Devotion, after lunch on Monday, 05Aug13, 2.45 pm.
Acts 15:17, quoting Amos 9:11,12, tells us that all Gentiles who bear the Name of YHWH will seek YHWH.
This is a new covenant, whereby Gentiles can bear the Name of YHWH. Notice the significance of the word, "Gentiles". Yes, it says Gentiles. It refers to those peoples whose males are uncircumcised, who have traditionally been disqualified from God's nation of Israel.
The time has come, when these Gentiles can bear the Name of YHWH. These are the Gentiles who seek YHWH.
Acts 15: 1, 5 records that some of the Pharisee sect have insisted that the believing Gentiles in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia must be converted and become Jews according the Mosaic tradition.
Acts 15:1
“Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”
Acts 15: 5
But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses.”
After much dispute, finally Peter rose up to address the disciples in Acts 15: 7-11, using his first-hand experience at Cornelius' household at Caesarea to explain why there is no need for these Gentiles to become Jews by undergoing circumcision and to obey all the Torah of Moses.
“Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they.”
Yes, today, the Spirit of God is given by baptism in the Name of the Master Yeshua the Anointed One of God. Through the kindness of the Master Yeshua, we are saved, in the same manner as those Gentiles in the household of Cornelius.
Our hearts are purified by faith.
