Acts 12 Pray Until Something Happens....

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

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Acts 12:1-25 -
James Is Killed and Peter Is Imprisoned
1About that time King Herod Agrippa F61 began to persecute some believers in the church. 2He had the apostle James (John's brother) killed with a sword. 3When Herod saw how much this pleased the Jewish leaders, he arrested Peter during the Passover celebration F62 4and imprisoned him, placing him under the guard of four squads of four soldiers each. Herod's intention was to bring Peter out for public trial after the Passover. 5But while Peter was in prison, the church prayed very earnestly for him.
Peter's Miraculous Escape from Prison
6The night before Peter was to be placed on trial, he was asleep, chained between two soldiers, with others standing guard at the prison gate. 7Suddenly, there was a bright light in the cell, and an angel of the Lord stood before Peter. The angel tapped him on the side to awaken him and said, "Quick! Get up!" And the chains fell off his wrists. 8Then the angel told him, "Get dressed and put on your sandals." And he did. "Now put on your coat and follow me," the angel ordered.
9So Peter left the cell, following the angel. But all the time he thought it was a vision. He didn't realize it was really happening. 10They passed the first and second guard posts and came to the iron gate to the street, and this opened to them all by itself. So they passed through and started walking down the street, and then the angel suddenly left him.
11Peter finally realized what had happened. "It's really true!" he said to himself. "The Lord has sent his angel and saved me from Herod and from what the Jews were hoping to do to me!"
12After a little thought, he went to the home of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where many were gathered for prayer. 13He knocked at the door in the gate, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to open it. 14When she recognized Peter's voice, she was so overjoyed that, instead of opening the door, she ran back inside and told everyone, "Peter is standing at the door!"
15"You're out of your mind," they said. When she insisted, they decided, "It must be his angel."
16Meanwhile, Peter continued knocking. When they finally went out and opened the door, they were amazed. 17He motioned for them to quiet down and told them what had happened and how the Lord had led him out of jail. "Tell James and the other brothers what happened," he said. And then he went to another place.
18At dawn, there was a great commotion among the soldiers about what had happened to Peter. 19Herod Agrippa ordered a thorough search for him. When he couldn't be found, Herod interrogated the guards and sentenced them to death. Afterward Herod left Judea to stay in Caesarea for a while.
The Death of Herod Agrippa
20Now Herod was very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon. So they sent a delegation to make peace with him because their cities were dependent upon Herod's country for their food. They made friends with Blastus, Herod's personal assistant, 21and an appointment with Herod was granted. When the day arrived, Herod put on his royal robes, sat on his throne, and made a speech to them. 22The people gave him a great ovation, shouting, "It is the voice of a god, not of a man!"
23Instantly, an angel of the Lord struck Herod with a sickness, because he accepted the people's worship instead of giving the glory to God. So he was consumed with worms and died.
24But God's Good News was spreading rapidly, and there were many new believers.
25When Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission in Jerusalem, they returned to Antioch, taking John Mark with them.
FOOTNOTES:F61: Greek Herod the king. He was the nephew of Herod Antipas and a grandson of Herod the Great. F62: Greek the days of unleavened bread.
Copyright Statement: Holy Bible, The New Living Translation

