I Have A Dream - Acts 10

“The Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message.” (Acts 10:44)
 
LOVE conquers every divide.  Every person is made by God, Jesus gave his life for them and the Holy Spirit is ready to live within anyone who will ask.  In heaven we can be sure we will be part of a ”great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language” (Revelation 7:9).  Every person is therefore of inestimable worth to LOVE. 
 
This earth-shattering mindset is paradigmatic for every Christian and has continued to inspire them to break injustice and oppression throughout history.  Saint Paul wrote to the Galatian church, saying, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  (Galatians 3:28).  Such truth is what gave Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jnr such certainty over the just cause of overcoming racial segregation as he shared his dream of an America free from racism in Washington, 1968.  When LOVE moves in, racism is thrown out.
 
The Apostle Peter was no racist.  But even he had to recalibrate his expectations about who could accept LOVE as Lord on equal terms.  The answer was clear: anyone.  Background or birthright was no longer any factor.  Race or religion didn’t matter.  Conversion is all that matters.  All that was needed was belief, repentance and seeking the Holy Spirit.  LOVE had to shatter even some aspects of the legality surrounding faith -  the food laws were felt by many Jews to be at the heart of what it means to be a child of LOVE.  But apparently, they’re not.  Looking back on our past, anyone can say what Bono and B.B. King sang: “I did what I did, before LOVE came to town” (Rattle and Hum, 1988).
 
Cornelius wasn’t Jewish – indeed he was an officer in the army that was an oppressor of the Jews at that time – but he believed, he was a man of prayer, and he was very devout.  As Peter spoke, the Holy Spirit fell on everyone who was present, such was their readiness to receive the truth (Acts 10:44).  Peter and Cornelius became brothers that day – crossing over so many social divides.  The Holy Spirit brings in to affect in our lives today the victory Jesus has won for us: he unites and reconciles us not only to LOVE, but to one another also.
 
Before we began LOVECHURCH, Bournemouth was described to me as a “layer cake”, whereby the different layers of society did not interact.  It was as though if you were rich, you lived in a totally different place to the poor, who were also unconnected to student-Bournemouth, and so on.  Church is to transcend all those layers, as we see in the book of Revelation – five times the great gathering is described as containing people from every layer of the world’s society (5:9; 7:9; 11:9; 13:7; 14:6).  Let’s pray today that the church in Bournemouth will cut through every layer of its society, uniting, saving and transforming as it does so.

“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptised by one Spirit so as to form one body – whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” (1 Corinthians 12:12-13)