05/08/2024 – Generosity: A Sign of the grace of God
Acts 10: 4 Staring at the angel and feeling afraid, Cornelius said, “What do you want, sir?” The angel said to him, “God has heard your prayers and has seen your gifts to the poor. He remembers you and all you have done. 5 Send some men now to the city of Joppa to get a man named Simon, who is also called Peter. 6 He is staying with someone also named Simon, a leatherworker who has a house beside the sea.” 7 The angel who spoke to Cornelius left. Then Cornelius called two of his servants and a soldier. The soldier was a religious man, one of his close helpers. 8 Cornelius explained everything to these three men and sent them to Joppa.
9 The next day they were coming near Joppa about noon, when Peter was going up to the roof to pray. 10 He was hungry and wanted to eat. But while they were preparing the food for Peter to eat, he had a vision. 11 He saw something coming down through the open sky. It looked like a big sheet being lowered to the ground by its four corners. 12 In it were all kinds of animals, reptiles, and birds. 13 Then a voice said to him, “Get up, Peter; kill anything here and eat it.”14 But Peter said, “I can’t do that, Lord! I have never eaten anything that is not pure or fit to be used for food.” 15 But the voice said to him again, “God has made these things pure. Don’t say they are unfit to eat.”
The angel assured Cornelius that his prayers had been heard. But that is not all the angel said had reached the presence of God as an offering. He also said: your gifts to the poor have been accepted as an offering to God. People are ungrateful, but God has promised to repay you.
It is not just that Cornelius gave to the poor. He gave generously. Try generosity. One of the most evident signs that someone has received the grace of God is that they are generous, because they give by grace. We limit our own blessing by limiting our giving to the minimum. Some people ask what the minimum is they can give to God according to the Bible. The intention of their heart is to give God the least amount possible. This is not love. Don’t you see what God does? He does not limit his love. He has given to you without measure!
The work of Christ had made it possible for the message of the gospel to cross cultural barriers, ethnic barriers. If race and ethnicity are barriers today, imagine then. Romans were the conquerors. If anyone at the time could be filled with a sense of superiority it was them. Cornelius heard of a carpenter who claimed to be the son of God, who was rejected by his own people, crucified, and laid in a tomb. Yet Cornelius believed! The power of God reached into his heart and overcame EVERY barrier to conquer his heart. And one of the clearest signs of this miracle was his generosity.