Acts 10 – Suddenlies: Part 2 – Living in the Awe of God

Cornelius Calls for Peter

Acts 10 verse 1

At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. One day at about three in the afternoon he had a vision. He distinctly saw an angel of God, who came to him and said, “Cornelius!”

Cornelius stared at him in fear. “What is it, Lord?” he asked.

The angel answered, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea.”

To summarize the rest of the chapter:

After this encounter with the angel Cornelius sends men to Peter’s house. Peter simultaneously is having a vision where God speaks to Him 3 times and declares “Do not call anything unclean that I call clean.” At that time in History, Jews were forbidden from entertaining or entering the home of Gentile because it was considered “unclean” according to Mosaic law. This vision given to Peter was to prepare Him to be ready to break a social and spiritual norm in order that the rest of the earth could receive the gospel. Wow! 

 As Peter was pondering the vision, Cornelius’ men arrived to Peter’s house to ask him to come with them back to Cornelius’s. In this moment, Peter knew what to do. He had been prepared by God and went with the men to where Cornelius was. At the house of Cornelius, Peter ended up being able to preach the gospel to a large crowd of family and friends who had been gathered to hear and receive this message. This moment, where a suddenly happened and 2 men obeyed, ushered in the largest expansion of the Gospel. 

Imagine this moment. Live in it for a second. 

Every ethnic group and class is segregated. This is one of the most socially divided and polarized times on the planet! Imagine this gathering of people of all birthrights and skin colors, genders and classes coming together to receive a message of hope that canceled the former laws of separatism and brought them into the Inheritance of Jesus!

This was the Greatest liberation of marginalized people we have recorded, and hands down the largest social justice movement in History. It included jews, non jews, black, white, asian, latino, every single ethnic group on the planet, the sick, the disabled, the incarcerated, the slave, the elect, the orphan, the widowed, the poor, regardless of gender, orientation, social class, or birth AND it elevated women as powerful equals alongside men and even dignified and rectified the status of children.

It returned all humanity to an equal playing field, it girded the church up with radical hope in this “mystery of the ages now revealed to us”  as it says in Colossians.

This powerful story is a suddenly moment, potent with the awe of God! 

Lovers of God

Cornelius really stands out to me in this story, particularly because of how he is described as a man who’s offering affected the Lord’s heart.

The bible describes Cornelius as “devout.” The definition of devout is “one who is motivated by the awe of God and carries it out in action.” 

Cornelius even moved God’s heart with his prayer (another word for prayer in this instance can be translated “worship”) – the posture of his heart toward the Lord was pure. God knew him and He knew God. 

Acts 10:4 He, fastening his eyes on him, and being frightened, said, “What is it, Lord?” the angel said to him, “Your prayers and your gifts to the needy have gone up as a memorial offering before God.”

Did you know that you can minister to God himself?

God wants to rekindle his bride, his beautiful lovers with a love so sure, so passionate, so secure, so immovable that it can walk through whatever comes, motivated by the awe of God. 

One of the words for worship in the greek is  “proskuneo” which literally means “to kiss toward.” There’s a lot of romance in worship! To worship is to be a lover.

I felt the Lord direct me to ask- What does it mean to be a lover? And I jotted down this list with Holy Spirit…

A lover is…

• Purely delighted every time they see their one
• Present
• Attentive to the needs of the loved one
• Looking for opportunities to love and see and celebrate
• Passionate, listening
• Patient, kind, gentle
• Thinking about the loved one 
• Invested. Spending time with their love
• Listening carefully to the desires / heart of the loved one
• In full support of the dream of the loved one
• Pooling all resources and ability to lavish their beloved 
• Receiving deep joy and fulfillment from pouring love on their lover without need for return

As lovers of God, we are not promised a suffering free life- we are promised Love Himself to walk through suffering with. We are promised the Hope of Glory.

The SAME word describing Cornelius’  “offering” was used for another woman in Mathew 26. 

If you remember, Mary,  moved with love and deep gratitude, pours the alabaster jar of oil on Jesus. Wiping his feet with hair. It was the equivalent to a years worth of wages- $50,000- “Truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the entire world, what this woman has done will also be told in memory of her.”

Then there is David in the Bible – God considered him a man after his own heart. David wanted to build a house for the Lord, a sanctuary for Him to rest. David thought to do something for the Lord, that Lord God hadn’t even asked for Himself. 

Cornelius, Mary, David. All moved in devotion and love, all propelled by an awe of God. All wrecked by God’s love for them. Living lives of intimacy.

If you want to be someone that moves the heart of God, let Him move yours first.

You can only love as much as you’ve been loved.  

This is the difference of grace vs. striving. The awe of God keeps us healthy, it keeps us pure. It keeps us longing and looking for more of Him everywhere. 

The practice of being moved by Him daily- isn’t that prayer? Isn’t that worship and intimacy?  

I am fascinated by how older couples have stayed in love for so many years. You know how they do it? They practice being in awe of the other over and over and over again. Every day practicing awe towards each other. 

Salvation is free, but intimacy is costly. 

