Centurion Cornelius

Many years ago there was a man in Acts 10 which was a centurion - a centurion looks after about 100 soldiers in the army - and his name was Cornelius. One day, an angel from God came and spoke to Cornelius and told him that God was noticing all his prayers and the money he gave to people. The angel told him to send one of his servants to a place called Joppa to look for a man named Peter.

As the servants were travelling to Joppa, at the same time, Peter was on top of his house praying to God. The bible says that Peter was hungry, and as he was praying, he saw a something like a big bed sheet tied at the four corners coming down from the sky. Inside the sheet, there were all sorts of animals; birds, four-footed animals and even creeping animals. A voice from heaven then spoke to Peter and asked him to kill one of the animals and eat, since he was hungry. Being a Jew, Peter could not eat the kind of animals that were in this big sheet, so he said to God "I can not, because I have never eaten anything that is unclean". The voice said back to him "What ever God has made clean, don't call it unclean". This happened three times, and then the big sheet disappeared into the sky again.

As soon as the big sheet disappeared, Cornelius' servants were at the door of the house where Peter was. The servants told Peter that their master Cornelius had seen an angel, and they had been told to look for him. The next day, Peter went with the servants back to see Cornelius. Cornelius was very happy to see Peter, and told Peter what happened when he saw the angel.

Peter then understood the meaning of the big sheet that came out of the sky. To the Jews, if you were not a Jew you were "unclean". So what God was trying to tell him was that "God is no respecter of persons" (Acts 10:34). What this means is that God is cares about everybody, and that doesn't matter who you are or what you have done.

Boys and girls, God cares about you too. You might be rich or you might be poor, you might have done a lot of bad things in your life, or you might be a really good person. Whatever we are, God cares enough about us to save us from our sins. His Son the Lord Jesus died for our sins, and in John 3:15 it says "That whosoever (anybody who) believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life." What God wants us to do is to trust that what the Lord Jesus did by dying for our sins is good enough to take us to heaven, and when we do so we can have everlasting life.