By Nate Powell
The other day, I was doing my reading in Acts, and I noticed a detail about Acts 10 that I’d not seen before.
If you’re not familiar with it, Acts 10 is a ground breaking chapter of the Bible. It is groundbreaking, because it is the moment at which Peter and Cornelius both have the same vision and revelation: The church and new covenant are not just for the Jews, but for the Gentiles (non-Jews) as well. This may not sound like a big deal to you, but it should. Why? Because most of us are Gentiles! If the Good News of Jesus isn’t for me, then the gift of eternal life isn’t for me. Acts 10 is great news, because now the Kingdom of God is for both the Jews and the Gentiles.
But that’s not the detail I noticed. The detail I noticed is this one. First stated in Acts 10:2-3: “[Cornelius] prayed regularly to God. One afternoon at three o’clock, he had a vision in which he saw an angel of God coming toward him.” As well, we see down in verse 9: “Peter went up on a flat roof to pray. It was about noon …” It is from there that Peter has his vision and heaven is opened toward all of mankind. Why did this happen? There are many reasons toward God’s purposes, but a glaring reality stood out to me. The doors of heaven were opened to the Gentiles because two men scheduled time for prayer.
Wow! What a testimony! So often, we give lip service to prayer. But how often do we actually schedule time to come before the Lord in prayer? How will prayer be something more than a small sentence uttered in our mind or under our breath. This is convicting and powerful. You are a Christian and I am a Christian because two men made prayer a priority.
It is in this regard that we put a challenge forward to the church. Is it possible that we can be known as a people of prayer? That we would be people who regularly schedule time to pray. I do that personally. And I want to challenge our church to do it more as a church family.
That’s why I’ve started the prayer initiative. Each Monday morning, I will be here at the church at 8 AM. I would love to have you join us, either at the church or from your home. Today was the first day, and it was awesome. We are devoting a full hour to prayer for our church, school, workplaces and community. Would you make prayer a priority and give an hour toward this purpose?