{"id":9426,"date":"2022-09-11T00:00:28","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T14:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/?p=9426"},"modified":"2022-09-13T08:07:09","modified_gmt":"2022-09-12T22:07:09","slug":"9426","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/2022\/09\/11\/9426\/","title":{"rendered":"The Controversial Kingdom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Matthew 10:34-36\u00a0<em><sup>34<\/sup>Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword. <sup>35<\/sup>For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. <sup>36<\/sup>And the enemies of a person are those of his own household.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Following Jesus is all-consuming. The response that others give to our decision to follow Jesus may create friction between us and them. Jesus warns his disciples that their families may not like their decision. We need to read verse 34 in the context of Jesus sending out his disciples into mission. Jesus is the Prince of Peace, but his peace will be opposed by people. The message of the Kingdom of God stirs up controversy and causes the darkness to fight back even more. Those who have been deceived by the darkness and descend into determined evil will pull out swords to destroy the people of the Light of the World. The sword Jesus brings is the fight against the darkness, and evil will not sit idly by. But the type of sword Jesus brings is the word of truth.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Those closest to us may be the most difficult to reach. Jesus warns his disciples of the possible response their families will give. Their families may react in the same way as the religious leaders in verse 17. The message of Jesus divides people. Those who choose to follow Jesus often face tremendous social pressure; it costs them much to believe. What leads them to make this choice? The hope that the gospel gives. The world is full of fear, but this fear is misplaced and distorted. We must move beyond the gospel as an ethical system of good to the gospel as a person who provides life.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">For older posts, click\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/blog\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=DavidAckermanDailyDevotions&amp;loc=en_US\">Subscribe to Daily Devotions by Email<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matthew 10:34-36\u00a034Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword. 35For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36And the enemies of a person are those [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotions","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9426"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9439,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9426\/revisions\/9439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}