Fan the Flame - A Journey Through ActsSample

Day 25 - Cornelius and Peter's Vision

Jesus gave Peter the ‘Keys to the Kingdom’ (Matt.16:19), and he has been steadily opening locked doors around him in the book of Acts. He blasted open the door to Jesus for the Jewish people at Pentecost, with 3000 coming to Christ at once (Acts 2:14-41), not to mention prison doors being opened for him (Acts 12:5-17). Now it’s the door to Jesus to be unlocked for the Gentiles via a Roman Centurion named Cornelius.

Cornelius seems like such a nice guy! His family seems like the kind from church who readily offer their minibus for church youth groups! So generous and accommodating. We read about Cornelius’ commitment to devout, religious living and generosity, but we don’t know if he was a full Jewish proselyte, i.e., someone who had been circumcised and maintained a kosher diet. The tragic condition of the Jewish people at this time was that they monopolised the worship of Yahweh, boasting in their favouritism rather than God’s grace in election, and subsequently despising all non-Jews. Yet the Gospel is for all people, everywhere. The risen Jesus cannot be contained to a single race or region or restricted to a singular religious group! Jesus deployed Peter into this new phase of ministry to the Gentiles, fulfilling His own words in Acts 1:8 of being His witnesses in Jerusalem (check), Judea (doh!), Samaria, and the ends of the Earth (was getting to it!). Peter recognises he has a contribution to make to this great mission via a hunger-induced vision and is deployed by Jesus to meet Cornelius and his family.

For Peter to continually be used by God and remain faithful to his calling, he needed his deep-seated intolerance of people different from himself to be stripped away. Consider that Jesus didn’t need to call Peter to this moment with Cornelius. He raised up Ananias, why not someone else? Acts 10:1-23 shows us that God is not only interested in outcomes (spoiler alert: Cornelius and his family get saved!), but in the ministry journey too. He is equally committed to healing and redeeming Peter’s hatred and prejudice as well as changing eternity for Mr and Mrs Cornelius and Co! This is one of the transformative truths of Christianity – that God heals us broken vessels to be of use to Him, so that Jesus gets the glory and worship He deserves.

Maybe we should take a moment to reflect on how God has grown us as His people along the journey despite our brokenness and flaws. Would you pray today and consider how God might want to use you to bring transformation in the lives of others? Maybe those ‘others’ are the people you would least expect!

Written by Dan Lyons