Today's passage is Acts 10:17-33.
Peter was reflecting on a vision he had just had of a sheet coming down from heaven with all the birds and animals in it and the command to kill and eat them. The Spirit told him there were some men at the door asking Peter to go with them to see Cornelius and he should go with them. Cornelius bowed down before Peter. Peter told him that Jews were not supposed to fraternize with Gentiles but that God had given him a vision that contradicted that tradition. Cornelius told him that the large gathering in his house was there to hear what Peter had to say.
Yesterday we had a lively, entertaining and inspiring guest speaker who told his story of impoverished upbringing, conversion, struggle through med school, medical mission work in the Philippines during his studies and internship, and his championing by a prof of medicine at SNU.
The speaker was happy in the Lord and he knew it.
He gave many suggestions to us about how we could improve our relationship with Jesus and with our spouses and our neighbors.
I tried 최고야 at work with my Korean office staff. It was a hit.
I called my wife and said it too. She laughed.
I evangelized to three people today: my swimming coach, my athletic director and a former mokjang member.
None of my talks were long or preachy, at least I don't think they were.
One was simply the suggestion to hold Jesus' hand.
And you know what? I felt happy.
I have a huge cold and can't breathe through my nose. I have a sprained ankle.
But none of that dampened my happiness today. God's grace.
I did what I did today because I received God's message in yesterday's sermon. Cornelius and Peter had bigger, flashier messages than mine, but they were all messages nonetheless.
Cornelius's was to receive the word, Peter's was to preach the word to someone outside the Jewish community, mine was simply to evangelize in whatever small way I could, using words and phrases from the sermon.
I did it and it made me happy.
And that was the biggest message of all.
Lord, thank you for our guest speaker. Thank you for your grace in preaching the gospel today. Lord, let me not forget this day. Continue to inspire me to joyfully evangelize in little ways.
