Listen

"At that moment three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea arrived at the house where we were staying. The Spirit told me to go with them even though they were Gentiles. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered that man’s house. He reported to us how he had seen an angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and summon Simon, who is known as Peter. He will tell you how you and your entire household can be saved.’ When I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as the Spirit fell on us in the beginning. I remembered the Lord’s words: ‘John will baptize with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, then who am I? Could I stand in God’s way?”

Acts 11:11-17

Think

We need encouragement to take a risk, especially when it involves making a change.

If you are on a sports team or part of a band or choir, you know what I am talking about. Your coach can see what you as an individual need to do to help support the team. They encourage you, or sometimes direct you. On your own, you might not see how to make that change, but they do.

The Holy Spirit works like that. The Holy Spirit nudges us to see the world differently and sometimes to do something risky like welcome strangers. God nudged Peter to welcome the Gentiles. Once Peter saw the strangers, he learned they were just like him, trying to follow Jesus.

Now think about your life. Whom is God nudging you to include?

Susan Sytsma Bratt

Pray

Dear God, here in the company of the friends I know and the stranger I don’t want to see, help me to love as Jesus loved. Amen.

Modified from A Wee Worship Book, Wild Goose Publications

Go

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”

Anne Lamott