If you would have asked Peter or any other Christian or Jew before this event, ‘Does God discriminate between types of people in choosing who he will reach out to?’ they would have said, without hesitation: “Yes, he does discriminate. He will work with Jews but not Gentiles.” It was this attitude that God wanted to change because he was reaching out to everyone without discrimination. The key question, to understand the root issue here, is this: What makes a person a valid candidate for God to work in their lives? Do they have to be open to believing the Bible? No. Do they have to believe in God? No. What if they are vehemently against Christianity, does that rule them out? No, it didn’t rule Saul out. Do they have to be open to spiritual things? No. Do they have to be a reflective spiritual sort of person? No. There is no set of personal characteristics that make a person a ‘more likely’ candidate for God. This is important to bear in mind because we tend to withhold sharing our faith with someone unless we are convinced they are ‘the sort of person’ who will be open to it. You can probably think now of a number of people who you consider to be unlikely candidates for faith in Jesus and because of this you probably don’t bother even mentioning God to them. So you make a discriminatory judgement. When you visit them you leave Jesus outside in the car. I would encourage you to rethink this.
Pray for those on whom you may previously have given up hope.
Read Acts 11:1-18
