December 2, 2010

Who Am I To Stand in God’s Way?
Acts 11:1-18 (NLT)

“The Holy Spirit fell on Cornelius and the other gentiles, just as he fell on us at the beginning. 16 Then I thought of the Lord’s words when he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 And since God gave these Gentiles the same gift he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God’s way?” Acs 11:15-17

Pastor's Blog:

Isn’t there something I have to DO to “get into heaven”?

Peter had to explain himself to the Jewish authorities who contended that to be accepted by God a person had to be circumcised (women got accepted through their husband’s circumcision). But Cornelius was not circumcised. And Peter saw that Cornelius and his family believed, were accepted by God and even received the Holy Spirit. How could this be? You can’t just throw out the rules, can you?

The “circumcision” group of Jewish believers were the “hard-liners”, who said, “Yes, there IS something you must DO to get saved, you must become Jews first and go through the Jewish rite of initiation”. Peter held his ground (for now) and four chapters later we will discover that the entire church asked God about this and God showed them that “rites” are not the way to God, rather trust, faith, relationship, response, following Jesus are the core elements of salvation.

In your life are these elements of salvation overshadowed by an overemphasis on ritual?

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