What God has made clean

“What God has made clean, do not call impure.” (Acts 10:15)

Peter said to them, “You know it’s forbidden for a Jewish man to associate with or visit a foreigner, but God has shown me that I must not call any person impure or unclean. (28)

When God called Israel to be his people, he declared certain foods “unclean” for them.

But those laws were not simply for the benefit of their health. Rather, they were a visual, daily reminder that they were to be a different from the nations around them.

They were not to simply eat things because the other nations ate them.

And in the same way, they were not simply to do immoral acts because the surrounding nations did them.

They were God’s people now and they were to follow him.

So it was a total shock to Peter when God told him to eat a bunch of food that God had declared unclean in his law.

When Peter balked, though, God said, “Hey. I’ve made this food clean. Don’t call what I made clean, unclean.”

But once again, God’s point wasn’t about mere food.

God was showing Peter that his promises to make a great nation out of Abraham were no longer limited to the Jews. Rather, the promises were now extended to even the “unclean” Gentiles.

Anyone who puts their faith in Jesus will be accepted by him.

That means us. We were once outsiders to God’s promises, excluded from God’s kingdom, without hope, and no relationship whatsoever to God.

But we have now been brought near to God by the blood Jesus shed on the cross. We have been made clean, with all our sin and guilt washed away. We are saints. We are God’s children. (Ephesians 2:12-18)

But too many Christians don’t see themselves that way.

Perhaps because of their past sins they’re ashamed of. Or guilt for the sins they struggle with now.

Or perhaps because all their lives, they’ve been told by their parents, their teachers, or others, “You’re not good enough.”

Is that you? Do you still see yourself as dirty.

When you hear God calls you a “saint,” do you feel that it must be some kind of joke?

When you look at yourself in the mirror, do you like what you see? Or does the thought, “I’m not good enough” keep reverberating in their head?

God says to you, “What I have made clean, don’t call impure. I have washed away the dirt of your sin, the guilt of your past. I have accepted you. So stop beating yourself up. You are my child now.”