Thursday, May 7, 2015

BIBLE STUDY "PASSION WEEK" WEEK # 5 (ANSWERS)

Questions:

 

1).        How do you respond to Jesus' statement "I am thirsty"?

Good reflection question!  As I reflect on Jesus' statement, "I am thirsty," I keep thinking of my own thirst. It's nothing like that of Jesus. Rather, I am thirsty for him. My soul yearns for the living water that Jesus supplies (John 4:10; 7:38-39). I rejoice in the fact that he suffered physical thirst on the cross – and so much more – so that my thirst for the water of life might be quenched.


2).        What does this statement "I am thirsty" suggest to you about Jesus?

John notes that Jesus said "I am thirsty," not only as a statement of physical reality, but also in order to fulfill the Scripture. Though there is no specific reference in the text of the Gospel, it's likely that John was thinking of Psalm 69, which includes this passage: "Their insults have broken my heart,
and I am in despair.  If only one person would show some pity; if only one would turn and comfort me. But instead, they give me poison for food; they offer me sour wine for my thirst.
(vv. 20-21)"

3).        What does this statement "I am thirsty" suggest about you?

Jesus suffered for me, because I was am a sinner saved by grace, and to live the life of a Christian I must thirty and hunger for God's Word, and I must respond to that thirty by reading His Word daily, and living by it too.

 

4).        When did the Holy Spirit come?

Notice that in each case the Spirit came "upon" them. He did not live inside them. He did not come "in" them and He did not always remain with them. King David understood this when he asked God to not remove the Holy Spirit from him. This is an important point. In 1 Samuel 16:13-14 we are told that the Holy Spirit came "mightily upon" King David, and then later in Psalms 51:11 David asks God to not remove the Holy Spirit from him. The Holy Spirit came "upon" people, but He did not remain with them. Ministry To Jesus. When we come to the New Testament, we find that the Holy Spirit was also present during Jesus' ministry, and helped Him perform miracles, and cast out demons. This is an exciting truth because it reveals the fact that when Jesus became a human He lived His life as you and I would. But He was God and without sin. While He lived on this earth, He depended on the power of the Holy Spirit to do the ministry. This is a great spiritual insight. This should be the pattern of our Christian life - dependence on the Holy Spirit to work through us. Jesus is our example of human dependence on the Holy Spirit. John 16:7. We have already seen that the Holy Spirit was active on this earth in the Old Testament and during Jesus' ministry. Yet in John 16:7, Jesus says the Holy Spirit will come after He returns to heaven. (John 16:7;14:26; 15:26; 14:16).  The Helper is the Holy Spirit. What did Jesus mean that the Holy Spirit would be coming, if in fact He was already present? Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit coming in a new and different way. This was predicted in the Old Testament according to Acts 2:14-21 and it happened on the day of Pentecost (Acts. 2:1-13). (The  Promise.) With the start of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit started living inside those who believed God. (Luke 3:22, 4:1, 10: 21, 4:14; Matthew 12:28; Acts 10:38).

 

5).        After reading the cross reference scriptures, explain one of them.

I choose Isaiah 55:1-2 scripture:  "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness."  It is an invitation to receive blessings from God in a glorious way. It is a call to salvation for all sinners to be forgiven. It's a call to hear what the Spirit is saying spiritually. It's a call to quench ones thirst in God's Word. It's a call to receive the abundance life of Jesus in John 10:10.

 

6).        What do spiritual food means?

"Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." (Matt 4:4)"  It is important to take time outside of church to read your Bible and feed on the Word of God. I'm not talking about casually skimming over the Scriptures but really focusing in on what you are reading, meditating on it, and allowing it to become deeply rooted in your consciousness. This is the level of Word intake that will begin to affect your life and cause you to be victorious in this world.  If you feel yourself becoming irritable, depressed, or low on joy, it is probably because you're low on the Word. But when you feed on the Word to the point where it is overflowing in your spirit, you will not only have enough spiritual strength to deal with the challenges you face but to also minister to others. You are what you eat, so make sure you're eating the Word every day. Your spirit will thank you for it!

 

7).        What is spiritual thirst?

