​Study Twenty-Four
 
Forgiveness from the Heart
 
 

​15 Moreover, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. 17 And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector (Matthew 18:15–17).
 
Jesus gave us many behavior standards to apply to our lives. None of them are rules or regulations, simply suggestions to make our lives work better.  Take the brother above. What would such a person do today? He’d gripe, complain, point out his opponent’s weaknesses to everyone who can hear us. In other words, we take damaging situations and turn them into destructive situations. The pattern Jesus left for us makes everybody a winner, and no one else needs to be involved, unless of course, the wounded person wants retribution.
 
For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there (James 3:16).
 
This is what happens to the one who wants retribution and wants to obtain his vengeance himself. Here’s what happens to one who will try to find peace the spiritual way:

​Study Twenty-Three
 
Let us Pray
 
 

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you (John 15:7).
 
When we talk to God, we call that prayer. You speak. He listens. He speaks. You listen. Prayer is having a conversation with God, and He likes that very much! He wants you to go to Him for everything you need and want.
 
14 You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you (John 15:14, 15).
 
These verses should tell you that God will tell you everything He knows. But you have to ask. It’s not up to Him to distribute His knowledge. It’s up to you to obtain it. How do you do that? The same way as you learn something on the earth. You ask questions.

​Study Twenty-Two
 
The Eye of Faith
 
 

​While we do not look at the things that are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things that are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).
 
When I was a baby Christian, the Lord encouraged me to take a trip in the spirit realm. I wanted to know how to get into the Spirit, so He took me to the spiritual world to teach me. It’s really very simple. All I have to do is want to go there and imagine I am there, and then—I am there. On that first trip I sat on His lap, and we chatted for a long time. Then He said I could visit the throne room any time I wanted.
 
At first, I was in that throne room day and night, looking around, investigating where I would be living for eternity! Then the natural world pulled on me to attend to things there, and slowly my trips to heaven were taking a back seat to what needed to be done on this earth. But by this time, I had learned the spiritual world cannot be seen with the human eye. However, I can see eternal things in my spirit right here on earth.
 

Study Twenty-One
 
As We Speak
 

​2 For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, also able to bridle the whole body. 3 Indeed, we put bits in horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body. 4 Look also at ships, although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. 5 Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things.
 
See how great a forest a little fire kindles? 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature. And it is set on fire by hell. 7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. 8 But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison (James 3:2–8).
 
My tongue can get me in so much trouble! I can figure out exactly what I want to say; I can rehearse it and rehearse it and rehearse it, yet when I open my mouth to speak, the words that I practiced don’t come out. In fact, what does come out is embarrassing to me because it is closer to the full truth than I was ready to say.

Study Twenty
 
Our Walk
 

Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him (Hebrews 10:38).
 
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).
 
For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith (Romans 12:3).
 
1 Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. 4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God (1 John 5:1–5).
 

Study Nineteen
 
Faith Acts

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20 My son, give attention to my words, incline your ear to my sayings. 21 Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; 22 for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh. 23 Keep your heart with all your diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life (Proverbs 4:20–23).
 
His words. Therein lies the power for us. We are to keep His words in our ears. The only way I know how to do that is to read His word—the Bible. Do you know that when you read His word, you are hearing those words in your heart? We are to keep His words in our eyes. Now how do we do that? I suggest you use your imagination and visualize what you are reading. And how about keeping His word in our heart? That clearly means memorizing the word to me.
 
And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,” we also believe and therefore speak (2 Corinthians 4:13).
​

Study Eighteen
 
Obtaining Faith

​ 

​For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8).
 
Jesus has made a way where there seems to be no way, that is, where do we find Him and what do we do with the gifts He has given? To begin to answer that question, realize that we must first work on ourselves.
 
For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith (Romans 12:3).
 
The first thing we must do to receive from God is to develop humility in ourselves. And the second thing is to see ourselves as God sees us. God wants honest children. The third thing is to develop trust in God.
 

​Study Seventeen
 
The Healing Jesus brought to us.

4 Surely, He has borne our sicknesses and carried our pains; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 Yet He was pierced through for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace/prosperity was upon Him, and by His lashing that cut into His skin we are healed (Isaiah 53:4, 5).
 
With His death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus gave us three major gifts destined to change the daily lives of all believers living on the earth.  You can read them in the verse above from Isaiah.  They are 1) Forgiveness of sins, 2) Healing, and 3) prosperity. These gifts solve the problems faced on the earth. These difficulties do not exist in heaven, so there is no need of these gifts there.

​Study Sixteen
 
The Compassion of God

So often unbelieves like to slap me in the face with this: “Well, if God is so great, why is there so much evil in the world? People are in pain and misery and are dying everywhere, but I don’t see Him doing anything about it. He must be a God who says one thing and does another.” I tell them to read Psalm 23, the one most kids had to memorize if they had any Sunday School experience at all.
 
1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.
3 He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
 
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff they comfort me.
 
5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever (Psalm 23:1–6).
​​

Study Fifteen
 
God’s Word is Medicine for Complete Healing
​
 

The Word of God is the Power of God. When you stand on His Word, like meditating it, thinking about it, repeating it, and rolling it around in your imagination, you will obtain whatever the Word is presenting to you. In this case, today, we are obtaining healing through the Word of God. God gave us His Word so that we can use it for our needs and wants.
 
For the Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).
 
…having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the Word of God, which lives and abides forever (1 Peter 1:23).
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