Reflecting on Acts 5:1-11“How is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit?” (Acts 5:3)
This story is a reminder that Jesus’s church remains a perfect church.
Peter observes that Satan has filled Ananias’s heart.
Even in the church Satan still works to undermine the Spirit’s work.
The Spirit comes to fill our hearts with goodness and grace.
Satan is the deceiver, the enemy of God and good and grace.
Satan is also a murderer, eager to deceive and destroy God’s children.
Some people tell me they no longer believe in ‘satan’.
I understand their doubts about the cartoonish horned character.
But I am confident in a spirit of deception and destruction.
I have seen and felt this negative spirit in me, and in the church.
Whatever ‘satan’ is, this spirit infects all of us if we let it.
It inspires fear and suspicious, it arouses jealousy or anger.
It turns christians and churches against each other, against grace.
Christians and churches become more focused on personal glory and gain.
Where do you sense Satan’s influence, undermining goodness and grace?
PRAYER
Lord Jesus, wherever goodness and grace are hindered, the deceiving spirit is at work. Help us to check our own hearts, to discern where we are lying to ourselves, others and God, and thereby resisting Your goodness and grace.
I am not my own but belong belong to Jesus. In all I do and say I need to ask ‘Where is God in all of this?’ i am a Kingdom worker, working in His garden, serving Him. Christ needs to be first in all I do and say. Leadme and guide meby Your Spirit Lord.