Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: MIX (10/22/15)
- TITLE: A Mixed Gospel
By Diane M. Bowman
10/28/15 -
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Just one question remained. What direction should they go up to take the land?
Twelve carefully selected men set out to strategize a battle plan to claim what God had already given them. Ten of the men returned to the camp quivering in fear. They saw the enemy and compared it to themselves. The other two saw the enemy, compared it to God, and returned courageous. At the words of the ten fearful men, the shoulders of the people drooped. The sound of their weeping reached the throne of God that night.
The children of Israel mixed the gospel with unbelief and died in the wilderness.
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They looked down across their long noses and snorted.
<i>Who was this man who dared to consider himself a prophet? Look at the people he kept company with - did he not see their sin? Why, he acts as if he doesn't care. He doesn't follow the law as we do. He must be a fraud.</i>
With noses held even higher, they marched away.
The Pharisees mixed the gospel with pride and condemned their Savior.
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Simon believed the message Phillip preached. The son of God had died to atone for their sin. Three days later, he had risen from the grave, conquering death.
When Peter and John arrived, he stood at the edge of the crowd, watching while they gave the Holy Spirit to people by laying their hands on them and praying. He felt the bile rise up in his throat. These were his people. They had been under his control. Then Simon relaxed as a thought came to him.
Maybe I could do what they are doing and reclaim my place of influence. I wonder how much money it would take to buy this power from Peter...
Simon mixed the gospel with lust and missed the blessing of the Holy Spirit.
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A brilliant light from heaven knocked him to his knees.
"Why are you persecuting me?"
"Who are you, Lord?"
"I am Jesus."
He stood up and immediately followed every detail of the instructions received from his Lord.
Paul mixed the gospel with faith and turned the world upside down.
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What have you mixed with the gospel?
For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
(Hebrews 3:16-4:2 KJV)
Number 13:1 - 14:22, Matthew 9:11-13, Acts 8:5-24, Acts 9:4-6, Acts 17:6
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