Sunday Supernaturally: Fall, Holy Spirit, Fall!

So they talked together and went inside, where many others were assembled. Peter told them, “You know it is against our laws for a Jewish man to enter a Gentile home like this or to associate with you. But God has shown me that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean.

Acts 10:27-28 NLT

Peter had a vision in which God told him, ““Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean” (V. 15) He was then directed to go to this meeting in the home of a Gentile. Paul wrote something similar to the church in Corinth:

So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him.

2 Corinthians 5:16-18

There are four points that pop out in this text:

1. Stop spending so much energy judging others. If they’re lost, show them the way. If they’re saved, love them.
2. Stop beating yourself up for past failures. We all have a past, but we’ve all got a Savior. That goes for you, too.
3. God’s blessing is a gift. You can’t earn it, you can only receive it. Relax!
4. Remember the mission: You’re here to help others receive what God has already purchased for them. Everything else is just fluff.

I bring this up because of what happened when Peter started preaching in this house full of Gentiles just a few minutes later:

And he ordered us to preach everywhere and to testify that Jesus is the one appointed by God to be the judge of all—the living and the dead. He is the one all the prophets testified about, saying that everyone who believes in him will have their sins forgiven through his name.” Even as Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the message.

Acts 10:42-44

If you’re like me, you don’t want to go to church to get a lecture, you want an encounter. In Peter’s home meeting, the Holy Spirit fell on these “unclean” Gentiles while Peter was still preaching about Jesus. I’m going to church today remembering who you are because of what He did, and who I am for the same reason. I refuse to call unclean what God has cleansed. I’m going to receive the gifts that God has for me and reach the people that He sets before me. I expect the Holy Spirit to fall. Why not join me?