 (Wey) ...How shall we who have died to sin, live in it any longer? And do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Well, then, we by our baptism were buried with Him in death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from among the dead by the Father's glorious power, we also should live an entirely new life. For since we have become one with Him by sharing in His death, we shall also be one with Him by sharing in His resurrection. This we know--that our old self was nailed to the cross with Him, in order that our sinful nature might be deprived of its power, so that we should no longer be the slaves of sin; for he who has paid the penalty of death stands absolved from his sin. But, seeing that we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him; because we know that Christ, having come back to life, is no longer liable to die. Death has no longer any power over Him. For by the death which He died He became, once for all, dead in relation to sin; but by the life which He now lives He is alive in relation to God. In the same way you also must regard yourselves as dead in relation to sin, but as alive in relation to God, because you are in Christ Jesus.
Gal 5:24 (Wey) Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their lower nature with its passions and appetites.
1 Pet 2:24-25 (Wey) The burden of our sins He Himself carried in His own body to the Cross and bore it there, so that we, having died so far as our sins are concerned, may live righteous lives. By His wounds yours have been healed. For you were straying like lost sheep, but now you have come back to the Shepherd and Protector of your souls.
Please Men or God?
Gal 1:10 (Phi) Does that make you think now that I am seeking man's approval or God's? Am I trying to please men? If I were trying to win human approval I should never be Christ's servant.
1 Th 2:4-6 (Wey) But as God tested and approved us before entrusting us with His Good News, so in what we say we are seeking not to please men but to please God, who tests and approves our motives. For, as you are well aware, we have never used the language of flattery nor have we found pretexts for enriching ourselves--God is our witness; nor did we seek glory either from you or from any other mere men, although we might have stood on our dignity as Christ's Apostles.
John 5:41-44 (NAS) "I do not receive glory from men; but I know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. I have come in My Father's name, and you do not receive Me; if another shall come in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another, and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?"
John 12:43 (NAS) For they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.
Revenge or Forgive?
Mat 5:44 (NKJ) "But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you."
Rom 12:14,19-21 (NKJ) Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse... Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," says the Lord. Therefore "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
Bitterness or Forgiveness?
Heb 12:15 (NIV) See to it that no-one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.
Acts 8:22-23 (NKJ) "Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity."
Mat 6:14 (NAS) "For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you."
Lust or Abstinence?
1 Th 4:3-5 (NIV) It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honourable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God.
1 Cor 5:9 (NKJ) I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people.
1 Cor 6:18 (NKJ) Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
Hollywood or Godliness?
1 Th 1:6-10 (Phi) You set yourself to copy us, and indeed, the Lord himself. You remember how, although accepting the message brought serious trouble, you experienced the joy of the Holy Spirit. You thus became and example to all who believe in Macedonia and Achaia. You have become a sort of sounding-board for which the Word of the Lord has rung out, not only in Macedonia and Achaia but everywhere where the story of your faith in God has become known. We find we do not have to tell people about it. They tell US the story of our coming to you: how you turned from idols to serve the true living God, and how your whole lives now look forward to the coming of his Son from Heaven--the Son Jesus, whom God raised from the dead, and who delivered us from the judgment which hung over our heads.
Eph 5:1 (NIV) Be imitators of God, therefore...
3 John 1:11 (Wey) My dear friends, do not follow wrong examples, but right ones. He who habitually does what is right is a child of God: he who habitually does what is wrong has not seen God.
Worry or Rest?
Mat 6:25-34 (NIV) "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
Mat 11:28-30 (Wey) "Come to me, all you toiling and burdened ones, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For it is good to bear my yoke, and my burden is light."
Heb 4:3-11(NIV) Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, "So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest.'" And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world. For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: "And on the seventh day God rested from all his work." And again in the passage above he says, "They shall never enter my rest." It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience. Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts." For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no-one will fall by following their example of disobedience.
From Married Couples Version
Wives: Manipulate or Submit?
Eph 5:22-24,33 (NIV) Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything... and the wife must respect her husband.
Col 3:18 (Wey) Married women, be submissive to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
1Pet 3:1-6 (Phi) In the same spirit you married women would adapt yourselves to your husbands, so that even if they do not obey the Word of God they may be won to God without any word being spoken, simply by seeing the pure and reverent conduct of you, their wives. Your beauty should not be dependent on an elaborate coiffure, or on the wearing of jewelry of fine clothes, but on the inner personality--the unfading loveliness of a calm and gentle spirit, and thing very precious in the eyes of God. This was the beauty of the holy women of ancient times who trusted in God and were submissive to their husbands. Sarah, you will remember, obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. And you have become her true descendants today as long as you too live good lives and do not give way to hysterical fears.
Husbands: Selfishness or Service?
Eph 5:25-33 (NIV) Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no-one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church--for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself.
Col 3:19 (Wey) Married men, be affectionate to your wives, and do not treat them harshly.
1 Pet 3:7 (Phi) Similarly, you husbands should try to understand the wives you live with, honouring them as the physically weaker yet equally heirs with you of the grace of life. If you do not do this, you will find it impossible to pray together properly.
Sex as Blackmail or as Needed?
1 Cor 7:3-5 (NIV) The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
Re-Marriage or One Flesh - One Chance?
Luke 16:18 (NIV) "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery."
Mark 10:2-12 (NIV) Some Pharisees came and tested him [Jesus] by asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" "What did Moses command you?" he replied. They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away." "It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus replied. "But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female'. 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. He answered, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery."
Mat 5:31-32 (NIV) "It has been said, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.' But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.
1 Cor 7:10-13 (NIV) To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife. To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him.
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