Opposing God

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

OPPOSING GOD

Acts 11:4-18

4 Peter began and explained everything to them precisely as it had happened: 5 "I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. 6 I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air. 7 Then I heard a voice telling me, 'Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.'  8 "I replied, 'Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.' 9 "The voice spoke from heaven a second time, 'Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.'  10 This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again. 11 "Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. 12 The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man's house. 13 He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, 'Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. 14 He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.' 15 "As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. 16 Then I remembered what the Lord had said: 'John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.'  17 So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?" 18 When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, "So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life."

NIV    

A huge hunk of scripture but it is the same thing we just went through as Peter is repeating all that happened according to the leading of the Holy Spirit, but in his life as well as in the life of Cornelius and his family. So want can we learn from this that we did not learn from the first time we spent with the story of Peter and Cornelius? Perhaps the biggest difference in this story Peter is relating to the other disciples and what we read about during the actual event is that fact Peter tells or asks them rather that when the Holy Spirit was poured out in those gentiles, who was he to oppose God. This could be the one life lesson we could garner from this recount of the event. Although this opposition Peter is talking about is regarding the outpouring of the Spirit on gentiles, we can also view this as the events that happen in our life. If we make our plans, but God orders our footsteps then there could be times when we might be in the situation where we would be opposing God. Although it is true that many times we might find ourselves in difficult situations because of our own doing, we might also consider those times might be due to God changing the course of our life. We need to be sensitive to the moving of the Holy Spirit in our lives and make sure we are not in opposition to God. We could get stuck in our own ways seeing only our own plans as the Jewish believers were, thinking that God was only their God and the Jesus only came for them, and the gentiles were not in God’s plan of salvation. We could be opposing God if we become too self-controlled with our own life, wanting what we want, forcing our own will regarding our profession or employment, our homes, where we live, our possessions, along with a host of other wants or desires. This is not to say that the very place we are is not where God desires us to be, but we need to be aware, to be sensitive enough to know when God is doing something in our lives to bring about change. That change could be in our attitudes, in our behaviors in our interactions with others or in our ministry. We can get so ingrained in the way we do things, not allowing God to work in our lives that we could be opposing him, without knowing it. Peter recognized the moving of the Spirit and he flowed with him, knowing he was not qualified to oppose God. We need to recognize when the Spirit is working in us and know we too are not qualified and therefore should not oppose God. Who can oppose God?