Overview study of the Old Testament Priesthood. Who were they, what they wore and what were some of their duties?
Acts 22:3 “I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our fathers’ law, and was zealous toward God as you all are today.”
In this our final lesson in the series “Standing on the Promises”, we want simply to understand why we can trust every exceedingly, precious promise that God made. We must realize that God Makes Promises in (2) two Ways His Promises Are – Unconditional and Conditional – In other words God Said If! Blessings “IF” you Obey Deut. 28:1 “Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And Curses “IF” you Disobey, Deut. 28:15 “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:”
You see from this that we may misunderstand and become disappointed in God simply because we think He’s failed to keep His word. When all along the problem is our understanding, not His faithfulness. So, we must understand that many of the exceedingly great and precious promises of the Almighty God, are conditioned upon our obedience or disobedience.
As we come to the end of our series on the book of Ruth, the main question we should ask is, “What is the lesson of this book? If I could take it down to a central theme what would it be?” In this book we’ve seen hardship, death, commitment, love and the joy of marriage and a son born. But after all the ups and downs of life what we really should see is, the best is yet to come.
Paul used the Adjective, Verb and Noun all in one sentence: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). Description of God, how God modified the saved in Christ, and the blessing in Christ are tangible. This message will only point to six of the many blessing.
This study is centered around Peter’s Description of the Promises, “by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the [a]corruption that is in the world through lust” ( 2 Peter 1:4 ). Notice that Peter not only describes the promises as being “great”, but “exceedingly great”, Peter tells us they are “precious” and that God has given them to us. Indeed God is the great Giver and His greatest gift was that of His Son, “For God so loved the world that He gave…” (John 3:16), thus we should all be saying, “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15).
We already know that we must do our best in everything that we do because we reflect God to those around us. Question is, what is our motive? Maybe you’re working hard at your job because really want that promotion because you know people will respect you more or, maybe you’re involved in an academics and you’re working hard to get some letters after your name. Now, there is nothing wrong with working hard to get a promotion at work or with having some letters after your name. The question we have to ask ourselves is, “Why are we doing it?” Is it for the glory of God, or to glorify ourselves?