Physical thirst can be excruciating and dangerous. Dehydration will get you into serious difficulty in a hurry. If you have ever been really, truly thirsty then you will be much more able to connect with the meaning of thirst in a spiritual sense. The story is told of a young student who went to his spiritual teacher and asked the question, "Master, how can I truly find God?"  The teacher asked the student to accompany him to the river which ran by the village and invited him to go into the water.  When they got to the middle of the stream, the teacher said, "Please immerse yourself in the water." The student did as he was instructed, whereupon the teacher put his hands on the young man's head and held him under the water.  Presently the student began to struggle.   The master held him under still.  A moment passed and the student was thrashing and beating the water and air with his arms. Still, the master held him under the water.  Finally, the student was released and shot up from the water, lungs aching and gasping for air.  The teacher waited for a few moments and then said, "When you desire God as truly as you desired to breathe the air you just breathed -- then you shall find God." Thirst is one of the most powerful spiritual symbols in all of scripture. As dehydration draws the whole of our physical being to a longing for water, so a spiritual void will draw our spirits into a search for deeper meaning for our lives. The Psalmist expressed it this way, "As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God." (Psalm 42:1-2)    Or..."I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land." (Psalm 143:6).

 

 

8).         Explain John 10:10, and do you know who Jesus was talking about?

John 10:10 is referring to Satan who comes to kill, steal, and destroy our lives with , you can see this daily everywhere, but praise God for a greater offer, to give to us his followers an abundant life!!! This is a healthy life, a wealthy life, (not just money, but whatever you have God will bless it), prosperous life, a wise life full of favor, joy and generosity. amen. Satan tries to destroy you, while God sacrificed His only Son to offer you abundant life. God gives abundant life, not sickness, not worry, not pain, and not things that hurt us, but the enemy does. We must make sure our thinking, and our life is in line with God's Word in order to receive that abundant life.

 

9).        What is abundant life?

This word "abundant" in the Greek is perisson, meaning "exceedingly, very highly, beyond measure, more, superfluous, a quantity so abundant as to be considerably more than what one would expect or anticipate." In short, Jesus promises us a life far better than we could ever imagine, a concept reminiscent of (1 Corinthians 2:9):"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him." The apostle Paul tells us something that is utterly profound: God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think and He does it by His power, a power that is at work within us if we belong to Him (Ephesians 3:20) (1 Corinthians 1:26-29).  In terms of economic, academic, and social status, most Christians do not come from the privileged classes. Clearly then, abundant life does not consist of an abundance of material things. If that were the case, Jesus would have been the wealthiest of men. But just the opposite is true (Matthew 8:20). But, before we begin to have visions of lavish homes, expensive cars, world-wide cruises, and more money than we know what to do with, we need to pause for a second and think about what Jesus teaches regarding this abundant life. The Bible tells us that wealth, prestige, position, and power in this world are not exactly heading the top of God's list of blessings

 Although we are naturally desirous of material things, as Christians our perspective on life must be revolutionized (Romans 12:2). Just as we become new creations when we come to Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), so must our understanding of "abundance" be transformed. True abundant life consists of an abundance of love, joy, peace, and the rest of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), not an abundance of "stuff." It consists of life that is eternal and, as such, our interest is in the eternal, not the temporal. Paul admonishes us: "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:2-3).

May God deal with each of us according to the desires of our heart – may He circumcise our hearts so that only His will and His desires remain with us.

 

 

10).      Jesus said, "I am the Bread of Life, what did He mean?

"I am the Bread of Life" (John 6:35) is one of the seven "I Am" statements of Jesus. Jesus used the same phrase "I AM" in seven declarations about Himself. In all seven, He combines I AM with tremendous metaphors which express His saving relationship toward the world. All appear in the book of John. John 6:35 says, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst." Bread is considered a staple food—i.e., a basic dietary item. A person can survive a long time on only bread and water. Bread is such a basic food item that it becomes synonymous for food in general. We even use the phrase "breaking bread together" to indicate the sharing of a meal with someone. Bread also plays an integral part of the Jewish Passover meal. The Jews were to eat unleavened bread during the Passover feast and then for seven days following as a celebration of the exodus from Egypt.  Finally, when the Jews were wandering in the desert for 40 years, God rained down "bread from heaven" to sustain the nation (Exodus 16:4).  If there is anything the history of human religion tells us, it is that people seek to earn their way to heaven. This is such a basic human desire because God created us with eternity in mind. The Bible says God has placed [the desire for] eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11).  The Bible also tells us that there is nothing we can do to earn our way to heaven because we've all sinned (Romans 3:23) and the only thing our sin earns us is death (Romans 6:23). There is no one who is righteous in himself (Romans 3:10). Our dilemma is we have a desire we cannot fulfill, no matter what we do. That is where Jesus comes in. He, and He alone, can fulfill that desire in our hearts for righteousness through the Divine Transaction: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). When Christ died on the cross, He took the sins of mankind upon Himself and made atonement for them. When we place our faith in Him, our sins are imputed to Jesus, and His righteousness is imputed to us. Jesus satisfies our hunger and thirst for righteousness. He is our Bread of Life.
 

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Casting All Your Care Upon Him
1 Peter 5:7

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