God's Holy Fire: 'The Spirit Told Me!'

To Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, the apostle Peter had to justify why he went to the house of Gentiles and ate with them (Acts 11:1-3). Clearly, Peter went to share the good news of Jesus, but the sticking point was table fellowship with Gentiles. While this objection seems unbelievable to me, I can still remember the time when racism was more widely accepted and more openly practiced where I lived. Jesus had said that the Holy Spirit — the promised power from God (Luke 24:49) — would lead his followers to be "witnesses ... to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Peter makes clear that, in this case, the Holy Spirit directly spoke to him and told him to go (Acts 10:19-20). Once Cornelius and his household were brothers and sisters in Christ, the fellowship was the result (Acts 10:48). While this result seems so natural, think of the ways we segment people to keep from dealing with them as people, and even worse, as brothers and sisters in Christ. The Holy Spirit makes clear that we belong together, we are family, we are God's children, and all those old worldly distinctions have to melt away (Gal. 3:26-28).