Being Filled and Led By the Spirit
And
a voice came to him, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “Not so,
Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.” And a voice spoke to him again the second time,
“What God has cleansed you must not call common.” This was done three times. (Acts10:
13-16a)
Receiving
the Holy Spirit is a great thing, but it’s only the beginning of the story.
Peter had been baptized and filled
with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and now God was teaching him to walk in the Spirit. The Lord Jesus was
asking him to do something he would otherwise never do – go preach to the
dreaded Gentiles. Jews of the day didn’t even speak to Gentiles. What a
difficult thing it must have been for Peter to obey when he had no
understanding of what the Lord was after!
One
of the earmarks of a Spirit-filled believer is God working through him or her
in ways never imagined. If we are truly
Spirit-filled, we are responding to God’s call to go where we would not have
gone, love those we once felt nothing for, forgive those who hurt us most, and
give that we would keep. That’s when the
Holy Spirit is having His way with us. God sent Peter, a Jew, to a place he
would never have gone, to minister the Gospel to people he didn’t think God
even cared about. Peter’s obedience would make a way for those lost in
ignorance and sin to enter into the Kingdom of God, because he allowed the
Spirit Who filled him to also direct him.
I
encourage you to trust God more than your feelings or experiences, like Peter
did. Peter simply obeyed God. You, too, must obey Him - even when He takes you
through new and uncomfortable challenges. He is an exceedingly good God who
will perfect and prepare you to do all He asks of you, through the Spirit Who
fills you. Learn the lesson Peter learned – if you will let God change your mind, He will use you to change your
world.
Love
and peace,
Pastor Eric
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