Barry Parish Church

3rd April 2019

You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection... I now realize how true it is that God does not show favouritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.

Acts 10:28-35

 

 

 

Prayer Points

 

Confess any cultural prejudices that you might have: to immigrants, the rich, the poor, the unemployed, different races. Pray for Christ-likeness.

 

Confess any spiritual prejudices you have towards other churches or denominations. Pray that you will grow to see them as God sees them.

 

Pray that God would help people in your church to be less critical of others, but instead ‘quick to listen and slow to speak’.

 

We need maturity in knowing how to handle doctrinal differences. Pray for a greater understanding of God’s truth in his word.

 

         

     DAY 25: PREDJUDICE

 

What is our reaction when we think about people who

are charismatic, reformed, evangelical, catholic,

immigrant, foreign?

 

The disciples had spent three years with Jesus watching as

he ate with tax collectors, befriended prostitutes and became a friend of sinners, but still they carried their culturally elitist, Jewish mind-set into the post-resurrection world.

 

Cornelius, a gentile, was the last person on earth to whom Peter would take the gospel. It took an angelic visitation, a heavenly vision and supernatural guidance to convince Peter he should preach to Cornelius’ household.

 

We too easily put up barriers. Different cultural preferences become a wall that separates us. We think ‘they’ have got it wrong and we have to be careful about associating with ‘them’. We put people in boxes marked ‘very spiritual’, ‘spiritually unbalanced’, ‘doctrinally suspect’, or ‘needs prayer’! We would

do well to listen to what God told Peter in that vision which led him to Cornelius, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean’ (Acts 10:15, Acts 11:9).

 

Jesus loved and associated with those who belonged to spiritual institutions he knew to be flawed – remember Nicodemus (John 3) and the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4). And do you think the church of today would have shown such acceptance to the woman caught in adultery? To Jesus, she was a child of God, an individual, though sinful, to whom he could reach out. ‘Let him who is without sin throw the first stone’ (John 8:7).

 

    

Pray

 

*    Pray for your ‘big issue’

*    Pray for your ‘three friends’

*    Pray for a new wave of revival.

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