Who Is On Your "Dirty" List

Reference: Acts 10:15 But the voice spoke again: "Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean."

Observation: This is a very important scripture. This is the point where God calls the disciples to begin to reach out to beyond the Jewish people to begin presenting the gospel to gentiles like many of us. In doing so God says something that is very important for us to hear. Notice in the scripture that it is not just gentiles who are coming but unsaved gentiles and yet God refers to them as being "clean". This is not to say that they are already saved but in the Jewish mind (as demonstrated by the vision Peter was having) everything, and every one, is divided into the categories of unclean (don’t touch or even come near) and clean. What God was telling him was that if he is called to associate with people, even if they are those he would normally shun, he needs to respond and accept them.

This verse should cause us to ask ourselves who it is we are unwilling to associate with. Jesus came to love and care for the most unlovely, the outcasts, the rejects of society. How about us? Who is outside of our circle of concern and love? We need to be willing not to disassociate with anyone that God has called us to accept and that is all of those that come into our lives, no matter who they are.

Application/Confession: My problem is less one of acceptance than it is of association. I need to expand my circle of experience, to find ways of meeting more people who don’t know Jesus so that I can show His love and acceptance of them.

There are those who simply bug me. I struggle with their personality quirks. I know that God loves them and I need to do better at extending His acceptance to them.

PRAYER: Lord today, bring people along my path that I can show you love and acceptance to. Help me to never call unclean and disassociate with those you love and are calling to yourself.