This 5-day devotional draws directly from Jeremy Wood's sermon “ACTS 10: "THE SHEET, THE SOLDIER, AND THE SHOCK OF GRACE"” so you can keep engaging with the message all week. Read, reflect, and share it with your small group or friends.
God Was Already There
Monday — Understanding the Truth
Have you ever felt like everything depended on you saying exactly the right thing at exactly the right moment? Like if you fumbled it, the whole thing would fall apart?
Today's Scripture "About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, 'Cornelius!' … 'Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God.'" — Acts 10:3–4
Reflection Cornelius was a Roman soldier — a gentile, an outsider by every religious standard of his day. He had no church background, no insider language, no credentials. And yet God had already been watching him, listening to his prayers, noticing his generosity, and preparing him for a moment he didn't even know was coming.
Peter had no idea any of this was happening. When God finally sent him to Cornelius's house, he wasn't bringing God somewhere new. God was already there.
This is one of the most quietly liberating truths in all of Scripture: you are never the first one to arrive. When you think of someone in your life who seems far from God — a family member, a coworker, a neighbor — God has not been waiting on you to show up before he starts working in them. He's already been moving. He's been speaking to them in ways you can't see, stirring something in them you didn't cause.
Your job isn't to drag God into someone's life. Your job is to show up when he says it's time and trust that he's been doing the preparation work you couldn't do.
Today's Step Think of one person you've been praying for. Ask God to show you what he might already be doing in their life — and ask him to make you ready when it's time to show up.
A Closing Thought You are not carrying this alone. God is already ahead of you, and that changes everything.
The Wall You Didn't Know You'd Built
Tuesday — When It's Hard
Most of us don't think of ourselves as people who write others off. But if we're honest, there are people — or whole categories of people — we've quietly stopped expecting God to reach.
Today's Scripture "But Peter said, 'Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean.' And a voice spoke to him again the second time, 'What God has cleansed, you must not call common.'" — Acts 10:14–15
Reflection Peter wasn't trying to be disobedient. He was trying to be faithful. He was holding on to what had always been right and true and good. And God looked at that faithfulness and said, I need you to let me expand that.
That's a hard word to receive. It's easier to accept correction when we know we've been doing something wrong. But what do you do when God asks you to loosen your grip on something that wasn't wrong — it was just too small?
Most of us have built walls we didn't mean to build. Not out of cruelty, but out of self-protection. We got hurt. We tried something and it didn't work. We kept showing up for someone who kept walking away. And somewhere along the way, we quietly decided that certain people were too far gone, certain situations were too broken, certain doors weren't worth opening again.
God keeps lowering the sheet anyway. Not to shame you for the wall, but because his kingdom is bigger than the categories you've built — and he wants to take you somewhere those categories can't reach.
Today's Step Ask yourself honestly: Is there a person or a group of people I've quietly written off? Sit with that question today — not in guilt, but in openness.
A Closing Thought God isn't asking you to pretend the hurt didn't happen. He's asking if you're willing to let him be bigger than it.
Showing Up in the Ordinary Moments
Wednesday — Putting It Into Practice
It's tempting to wait for a dramatic moment — the perfect opening, the right words, the ideal circumstances. But most of the kingdom gets built in the ordinary ones.
Today's Scripture "Then Peter went down to the men who had been sent to him from Cornelius, and said, 'Yes, I am he whom you seek. For what reason have you come?'" — Acts 10:21
Reflection Peter didn't have a polished plan. He had a vision he was still processing, three strangers at the door, and a nudge from the Holy Spirit that said, Go with them, doubt nothing. So he went.
That's it. He just went.
The practical invitation of Acts 10 isn't complicated. It's showing up. It's asking your coworker how they're really doing and actually waiting for the answer. It's finally walking across the yard to introduce yourself to the neighbor you've been meaning to meet for two years. It's not giving up on the family member who's been distant, but just staying present — letting them watch you trust God in the hard moments, not just talk about him in the good ones.
You don't have to have a sermon ready. You don't have to have it all figured out. Peter told Cornelius straight out that he'd had to fight through some resistance just to get there. That honesty was part of the message.
The people God has been preparing around you don't need a perfect version of you. They need the real one — the one who showed up anyway.
Today's Step Choose one small, specific action today: send a text to check in, start a real conversation, or simply pray for someone by name and ask God to open a door this week.
A Closing Thought You don't have to manufacture the moment. You just have to be willing to walk through the door when it opens.
Too Far Gone — Or So He Thought
Thursday — What This Looks Like in Real Life
Sometimes the person who seems most unlikely to change is the one God has been working on the longest.
Today's Scripture "While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were astonished, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles." — Acts 10:44–45
Reflection Imagine someone who spent decades running hard in the wrong direction. People who loved him prayed faithfully, year after year, wondering sometimes if it was worth it. To the outside eye, nothing was changing. But something was moving underneath the surface — a restlessness, a hunger, a slow turning he couldn't even name yet.
Then one day, he said yes. And when he went to tell his father, his dad grabbed his hands and started crying — and prayed a thanksgiving prayer that went on for ten minutes, because he'd been waiting thirty years for that moment.
That's not a fairy tale. That's what happens when faithful people keep praying for someone they can't see God moving in yet — and God was moving the whole time.
The people around you who seem furthest from God are not beyond his reach. The Holy Spirit doesn't fall based on credentials or clean histories. It falls on hungry hearts, open hearts, surrendered hearts. And the only people who get to witness it are the ones who didn't give up.
Don't give up on the person you've been praying for. You don't know what God has been doing in them when no one was watching.
Today's Step Think of someone you've almost given up praying for. Pray for them again today — and thank God that he hasn't given up on them either.
A Closing Thought The astonishment in Acts 10 belongs to the people who almost stopped believing it was possible. Keep believing.
A Wider Table Than You Imagined
Friday — Carrying It Forward
As this week closes, here's a question worth carrying into the weekend: Who might God be asking you to make room for?
Today's Scripture "Then Peter opened his mouth and said: 'In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him.'" — Acts 10:34–35
Reflection All week we've been sitting with the same truth, turning it over from different angles: God is already moving in people before we arrive. He asks us to let him expand our hearts before he expands our reach. And the Holy Spirit falls not on the polished or the prepared, but on the open and the hungry.
Acts 10 ends with a whole household baptized — people who didn't fit anyone's category for who was supposed to be there. And the ones who almost missed it were the ones who had the most religious reason to think they already knew how this was supposed to go.
Here's the invitation as you head into the weekend: you are not called to build a bigger life. You're called to build a wider table. A table where the broken feel welcomed, not tolerated. Where the outsider becomes family, not a project. Where the person who's been told they're too far gone discovers they were never out of reach.
That kind of life doesn't require a platform or a plan. It requires an open heart and a willingness to show up when God says go.
Today's Step As you move through this weekend, ask God one simple question: Who have you already been preparing — and are you asking me to show up for them? Then pay attention to what he brings to mind.
A Closing Thought The table is always wider than we build it, and the invitation is always broader than we extend it — but God keeps making room, and he's inviting you to do the same.