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I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

Did you not listen to what I said? Anyone who has children have said or thought this, often. Paul made it clear that the power of the gospel did not come from the authority of the messenger, though his authority was well established, the strength of the good news of Jesus is in the message itself. Paul said that we are saved by faith and not by works, and anyone who tells you different, even if Paul himself changed his mind, do not buy it for a second. Test every blog, test every book, test every sermon… not against the reliability of the one giving it, but by the content itself. If it jives with the Bible, then it is good (even if the messenger is bad), if it doesn’t match Scripture, then reject it, even if it’s from Billy Graham himself. 😉

And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

We make plans and we act on how we think we can best serve the Lord, yet, it is God who is in control. Paul is recounting how they sought to go to Asia, but the Holy Spirit redirected them. They tried to go to Bithynia, but Jesus’ Spirit had different plans. They went down to Troas, and it was there, though they may have been tempted to feel like failures because their plans were not working out, it was THERE God revealed His plans for them. You are not a failure! That’s impossible. You may fail at YOUR PLANS, but yours are not the plans that count, it’s God’s. You’re right where He knew you would be, poised to be used according to His plans. This is also where Luke joins the team (notice “they went” then “we sought to go”). If Paul’s plans had panned out, we might not have ever had the book of Acts written by Luke (probably Paul’s cousin).

For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.

As the church was forming, one of the hardest thing for the believers to accept was the “new people.” You can almost hear them “we’ve never done it that way before!” (this is not a new issue in churches). The Apostles agreed, for the sake of the gospel, agree with the common sense traditions of abstaining from idol sacrifices, don’t consume blood, and don’t eat something that was strangled. There’s nothing inherently “sinful” in these things, but that would be hard for devout Jews to swallow. So too, there may be things that your church has as tradition, we all do. For the sake of the gospel, be willing to go along… as long as it is for the gospel. If something hinders the Truth, that’s not acceptable… It is interesting, though, sexual immorality is listed. Obviously, this is sin, but a sin that is so easy to “bend” on while welcoming new people in… we can’t. To be part of the church is to commit to sexual purity. In what you see, what you do, and how you live, not as perfect, but being sanctified through repentance. If you can do this, “you do well”

Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

We pray. Does it make a difference? Absolutely! How prayer works itself out in that we pray to an all-knowing all-powerful sovereign God is something not so easy to work out, but the fact that prayer does work is not in question. The Bible tells us so. Even our physical ailments are a matter of prayer for the church. We are commanded to pray for one another. Here’s the thing, though the Bible does promise us healing, God doesn’t promise us when… except for the resurrection. See, the mature leaders of the church can come together and pray for your healing, and it might not come, you may even die… but that doesn’t mean you won’t be healed. Death is never the end of the story for the Believer. Your sins have been forgiven, so you will be raised imperishable! One day, all of our bodies will be like Jesus’. One day, we will all be healed of everything, including our sin. God will raise you up… until then, we pray.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Should we make plans? Yes, we should, it tells us right there “you ought to say.” We make plans, but we trust the Lord. You shouldn’t live your life being tossed back and forth, you need goals, you need direction. This is the right thing to do. So, now we know. Sin is not just what we do, it’s also not doing the right thing. Sin is very tricky… that’s why we can never master it. Trust in the Lord.