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Explain how Bible study, fellowship, and prayer can be called different forms of spiritual communication.
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Bible study, both individually and in small group, provides the opportunity for God to communicate to me through His inspired Word as it communicates in II Timothy 3:16. (“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”) God’s Word then, is THE method the Lord uses to touch my heart. And once He does, it provides me the opportunity to pray through what I need to hear and learn, as well as providing an avenue to pray for others.
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Explain how Bible study, fellowship, and prayer can be called different forms of spiritual communication.
God wants us to know him, he created us so he can have a relationship with us. In order to get to know him, he gave us His Word, a manual, Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth. He showed us how to pray. I pray to God like I’m having a regular conversation with a close friend. When I need fatherly love, i pray to him like a child talking to their dad. When I need comfort, I intimately cry out in yearning for his spirit to envelope me. Since we are not created to be alone, God engraved in us to lean on fellow believers as a sibling, or parent figure, or an aunt or uncle for wisdom and guidance as well as to grow in Him through Him and others.
Jayna -
I started my walk with Jesus during 4th grade, talking to Him and spending time with Him, praising and thanking Him. I moved to reading His Word through a Bible study I purchased, and now have found a Church for fellowship. Jesus was my Teacher, Counselor, Guide, and Family. I had no one for fellowship until 3 years ago.
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Bible study is letting God speak to us through the Scriptures, His love letter to us. Here we learn about God: His character, will, deeds, teachings, commands, promises, plans, etc. Prayer, on the other hand, is our way of communicating with God. We speak to Him as a friend confides to a friend, or as a child expressing his love, needs, and desires to a loving father. Fellowship is also a form of spiritual communication as we connect with the body of Christ and encourage one another through sharing our joys and burdens as one big family of believers.
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All of those are areas in which we can grow spiritually and experience the fruitful life of growth in Christ. Yet, they have different characteristics. From Bible study, we communicate with God by immersing ourselves deeply into the Words of God. We let the Scripture speaks for Itself as it teaches us the Truth and grows our knowledge and understanding of God. From fellowship with fellow believers in Christ, we share the joy and the experiences we have from living life with God as we also experience together as a community the goodness of God. From prayer, we come to a close, personal, and intimate conversation with God to tell Him everything we feel and think, as well as to surrender ourselves to His loving hands and His greater plan. These are not mere activities but a communication and a relationship with God.