Light for the Gentiles

Living in Covenant

Giving One's All

Live in the light of God (Isaiah 2:5) 

Called to a New Life in Christ

Acts 13:44-49 The Message

44-45 When the next Sabbath came around, practically the whole city showed up to hear the Word of God. Some of the Jews, seeing the crowds, went wild with jealousy and tore into Paul, contradicting everything he was saying, making an ugly scene.
46-47 But Paul and Barnabas didn’t back down. Standing their ground they said, “It was required that God’s Word be spoken first of all to you, the Jews. But seeing that you want no part of it—you’ve made it quite clear that you have no taste or inclination for eternal life—the door is open to all the outsiders. And we’re on our way through it, following orders, doing what God commanded when he said,
I’ve set you up
    as light to all nations.
You’ll proclaim salvation
    to the four winds and seven seas!”
48-49 When the non-Jewish outsiders heard this, they could hardly believe their good fortune. All who were marked out for real life put their trust in God—they honored God’s Word by receiving that life. And this Message of salvation spread like wildfire all through the region.

For Reflection

God gave each of us, Jew or Gentile, a point in our hearts (souls) that yearns to be satisfied.  It is the desire to be at peace, to live our lives in satisfying ways.

Some respond by ego-driven motives trying to fill that empty spot with worldly things which never seem to satiate their soul. Others react to God-driven purposes and find the reality which lies beyond the temporal world and into the eternal.  Such discovery is divinely satisfying.  Some Jews understood and accepted the new reality.  The Gentiles rejoiced that they too could find satisfaction in the justice and forgiveness that only trusting in God can bring.

Pray

Pray so that you can fulfill God's intentions for finding rest in a troubling world.

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