Heavenly Father, we pray for preparation for Spiritual Warfare against powers and rulers of this world, as defined in your Word.
Isaiah
27 New
International Version (NIV)
Deliverance
of Israel
In that day, the Lord will punish with his sword— his fierce, great and powerful
sword— Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will
slay the monster of the sea.
In that day— “Sing about a fruitful
vineyard: I, the Lord,
watch over it; I water it continually.
I guard it day and night so that no one may harm it.
I am not angry.
If only there were briers and thorns confronting me! I
would march against them in battle; I would set them all on fire.
Or else let them come to me for refuge; let them make
peace with me, yes, let them make peace with me.”
In days to come Jacob will take
root, Israel
will bud and blossom and fill the entire world with fruit.
Has the Lord struck her as he struck down those who struck her?
Has she been killed as those were killed who killed
her?
By warfare and exile you contend with her— with his
fierce blast he drives her out, as on a day the east wind blows.
By this, then, will Jacob’s guilt be atoned for, and
this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin: When he makes all the
altar stones to be like limestone crushed to pieces, no Asherah poles or
incense altars will be left standing.
The fortified city stands desolate, an abandoned settlement,
forsaken like the wilderness; there the calves graze, there they lie down; they
strip its branches bare.
When its twigs are dry, they are broken off and women
come and make fires with them.
For this is a people without understanding; so their
Maker has no compassion on them, and their Creator shows them no favor.
In that day the Lord will thresh from the flowing Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you, Israel, will be gathered up one by
one. And in that day a great trumpet will
sound. Those who were perishing in Assyria and those who were exiled in Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.
Unbelievers or New Believers NIV Audio Bible, Dramatized
John
15 New
International Version (NIV)
The Vine
and the Branches
“I am the true
vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every
branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit
by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you
remain in me.
“I am the vine;
you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much
fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is
thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and
burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you,
ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This
is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my
disciples.
“As the Father
has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain
in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
I have told you this so that my joy may be in
you and that your joy may be complete. My command is
this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love
has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I
no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s
business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned
from my Father I have made known to you. You did not
choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear
fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father
will give you. This is my command: Love each other.
The
World Hates the Disciples
“If the world
hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would
love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have
chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’
If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my
teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you
this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of
sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever
hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done
among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it
is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me
without reason.’
The Work
of the Holy Spirit
“When the
Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who
goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have
been with me from the beginning.
Unbelievers or New Believers NIV Audio Bible, Dramatized
Ephesians
2 New
International Version (NIV)
Made Alive
in Christ
As for
you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when
you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air,
the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the
cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we
were by nature deserving of wrath. But because
of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in
transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated
us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the
incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ
Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved,
through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do
good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Jew and
Gentile Reconciled Through Christ
Therefore,
remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised”
by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by
human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ,
excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the
promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been
brought near by the blood of Christ.
For he
himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the
barrier, the dividing wall of hostility,
by setting aside in his flesh the law with its
commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity
out of the two, thus making peace, and in one
body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to
death their hostility. He came and preached
peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access to
the Father by one Spirit.
Consequently,
you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s
people and also members of his household,
built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to
become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him
you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his
Spirit.
Unbelievers or New Believers NIV Audio Bible, Dramatized
Romans
5 New
International Version (NIV)
Peace and
Hope
Therefore,
since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace
in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we
know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance,
character; and character, hope. And hope does
not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
You see,
at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the
ungodly. Very
rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone
might possibly dare to die. But God emonstrates
his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Since we
have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from
God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to
him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall
we be saved through his life! Not only is this
so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we
have now received reconciliation.
Death
Through Adam, Life Through Christ
Therefore,
just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in
this way death came to all people, because all sinned—
To be
sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged
against anyone’s account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned
from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by
breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.
But the
gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one
man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the
one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! Nor can the gift of God be
compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and
brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought
justification. For if, by the trespass of the
one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who
receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness
reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!
Consequently,
just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one
righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the
disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the
obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
The law
was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased,
grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might
reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord.
Unbelievers or New Believers NIV Audio Bible, Dramatized
Romans
6 New
International Version (NIV)
Dead to
Sin, Alive in Christ
What
shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who
have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into
Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We
were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just
as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may
live a new life.
For if
we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be
united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self
was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with,
that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because
anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
Now if
we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ
was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over
him. The death he died, he died to sin once for
all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
In the
same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign
in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of
wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought
from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of
righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your
master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
Slaves to
Righteousness
What
then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no
means! Don’t
you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are
slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death,
or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But
thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to
obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your
allegiance. You have been set free from sin and
have become slaves to righteousness.
I am
using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as
you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing
wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to
holiness. When
you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
What benefit did you reap at that time from the things
you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become
slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is
eternal life. For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life in[b] Christ
Jesus our Lord.
Unbelievers or New Believers NIV Audio Bible, Dramatized
In Jesus’ Name.
Amen.
Footnotes:
- Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. Purchased Product License 01/09/2015
Notes:
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