Here are three more important lessons from the seven sons of Sceva: <\/p>\n
(1) Those around you aren\u2019t necessarily with you.<\/i> Just because somebody hangs out with you, admires you, and tries to emulate you, doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re with you. These men followed Paul, studying his every move and trying to do what he did. But they had the wrong motives. They were never \u2018with\u2019 him at all! Are you concerned about losing certain people? Are you always trying to keep them happy? Do you wonder if you can make it in life without them? John writes, \u2018They went out from us, but they were not of us.\u2019<\/i> (1\u00a0John\u00a02:19\u00a0NKJV) When God removes a person who doesn\u2019t belong in your life, trust Him; He knows what\u2019s best. <\/p>\n
(2) Greater numbers don\u2019t always mean greater effectiveness.<\/i> These seven men together couldn\u2019t do what one Spirit-empowered apostle did. And remember, their father was a chief priest, so they knew how to \u2018do church\u2019. They fulfilled the Scripture: \u2018Having a form of godliness, but denying its power.\u2019<\/i> <\/p>\n
(3) Success isn\u2019t as easy as it looks.<\/i> Sceva\u2019s sons showed up towards the end of Paul\u2019s career. They weren\u2019t there in the beginning when he was humbled on the Damascus Road, or trained for three-and-a-half years in the Arabian Desert. These guys were looking for shortcuts. Just because someone writes a book about success, doesn\u2019t mean you can achieve overnight what took years of life experience on the part of the author. It\u2019s not that God can\u2019t give you instant success; it\u2019s that you need time, training, and in some cases a major overhaul to prepare you for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here are three more important lessons from the seven sons of Sceva: (1) Those around you aren\u2019t necessarily with you. Just because somebody hangs out with you, admires you, and tries to emulate you, doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re with you. These men followed Paul, studying his every move and trying to do what he did. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}