God at Work

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

GOD AT WORK

Acts 10:1-8

10:1 At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. 2 He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. 3 One day at about three in the afternoon he had a vision. He distinctly saw an angel of God, who came to him and said, "Cornelius!" 4 Cornelius stared at him in fear. "What is it, Lord?" he asked. The angel answered, "Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. 5 Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. 6 He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea." 7 When the angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants and a devout soldier who was one of his attendants. 8 He told them everything that had happened and sent them to Joppa.

NIV

This may not be the words of Jesus, but it is the words of an angel of God and therefore deserves some attention. This man Cornelius was not a Jew, as he was an Italian who served in the army of Rome as a Caption of one hundred man. This is important in the sense that he was indeed a gentile, a man who stood for the invading force that occupied Israel. But he also was a good man, a man who feared God. He did great humanitarian deeds, and he prayed on a regular basis. The difference between him and the Jews who had accepted Jesus Christ as the Messiah, was that he did not know that Jesus came into the world for him as well as for the Jews. This story about Cornelius is going to take the whole of this chapter and so we will spend more time with him, but today we should note that God wanted Cornelius to know about Jesus. We can learn that God can intervene into anyone’s life. The interesting thing though, is that the angel of the Lord could have just told Cornelius about Jesus, as easily as he told him about Peter and where he was and to send men to go get him. Certainly Cornelius would have accepted what the angel would have said about Jesus as easily as he accepted what he said about Peter, as he acted upon the words of the angel of the Lord. Why would God want Peter to be one to tell Cornelius about Jesus instead of the angel? As this story unfolds for us we are going to learn that truth, but today we should stay focused on the fact that although Cornelius was not what we would call saved, he was not a believer in Jesus Christ, he was not born again, he was a good God-fearing man, doing good deeds for those in need. God must have thought him to be worthy of being saved because of his deeds. But we are also going to learn that God does not show favoritism, so it may not have been his good deeds that made him worthy, but that fact he feared God, or this story is more about God’s character then about Cornelius. We are always learning about God throughout the whole of scripture and that is the whole of the purpose of the scripture. We should not make too much about the people within the scripture, although we can learn from them as to how we should act, or respond, but the main point is about God, and that he needed Cornelius to know about Jesus and he needed Peter to be the one to tell the story. It is not so much about God electing Cornelius or deciding he would save him in particular, but it is a story about the character of God and that Jesus came so that anyone anywhere in the world, not matter of his ethnic or national affiliation is able to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The very fact that we, who are in fact gentiles, are part of the body of Christ is evident of the truth within this story about Cornelius and Peter. If God sees men as he saw Cornelius, who are we to see them any different? We should not look at unsaved people as sinners, as vial, detestable God haters, for we do not know their hearts. We should not judge men’s deeds as merely humanitarian as God might see them as a memorial offering. We do not know them as God does, and we may not be able to see them as devout God-fearing people, even if they have not become born again, or saved yet. God might be calling on us one day to go and tell them the story. God might be telling them to send for us. We are going to see what happened to Peter in this story a little later, but for now we should learn to just see God at work in his people, all people, Jews and gentiles alike, saints and sinners alike, saved and unsaved alike. For God so loved the world, all the people of the world, his whole creation, all mankind, that he sent his only Son into the world so that whosoever believes should not perish but have everlasting life.