What will God have to do in your life to get you to climb over those walls? To get you to reach the “unclean”?

 

READ: Acts 10

 

Acts 10:28

He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. (NIV)

 

• Peter was a Jew and by their customs he was not allowed to be in a gentile’s home.
• But God had shown him that he should not call any man unclean.
• God had shown him in a vision that it was okay to kill and eat unclean animals just before the messengers came (Vv. – 23)
• God had also told him to go with these men
• Peter’s conclusion was that he was never to call a man unclean again
• God was opening the door even wider in the minds of the apostles for gentiles and non-Jews.

APPLICATION:

• We are to pay attention to the leading of the Holy Spirit
• God’s word trumps tradition and so does His leading.
• We are not to consider anyone as unclean (Hispanic, Muslim, homeless, democrat, republican, etc.)
• We can not afford to be prejudice!

Recently I saw a video of Dr. James MacDonald who is a pastor at Harvest Bible Chapel in the Chicagoland area. He had disguised himself as a homeless man and sat outside of his church to see how people would react to him. In the video you see several people walk by him suspiciously, and no one offers to help him. But later in the video he comes through the church, still disguised, with his shopping cart. He slowly walks up to the pulpit and once there he begins to take off his costume. He shares how many just walked by staring at him, but then he tells them that he was so blessed by how many of them reacted to him while he was setting on his cardboard pallet. The video later shows person after person coming to him – offering to pray with him, dropping off bottles of water, and even food. Many of the people invited him to come into church with them. Dr. MacDonald shares how he was choked up with emotions while people in his church demonstrated their Christian love to him. He was so overwhelmed by their love and generosity that he could not speak when they came up to him. He said that he was “crying inside his beard”!

 

I was choked up while I was watching this video. I was so proud while watching my brothers and sisters in Christ respond the way that Christ would want them to. But I wonder how many of us would do the same. How many of us would be like the first group in the video that just merely walked by? Some of them looking sideways at him suspiciously. Many others purposely went around him to another set of doors just to avoid him. Or how many of us would stop to pray with him, offer him food and water, and a seat by us in the church service?

 

You see Peter and Jews just like him had grown up living with so much prejudice that they were not even conscious of it anymore. It took an amazing vision from God (the sheet with unclean food) to get Peter to go with those Gentile men to visit a Gentile man in his Gentile home. Peter was putting everything on the line the moment he stepped into that home. They were unclean! Peter’s entire being was telling him, “don’t go in!” But he obeyed the Spirit of God and did what he was called to do. And God did some amazing things that day!

 

What are we prejudice towards? Who have we considered “unclean”. Is it the Hispanic family down the street that we assume must be “illegal”? Or is it the Muslim man and his wife that we see when we go out of town? Maybe it’s the democrat or the republican (depending on your political flavor) that you meet at the Christmas party? Whoever it is, how we treat them, is of utmost importance. We must recognize that God does not see them as unclean no matter how strongly we detest them. He sees them as people who need Jesus. He sees them as lost and without hope. He sees them, just like He used to see us – a sinner in need of a Savior!

 

We need to ask for God’s eyes – to see people the way that He sees them. I am sick and tired of my own sinful eyes and my own critical heart. When God witnesses us and how we can act towards others I believe He cries. From reading these scriptures, and from what I understand of our loving Father, it tells me that He cries when we say those things. When we glance away from the homeless man hoping that he won’t notice us it grieves Him. I believe it makes Him cry.

 

God desires that all men would come to know Him, and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4). But unfortunately for many of us that just isn’t possible. We just can’t seem to get past those walls that society or we have built around us. After all, they are “those people”. But God desires for them to know Him, and He wants to use you to reach them.

 

What will God have to do in your life to get you to climb over those walls? To get you to reach out to the “unclean”? What will He have to do in your heart to get you to reach that Gentile?

 

Ask God to show you any prejudices that you might have. Ask Him to forgive you and to change your heart. Then begin to seek ways to reach those on the other side of the fence.

 

 

Each week’s Monday Motivation is taken from the reading schedule found in the Life Journal. If you are ready for the next step in your discipleship, then order yours today or see me for a copy.

www.lifejournal.cc

 

If you would like help in growing in your faith, or if you would like to know how to have faith in Him, then please contact us at (928)636-2949 or email me at pastorguy@cvgrace.com