Devotion – Acts 2:37

“Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?”

Peter was lead by the Holy Spirit into the past, from Joel to the Books of Samuel, to explain what was happening in the present. The Holy Spirit has moved upon the crowd in such a way as to bring fear and uncertainty. They searched themselves for an answer…but it eluded them. However, Peter had the answer and with great boldness declared that the same Jesus whom you murdered was resurrected and is now both Christ and Lord!

How do you process that?

If you believe it, then you have to come to grips with the fact that the very Savior…the one that you have been believing was going to come and save all of you, is now dead…and at your hands no less. If you don’t believe it, then you walk away thinking the whole thing is non-sense. Fortunately for the crowd the scripture reads, “They were pricked in their heart”. The NIV says they were “Cut to the heart” and the NLT says, “Their heart was pierced”. The Greek word that seems to be so difficult to translate is defined like this; to labor down or to wear down with toil and persistent hard work.

This is the work of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit reaches inside a man and labors at the heart. It tears at it and strips it down of all that might be hindering it from hearing what the Lord is saying. It labors and tarries until it is broken. It’s then and only then that we can see the light and folly of our depravity and say, “What shall we do?”