Lord I begin my day in the complete acceptance of your love for me..
“What God has made clean, do not call common…”yet God has shown me that I should call no person defiled or ritually unclean…."" (Acts 10:15, 28)
Acts 10 is a removing by the Holy Spirit any barriers and the breaking of the binding chains of tradition, religion, cultural, ethnicity, nationality, family heritage, food laws, personal preferences and norms that were strongholds on peoples lives, and excluded them from the Gospel. As we begin the new year of 2024 I pray you will read Acts 10 and it will also remind you to break any chains on your faith of habits, attitudes, or identities that you picked up or were spoken over you in the previous years.
All things are clean. It is not the object or action that is unclean when used as God designed (sex, alcohol, food, money, time, opioids, tobacco, materials). All Idolatry and addiction is the perversion of something good. It is our abuse of them to fulfill own our personal personal desires, power, lusts, and lifestyles that changes these “clean” things to “dirty.” addictions and sins
More importantly, all people are "clean" and able to receive the Gospel.
“Then Peter started speaking: “I now truly understand that God does not show favoritism in dealing with people, but in every nation the person who fears him and does what is right is welcomed before him…..No one can withhold the water for these people to be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did, can he?” So he gave orders to have them baptized in the name of Jesus Christ." (Acts 10:34,.47-48)
God shows no favoritism to any nation and every person is on level ground before the cross to receive salvation of love and grace including: black, white, Asian, Hispanic, American, Palestinian, Israelis, Ukraine, Russian, and every tribe and language. I pray Lord you will continue to free me in this new year from the bondage and chains of pre-conceived judgments, prejudices, racial fears, traditions, profiling, and negative thinking towards another person. Free me from “cliquish” thinking that I am part of the ”in group.” Free me from thinking in terms of “Us” and “Them” to “We”. Release me from the control of the mindset of “Its the way we've always done it." Free me personally and all in our church as we move forward from any hindrances or clinging to style, format, meeting space, and doctrine.
I pray daily, "Lord, send us the ones nobody else wants." Let us truly embrace this, no matter who or what this looks like.
My family, I pray you reflect on what “clean” things you are making “dirty” by your abuse and perversion of your personal desires and lusts. I pray you ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you any prejudices or profiling of people you still entertain in your heart and release them from continuing into 2024. . I pray you ask the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of your heart to see everyone around you as God sees them, created in His image. I pray today you intentionally begin this process by stepping out of your comfort zone and share your love of Jesus with someone who is ethnically or culturally different from you, in Jesus’ name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
Please share your reflections and prayers with us on this blog in the comment box below.
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