The title I give chapter 23 is when anger controls you.\u00a0 We must not allow bitterness and a spirit of fighting to enter our lives.\u00a0 There are too many churches that have this spirit that will destroy anything God desires to do with a congregation.\u00a0 Remember we do not fight against flesh and blood but against the prince and power of the air (Ephesians\u00a06:12).\u00a0 Churches that battle make strange alliances with their enemies.\u00a0 In this chapter the Pharisees and Sadducees were in agreement so they could kill Paul.\u00a0 The Pharisees and Sadducees did not like one another. Paul questions what they believed and returned their focus back on one another Vs 7.\u00a0 But 40 people make an oath together to kill Paul or die trying.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Church, let\u2019s not be about making alliances against one another but an allegiance with Christ that will draw us together.<\/p>\n
In the middle of this turmoil Paul gets a word from the Lord in verse 11.\u00a0 Jesus Christ affirms to Paul that he will make it to Rome.\u00a0 Jesus said as you have testified of me in Jerusalem you will testify of me in Rome.\u00a0 Paul\u2019s faithfulness was rewarded and his ministry was expanded.\u00a0 As you have testified in Jerusalem you will in Rome.\u00a0 How faithful are we to testify for God?\u00a0 Why do we expect God to use us elsewhere?\u00a0 Be faithful where you are. As Paul was encouraged to be of good cheer let us have good cheer as we serve Christ where we are.<\/p>\n
We are in this together so let us rejoice together and work together for the sake of the gospel.\u00a0 We will never see eye to eye on everything, but let us stand in agreement on the gospel of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 We are blessed here at MBC and we rejoice in how God has chosen to use us.<\/p>\n
Lay down your anger and bitterness and rejoice in Christ today.<\/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-1231","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\/1231","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=1231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1232,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions\/1232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}