Daily Devotion for June 5, 2024

 

Devotion:

For an audio version of this devotion, click here.

Read Acts 10:34-48.

This week we are focusing on allowing the Holy Spirit who is God to guide us when we have differences among us. In today’s scripture Peter discovers God at work in people he thought couldn’t possibly know God.

A popular fast food restaurant has a video titled “Every Life Has A Story”, as part of its training for new employees. This brief, almost 3-minute video helps the trainees see that every customer has a story (beyond what is visible) worthy of compassion, kind hospitality, and second-mile service. It also ties the stories of each customer together to help the trainees see that in many ways we are all connected.

In today’s scripture beginning in verse 44, the Holy Spirit continues to surprise and teach Peter that salvation through Christ is for all people. And the Holy Spirit opened the eyes and the ears of the circumcised believers who had come with Peter. They were all “astonished” that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out “even on the Gentiles…..So Peter ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Then later in Acts 11, we read that Peter was criticized back in Jerusalem by the circumcised believers for eating with the Gentiles.

All of this is woven within a greater story of Peter’s God-given vision and his invitation from Cornelius’, a centurion from Caesarea, to come to his house where there was a great gathering of relatives and close friends. Cornelius, in verse 33 tells Peter, “Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.”

So, Peter retells this whole story in Acts 11 and after telling his story, the uncircumcised believers from Jerusalem declare, “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.”

Personal Worship Option:

Holy Spirit please open our eyes to see and our ears to hear that you show no partiality of people. The love of God made known to us through Christ the Son is to be offered to all people. Help us offer this love today to someone beyond our own “comfort zone.” Amen.