Do you want to be one of God’s children?<\/p>\n
—“If anyone will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”<\/p>\n
Have you decided to follow Jesus?<\/p>\n
—“No turning back.\u00a0 No turning back.”<\/p>\n
If you decided to follow Jesus, then what?<\/p>\n
—“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”<\/p>\n
If you follow Jesus, what changes should you expect?<\/p>\n
—“All who live Godly in Christ will suffer persecution.”<\/p>\n
Will you be at risk of persecution?<\/p>\n
—“You shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.” —Jesus<\/p>\n
Is it good if people hate you because you are a Christian?<\/p>\n
—“Blessed are you, when men revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.”<\/p>\n
Can you imagine joy in persecution?<\/p>\n
—“Rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven; for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”<\/p>\n
What evidence is there, that you would be declared guilty of being a Christian?<\/p>\n
—“You are the salt of the earth [makes people thirsty for Jesus].”<\/p>\n
—“You are the light of the world [people see Jesus in you].”<\/p>\n
What if you were arrested for your faith?<\/p>\n
—“And when they bring you before the religious institutions, and authorities, and powers that be, take no thought about how or what you will answer, or what you will say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in the same hour what you should say.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Real Christianity Required Right Around the Corner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Do you want to be one of God’s children? —“If anyone will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” Have you decided to follow Jesus? —“No turning back.\u00a0 No turning back.” If you decided to follow Jesus, then what? —“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educational","category-faith_based","category-political-cultural"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3705"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3706,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3705\/revisions\/3706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}