Lena's Discipleship Journalin' to Acts 12 Today

The enemy is out to silence the voice of truth. It has always been His plight. God brings an answer and satan has a new plan, to try to intercept that answer. We are in all out spiritual warfare. Peter, James, John and the other apostles were messengers of this truth, soldiers and warriors, in this all out warfare. They were making some headway in the spirit, and taking some ground back for the Lord, right out from the enemy’s hand. The enemy hates God and more so hates who God sends. If ever there is any trace of truth being brought he’s right there to try and destroy its messengers. He’ll kill off generations to steal the truth. Kill of races to silence the truth, even kill off before birth to make sure there’s no opportunity for another person to be raised up and brought to the knowledge of truth, and become its messenger.
The church has to pray about that continually. That truth will prevail. That people will buy and not sell it. That they will hear it, when it is spoken and shared, so they can do it. That their love for truth will increase to such an extent that nothing can kill it off. That they will never turn from truth ever, no matter what. That they will passionately desire truth in their inward persons. That His love will burn within and well up inside of them so much that it is what they live and die for. That they will have such a zeal and be lovers of truth. That they will be kept from evil and the evil one. That they will hate what’s wrong because they love what is right. That the truth in them will be released. That God will have His way, because people will give their wills over to His. That people, the church, will stand for righteousness and be victors engaged in warfare and anointed to win souls and make disciples, to win the lifelong victory in this warfare.
That there would be miracles wrought by the hands of those who commit their lives wholly unto God. That the holiness and consecration would increase among the church members and that unity would increase. That power of God in us would also increase. That the people would count the cost and willingly pay the price to be dressed in God’s armor with a sword of power in their hands and the enemy would not prevail at all!
Mountains move for those who are all in. Miracles are unleashed to those who are all His.
If James is dead, we must pray that Peter lives. The names mean, trickery, deception, conniving. That is James. If there’s been any trickery among us, where we have deceptively thought we can live in compromise and still release the truth of God’s word as messengers in the earth, we are off. The name Peter is so opposite the name James. The characteristic of the name James is wishy-washy, Peter is solid, steadfast, immoveable, sure, foundational, trustworthy, etc.
This is what must arise and come out of imprisonment - Surety, steadfastness, and foundations to stand and build on. This is what we have to pray in unity for insisting on it as though it is ours to take back, and it is!
We need to pray that when the spirit tells Peters what to do, they will follow after the word of God. They go out from the comfort and “safety” of the prison cell, and are ready to go out again as sheep among wolves, wise and serpents, yet gentle as doves among a wicked and perverse generation!
It says the angel struck Peter. Has God struck you and told you what to do? Are you obeying Him? (Let’s not think too complicated here, What about obeying your leaders-pastors and the current word of your house? Like “Win, Consolidate, Disciple and Send”?).
When we heard these words, we were struck by God’s messenger, whoever spoke the words, was as this angel to us, a very messenger of God. The word of God struck us and gave us opportunity, that we can do lots of things with it. Moving towards the acting out of the word is evidence that we are a Peter and that the Peter in us is alive and the James in us is dead. Yes the enemy killed “James”, because he could. There were open doors of sin by deceit and compromise. If we do not do the word we’ve been struck with, we may stay inside of our prison cell, yet we are dying in deception.
We need to pray for bold action for church members. That we all would do the word and not take our time to do it.
The angel of the Lord struck someone else, he struck evil and consumed it. I believe it was directly due to the Peter’s response to the striking and igniting and obedience to God’s active purposes. If Peter had chosen to stay in prison due to his disobedience to God, and self will or hesitation to figure it all out first, evil would prevail. It is like a balance scale. One triggers the movement of the other. Obedience to God causes enemies to be dealt with by God. Our obedience to His call can bring the miraculous working of victory over our enemies.