What You Must Do

“What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy” Acts 10:15

Consider Unholy – We need to see the Greek construction in order to fully appreciate the impact of this statement. It is literally “you do not make common”. There is an act of the will involved here. God cleanses, but, without the reciprocal act of human beings, God’s cleansing will have no effect on the way we live. We will go right on treating those things that God cleanses as if they were still unworthy, unholy and defiled. We must do what God cannot and will not do. We must put God’s provision into action.

The Greek is koinoo. It means “to pollute, defile or make unclean.” What God cleanses, human beings have no right to make unclean. It is a matter of authority (as are all matters with God). If I live under God’s authority, then He establishes the boundaries and the order of my life. And if God tells me that what I previously regarded as filthy has now, by divine edict, been declared clean, I must live accordingly. I must forever cease treating such things as unworthy and impure. They have been altered by the Most High God. I am no longer to allow their previous character to rule my behavior.

There is something incredibly powerful at work here. God cleanses my sin. How He does that is the story of His redemptive work in Jesus. Why He does that is the message of the good news. But that He does it is His declaration that it is so. The character of my sin has been altered. It is no longer grounds for guilt. It is now the basis upon which my life with Him is established. My sin becomes the doorway to my sanctification.

Think about it. In all my life there is only one thing that is truly mine. My sin. All the rest comes from God. All the rest is His gift. So when I come to God, I have only one thing that is really mine to offer Him. My sin. And when I offer it to Him, He transforms that unworthy mess in my life into an invitation to His presence. The very thing that kept me away from Him becomes the path to Him. My hideousness transformed into blessing. How can I ever let it return me to the depths of the pit? Without my sin, I would never have known His grace. I experience the sacred curse.

Thank God I recognized my sin. Thank God He transformed it. The thing that sought to destroy me became the conduit of my redemption.