This promise is at one with the promises God made in Kings
and Chronicles that if His people turn and repent that He will heal their
land. The way back is simple,
acknowledge Him as king, reject all other gods that are not gods at all, and
confess your sin in apostasy. We can
make it difficult because we are hesitant to let go our idols, those things in
which we take security, but He will not share His glory with another, He is a
jealous God. If He is to be our God, we
must be single-minded in the matter, we cannot love Him and anything else,
money, job, family, friends, our position in life, whatever, we have to be
willing to let go of anything and everything else if He asks for it. We are too often materialists, however,
grasping to that which we can see instead of the hope He offers.
Jesus speaks of building a house with a firm foundation and
too often we reduce that equation to faith in our hearts but that isn't what
Jesus says here. He says "Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will
show you what he is like…" The
hearing isn't enough, doing is equally important. We have made faith the important thing but
Jesus said that faith had to evidence itself in action or it was only
hearing. Where is God leading you to act
in your life rather than just believing in your heart? Yes, faith is a matter of heart and mind but
it is meant to change our lives, we are to be identifiably different in our
living. That Jesus came, His death on
the cross was the atoning sacrifice for my sins, His resurrection means that I
will also be resurrected and live forever should change my attitude about
literally everything else in life. How does
that show in your life compared to those you know who don't know those truths?
Paul gets his chance to speak before his accusers. The tribune is so confused he wants to hear
this out between the parties. Is it
possible that Paul didn't know that Ananais was the high priest? Well, yes it is. The job of high priest was swapped several
times between a couple of men during
that time and Paul had not been in Jerusalem much so it is indeed possible he
was unaware who was high priest at the moment.
I wonder if Paul, several years before this, could have imagined not
knowing this information. He was no
longer a religious Jew so such things no longer concerned him. He finds the wedge issue to divide his
accusers and pushes it into place for the win.
Paul is assured by the Lord he will go to Rome but did he understand
that meant as a prisoner?
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