Hanging
with Strange Birds
Acts 10:23b-33
Key
Verse: “Peter
told them, “You know it is against our laws for a Jewish man to
enter a Gentile home like this or to associate with you. But God has
shown me that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or
unclean. (Acts 10:28 NLT)
Birds
of a feather flock together, bad character corrupts good character.
These were the things I was told when I was young. I only had
Christian friends. I only did things with people from my church. I
never did anything with non-church people. My parents did not have
friends from work or from the neighborhood with whom they spent time.
It is easy to think this is how God calls us to live but God calls
us out into the world. God calls us to go to Cornelius; to people
outside the Church, who do not know Jesus. We care called, like
Peter, to hang with strange birds, to speak the message of God to the
people in our lives. God does not merely call the called, God seeks
to bring the people of our neighborhoods, the people we meet each
day, into relationship. God tells us to go. We cannot simply hang out
with each other and simply expect people to come to know our God.
Many times we are the only Jesus the people around us know. We have
to go to them, listen to them and speak to them.
Prayer:
Lord,
God help me to go to different birds. I want my good character to
corrupt their bad character. I want you in me to rub off on them.
Draw me into friendship, in to relationship with people who do not
know you, so they can get to know you through me, so that they may
know who you and how you can change their lives. Amen
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