12Apr09 Acts 10: 34 - 43 NKJV
Him God raised up on the third day . . . v.40
This morning as the cool morning sun gradually emerged from the hill-tops overlooking Pearl Garden, I was sitting among the congregation attending our annual Easter sunrise service. I listened quietly when one of our members read the passage about Peter testifying as a first-hand witness of the Lord's resurrection to the household of Cornelius in Caesarea.
It occurred to me that Peter's testimony was full of references to the acts of God in the earthly ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It was God who anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power (v 38).
God was with Him (v 38b).
After he was killed, God raised him up on the third day (v 39).
It was God who showed the resurrected Lord Jesus openly to selected witnesses (v 41), witnesses whom God had chosen, so that they could even eat and drink with Him.
Finally, it was God who ordained the Lord to be judge of the living and the dead (v 42).
In other words, everything that leads up to Easter, and thereafter, is an act of God. This Easter, I am persuaded that we are not commemorating nor celebrating any human act, nor any man-made event. Instead, as we sat there under the cloudy morning skies, as the sun began to peek over the top of the eastern hills, as the reading of this passage from Acts chapter 10 was clearly heard, it was an act of God.
