How To Lose A Blessing In Three Easy Lessons Series

HOW TO LOSE A BLESSING IN THREE EASY STEPS

Acts 13:42-52

My brothers and sisters there are many people around us that have fell to realize that by rejecting God’s word, they really chose to lose their blessing to receive eternal life as promised. In this so called complex world, many have more unlearned questions than they have legitimate questions. They question the salvation methods of Christianity, but except the words of religions that provide no way out of their sinful ways. They think that the question of the day is, did Christ really rise from the dead, or is it just good reading? And they ask these questions not because they want the truth, but because it makes them sound like a thinker. It is not what you think, but it is what you believe. It is simply your choice.

I read an interesting story the other day about a man named Michael who was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. Whenever someone asked him how was he, he would always reply “If I was any better, I would be a twin.” If someone way having a bad day, he would tell them to look on the bright side of it. So, one day he was asked, How does he do it? After all he couldn’t be positive all the time. So Michael’s answer was that each morning that he wakes up he says to himself, “Mike you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood. And each time he chose to be in a good mood. He said when something happens he can choose to be the victim or choose to learn from it. Or everytime someone comes to him complaining, he can choose to accept their complaining or can point out the positive side of life. Life is all about choices. When you choose to cut away all the junk, it can be a pleasant thing.

The bottom line is: It’s your choice the way you live your life.

But one day Michael fell sixty feet from a communications tower and had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery, and his friend found out and visited him after he was released from the hospital. He had pins and rods placed in his back and was in a lot of pain. And when he asks Michael how did he feel, he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins. Then his friend asked, what went through his mind as the accident took place? And he said the first thing was the well fair of his soon to be born daughter. Then he said, as he laid there he remembered he had two choices: he could choose to live or choose to die. He chose to live.

Michael continued, When they wheeled him into the ER and he saw the expressions on the doctor’s faces, he got scared, because in their eyes, they were expecting his death. So he knew that he had to take action. When he was asked what did he do? He said, that there was a burly nurse asking him if was he was allergic to anything. And Michael said yes. The doctors and nurses stopped to hear what he had to say, and he took a deep breath and said that he was allergic to gravity. And over the laughter of the doctors and nurses he told them that “I’m choosing to live, and operate on me as if I have a great chance to do so.”

That story showed us that if we choose to have the best, we will have it. (SermonCentral.com)

That is what this lesson is about, losing a blessing, not because someone took it from us, but because we chose to give it up and that is what some of the Jews did at Antioch.

In our last lesson we talked about the Opposition at Paphos. We saw Barnabas and Paul being opposed by a man named Elymas as they attempted to bring the Gospel of Christ to Sergius Paulus who had requested their presence. It was Elymas who tried to convince Sergius Paulus that the message that Barnabas and Paul were bringing was the message of a fraud and the way of Judaism was the only way. But Paul being filled with the Holy Ghost, spoke boldly to him and the Spirit in him caused Elymas to leave his presence in search of someone to lead him by the hand, because he was struck with blindness.

In this lesson, Paul and Barnabas is preaching in the synagogue and when the Jews left the synagogue, the Gentiles besought them to preach once more the word of life to them on the next Sabbath. Even some of the Jews and the religious proselytes followed them speaking to them to continue in the grace of God. But soon we will witness the devout Jews rejecting the gospel once too many times. In fact in verse 46, we once again see these great missionaries speaking under the influence of the Holy Spirit, but this time they are letting the Jews know that it was necessary for the word of God to first be spoken to them, but since they rejected it and determined within themselves to be not worthy of everlasting life, they (Paul and Barnabas) will take it to the Gentiles.