Join Bob George on Classic Christianity Radio as he delves into the profound teachings of faith and salvation through Jesus Christ alone. Explore the spiritual journey beyond mere religious practices, leading to a transformation of the mind anchored in truth. Discover how true faith is not about conforming to the world, but about being transformed by the renewal of the spirit, as Bob shares his personal insights and challenges listeners to take a closer look at their beliefs and the source of their faith.
00:00:12 Introduction to Classic Christianity Radio
Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George. Bob’s clear, timeless teachings on the complete forgiveness and unconditional love of Jesus Christ will transform your life as you learn about God’s amazing grace. Let’s join Bob as he teaches us from God’s Word.
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And when you have faith in Jesus, you can’t have faith in Jesus and me too. So is there anything you can do? It is accepting the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ Jesus alone. He came. No other man, no other man on the face that ever lived could ever have accomplished what Jesus did for you and me. He’s the only one. He’s the only man who ever had a life to lay down for you and me. He’s the only one who had a life to lay down. We’re born dead. He was born alive. And so it’s all Him. There’s nothing added to Jesus. It’s only the fact of this. Jesus, you said that I’m a sinner. I agree with you. That was one thing I had no argument with God over. I’m a sinner. I agree with you. I can tell you all about it. And the consequence of sin is death. There’s a wage to sin. It’s called death. I didn’t know that until you hear it in the scripture. The wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is life. And there’s a consequence to your being a sinner called spiritual death. And a person who is spiritually dead needs only one thing. Spiritual life. And I came that you might have what? Life. And have it abundantly. I’m the way. I’m the truth. And I’m the life. And you come to me and me alone. For the life that I came to give you, and you are going to be born again of the Spirit. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life. You can sit in church all your life and never be saved. I was in church for 36 years, never saved. Heard but didn’t hear. How many of you ever witnessed that type of thing where you hear but you don’t hear? That’s why Jesus said, if you have ears, listen. He knew we had ears. Almost pulled one of them off. It’s easy. He knew we had ears. But he’s saying, if you’ve got ears, listen. Because there’s a difference between having ears and listening. So he said, if you have ears, listen. And so he’s saying, don’t conform any longer to the pattern of this world. What is the pattern of this world to believe everything that comes along? We believe anything anyone tells us. I don’t mean to speak disrespectfully, but think for a moment of the confidence that we have in doctors. You know, I’ve never met a man that went to a bad doctor. Every man that I ever talked to, he’s always said, my doctor’s the best. You ever heard that? My doctor’s the best. He’s the number one specialist in his field. I said, ooh. Do you know what a doctor knows that prescribes medicine to you? What the drug salesman told him. Am I right or wrong, doc? So a good druggist could be a good doctor. And yet we act like they’re God. And some think they are. Hope there aren’t any doctors in here. And I’m not saying this disrespectfully. I’m just saying it honestly. You can say these things to our pastors. Because a lot of them think they’re gods, too. But the issue is that don’t you wish you had the same confidence in Jesus that you have in another man, in a doctor? I mean, he tells you to take these pills. Those pills may kill you. There’s evidence all over the place about them killing you. We say, give them to… Right or wrong? So I wish we had the same confidence in Jesus that we did in man. But we don’t. Tell you another one. Lawyer. I don’t even need to talk about that one, I don’t think. Don’t be conformed to the world, to the pattern of this world. You know what the world does to us? Lies to us. Everything you see advertised, it’s just hype, isn’t it? And it’s interesting, eat Cheerios. They may help your cholesterol. Well, they may not as well. But you see, you’re safe by saying they may do it. That’s all deception, isn’t it, guys? It’s all a part of this world’s deception. So you don’t have to eat Cheerios. But he said, don’t be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. It doesn’t say by the altering of your mind. There’s no place in the Bible where it says you’ve got problems, alter your mind. That’s why they call them mind-altering drugs. It’s because they’re there to alter your mind. I don’t want my mind altered. I want my mind renewed. And I want it renewed on truth. And there’s only one place that I can go to find truth. And it ain’t in a doctor’s office. It’s in this Bible. The man who created you wrote this Bible. I think he probably knows a little bit more about you than another you. What do you guys think? And so if I’m going to live on this earth, I’m not going to conform to the world that says, turn from God. Forget about getting your mind renewed on truth. This isn’t truth. This is old-fashioned stuff. This