Acts Chapter Ten
How are you coming with your reading of the Book of Acts? I trust it is going well for you. We are reading this book, not just to say we read it, but to have it speak to us. Remember the first question to keep in mind is "What can we learn from the church in Acts?" And another question is "what can we apply?" We want to be learning and applying.
A long time ago I wrote in my Bible at the beginning of chapter nine, "an impossible conversion". From every human perspective, there was no way Saul would ever be saved. Maybe you are praying for some folk who fit that same impossible category. This is an encouraging story, if God can save Saul . . . .
Acts is filled with stories of the supernatural. I trust that you will let the impact of the many acts of God’s intervention in the affairs of life challenge you to seek the same in your life, as well.
As we get in to chapter ten, I am reminded of the passage that says:
13 "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."
Jeremiah 29:13-14 NIV
When people have a heart to really seek after God, He IS there and they will "find" Him. God is not hiding, He is always anxious to be right where we are and be close to us.
Let’s look at the story of Cornelius.
Without going in to many of the sepcific details, we find:
**God responds to hungry hearts – Cornelius.
**God can speak to anyone – He told Cornelius how to find Peter who would give him answers.
**God prepared the way – Peter had the vision of the animals to make him ready to respond to Cornelius’ request.
**God can overcome long-held and ingrained prejudice – Peter was willing to go the the home of a Gentile. V. 34 "In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality."
**God will save anyone who asks – Salvation came to the home of Cornelius, even though most Christians at the time would wonder if that was possible.
II Peter 3:9 says that God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. This is very evident in Acts ten. God brought a revival to this household and they were saved. We see something else at the end of chapter ten that was the normative way in the early church, people were filled with the Holy Spirit.
The power of the Holy Spirit outpoured through the Baptism in the Spirit was a major key in the exponential growth of the early church. Church history shows that the Baptism in the Holy Spirit has been key to church growth and the breaking of spiritual barriers. There was nothing unusual about the baptism happening, the church at that time expected it.
As we are reading the Bible and praying, we need to be praying for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to empower us to see the spiritual breakthroughs we need. I commented about the "impossible salvation" of Saul. Again, church history is full of stories of the hard cases, people who were very stubborn or where there were extremely difficult spiritual battles, where the power of God was displayed and miracles happened. We need to be not only open to but hunger for more of God. That was one of the keys to the revival that broke out in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. That is still the key in 2010.
