Chapter 7 of Acts:<\/p>\n
Stephen, one of the first deacons, shared the gospel starting with Abraham.\u00a0 Christianity is not a new religion; it is the fulfillment and continuation of God\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n
Stephen might have been okay with his speech if he did not conclude with a strong altar call in verses 51-53.\u00a0 You!\u00a0 The world is okay with us believing in Jesus, they just don\u2019t want us to share Christ.\u00a0 This is why the Chaplains in our military cannot evangelize; they can only teach in their services and answer questions when asked.\u00a0 The world is somewhat okay with us keeping our Christ to ourselves.\u00a0 The only problem is God told us to share it.\u00a0 We are told to confront the world with their misconceptions and false beliefs.\u00a0 It is a burden to know the truth.<\/p>\n
Stephen\u2019s altar call turns into a mob that kills him.\u00a0 I guess all things don\u2019t work together for good?\u00a0 I guess that verse was not written yet.\u00a0 Or maybe it means something different than we have thought.\u00a0 Maybe to go without and die for the gospel is a good thing some times.\u00a0 Maybe our bad day is a good day for God\u2019s kingdom.\u00a0 Maybe that doctor\u2019s visit is to bring the gospel to that doctor.<\/p>\n
Note verse 58 and the young man who is named Saul.\u00a0 He will become a very important person that will take the gospel to the Gentiles.\u00a0 Today Saul curses the church and grows up to persecute the church killing Christians.\u00a0 In a few chapters God will captivate Saul\u2019s heart.\u00a0 Right now religion captivates his mind; he is blinded by what he believes.\u00a0 Soon God will liberate Saul\u2019s mind through his heart and Saul will become a voice for the church.<\/p>\n
Be careful of the statement, \u201cI don\u2019t believe that\u201d.\u00a0 Many are going to miss heaven because their mind has closed their heart to truth.\u00a0 Many have left the truth of God for a lie that they have chosen to believe.\u00a0 Paul who was Saul, tells us in Romans 12, to renew our mind by God\u2019s Spirit and by God\u2019s Word.\u00a0 We are allowing this to happen as we read together and as we let God\u2019s word speak to us.<\/p>\n
The question the Spirit keeps saying to me today is; how important is the gospel to you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"excerpt","protected":false},"author":1167,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","filesize_raw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-reading"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1157"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1160,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157\/revisions\/1160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}