March 2015 – ThrivingBranch

Your New Nature: Purified in Christ

March 29, 2015March 29, 2015Leave a Comment

Each year around the time of New Years Eve, people resolve to make resolutions… promising that they will do better, try harder, accomplish set goals and generally improve themselves. Usually these same people, around this time (three months after New Years) will have already broken every single resolution, with many not even lasting through January! This same pattern of promising resolutions and failing shortly after also goes on with believers – not just at New Years, but all-year-round. It’s a vicious cycle of condemnation leading to destruction that often stems from a chapter in the Bible that was actually intended to free us from such condemnation!

Our study today is going to be on this very misunderstood chapter, looking at the common misconceptions surrounding it, and also of course we will be examining what it actually means for us in Christ Jesus today.

Divine Wisdom Leads to Growth in Grace

March 22, 2015December 17, 2014Leave a Comment

Continuing our series on the Wisdom of God. I once many years ago, heard a Christian express that Grace is all well and good, but that he wanted to move on to “deeper things”. I didn’t think much about his comment at the time, but since then I have noticed that this idea is actually quite common. Over the years I have witnessed many people come to Jesus Christ with great optimism and joy as they realize the truth of what He has done for them, and they are filled with His Divine Joy and Peace, and then it sets in… the idea that “now that I’ve received Jesus, I have to work”. I must do this and this and this and that to “grow in Christ.” Now I do believe that there is a growth process for believers, however this growth process is not what some today think that it is.

So today as we continue to study the Wisdom of God, we will be examining how growing in the Divine Wisdom of God actually leads to growing in Grace; and I believe that as we see this truth in scripture, chains will be broken and the joy and peace of God will be loosed again for some that have lost sight of it.

Finding Freedom Through the Wisdom of God

March 15, 2015March 19, 20151 Comment

Wisdom. It’s a fairly common word, we often say that this person is wise or that person has great wisdom. But what exactly is wisdom? Specifically when it comes to the Biblical wisdom of God, many people confuse wisdom with trivia, they equate wisdom with merely knowing facts about God or having head-knowledge.

So today we will be studying about the wisdom of God, specifically what it is, how to apply it and how it benefits us in our daily life. I believe that at the end of us study, perceptions of God will be increased and chains will be broken as a result.

Jesus: The Meaning, Purpose and Strength of Life

March 8, 2015March 8, 2015Leave a Comment

Jesus is the meaning and the purpose of life. I want you to meditate on that statement for a moment… take it in, digest it. We have previously studied on how without Jesus, life is empty; this is not an over-exaggeration. People who follow after other things may experience a type of joy for a season, but it is not the true joy that can be found in Christ. I use the term “true joy” because I can tell you from my own life there was a time before I knew Jesus, that I experienced something that I thought was happiness, but it always left me feeling empty. There was a secret sadness, an internal pain that I could never quite fully define. I simply knew that there had to be more to life than what I was experiencing.

Furthermore, Jesus is also the strength of life. This means that Jesus is the source of effectual power that manifests, sustains and maintains life – we know this from Colossians 1:17. Yet this is more than just a grand theory or a pleasant idea for believers to ponder. This is in-essence, the key to unlocking true life in Christ. If we fail to understand the truth that Jesus is the center and supplier of life, then we will continue to life apart from that life, wondering and wandering from one thing to the next with no direction and no source. Is it possible for a believer to miss-out on the abundant life of Christ? Oh yes! So today, we will be studying in detail how to life in new life in Christ Jesus.

Make Jesus the Solution to Every Problem

March 1, 2015November 28, 2014Leave a Comment

Today, I am going to share with you a secret. It has been said that “the best place to hide is right out in the open”, and this secret has been right out in the open all along. This secret is that Jesus is the solution to every single one of your problems. Now you may have heard this before, but for one reason or another you have had limited success in seeing your problems being solved by Jesus. This has actually been a common complaint among believers for a long time, and there are many different theories why; but the Bible has one single reason, or more accurately, one reason expressed in a variety of ways throughout the Bible.

So today we are going to study exactly what this reason is and how to apply it in our daily lives Once we see this truth from scripture, and truly embrace it, that is when we will release more of the miracle-working, delivering power of Jesus into our life, and chains will be broken as a result.