is old. We’re in modern-day America. This is old stuff. Is it really? I don’t think so. This is called truth. And you know what it said truth would do for us? Set us free. Set us free from what? All the stupid thinking that our heads are full of. Just think about the attitudes that you and I have sometimes. I look at it and I think, am I real? Am I normal? Because you can come up with all kinds of goofy things, can’t you? And the issue is it says don’t be conformed to the world but be transformed by what? The renewing of the mind. The renewing of the mind. Renewed on what? What? truth that will do what according to god set you free if that’s not true pitch the whole book away guys if that statement right there is not true throw this thing in a wastebasket and eat drink and be merry for tomorrow you may die if truth does not set you free pitch it and when the sun has set you free you shall be what free indeed free to be yourself Free to trust the Spirit of God who lives in you now to guide you into all truth. See, guys, this is the beauty of this. Is God said, I’m going to come live in you. And that’s me living in you. That’s not an it. It’s me living in you. And I’m going to guide you into all truth. Do we let him? I’ll tell you, guys, we have been so programmed. not to listen to the voice of God. And I’ll tell you one of the ways that we’ve done that. It’s happened in the church. Where, you remember, if you know anything about the history of the church, the early church, they wrote the Bible. They had it translated from the Greek into Roman, into Latin. And they said, that’s your Bible. That’s the organized church. That’s your Bible. Well, it’s a nice Bible, but I don’t read Latin. I don’t care. You don’t need to. You come to me, and I’ll tell you what it says. And I’ll tell you what it means. And you better not go someplace else. And if you go out and you grab one of those Wycliffe deals, I’m going to burn you at the stake. Now, right or wrong, did that happen or didn’t it? It’s the history of the church, a good old church. And so what happens is all of the emphasis came is we’ll tell you what to believe. Well, if I have convinced you or a pastor has convinced you that I will tell you what to believe, are you going to have any confidence at all in the Spirit telling you what to believe? No, better check it out of the pastor. Guys, I cannot tell you the number of times when we’ve taught 1 John 1.9. The very first thing someone said, I’m going back to my pastor to see what he has to say. Well, you don’t need to go back. He’s as dumb as you are. He’ll say exactly what he’s been saying for years and years and years and what he was taught. But have you thought it through? How in the world can you be thinking it through when you’ve got double talk on your hands? You’re totally forgiven, but old billy goat Christianity, but, but, but. But that’s what, I’ll go back and check with the pastor. You don’t have to check with the pastor. If you’re saved, the Holy Spirit lives in you. The Holy Spirit teaches you. That’s what he’s there to do. He’s your teacher. Thank God for that. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you’ll be able to test and approve what God’s will is. His good and pleasing and perfect will for you and me. That’s his desire for you and me. Is to show you and me his will. By the grace given me, I say to every one of you, don’t think more highly of yourself than you ought, but rather think of yourself in sober judgment. I want to see a little trick here. It doesn’t say don’t think highly of yourself. It says don’t think more highly of yourself than you ought. But it doesn’t say to sit around thinking lowly about yourself. You know, there’s a lot of people that what Christianity is, is I’m just an old worm. Just an old sinner saved by grace. Is that what God calls you? He calls you a saint created in the image of God for good works. We call ourselves old sinners saved by grace. I say you look like one. It’s almost as bad as looking like a Baptist. I’m kidding, folks. Don’t leave. Don’t leave. No, it says, don’t think more highly of yourself than you ought. Guys, we are children of God. We have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Now, God had to think something of us in order to do that. In other words, for him to want to save us, he had to say they’re worth saving. Not in the condition we were in, but in the condition I’m going to make them in. Because I’m not through with you yet. I’m just getting started. But guys, don’t walk around thinking lowly of yourself. You’re a child of the living God. Now, I am not better than anybody, but I’m better off than someone who’s not saved. I’ll guarantee you that. I’m not better than they are, but I’m better off. And so are you. And so there’s two things that we can do with these kind of passages. We can walk around all puffed up, and what he’s getting at here is because I’m going to give you gifts. And we’ll talk about that in a moment, if we ever get to it. I’m going to give you gifts for the purpose of carrying out my purpose here on this earth. I got a purpose for you. In other words, I didn’t just save you for you to sit around and praise that God had been saved for 100 years. And so you are a 50-year-old Christian talking about your salvation experience. I didn’t save you for that. I saved you to do something with that salvation.