~ Lena’s Journalin’~
The name Herod, means “heroic”, also “seen” as in outwardly fashionable, and to run one’s attentions towards, also “see” as in use of the 5 senses, to perceive (as in: I believe and reply only on what I see, I lust after what I see, I go after what my eye sees/wants).
Doesn’t sound all that extreme does it? But it is extreme, for self exaltation again is the very enemy of God and is the very root of sin that satan himself displayed right before being banished from God’s presence. In it lies a spirit of murder and abortion. Herod was living out a generation curse, a call, a lineage of self exaltation. Inside of self exaltation is the spirit of death. In Christ we die to self and live for the purposes of God. This opposes being “heroic”. The very spirit of Pharaoh and of Hitler was in him.
His mission is to destroy the gospel message however it may; to nullify the Genesis mandate and Great Commission in their effectiveness and the desire to be a part of a whole family of people who would carry it out.
What a horrid position to be in or to become subjected to. Can you imagine having a newborn ripped from your hands and killed before your eyes, because a general order was given? What can one do when this spirit is unleashed by its obedient servants in a day or time or hour? Who is exempt from its execution, but those who seek the Lord Most High.
PRAY, PUSH (Pray Until Something Happens). Prayer is the only remedy, and breaking the back of this stronghold can only be done through concentrated prayer, meaning it takes agreement of a company of believers to move this type of principality. How desperate would you be to have someone, anyone, assemble with you to break this back if you are the mother or father of a 1 year old? How would you feel if no one had or took time to join your prayer meeting? For those who do come, you are praying they’ll be in faith and authoritative in their requests and in their mountain moving power!
This is how God feels about the assembly of His people. He has dire needs to be executed in the earth. He’s been calling prayer meetings for 2000+ years! He has needs that only He can accomplish here, only we can permit Him to, as a company of witnesses agree for Him to do His will.
What we allow here is allowed, what we don’t (move to allow) allow is not allowed here. We’re earth’s governors and ministers. God set us here to open our mouths and execute His words. He gave us tools and we must either use them or allow them to sit unused, thus mountains stay put!
We can’t blame God for that, He set up an order, one of human rule. What they really want, He helps them get, as long as it is in line with His words, He helps it come to pass.
He said, “Adam, you rule, your world, and Adam did”. He says the same to us, “Lena, you rule your world”, and I do. I can say “Ya know, I’m so tired of this job, I don’t even want it anymore” and I become unthankful to God who provided me the job, I murmur, I complain, I begrudge, I lose the business, or no more business seems to come my way anymore. I may think the season for what I do is over. No, I just ruled my world, with my words, like God taught me to. It didn’t turn out so good, what did I expect? What I allow was allowed, what I wanted I got. Lena, you go ahead and rule, be responsible. Guess what? Once I find out I can change my world again, with my words, and best of all with His; I can repent, change, turn my world back around, uproot complaints in Jesus name, speak blessings over my business, rule, allow.
Pastor Jennifer came and was with the G-12 and shared this passage of scripture. She said we are in as serious a time as these were, yet we may not perceive it or see it, if we look naturally. She pointed out that through prayer the miraculous happened, Peter was loosed from his chains in the prison, because of the assembled agreed prayers of the saints. Notice after his chains were loosed he was given instructions from the angel, to get his clothes on! That may seem funny, BUT who had to decide to do the dressing of his body and walk out of there to who knows what? Peter! Peter would allow or not allow himself to take responsibility for his freedom. He might have felt a certain amount of comfort in his bondage. He did not know what lieth at wait outside of the prison doors, now did he? He had to trust God in the walking out of his freedom. The messenger of the word came and showed him the way of freedom, told him what to do, he had to decide to do it.
The saints were praying, expecting their prayers to bring change, change came, even quicker than they expected! Peter had to decide to walk it out, so do we.
With prayer and the walking out of faith and spreading the gospel we are responsible over something very holy- God’s word, God’s will, God’s plans!
Peter put on his clothes, followed where he was led, and showed up as the answer of someone’s prayers thus bringing great glory to God. When we subject ourselves to His will, He is glorified, when we stay in the acting out of our own, we might be glorified for a time, but the time is short-lived and not worth a whole lot of weight. Glory actually means weight! Responsibility=weight.
Nothing, absolutely NOTHING is impossible with God, NOTHING. The freewill of rebellion can hold back His blessings from us personally, but NOTHING is impossible with God. Even a perverted heroic self centered spirit can be brought low in a moment’s time. What is so tragic about it, is all of the person’s days and the opportunities they had to glorify God are over, they choose themselves over the glorification of God!
God had had enough, the earth had had enough, the saints had had enough and decided to PUSH, Herod was consumed. His vile spirit was dealt with by God.

Daily Repetitive Verses -
John 17:15 I'm not asking you to take them out of the world but to protect them from the evil one.