100 Days to a Healthier ChurchSample

Day 58 (Sunday)

Today’s Big Idea: God changes Peter’s mindset. Before God does something big, He tells His people about it. That was certainly the case in the story of Cornelius and Peter. If we’re constantly surprised, angry, or resistant when God does something new, we’re not listening when He tells us He’s about to change our mindset.

Key Verse: “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean” (Acts 10:15).

Thoughts to Consider: Peter was staying at a friend’s house when he decided to go up on the roof for some prayer time. While there, he had a strange vision. Three times, a sheet came down in front of him filled with animals that every Jew knew were unclean. But each time, a voice said “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.” Surely, Peter must have thought, this is a temptation from the devil, not a command from God. So he refused the command. But the command was from God. 

Like our Jewish friends, church folks have a way of functioning. And, also like them, we’ve been taught that keeping close to those traditions is one of the ways we honor God. But when new people come to faith in Christ, then show up at church, some of those traditions are challenged. Are we willing to accept changes when God brings them—especially when they come in the form of new believers who need our help and patience, not our judgment and stubbornness? Or are we going to keep calling things impure that God has said are pure?

Consider that today. But don’t worry. Making God-ordained changes doesn’t lead to losing the essentials that should never change. Before our week together is done, we’ll see that very clearly from Peter’s story.