Listen

Once the apostles and other believers heard this, they calmed down. They praised God and concluded, “So then God has enabled Gentiles to change their hearts and lives so that they might have new life.”

Acts 11:18

Think

Peter told such a passionate “step-by-step” story about dreams, God’s Spirit, Jesus’s words, and household salvation that the apostles and other believers “calmed down” and were convinced that God had opened the hearts of the Gentiles to receive new life in Jesus Christ.

In the telling of his personal experience, Peter observed that the emotions of the apostles and other believers had shifted from criticism to praise, and in this instance the barriers of religious and cultural rules were no more.

How might we “calm down” and open our own hearts to the Spirit of God that leads us to embrace forgiveness, inclusion, and love? In the hymn, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” Isaac Watts describes the type of love we seek:

“Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”

Ka’thy Gore Chappell

Pray

God above me, God beside me, God within me, thank you for a personal testimony by Peter that really is life-changing. Open my heart to amazing love. Amen.

Go

Go with God courageously into the world to face life’s barriers.

Go with God confidently to overcome them.

Praise the Lord!