Bible Text: Acts 22:22-30, John 8:44-47 | Speaker: Blake Nichols | The Truth About Me
Acts 22:22-30, John 8:44-47
The Gospel of Jesus Christ makes a difference in lives. There is power in prayer. We are able to have confidence in how God made us.  Often we stuff the painful things in our lives in a box and pretend everything is fine.  We think that stuff in the box is things God cannot forgive and/or we cannot forgive ourselves. We need to let God clean us out so we can breathe again and live in freedom, fulfilling God’s purpose for our life.

The one word that best describes Satan is deception.  We have believed his lies and that of the world which tells us we are worthless. Think about how they whipped Jesus…that is what the world does to people, to us, devaluing us and destroying what God created us to be.

In Acts 22:22-30, Paul told the authorities that he was a Roman citizen by birth.  Paul spoke the truth of who he was.  Likewise, as believers, we need to stand up and proclaim who we are: beloved children of the King of Kings.

In John 8:44-47, Jesus describes satan.  His goal is to deceive, destroy and kill.  He wants to destroy goodness and God’s purpose for us.  His tools are lies and deception.  We think we are not worthy and God cannot use us because of our sinful past.  Satan has limited authority but he does have the ability to mess things up, if we allow it.

Ephesians 6:11 tells us to put on the whole armor of God to be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.   We are also to put on the belt of truth.  Satan twists the truth and causes us to believe his lies of our unworthiness.

Our challenge is to take a close look at our life to see if we have believed the lies of Satan.  Then we need to ask God to empower us to reject all lies of Satan and receive the truth of who we are in Christ, how we are dearly loved and God has a purpose for our life.