Pause

Word of God speak
Would You pour down like rain
Washing my eyes to see Your majesty
To be still and know
That You're in this place.
Please let me stay and rest
In Your holiness.
Word of God speak.

Bart Millard and Pete Kipley

Listen

"We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."

Acts 10:39-43

Think

Today’s passage ties onto the end of yesterday’s, which was about Jesus doing good and healing people. Peter was preaching that the disciples were witnesses to all that Jesus did: to his death, to his resurrection, to the mission he passed on to them, and, through an unbroken line of believers across the world, to us.

Peter is speaking to a group of Gentiles, the first time this happens in the book of Acts. It is an important moment to us who are not Jewish by birth; suddenly we are included! Sometimes I think that western Christians have lost that sense of being on the outside, and how good it feels to be included. I wonder what marginalized groups are waiting outside to be included, and what our role is in bringing them in?

There is good news! Christ is risen! Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins, and so much more, through his name. There is good news for all people.

David Burroughs

Pray

God, thank you that I am included! Thank you for making a way for anyone, from anywhere, to be included. But I confess that sometimes I exclude others whom you value. I will include others today – in my conversation, at my lunch table, with my family this evening, and in other ways. Thank you for Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. Amen.

Go

See, it is Jesus, Jesus has appeared;
Do not doubt at all for nothing you will fear.
Let the church with gladness hymns of triumph sing;
Tell it without ceasing: Death has lost its sting.

Yours is the glory, Resurrected One!
Endless is the victory you o'er death have won.

Edmond L. Budry