{"id":611,"date":"2018-04-05T22:28:29","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T22:28:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/?p=611"},"modified":"2018-04-05T22:28:29","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T22:28:29","slug":"acts-7-51-stiff-necked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/?p=611","title":{"rendered":"Acts 7: 51 &#8211; \u201cStiff-Necked\u201d ?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Absorbing God\u2019s Word<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou stiff-necked people!\u00a0Your hearts\u00a0and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!\u201d Acts 7: 51<\/p>\n<p><strong>Applying God\u2019s Word<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The members of the Sanhedrin stoned the disciple Stephen to death, for the above comment.<\/p>\n<p>This scripture reminds me that for the first thirty-nine Easters of my life, I rejected the gift of the Holy Spirit. Each year I had been asked repeatedly to open my ears to God\u2019s word and my heart to receiving His Holy Spirit. I was one of those stiff-necked people who resisted the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n<p>For the last thirty-two years, I\u2019ve lived empowered by the Holy Spirit. I had to make an adult choice about who I was going to serve; myself or God. Words can\u2019t describe how amazing that choice has been.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe you\u2019re ready for the empowerment of the Holy Spirit? Jesus gave His life so that we could receive this incredible gift. All it takes is an open heart and ears that are willing to hear. Repentance of every sin we\u2019ve committed is very key. So is acceptance of Jesus as our Lord and Savior. And then we simply ask God to release His Holy Spirit in us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Accounting of God\u2019s Word<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Am I empowered by God\u2019s Holy Spirit? Am I inviting others to be empowered by God\u2019s Holy Spirit?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Absorbing God\u2019s Word \u201cYou stiff-necked people!\u00a0Your hearts\u00a0and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!\u201d Acts 7: 51 Applying God\u2019s Word The members of the Sanhedrin stoned the disciple Stephen to death, &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/?p=611\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}