Week 9: Adjusting the Plan

Day 57: Changes are coming

Today’s Big Idea: God brings changes too

Key Verse: Acts 10:1-2

Passage of the day: Acts 10:1-8

Thoughts to consider: In our passage of scripture today, we are seeing something happening that most people are not fond of; God proposes a change. Peter then must adapt his thinking and his ways to accommodate for this change. Cornelius was a gentile, but not just any gentile. He was a Roman Commander of an entire regiment. There was no one other than Caesar himself who the average Jew would have considered more ungodly or unclean. But Cornelius was a generous, prayerful, God-fearing man, and God wanted Cornelius and his household to know about Jesus. So God sent an angel to tell Cornelius to seek out Peter.

This was not the custom of the day and often when a Roman soldier sought someone out, it was to arrest them. This was a big change in the thinking of the Jews, which Peter was one. Try to imagine the change in thinking that needed to take place when Peter’s host, also called Simon, found out that a Roman was seeking him out. Cornelius was coming! and God had sent him. In some ways, it would have been less confusing if Peter were just being arrested. Instead, there was an invitation to dinner. As you ponder this passage of scripture, ask yourself, what’s happening with the people like Cornelius who live near you and near the church. There are always such people - good, generous, prayerful people who don’t know where to go. If God isn’t guiding them to you or your church for their next steps of spiritual growth, why not? What can you and your church do to make yourselves available?