Take a moment to read Acts 10:34-48 before reading the devotional below.
Have you ever been a part of something that turned out to be so much bigger than you originally thought? Maybe you felt like your starting point was pretty good, but as things unfold you begin to see that the real point was so much more than you could have ever dreamed. In today’s passage we watch Peter get blown away by all that God has been up to with this whole “good news” thing. He thought it was good before, but here it starts to take his breath away.
As we talked about in yesterday’s post, Peter and Cornelius are supernaturally led to each other and God reveals to Peter that his message is for Gentiles in addition to Jews. The story continues as Peter begins to preach again and for the first time in history non-Jewish people receive the Holy Spirit. Cornelius is baptized and they celebrate together as a spiritual family.
Peter was excited when he was preaching to the Jews and watching them come to faith in Christ. But he can’t believe what he is seeing when he begins to realize that God is able and willing to share his love with all people. If something ever seems too good to be true, it is either a scam or it is the love of Jesus. As we watch the Holy Spirit at work, his goodness continually stretches our very definition of “good.”