Now we see a dead church. \u00a0The church in Sardis has a name but no life. \u00a0They are holding on to history without writing their story with Christ. \u00a0Many claim Christianity but there is no spiritual life. \u00a0Not everyone who says \u201cLord, Lord\u201d will enter the kingdom of God, but those who do the will of my Father. \u00a0Life brings change and this is what we see happening in the church at Philadelphia. \u00a0They are alive in Christ and they are keeping His commandments. \u00a0They are living out their story for Christ.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The last church can be seen in too many churches today. \u00a0They are lukewarm! \u00a0They proclaim truth but do not want to get too serious about God\u2019s truth. \u00a0After all it is about winning people (or is it?) and we do not want to run off people, right? \u00a0Question: \u00a0Would you rather run off God or people? \u00a0Would you rather say no to God or to some individual? \u00a0God is standing at the door and knocking, this is not at a sinner\u2019s heart, but on the church door that says they proclaim His truth. \u00a0God is sick when we play games with His sacred death, burial and resurrection. \u00a0God is sick when we play games with His Word.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What individual church member are you? \u00a0How do you see your life contributing to the church? \u00a0We need each other and we must strive to be the church God uses for His glory regardless how the world see us.<\/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-3391","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\/3391","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=3391"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3392,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3391\/revisions\/3392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}