How Could I Hinder God?

​There may come a time when God asks you to do something that takes you out of your comfort zone and violates your religious beliefs.  For example, what if you are a pro-life conservative, and God calls you to minister to abortion advocates?  Or, perhaps you are a pacifist and democrat, and God leads you to present the gospel to Marines, a group trained and willing to take lives.  What will you do?  How will you explain to all your friends or those like-minded believers you fellowship with about your actions?

Meditation
Acts 11:17—Therefore, if God gave them the same gift that He also gave to us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, how could I possibly hinder God?”
 
Peter was raised as a Jew with little to nothing to do with Gentiles.  They were “the enemy.”  The impetuous former fisherman was more than content to concentrate his ministry preaching to Israelites.  The promises of God through Abraham were for the Jews. Even Jesus came as the Messiah but focused His ministry on His fellow citizens. 

All that changed when the Holy Spirit appeared to Peter in a vision and three times instructed him to eat unclean food—violating his religious beliefs. A perplexed Peter considered what the vision meant. Only later, after the Holy Spirit led him to accompany a Roman soldier and two slaves to the home of Cornelius, a centurion from the Italian Regiment, did he understand that salvation was ordained for the Gentiles. 

If you are a Gentile who follows Jesus, you can thank God for calling a Jew to set aside his convictions to share the gospel with Cornelius and his family. It took courage for Peter to do what he did.  He immediately faced criticism from circumcised believers for mingling and eating with uncircumcised foreigners.  But Peter explained what happened in an orderly manner, and his silent listeners glorified God (11:18).

Religion is not the be all end-all solution to life. Obeying God is. Our closely held convictions may cause us to hinder what God wants us to do.  Remember, His heart is to draw people to salvation. When our beliefs come at the sacrifice of ministering to others, we may be hindering God.  We are in danger of becoming sanctimonious when our religion supersedes Holy Spirit-led ministry.  This is an easy trap to fall into because it feels right and is so often applauded by other like-minded believers.

Beware of worshiping convictions over Christ, of making rules more important than obeying God’s unmistakable voice.  You may be rewarded by those in consensus and gain the applause of the chamber but wholly miss the blessing and fruit God had in store for you. “What God has made clean, you must not call common” (11:9).
 
Inspiration
“Have you never met the person whose religious life is so exact that you are terrified to come near him?  Never have an exercise of religion which blots God clean out.”—Oswald Chambers in Run Today’s Race         
 
©2023 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you want to receive these devotionals go to www.firstcause.org and click on the “Click here to receive weekly devotionals” box.  Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed, subject to the inclusion of this copyright notice.     
 
Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth.  (Holman CSB)