Don't Condemn What God Has Blessed

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Sometimes in our spiritual journeys, we need to be reminded that we are not other people’s opinions (good, bad or indifferent). We are who God says we are!

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But WHO DOES God say you are? Some of us have very different ideas of who God is and what God says about us, and sometimes these views are lifted from the same text - the Bible.

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But remember, in Christ, it’s all about the gospel; the whole point is to get to the good news of what has been accomplished on your behalf and the good that has been prepared for you that God wants you to walk in.

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Yet, how often has the gospel been twisted into exclusionary standards for Heaven’s acceptance? How often has the supposed gospel produced more egregious or bad news, as opposed to the “good news” that the gospel is literally intended to relay?

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The gospel, good-spell, the God-spell is that Heavenly good news that reconditions the mind and redeems humanity from every misery and hellish condition, brought about either through our own fears and worries, or the social structures of exclusionary human systems that surround us.

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In Acts 10 we see a devout spiritual man, Cornelius of Caesarea, have a vision in which an angel tells him to call for Simon Peter, who is staying in Joppa; Cornelius is instructed to send for Peter and to listen to the message that Peter will share with his household. Not long after that vision, Peter who is in Joppa, is physically hungry. While the food is being prepared, he is up on the rooftop praying and then falls into a trance, or has a vision.

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The passage that stands out to me is found in Acts 10, verses 9-16, but particularly verse 15:

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9 The next day as they were still on their way and were approaching the town, Peter went up to the roof of the house to pray, about the sixth hour (noon).

10 But he became very hungry, and wanted something to eat; and while the meal was being prepared a trance came over him,

11 And he saw the sky opened and something like a great sheet lowered by the four corners, descending to the earth.

12 It contained all kinds of quadrupeds and wild beasts and creeping things of the earth and birds of the air.

13 And there came a voice to him, saying, Rise up, Peter, kill and eat.

14 But Peter said, No, by no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common and unhallowed or [ceremonially] unclean.

15 And the voice came to him again a second time, What God has cleansed and pronounced clean, do not you defile and profane by regarding and calling common and unhallowed or unclean.

16 This occurred three times; then immediately the sheet was taken up to heaven.

(Acts 10:9-16 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition)

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Notice that this vision repeated itself three times! This repetition was to help Peter understand that this was a Divine Message that was trying to break through his religious programming and solidify Itself as a message from Heaven, communicating the Heart of God! We know that this was a reference to God showing the religiously devout Peter that Gentiles (non-Jews) were now included in the blessing of God, through Christ’s finished work. It also showed that God was in the business of restoring the wholeness of people and beings that were seemingly condemned under Old Testament law.

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In this vision, God sends a profound message to Peter that alters his religious worldview and broadens his concept of God and spirituality. Not only would the message in this vision enlarge his concept of God and relation to humanity, but it would also cause his ministry to send forth a message of great inclusion that never before existed in his public ministry.

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This vision/message of inclusion rubbed up against his subconscious programming which was riddled with great religious zeal to the exclusion of certain people-groups that didn’t adhere to the same standards. Yet, here it was, the same God he worshipped, calling him to LET GO of some of those religious exclusionary methods and ways of thinking that didn’t represent God’s heart for humanity and the true message of the gospel.

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Today, let’s see people for who they truly are - beloved children of God, graciously brought into the Life and blessing of God through the finished work of Christ.

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~Jason Powell

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