0190 1252 12-05-04 The zoe life, part 3: The zoe life is God's fantastic grace provision, far beyond anything you have ever asked for.

The Zoe-life. Part 3. The Zoe-life is God’s fantastic grace provision, far beyond anything you have ever asked for.

Sunday, December 5, 2004

Verses 11-12 – the correct interpretation of history and what it means to be on the right side of history and to accept your calling and place in life.

“I have learned” – manthano, and “I know” – oida, introduces our first subject – the importance of Bible doctrine.

JOH 14:6 I am the way [entrance], and the truth [doctrine], and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.

“The way” = the entrance into the plan of God.
“The truth” = what we learn after we enter into the plan of God.
“The life” = function that comes from truth or doctrine.

Socrates – “Contentment is natural wealth; luxury, artificial poverty.”

True contentment is a real, active, virtue.
It is the power of getting out of any situation all there is in it.

Being “contented” = being pleased.

Truth leads to a lifestyle.

Zoe – zoology.
Bios – biology.
Zoe = the function of life.
Bios = the pattern of life.

The zoe life is God’s fantastic grace provisions which are far beyond even your most fervent prayers.

The “zoe” life is God’s fantastic grace provisions which are far beyond things which you have ever asked for, from God or from others.

EPH 3:20 Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,

JOH 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have [zoe] life, and might have {it} abundantly.”

The “zoe” life is God’s fantastic grace provisions which are far beyond your fondest dreams.
1CO 2:9 However, as it stands written, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him.”

No matter how wild and seemingly impossible your dreams may be, God has provided something far greater than any thinking or imagination in any dream you have ever had.

The “zoe” life is the direct result of fulfilling the life beyond gnosis or knowledge.

The life beyond gnosis of EPH 3:19 is the means of entering the zoe life of EPH 3:20.

This zoe-life, a life filled with inner happiness and contentment, means that I am free from worrying, free from anxiety, free from frustration.

You are at rest not from troubles and anxieties but in the midst of troubles and anxieties.

JOH 10:10 “I came that they might have life, and might have {it} abundantly.”

Paul was living in the new creature or the new spiritual species under the filling of the Spirit but still wanted to attain or to experience this zoe-life, filled with inner happiness and contentment in time.

This zoe-life, a life filled with inner happiness and contentment, can be experienced as a reward only by those willing to live the spiritual life by sticking with the plan of God.

God not only rewards those who diligently seek Him in the eternal state, but also in time, HEB 11:6; MAR 10:30, not through materialism and overt prosperity, although He may do that to some, but through the experience of this zoe-life.

The new nature gives us the power and the ability to live the spiritual life but this zoe-life, filled with inner happiness and contentment, is the ultimate experience of living in that new nature.

We will experience times when the peace of God is such a reality in our lives that the problems and difficulties we are facing have no control over us whatsoever.

Does it mean that we have to keep on sowing to God the Holy Spirit to earn our eternal salvation?
To sow – pres-act-part – speiro = to sow, to invest one’s time, to invest one’s life.

If we keep on living the spiritual life we will keep on reaping more and more of the experience of our eternal life in time, the ultimate = what Paul had, this zoe-life.

1. Tranquility of soul. You begin to relax in your soul.
2. Stability of mental attitude, including never feeling threatened by others and avoiding inordinate ambition and competition.
3. Composure marked by self-assurance, which is the correct and accurate application of doctrine to life.

4. Grace-orientation to life which includes mercy toward yourself when you fail and giving others the benefit of the doubt.
5. Doctrinal-orientation to reality – based upon genuine humility, objectivity, teachability, spiritual common sense, and the avoidance of inordinate ambition and competition or inordinate self-esteem.
6. Good decisions from a position of strength, which includes motivation from personal love for God the Father plus divine viewpoint thinking.

7. Personal control of your life.
8. A personal sense of destiny, which includes solving the problems related to God, self, others, and things.
9. Self-confidence from wisdom – the function of doctrinal purity or the application of metabolized doctrine to experience.
10. Poise – the believer under spiritual self-command.

When a believer reaches spiritual maturity and goes on to supergrace and ultra-supergrace then he will have the privilege of experiencing the zoe life.

As we walk in dependence upon the Spirit, He will cause this zoe-life, a life filled with inner happiness and contentment, to flow through us as rivers of living water.

If you knew the magnitude of the desires of God for your life, you would relax and enjoy every day, living one day at a time.