‘Take up the whole armour of God.’ Ephesians 6:13 NKJ
Simon the Sorcerer was doing good business. The people ‘followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his magic.’ (Acts 8:11 NIV) But, no doubt to everyone’s astonishment, he chose to accept the Gospel message and got baptised. Sadly, before long, traces of his old ways emerged: he offered Peter and John money to buy the gift of the Holy Spirit! How did the apostles handle this? They confronted him with the truth in Jesus’ name, saying: ‘Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord.’ (Acts 8:22 NIV)
You see, Peter knew something that we should all know: when a new Christian starts turning back to their old ways you must quickly deal with it or they’ll end up hurting themselves and other people too. Being soft in those moments helps no-one.
For all of us, whether we’ve been disciples for 10 minutes or 10 years, the forces of evil around us are real; we can’t just ignore them and hope they’ll play nice or maybe just go away. To fight and win you must know what you are up against. There’ll be times when you have to be decisive and draw a line saying, ‘That’s it, the other side of this line is out of bounds for me now that I follow Jesus.’ That’s especially true on days like today when, all around us, people think Halloween is just a dress-up day and a bit of fun for the kids. So have a chat with the Holy Spirit: do you need to draw or re-draw some lines around your life today? And if the answer is yes, ask for His help.
SoulFood: Deut 18:9–18, Dan 2, Isa 47:5–15, Acts 16:16–34
word4today an adaptation of The Word For Today is authored by Bob and Debby Gass and published under licence from UCB International Copyright 2024
