A Good Man Still Needs To Find

He was a good man. He had a good family. He prayed. He gave. He treated those different than him well. He served his country. His community respected him. He was “a righteous and God-fearing man”

Yet there was still something he needed to do to be saved.

Now there was a man at Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian cohort, a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, and gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed to God continually.

Acts 10:1-2

So when the word of God came to him, he listened. He didn’t just listen, he obeyed. He went searching for the answer he needed. He found it in Joppa in a man named Simon. So he brought him to his house and gathered his family to hear “ all that you have been commanded by the Lord" (Acts 10:33). So Simon Peter told the story of Jesus and the need to believe in him for salvation.

Cornelius knew the words Peter spoke to him would be the means to which he and his household would be saved (Acts 11:14). So he listened and obeyed the order to believe and be baptized (Acts 10:48).

Some say if you are a good man you don’t need to do anything to be saved. Some say faith alone grants salvation. Some say baptism is an unnecessary addition that doesn’t have anything to do with salvation.

Yet that wasn’t what Cornelius was told. This good man understood that his goodness wasn’t enough, his faith was proved by his actions, and his salvation came by the word God’s message, one that told him to be baptized.

What’s a good man to do? If he wants to be saved, exactly what the word of God says!

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