Here is this week’s outline & verses in a downloadable PDF format.
2020 Summer Truth Pursuit – Week 1
Spend some time this morning to open up to the Lord in prayer regarding what He touched you with during the previous six days. Review your notes and the outline points and verses. Ask the Lord what He would have you share with all the saints. Prepare a prophecy (1-2 minutes long) to share with the saints what you enjoyed this week.
Week 1: God’s Eternal Purpose and His Economy
I. God’s eternal purpose is to make man in His image, so that man can express Him, and give man His dominion, to represent Him, so that man can exercise His authority – Gen. 1:26-27
A. Image—to express God:
1. The Bible uses the example of a son being the expression of his father – John 1:18.
2. This shows that God’s image is a matter of life inwardly – 2 Pet. 1:3-4.
Genesis 1:26–27 And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of heaven and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. 27 And God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
John 1:18 No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
2 Peter 1:3–4 Seeing that His divine power has granted to us all things which relate to life and godliness, through the full knowledge of Him who has called us by His own glory and virtue, 4 Through which He has granted to us precious and exceedingly great promises that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world by lust.
B. Dominion—to represent God:
1. To exercise His authority.
2. This is also a matter of life inwardly, because only by God’s life (Christ—Col. 3:4) can we represent God – 1 John 4:4.
Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let Us make man…and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of heaven and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.
Colossians 3:4 When Christ our life is manifested, then you also will be manifested with Him in glory.
1 John 4:4 You are of God, little children; and you have overcome them because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
C. God’s eternal purpose can only be accomplished by His economy, His plan, His household administration, which is to dispense Himself into His believers as life and everything so that they can be built up to be the Body of Christ – Gen. 2:9-10; Eph. 3:8-11; John 10:10b.
Genesis 2:9-10 And out of the ground Jehovah God caused to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, as well as the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 And a river went forth from Eden to water the garden, and from there it divided and became four branches.
Ephesians 3:9-11 And to enlighten all that they may see what the economy of the mystery is, which throughout the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things, 10 In order that now to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenlies the multifarious wisdom of God might be made known through the church, 11 According to the eternal purpose which He made in Christ Jesus our Lord,
John 10:10 …I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly.
II. God selected and predestinated many people to be His sons – Eph. 1:4-5:
A. We were chosen by God the Father to be holy – Eph. 1:4:
1. This is for us to partake of God the Father’s holy nature to be made the same as God in nature – 2 Pet. 1:4; Rom. 15:16; cf. Rev. 21:2.
2. This is to be sanctified, separated from all things, as God is, and saturated with God – Rom. 15:16; cf. Rev. 21:2:
a. We need to love God and not love the world (1 John 2:15), being separated from the world by God’s word of truth (John 17:14-19; Eph. 5:26), not being fashioned according to this age (Rom. 12:2a).
b. We need to present ourselves to God to be saturated by God with the element of His holy nature (Rom. 6:19) unto the eternal life (v. 22) to be renewed by the Spirit for our transformation into the image of Christ (Titus 3:5b; Rom. 12:2b; 2 Cor. 3:18).
Ephesians 1:4-5 Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before Him in love, 5 Predestinating us unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,
2 Peter 1:4 Through which He has granted to us precious and exceedingly great promises that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world by lust.
John 17:17 Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.
Romans 12:2 And do not be fashioned according to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and well pleasing and perfect.
2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.
B. We were predestinated by God the Father unto sonship – Eph. 1:5:
1. This is to have God the Father’s life (John 3:16), being made God’s children, the same as God is in life by being born of God after God’s kind through regeneration (John 1:12-13; 1 Pet. 1:3).
2. This is for our being “sonized” with God the Father’s life in our entire tripartite being – 1 John 5:11-12; Rom. 8:10, 6, 11; 1 John 3:2.
John 1:12-13 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name, 13 Who were begotten not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
1 John 5:11-12 And this is the testimony, that God gave to us eternal life and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.
Romans 8:10 But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.
Romans 8:6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.
C. God the Father chose us to be holy by predestinating us unto sonship – Eph. 1:4-5:
1. This is the divine sanctification for the divine sonship as the center of the divine economy and the central thought of the revelation in the New Testament – Heb. 2:10-11; 1 Thes. 5:23; Rev. 21:2, 7.
2. In order to be sanctified for sonship, we must care for the sanctifying Spirit speaking and working in our spirit – Rom. 8:4, 6; 15:16.
Hebrews 2:10-11 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things, in leading many sons into glory, to make the Author of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11 For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of One, for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brothers,
1 Thessalonians 5:23 And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Revelation 21:7 He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be God to him, and he will be a son to Me.
Romans 16:20 Now the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.
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