Jesus tells us to pray “thy kingdom come…on earth as it is in heaven.” John, His disciple, tells us, “The Son of God [Jesus] appeared…to destroy the works of the devil”
(1 John 3:8).
In other words, we as Jesus’ followers have marching orders. We are engaged in a spiritual war to regain territory from an illegal occupier, Satan, who stole it from us through deceit. Through the cross, he has no further authority to keep it. The mission involves both angelic and human forces obedient to Jesus, our Commander-in-Chief.
Military operations require an overall plan and objective that unfolds in different phases. The operation depends upon troop flexibility to shift direction and action at a moment’s notice.
Acts 10 exemplifies one of those momentous shifts.
Phase one began with the Abrahamic Covenant. Most Jews came to see this as a covenant exclusive to themselves. Everyone else was regarded as “gentile,” or pagan, though God told Abraham, “Through you all the nations will be blessed.” For most Jews, this part was forgotten.
Before Jesus ascended into heaven, He told His disciples they, the Jewish believers, would take the gospel to the “uttermost parts of the earth,” that is, to the outside Gentile world.
Peter, Jesus’ disciple and apostle of the early church, was a traditional and patriotic Jew. But Jesus wanted him to preach the gospel, not only to a man and his household regarded as outside the Covenant, but who came from among hated Roman conquerors. This Roman officer, Cornelius, had learned to worship the true God, but because he was “gentile,” his faith was regarded as inferior. For Peter to willingly obey this order required a massive paradigm shift.
God required him to abandon 2,000 years of traditional thinking at a moment’s notice. In Acts 10, Peter’s housetop vision (repeated three times) prepared him for his mission, with God commanding him to kill and eat animals regarded as unclean by Jewish law. In the vision, Peter at first refuses this order, saying, “By no means, Lord!”
In the end, Peter gets the message. He obeys God and preaches the gospel to Cornelius and his household. They all commit their lives to Christ and experience the filling of the Holy Spirit, identical to what happened to the blood children of Abraham at Pentecost.
This event is so momentous to Peter and to the Jewish believers that they marvel over it in the next chapter. They are advancing in their faith, but they are still learning about God’s overall plan to destroy the works of the devil and to bring the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. They didn’t have the whole picture, and neither do we. We receive it just one order at a time.
Are we ready to abandon at a moment’s notice beloved and familiar traditions to destroy Satan’s work and reassert Christ’s authority? Are we willing to accept people as fellow believers whose looks and ways differ from our cherished expectations?
As we learn in Acts 10, God still brings blessings to and through the very people we least expect and whom we even despise. God’s love and mercy is greater than our own. His sovereignty is more sovereign than we know. His grace is more gracious, His love more loving.
From the Desk of Valson Abraham 