Common or Unclean
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Daily Reading: Acts 10
God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. (Acts 10.28)
Devotional Thought: Acts 10 has an exciting ending: "The gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles... Then Peter declared, 'Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?'" (Acts 10.45-47). Something important, however, happened before that. Before the Gentiles would receive the Holy Spirit and be welcomed into the Church, God had to find a person - Peter - who was willing to go. That was not just a matter of responding to a perceived need or even of being inconvenienced for the mission. It involved a wholesale change of Peter’s mindset and prejudices as a Jew. To them, Gentiles were unclean. But God revealed to Peter that he “should not call any person common or unclean.”
By virtue of being created by God and in the image of God, no person is “common or unclean.” We all carry within us qualities instilled by the divine hand. The problem is we fail to see that in ourselves or in others. We need God to restore our vision - to show us that no one, including ourselves, is “common or unclean.”
Sin moves people unrelentingly away from God. But God has placed his image in every one of us, and that image cries out to be awakened. When we forget this truth, evangelism suffers, and compassion goes out the window. Instead of bringing people to Jesus, we want to "fix" them, to remake them in our own image.
If, in your heart, you are calling any person "common or unclean," take a bold step like Peter. Do something that will change your whole mindset. Go to them. Jesus did.
Prayer: Lord, I am glad that you do not call any person - even me! - "common or unclean." "Whosoever will" may come and be welcomed into your eternal family. Help me to remember that in all my interactions today. Amen.
Psalm of the Day: Psalm 74.9-17
9 We do not see our signs; there is no longer any prophet, and there is none among us who knows how long.
10 How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever?
11 Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand? Take it from the fold of your garment and destroy them!
12 Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.
13 You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.
14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
15 You split open springs and brooks; you dried up ever-flowing streams.
16 Yours is the day, yours also the night; you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.
17 You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth; you have made summer and winter.