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Hear the devotional here: https://anchor.fm/eradio-valverde/episodes/The-Door-is-Open-e1t12pq
34 Peter fairly exploded with his good news: "It's God's own truth, nothing could be plainer: God plays no favorites! 35 It makes no difference who you are or where you're from - if you want God and are ready to do as he says, the door is open. 36 The Message he sent to the children of Israel - that through Jesus Christ everything is being put together again - well, he's doing it everywhere, among everyone. 37 "You know the story of what happened in Judea. It began in Galilee after John preached a total life-change. 38 Then Jesus arrived from Nazareth, anointed by God with the Holy Spirit, ready for action. He went through the country helping people and healing everyone who was beaten down by the Devil. He was able to do all this because God was with him. 39 "And we saw it, saw it all, everything he did in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem where they killed him, hung him from a cross. 40 But in three days God had him up, alive, and out where he could be seen. 41 Not everyone saw him - he wasn't put on public display. Witnesses had been carefully handpicked by God beforehand - us! We were the ones, there to eat and drink with him after he came back from the dead. 42 He commissioned us to announce this in public, to bear solemn witness that he is in fact the One whom God destined as Judge of the living and dead. 43 But we're not alone in this. Our witness that he is the means to forgiveness of sins is backed up by the witness of all the prophets." (Acts 10:34-43 The Message Bible)
I started a tradition of taking my daughters with me to a church meeting that required my flying there. I did this about a month or so before they turned two, becuase in those days, they flew for free. They were exposed to what Daddy did when he left home for a church meeting. They were also exposed to airline travel. On one flight, my baby said she was hungry. And sitting near the first class section, we saw the flight attendant with trays of food to those in that section and we also saw the rapid way the curtain was closed. "Why do those people get food and we don't?" There isn't a harder thing to explain than the word wait. Here's another one; that door is closed to us.
In the home of a successful centurion, the Apostle Peter gets a chance to open a door. And he was able to do this only because his eyes and mind were now opened. You see, not too long before his sermon in the home of Cornelius, he would not have dreamed of setting foot inside the home of a Gentile. Jews were forbidden by law from interacting with non-Jews (aka Gentiles), and it was worse if they sat down to a meal with "unclean" people such as the Romans. Earlier in this chapter we read about the change that came over Peter with a vision he had, and so now he is able to say, "It's God's own truth, nothing could be plainer: GOd plays no favorites! It makes no difference who you are or where you're from - if you want God and are ready to do as He says, the door is open." The Good News of God's love through Jesus Christ was then and there available to all people, as he says, "He's doing it everywhere, among everyone." And he sums up the way John the Baptist opened the process, and Jesus fulfilled it by preaching, teaching, and performing signs and wonders; wholeness and new life was available to all who wanted it. Even after Jesus' death and resurrection, the work continues. And even today, with us as witnesses of what God has, can, is doing, and will do, for all who would but ask.
The door is open, and we have been invited!
PRAYER: Loving God, we thank You for opening the door, and we pray we who have already entered might be witnesses to invite others to come in; this we pray in Christ Jesus' strong name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! YOUR CALL TO ACTION: The door is open and people need to know! So, tell them!
Receive my blessings of peace and love,
Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.