Intimacy’s reward is itself

Intimacy is possible when I am aware that my actions, my heart posture, my life affects another. 

A healthy relationship is one where we both carry responsibility in stewarding our connection, realizing we affect each other and owning our part. 

• Do I have a healthy relationship with God

Living from Intimacy equips us to navigate great Influence without compromising or losing our first love. 

God could trust Cornelius with revelation- intimacy prepares us to receive revelation! I think God trusted Cornelius with the arrival of Peter because he knew Cornelius’ heart was taken by God alone. 

When we live from intimacy, the scripture comes alive. If we live from rules, it will squelch the yearning of the spirit to invite you into new freedom and new understanding (Cornelius and Peter could have easily botched this and gone about business as usual.)

In connection with Him, we are prepared for what is coming. Intimacy is where we are given the grace for what we are about to walk through.

A word on FEAR…

Cornelius “Feared God with all of his household”- fear of God is a healthy awareness and reverence of God in the universe. If you fear the Lord, you don’t have room to fear other things. God is the biggest and greatest thing in your life- Essentially…He takes up all the space.

Cornelius was also terrified when the angel showed up to give him a message. And his heart was ready to receive that message.

Fear can either terrify us or clarify us

These are some alarming times we are living in. How are we going to navigate and respond to fear?

There is a fine line between FEAR and WONDER. Wonder and Awe of God makes our hearts open and eager to follow Jesus no matter what the outcome of our life looks like. Fear terrorizes, pressures and corners us. 

Fear is a bully.  

“The enemy Drives, but the Lord invites”

Did you know that fear is one of the greatest suppressors of your immune system?

Did you also know that in your body, your nervous system registers fear and excitement very similarly in the body?

That means we get to choose how we allow fear to compel us forward. Will we allow awe of God to propel us into an exciting adventure with Him? Or will we lay paralyzed, immobilized or silenced by fear?

What would it look like to turn the sword of fear being used against you, back against the enemy,  to wield greater clarity and authority? 

I believe many of us are misappropriating fear in our lives. What the enemy meant for harm, God always is able to use for good.

Take the the sword of fear that the enemy points at you, grab it, turn it around and use it against him. Do not allow him to terrorize you. If you’re feeling beaten down, get a friend and have them pray over you. Do not allow him to manipulate you. 

If you are experiencing fear, where there is a knife at your back pushing you into something- where you are experiencing pressure – I pray in Jesus name for the Spirit of God to rise up in you with confidence, knowing your place of authority in Jesus and to take the sword from the enemy’s hand. I pray that you would sense the glorious pulling, the invitation of God. And that any agenda of the evil one to push you down, or manipulate you with fear would be cut off and silenced, in Jesus’ name!

It all comes back to living in the Awe of God

Imagine being alive in that room with Cornelius and Peter. This experience that Cornelius had was full of that kind of childlike awe, overwhelming joy and anticipation. It was serendipitously timed. 

This joyous revelation filled people with love and awe of God, 

WHAT IT DIDN’T DO was promise them security, prosperity, or ease. But, it did promise them a mysterious, undaunted, indestructible Hope through whatever came. 

If you’re familiar with the years that came after this moment in the bible – they were full of trial and tragedy for the early church. These may have been what we read as the “glory days” but they were full of political unrest, division, loss and even death. Sound familiar? Cornelius couldn’t have had it easy running a government battalion as a believer, being mocked and hated by those opposing growing christianity. We know that Peter, the disciples, and many other believers experienced profound suffering and persecution in the days to come.

Sometimes we live our entire lives to receive an encounter or a revelation believing “when I just get there” everything will be ok. But I want to tell you, often it is the encounter or revelation you receive from the Lord that prepares you for the days that are coming.

One more thing… Kingdom Appointments, Heaven-breathed relationships are real!

Don’t be surprised if He brings someone into your life to give you a revelation of who He is or to remind you of something you lost along the way. That’s exactly what happened to me just a month ago.

In the midst of everything happening in our world, I believe there is a great move of God happening. It’s a move to become lovers of Him above everything else. Which means coming back to letting Him love us first. There is a dismantling of SYSTEMS and rulers as well as any other voice that is greater in our lives than that of the Holy Spirit’s. There is a Resurgence of intimacy- IT. IS. HERE. Of worshippers who will worship in spirit and truth! I believe that this will be a Renaissance season for the church- a unique moment in History where God is dropping revelation into our hearts, to prepare us, to be ready.

We will need a radical returning to first love in order to walk in revolutionary hope and faith through the days ahead.

What would it look like to live with an awe of God like this? To be a people in love, compelled by wonder, ready for whatever He is going to do.

Today, if you have buried wonder, if disillusionment has moved in and clouded your expectation of goodness- I pray that the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead would well up from within you and remind you who you are! I pray that Hope would reignite in your bones. That Christ in you, the Hope of Glory would fan even the tiniest flame inside of you with fresh awe of God! And that your heart would be ready to experience and see Him move, Suddenly, on your behalf.

You can do anything God!