Tuesday, August 9, 2016
Acts 9:39 Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room. All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them.
GIFTS
Giving and receiving gifts is something that many look forward to. Often pictures are taken of people with their new gifts to show the givers how happy they are.
And yet, when Peter arrived at Joppa, the widows were holding the gifts that they had received from Tabitha and weeping! Why was that? Did they not like the clothing she had made for them? Quite the opposite.
Were they perhaps weeping because they would not receive any more gifts from her? Not likely. They were not weeping because of the gifts but because the cheerful giver was gone. She herself had been a gift from God, and now she was gone.
Was it true? Was Tabitha "the gazelle" really a gift from God? We can see that it was true by what happened next. Peter sent everyone out of the room, just as Jesus had once done back at the home of Jairus. That time Jesus had given a daughter back to her parents. This time through His servant Peter, Jesus gave Tabitha a second time to her friends, the people of Joppa. We can see that they considered it to be the Lord's doing, for it was not Peter they began worshiping, but Jesus (v. 42).
And so with us! More important than any gifts we receive are the people who cared enough to give them to us. Many of them have been brought near to us by Jesus, for when many follow after One, the closer they get to Him, the closer they are brought to each other.
