Who was I that I could hinder God?

DAILY BYTE

We were wondering yesterday about how we carry Jesus with us while still being open, hospitable, and loving to people of other faiths. And we said that it is not necessary or right to be ashamed of Christ or hide him away.

On the contrary, Jesus’s way of living that we understand from the scriptures is our measure for everything else we see and hear in life.

The only way that Peter was able to recognize the Holy Spirit in the Gentiles was because he had seen the movement of Holy Spirit before. He knew what it looked like. He knew who Jesus was and how Jesus acts, and he was not being shy about his faith.

He was telling them about the good news of Christ when the Holy Spirit appeared – just like we need not be cowardly or shy about sharing our faith with others.

But Peter did not simply beat them with messages from the Bible and then walk away, like Christians tend to do. We stubbornly tell people what we believe and then refuse to listen to anything else.

But in Peter’s interaction with these people, when he recognized the work of the Holy Spirit within them, he didn’t keep blasting them with the Gospel. He humbly stood back and recognized that God had given these people of an entirely different culture the same gift of the Holy Spirit that the “people of God” had gotten. He saw how God wants to and does work through everyone, and when Peter realizes this miraculous truth. He says:

‘who was I that I could hinder God?’

Who are we that we could hinder God?

God’s Spirit flows where it will in whomever it desires. We cannot contain it to people who look and believe exactly like us.

If we believe God is truly Lord over all the earth, and then we must trust that God is capable of moving in and through everything and everyone on the planet.

And so we must learn all that we can about Jesus and the Holy Spirit – we must read and consume understanding about such a God from the Bible – so that when God’s Spirit moves in surprising places and people, we will still be able to see that it is the spirit of God that we know through Jesus Christ – and be able to praise God for it.

FOCUS READING

Acts 11:12b-17 (NRSV)

These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”