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A Closer Look Bible Studies features eight in-depth study guides that detail hundreds of Bible verses to help you deepen your understanding of the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. A Closer Look Bible Study Guides are an excellent tool for both individuals and larger Bible study groups. Please visit bobgeorge.net to order your copy of A Closer Look Bible Studies as well as many other wonderful books, CDs, and study guides. With your support, we can continue to share the good news of Jesus Christ. Let’s continue now with our Classic Christianity radio program.
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And I’m going to give you gifts to carry out that function. And I don’t want you to be thinking more highly of yourself than you ought because of your gift. I want you to think with sober judgment, it says. Think soberly. Praise God for what I have done for you. But if I’m going to give you a gift, don’t be bragging about your gift. I’m the one who gave it to you. Well, what do we have today? Well, we’ve got people so proud of their gifts, you can’t even stand it. In fact, they come down and say, if you don’t have that gift, you’re not even saved. Now, how ridiculous is that? If you don’t have this particular gift or this particular gift, you’re not saved. Are you saved by gifts? I thought you were saved by a person. But you see, we sit there. It’s like a dog. You point to the dog. There’s your food over there. And the dog comes and sniffs your finger. God pointing you to something and we’re up sniffing fingers. Getting all hung up on what God says, don’t get hung up on. Please do not get hung up on. But he said to think in sober judgment according to the measure of faith God has given you. Do you realize that God has given every man on the measure of faith to be a believer? Some people will say, some theologies say that the elect you know they’re the ones who are given the gift of faith but the non-elect weren’t because no one has the faith to come to christ that’s nonsense it says in the scripture very very clearly that we’ve all been given the same measure of faith that god has given us god has given all of us a measure of faith whether we use it or not is a different thing isn’t it whether you develop your faith is a different thing is it am i right But all of us have been given the measure of faith to believe and to grow and to mature. Some have taken greater advantage of that. And some have not. Why that’s the case, I don’t know. I really don’t know. Why when I came to Christ, when I was never a reader, I didn’t like to read. I read because I had to. And I read because I had to read a book in order to get a grade. In order to graduate. but i didn’t like it but when i came to christ i couldn’t get out of this bible i read it constantly constantly to this day it’s the most fascinating book in the world nobody sit around and say well i’m just intellectually smart because i didn’t get that good a grade didn’t get bad grades but i certainly didn’t get the kind of grades i could have had i opened a book that would have helped figured that one out You’d have helped if I owned one. But God gave an intensity to study this word and to learn what truth is and be set free. So there is a case in which some of us have used the faith that God has given us and developed that through the years. And some who have just kind of ignored it. So again, if you’ve been in one of those situations of ignoring it through the years, then today’s the day to start not ignoring it. And to get into the Word and let God grow you. Because you’re never too late. It’s never too late to grow in the Lord, is it? So he’s saying that we should think of ourselves as sober judgment in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. And just as each of us has one body with many members. is going to give this analyzation now of our body. That all of these members do not have the same function. So Christ, in Christ, we who are many form one body. This is a body. We talk about our church, but guys, really we don’t have a church, do we? It’s Christ’s church, isn’t it? And Christ’s church is not made up of people who attend. It’s made up of born-again believers. And then born-again believers are told, don’t forsake the assembling of yourself together. If you want to screw up a marriage, just get away from church. Get away from fellowship and with other believers. And go back into the world, just see what it does for you. Some of you have tried. Doesn’t work. That’s going out into the world and trying to gain their wisdom instead of saying, no, I’m going to let God renew my mind on truth. Because that truth will set you free. You see, again, as an example in marriage, you have, you guys have never had an argument, have you? Remember one at least, or maybe one. Okay, and what always goes on with that? You’ve never had one. You probably haven’t. What goes on with that? Well, I’m thinking this way. Well, that’s a man’s thing. Well, I’m thinking this way. Well, that’s a woman’s thing. And so we’ve even bought that story. Well, that’s the way women think. Yeah, that’s the way we think. Well, how are you going to get along? Unless you start thinking like a woman, I hope you never do. You’d be an ugly woman. And you start thinking like, that ain’t going to happen. So how are you going to get along when you’re thinking man things and you’re thinking woman things? I’ll tell you how you’re going to get along. Let’s forget about thinking like a woman and thinking like a man. Let’s start