The eternal life connection of the soul!
A. There are different kinds of connections!
1. Blood connection,
such as the so called blood is thicker than water!
This is about family, such as husband, wife, father, mother, and children.
2. Friendship connection.
A young man departing to war for his country, he visits his female friend they grow up together.
He said to her: I am going to war and I do not know whether I will make it back alive.
I want to say good bye to you before I leave. When are you leaving? Right now! Take care of yourself.
And he walked away.
The girl called him and said: Do you love me? He said, yes! Then I will miss you!
Sounds like she could forget about him, if he said no!
This is love connection between two people!
It is invisible but it is real!
B. This is real love connection! Acts 20:17-38
1. From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders of the church. 20:17
2. To these people along with believers in Miletus he said:
I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance
and have faith in our Lord Jesus.
"And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem,
not knowing what will happen to me there. 20:21-22
3. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.
However, I consider my life worth nothing to me,
if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me--
the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace. 20:23-24
***4. Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again.
Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of all men.
For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. 20:25-27
5. Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.
Be shepherds of the church of the Lord, which he bought with his own blood.
I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock.
Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.
So be on your guard!
Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.
Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace,
which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. 20:28-32
6. When he had said this, he knelt down with all of them and prayed. 20:36
***7. They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him.
What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again. 20:37-38
C. Eternal life connection of the soul!
1. Connection within the church of Christ!
I had said these to a few people in the past:
When you drop out from the church of Christ, you drop out from my life, because the church is my life!
Please read Romans 12:4-5-->
As each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function,
so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
2. 1 Cor.12:12-13-->
The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts;
and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.
For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body--
whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free-- and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
3. Be connected, hold on to Christ, stay in his body, the church! Col.2:18-19
Let no man beguile you of your reward in a taking delight in humility
and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen,
vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, And not holding the Head,
from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered,
and knit together, increase with the increase of God.
May the Lord bless you and keep you always! preach this on October 23, 2011.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu86IWn5Ca4