Lena's Discipleship Journalin' to Acts 8 Today

Ever not been the perpetrator, yet agreed wholeheartedly with him?
God does not judge according to the mere deed, but the heart’s involvement, and only He knows that part. Yet where good intentions are concerned, He doesn’t just want us to want to, but rather to do what we purpose to do.
Some things offend God in the meditations of the heart, others must be proven with active follow through. Faith is one of those things that must show itself by its works.
Persecution can scatter; and scattering can cause seeds to be planted in more places than before. God always makes something for something else if we allow Him to. They were persecuted and badly, they were paying a price to preach and uphold truth and yes they were being injured in their physical persons by men, but not eternally altered in spirit, and the Truth of the word of God entrusted to them by God’s very own Holy Spirit was spreading like wildfire. In fact, the persecution was causing it to spread further and wider, because they began to spread out in their scattering!
Ok so their peace was disrupted, or was it? Hmmmm? Was it? What is peace anyways, is it mere quiet?, No, peace lies inside of the very eternal spirit of man, no one can touch that if it is secured in Christ. They may take the body, or cause an uproar, or a circumstances can come, but the true inner peace of God remains through all.
When the Jewish people greeted one another and said “Shalom”, they were not saying, let every circumstance make you comfy cozy, where you don’t have to lift many fingers to work for very much! They meant, “through thick and thin, through any tough time, through any kind of outward circumstance, you can have peace with God”, (and now we know; that we can also have peace with His Son, Jesus Christ, who shed His very own natural blood, so we’d always be made righteous with God the Father). So Shalom to you today! No matter what, Shalom!
How eager are you to hear God’s message?
Have persecutions come your way and have they tried to choke out the effectiveness of God’s word in your life? You cannot allow that to be that way. We allow and disallow the enemy from stealing God’s words from our lives and hearts.
Jesus gave us a parable to help us understand it all, the sower parable. It states that a royal treasure will come to us, the seed of the word of God. It will be offered us everytime we hear it preached. We can take it or leave it, buy the truth or not. Then we can keep it or discard it, receive it or disregard it, it is up to us, we decide. Then even if we decide to buy it and keep it, there is a price to be paid for the rent of it so to speak for it says an enemy comes right away, immediately, to take the word of God and steal it from us, especially if we decide we’d like to keep it! Isn’t that something? Yes, it is, and it can be tragic, BUT if we know that, if you actually knew to stay on watch over your home, because a thief would come right away to steal what someone had just given you. I mean you know what the thief is gonna steal, and you know just about when, because the word says - right away, right after you receive the gift the thief will come, WHAT would you do?
You are a protector, of your family, of your house, your things, your body, what about a protector of the words of God? Yes, we are overseers, protectors, and watchmen. Come on. God’s word is valuable, or is it? If you were given a valuable jewel and you knew the thief was coming, you’d hide it, sleep with it, bury it….Bury it….in the case of seeds that means now they are gonna grow!!!!
We are keepers of the guard. Keepers of the faith!
The enemies come when?__________________ (you fill in the blank. Hint: see above) Get that and you’ll have a whole lot of wisdom for this faith walk.
There is a destroyer out there. He hates God and anyone who resembles God and Christ. That means he is after Christ-like ones, Christians. He hates Christians. Do you get that? When you made covenant with God through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, you made an exchange with God, you gave Him your name for His, your clothes for his covering, your treasures, for His treasure, your life for His new eternal life, and your enemies became His enemies, His are now yours. You’ve been recruited into His militant forces, as a soldier of the King’s kingdom.
Jn 10:10 says God’s and our enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy, BUT Jesus came to give life and that more abundantly.
Truth hits the very core of a person’s spirit. When you hear it, I believe deep inside, you know it. Disciples train themselves to know it. There is sorcery all around us, it is a counterfeit for the truth. Its purpose, is self exaltation, not God Most High exaltation. Look at it, think about it, who or what are Psychics, astrologers, mediums, etc pointing to? God? No, either their own power, the power of satan, or people power. It is more about entertainment than anything.
PLEASE be oh so careful of entertainment and its demonic pull on your life! Entertainment, that which lulls your soul and does not feed and nourish your spirit, is mostly a self-centered form of worship, anything with an abundance of self exaltation is dangerous ground with opened doors for demonic activity. I’d rather separate myself from its power than to be dazed and confused by it lure. Simon, a sorcerer saw and knew this, he knew of the counterfeit and was a very dry man spiritually speaking, though others would say he was very spiritual. Wrong spirit = dry land. He was a man who was thirsty and was tasting that God is so good. He’d have to completely repent of His past involvements with self exaltation ministry and the participation in the powers of satan and of man