asking Jesus what he thinks. You see, we have an intermediary. We have someone in between the two of us that both Amy can go to and I can go to that we’re going to get wisdom. Every single time we’re going to get his wisdom, not woman wisdom and man’s wisdom. We bought that too often. But his wisdom. What does God want us to do in this situation? Not what I want to do as a man. Not what I want to do as a woman. What does God want us to do? You’ll have a successful marriage in that. But if you keep thinking this man and woman stuff, that never ends. Unless you’re going to become a woman, like I say, or a man, that never ends. So we have to have this intermediary. We have to have this person that we can go to that’s our counselor. Isn’t that what they use a counselor for? You go to a counselor, my wife feels this way or my husband feels this way. The counselors sit there and say, well, here’s how you ought to feel. Of course, he’s as messed up as you are. Now he says that just as each of us have one body with many members, and these members don’t all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body. According to the grace that God has given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying… Now guys, there’s an argument… or a discussion in regard to prophecy, whether prophecy and prophesying and those type of things are still in existence. But if you want a definition of prophecy, you might mark this in your Bible, 1 Corinthians 14, 3. 1 Corinthians 14, 3. As I see prophecy and prophesying, I see it relating to instruction to the body more than an individual. Now, you have some people that say, oh, I’m a prophet and God told me to tell you this. How many of you ever had that? Somebody come up to you and say, God told me to tell you this. Well, good. Tell him to tell me. Because I don’t need you to tell me what God wants to tell me. That’s just an ego trip, and a lot of people are on it. But when you have prophecy, here’s what it says about everyone who prophesies speaks to men, that’s a group, a body, speaks to men for their strengthening, their encouragement and comfort, and someone who is truly prophesying, in other words, encouraging people, strengthening people, comforting people, edifies the church. Now, he says in the way they were using this gift edifies yourself. You’re sitting there making yourself happy. But you’re not edifying the body. You’re not doing a thing for the body. And so I believe that when you’re talking about a person who maybe has the gift of prophecy… if that gift is still in existence, but if it relates to what the Scripture says, that it’s a gift to be exercised to the body of Christ for their edification. In other words, to straighten them up. To strengthen, encourage, and comfort the body of Christ. Then that would be the gift of prophecy. It isn’t someone sitting there that the world’s going to come to an end in 2007. And then when 2007’s over, I might have missed that by a year or two. You have people made millions of dollars on writing books like that when the world’s coming to an end. Jehovah’s Witness, 144,000, when 144,000 got in, well, that was going to be it. Then their membership exceeded 144,000 and they’d change it. So there’s all kinds of prophets like that. Now, in the Old Testament, if you were a prophet and you made a mistake, you were burnt at the stake. You were killed. In other words, if your prophecy was ever not true, you were a goner. So that’s how they determined whether someone was going to declare himself to be a prophet or not. Now, if you were a long-term prophet, well, you’d probably get away with that like a weatherman. But if you’ll kind of think of what prophecy, talking basically to the church instead of us individually, as other things do. As an example, the gift of evangelism. That’s a gift. Although Billy Graham may be speaking to 100,000 people, he’s speaking to you. And the day that you came to Christ, he was speaking to you. So that’s a gift that although you can speak to masses, it’s a gift that basically I can’t save masses. Christ didn’t come to save the church. He came to save people and put them into the church. So he says, if your gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. In other words, don’t get off on a faith trip. Use it in proportion to what I give to you to say. If it’s serving, let him serve. There’s a great gift of servitude, guys, that many times we ignore. And you ought to be exercising it. We should be exercising these gifts in the body of Christ in one way or another. Many of you already do that. If it’s teaching, let him teach. If you have the gift of teaching, then teach in accordance to the faith that God’s given you. Encouraging. There’s a gift. People, how many know somebody that just encourages you all the time? You’re just one of those people, every time you talk to them, they got a word of encouragement for you. Learn from them. Learn from them. That’s what gifts are for. I never had, as an example, the gift of giving. My idea of healthy giving was a dollar on the offering plate. Every Sunday, though. But I was not saying that was a big gift. I had to learn that. And I learned that from people with the gift of giving. I learned that from people. I saw how they gave and how God just replenished.
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Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another, and praise the Lord. Amen.
This episode challenges listeners to examine their beliefs about forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life. Bob George questions prevalent misconceptions,…
