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This is Pastor Daniel Stevenson. I'm director of the Southside Life Station and pastor of New Heights Fellowship Baptist Church of East Toledo.

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And you're receiving this message because you opted in to be encouraged.

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In Ezra 4, after Ezra has determined that they are the right ones to be building the temple and that they don't need to let others come and do it in their stead,

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it says then in verse 4,

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Then the people of the land, that's the people around them that were offering to help, but at the same time were really opposition, they discouraged the people of Judah and they frightened them from building.

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And they hired counselors against them to frustrate their counsel all the days of Cyrus, king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius, king of Persia.

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And the bottom line is when the Israelites decided that they were going to do what they were supposed to do, their enemies coalesced and came together and built an opposition to them.

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And we can cause our enemies to rise up against us simply by our standing firm in doing what's right.

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It's not somehow unwise to draw a line in the sand or to openly identify the opposition, but we should expect to be opposed by the opposition.

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They were going to be opposition all along. Don't worry about the fact that your actions seems to draw them out and make them more adamant against you.

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You do what it is that God would have you to do.

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You do the right things via merciful and kind and giving servant no matter what it costs you.

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And then when the opposition comes out against you, just kind of go, now that's to be expected.

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And we're going to do what it is that God would have us to do.

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Stand firm today. Be encouraged today. Don't give up.

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You can be a child of God and serving and giving and kind and loving despite the opposition.

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God bless you in Jesus name.

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If you haven't done so already, download our app Life for Toledo in the App Store.

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And you can get access to new height services and all the past encouragement calls and most all of them anyway and lots of other good things in that app.

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God bless you.