Acts 10 is a great story of salvation. Cornelius is a great example of trusting in God and listening to His leading. I’m not sure Cornelius really understood what God was about to do in his life, but he was willing to follow His direction. Peter is the same, but from a different direction, because he was willing to follow God’s direction in changing everything he considered sacred in his life. Both men show that what we may think is required or considered to be etched in stone, God can change in a heartbeat. It’s all God’s anyway, why not trust Him to do with it as He pleases.
2012 Day 121 – Acts 10
30 Monday Apr 2012
Posted in Daily Reading
Daily Devotion 
What struck me in this passage is that Cornelius was just going about his life, living in the awe and fear of God, doing what he knew God had told all of us to do – take care of the oppressed, poor, widows, orphans etc…He wasn’t waiting on God to tell him to do something. He knew that this was a general direction given by God, so he did it. Because of this obedience, he was able to hear God tell him the next thing to do. When we get caught up in our own thing, or when we are “waiting on the Lord” i.e. sitting on our rumps and not actually doing anything, it’s impossible for us to hear what God has to say to us. Apparently, when we are following his general direction of caring for others, our hearts are primed to hear him. So primed that when his angel shows up, we don’t freak out. I mean, notice Cornelius’s reaction to the angel. In all other stories of angels appearing in the Bible, their first words are “Don’t be afraid.” That doesn’t happen here. Cornelius notices somebody there, goes for a better look and then listens to him. Maybe he was used to not being afraid because he was a captain in the military, but part of me wonders if he was just primed for it because he was in the midst of doing what he knew God had for him, and all of us, to do.