Outsider

Acts 10:34-45

 

Have you ever felt like an outsider; different than those around you? As I considered this devotional I remembered a man who came to our church for awhile. I haven’t seen him lately. He usually sat in the same pew as my wife and I. During the sermon he would knit. I have to confess that I judged him. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t been around.

 

It’s easy to judge others; to put them next to an artificial standard that we have created in order to make ourselves look and feel good. You know the one I’m talking about. You

have to dress a certain way; act and talk a certain way; look a certain way. Otherwise, you just don’t fit in.

 

The backstory to today’s passage is that Peter, a Jew, and Cornelius, a Gentile, have been brought together by supernatural means orchestrated by God.

 

Normally, the culture they live in would not permit this meeting to occur. It was a social and religious culture that put the Gentiles on the outside and the Jews on the inside. In case of point, look at the reaction of the good Jewish people when the Gentiles received the Holy Spirit.

 

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles.          Acts 10:44-45 NIV

 

The disdain that the Jews had for the Gentiles was impeding the spread of the Gospel. God’s word, His love, His grace and forgiveness and even His Holy Spirit - were being held captive. Peter had a change of heart that not only changed him, but changed the world around him.

 

Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.      Acts 10:34-35NIV

 

Who do you judge and keep in a box? Someone who looks different or acts different from you? Maybe they knit during the sermon. Let the Holy Spirit open your heart so that all might have access to the Gospel of Jesus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(If God has spoken to you, or touched your heart through this devotional, please feel free to share it with others.)

 

 

Unbroken

Matthew 9:9-13

 

In the movie Unbroken, Louie Zamperini is stranded on a raft for 47 days when his bomber is shot down in the South Pacific during WWII. He is rescued by the Japanese, taken as a prisoner of war and abused for years. The movie ends when he returns home, a triumphant war hero. But the book tells the rest of his true story.

 

To survive all that happened to him is truly amazing, but when Louie returned home he became an alcoholic. His life changed however, when in 1949, at a Billy Graham Crusade in Los Angeles, Louie went forward to accept Christ. He was a broken man, and he knew it.

 

Matthew was a tax collector. Jews viewed tax collectors as traitors and hated them. They collected taxes for the Roman government, and then extorted whatever fees they wanted for personal gain and wealth. After calling Matthew to follow him, Jesus went to dinner at Matthew’s house where other tax collectors and sinners joined them. It was a gathering of broken people.

 

“When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”

 

If you’re a follower of Jesus, doesn’t his response make you cringe just a little bit? After all, who wants to think of themselves as sick? As a sinner? As broken? Who wants to identify with the kind of people who followed Jesus? They were common fishermen, lepers, prostitutes, social outcasts, and yes, even tax collectors.

 

We go to church on Sunday dressed in our Sunday best; hair combed, makeup on, saying all the right things. We want to put forth a good image. We want others to think well of us. We don’t want them to know about our hidden thoughts, our anger and resentments, our language, our sinful attitudes and behaviors, how we use and manipulate others. We don’t want to appear broken.

 

Listen though to what God’s word has to say about being broken:

 

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”     Psalm 34:18

 

“My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you God, will not despise”.                        Psalm 51:17

 

 “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.”          Isaiah 61:1

 

If we are honest with ourselves and with God, we would admit that we are sick; that like Louie Zamparinni, we are broken. And when we do, God takes hold of our heart and does something miraculous. We become a new creation in Christ, not perfect, but by His grace and mercy, following him in all we do.