Thursday 16th February - Acts 10

Today’s chapter is Acts 10

Tom writes:

Like a football manager being appointed to their dream job, Jesus is chomping at the bit to make use of his newly-given position. In his life Jesus was appointed to start plundering Satan’s kingdom in the confines of Israel (v38). He did a pretty good job of that. And so after his resurrection Jesus was “promoted” (exalted) to the judge of all of the living and all of the dead (v42)... which took his remit from about one million people to about 107 billion (and counting). With this new dream job Jesus would no longer just focus on the people of Israel but could now release forgiveness, renewal and refreshing to anyone from anywhere who would believe in his name. And so he was chomping at the bit to release this forgiveness to people from very un-Jewish bloodlines living in very un-Jewish environments. Jesus’ challenge was that he was also committed to using his church to do the releasing.  And they weren’t hugely proactive about reaching out to non-Jews. So he gave them a kick. The saving of Cornelius and his whole gathering of relatives and close friends was entirely the work of Jesus.

Jesus sends an angel to Cornelius while he is taking a siesta. Jesus startles Peter with the thrice-repeated vision and then when Peter finally gets to Cornelius’ house Jesus (rather rudely) interrupts Peter’s sermon by sending Holy Spirit before Peter even does an altar call. I have this vision of Jesus pacing up and down saying “just get on with it, would you!” until he eventually gives up waiting and lets Holy Spirit loose to do his thing. Jesus’ enthusiasm for expansion is undimmed. All over the world right now he is giving his church a kick and setting up salvations through dreams, visions and angelic visitations. All over the world today Jesus is releasing Holy Spirit upon very unlikely people. So my prayer is this - please let me in on it Jesus. Please let me - like Peter - be visited by angels, be rudely interrupted by your Spirit and used by you to bring whole households to salvation. 

Question for reflection

Who might Jesus be chomping at the bit to reach out to through you?