The Enemy has a BIG Nose!

As mentioned yesterday, God showed up powerfully last SonDay in our service. He was awesome (as always), but I have learned to watch carefully for The Enemy at those times, because he usually tries to mess things up. We need to be vigilant if we are to keep him at bay. If at any time we start listening to Satan's suggestions instead of Holy Spirit's, we risk grieving God and losing his presence. I'd much rather offend Satan and make him leave!

So right in the middle of the experience I previously described, a certain woman (who is not a regular attender) started to pray and immediately I sensed she was "off base." Now there is a difference between just being unaware of what the Spirit is doing and really trying to get attention for yourself. There was no doubt about it- she was involved in the latter (after the meeting, others commented to me about it as well). It was as if Holy Spirit had disappeared while she was praying.

Now I was in the middle of God speaking to me personally, so I just prayed she would stop soon and we could get back on track. Normally, I would have done something to "shut her down," as they say; it is the leader's responsibility to deal with these things. But since God was speaking to others, I was pleased to see someone else step up to the proverbial plate and in a momentary pause from the woman's words, started praying herself. Again, we were back on track. Later, there was yet another time when that same woman tried to wrest control of our direction, but again, we were able to straighten things out rather quickly.

I guess I'm pointing out two things here: 1) When God shows up, you can be certain that Satan is not far behind. He will always do everything he can to derail you from doing what God wants. Watch for him. He's predictable. 2) We do have a responsibility to watch and pray carefully; and then to take intentional steps to stay with whatever Holy Spirit is doing. We do not want to lose whatever it is God has in store for us.