Therefore, if God gave them the same gift that He gave to us
when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ,
how could I possibly hinder God?
When they heard this they became silent.
Then they glorified God saying,
"So God has granted repentance resulting in life to even the Gentiles!"
Acts 11:17&18
I read this as I was having "fresh bread" for breakfast with Jesus this morning. I've been praying for a renewed passion for His Word after going through a series about the importance of the Bible at church. I've always had a Bible and have worn out at least one. I know that it's important but I just haven't been digging into it like I should. So I decided to start reading it in a way as to just learn more about Him. Not to memorize it for when I get in a bad situation or to be able to answer the Sunday School questions from friends. So as always, He is faithful and shows up on day ONE. I'm reading through Acts (one of my favorite books) and I just read about Saul's conversion which is one of the most exciting passages for me. If only our eyes would be open to God doing that now. Anyways, the passage above is about Peter going to Cornelius and declaring that salvation is for the Gentiles...what a HUGE thing! But v. 1 starts out by saying the other Christians in the region were confused. They couldn't believe that Peter would go to even eat with those people because that wasn't allowed. So Peter is having to explain to them why he went to them and he ends with the verses above. The part that hit me hard was him saying, "...how could I possibly hinder God?" As a Gentile, I'm glad Peter didn't try to hinder God (I'm confident that God's plan for the Gentiles to receive salvation would have still happened but we have no clue how that would have played out). There are times when I feel like I try to hinder God. I try to get in His way because I'm afraid to trust Him. Sometimes I think I won't like the outcome. Or maybe some of the people around me will get hurt. But I want to be more like Peter. I want to get to the point where I say, "how could I possibly hinder God?" Because He is teaching me that His timing is perfect. He cherishes and completes me. And simply because of His nature I am compelled to say how could I NOT let Him do His thing?? And maybe the results of that will be far greater than I could ever imagine.
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