It is lunchtime on the roof of a Jewish house so God communicates to Peter in a vision of a blanket filled with animals an Israelite found unclean. He responds from the limitation of his small world. Christ had told that he would fish for men. The blanket was telling him the fishing was not with a rod but a net. His acceptance of people was not wide enough for God. Christ told a parable that the kingdom of heaven is like a net that caught all kinds of fish. He concludes by saying God will sort out good fish from bad fish and that it was not our job in the church. God did not want a Jewish church but something that was reflective of his all-inclusive heart for people. There are many rods seeking out certain types of people at the cost of others.

Peter has experienced an all-inclusive ministry in Christ. He preached on the Day of Pentecost that the purpose of the Holy Spirit was to be poured on all flesh. But what he said with his mouth and saw with his eyes he did not understand himself. The Roman centurion was outside the circle of the church world. The Samaritan woman was a sworn enemy of the Jews but Christ went for her because she was key to a whole village. The Greeks were outside of the church world and any Jewish interest.

It is possible to know something in your spirit but not live it. Peter was not two-faced or a liar. He had a problem with his own personal development. What was in his spirit was not a reality in his life. When you live like this God has to take certain measures. To know something and do nothing about what you know means you really don't know. A parent who tells their child they lie will hear from them 'I know' but if nothing changes then the child does not know. A pastor can minister to his congregation and the response can be 'I know' but if nothing is done then you don't know. It is just lip service. Your spirit may be excited about living in a certain place with God but not actually living there.

The vision of the blanket was supernatural. The angel that visited Cornelius was supernatural. The three men sent to escort Peter were supernaturally directed. God orchestrated the two ends to come together to get Peter out of the small world he lived in. God takes you to the edge of the limitations of your understanding about himself. Peter was way out his league in the house of Cornelius.

He took a contingent of six Jewish men with him just to be on the safe side. He was already rehearsing what he would say to James and the other Jewish believers. But you cannot rehearse a bigger world you have to experience it. Every time you say 'I know' to God and do nothing about what you know you give him full permission to take you out of your small world with these kind of measures. Peter was supernaturally released from jail at a later date but God was using the same measures as the blanket and the house of Cornelius.

Supernaturally an angel appeared in the cell.

The chains supernaturally fell off.

Supernaturally the soldiers were laid out.

Supernaturally the city gate opened.

Supernaturally the angel disappeared.

Then he spent the rest of the night knocking on a small wooden door trying to get into a church prayer meeting that were praying for his supernatural release.

God was trying to teach Peter something again that was outside the world he knew.

Context is vital to what you understand. Why not show Peter the house of Cornelius on the Jewish rooftop at lunchtime? Why show him a blanket with animals as a hint for Gentiles? Why send an angel? Why send three men? Context is vital to what you learn. Where you learn it is just as important as what you learn. Where God shows you something is key to what he is showing you. Parents whose child will not listen with control the context. The TV is turned off, music turned off, telephone put down, and lights turned on all to make sure that the child understands something important is being communicated. The context will reinforce what is being said. Why show a Jew on a Jewish rooftop a vision of a Gentile world? Put Peter in a Gentile house and he will have absolutely no reference point from his small world to support it. It even overrides the six Jewish friends you take with you.

It is easy to say you have a heart for sheep without a shepherd if you hang out with the same small limited group. It costs nothing to pray for the lost or weep for them. It costs nothing to say 'I know' but do nothing about it. It costs nothing to be sad, broken hearted, upset, shocked, ashamed or moved over a teenage suicide. It costs everything to set up a memorial fund in their name to sponsor a student for the Apprentice Leader Masters Commission. It costs something to minister to our students. Never give an appearance of 'I know' and do nothing about it.

God got Peter to the house of Cornelius. But once God gets you there he expects you to go the rest of the way. Unless God took supernatural measures Peter would not be at the house. God will get you in the game but he will not play the game for you. God wants something to dawn in you within the context he has supernaturally put you in. You feel called to lead a small group or be part of the student ministry. God will get you there but once you are there get on with it. Peter was taken supernaturally from the prison cell but almost quit when the small wooden door was not opened to him to minister at the church. Many people have felt and testified that God put them in City Church. But once things did not go their way they stopped knocking.

Never underestimate what it took for God to get you hear in the first place. God is a builder but he will not lift the hammer for you. He is a farmer but he will not plough, sow or water for you. God made the earth in six days but waited 70 years for Noah to build the ark. Building the ark build Noah. Growing church grows you. Attending and watching will frustrate you. God will always do for you what you cannot do but he will never do what you can and should do. Your story is your song.

F.J Crosby lived in America in the 1800's. She was very poor and caught an infection in her eye. A con man that disguised himself as a doctor to get their last money treated her eye and sent her completely blind. She began to discover the world she was in by touch. She composed 9000 songs. Her she wrote 'this is my story this is my song praising my savior all the day long. Perfect submission all is at rest I in my savior am happy and blessed watching and waiting looking above filled with his goodness lost in his love.'

Your story is your song. God's gift to you is to supernaturally put you in a church and allow adversity, longsuffering and perseverance to develop and his church develops. Growing in that environment grows you. You may think that the ministry in our church turns your world upside down but have you considered that it was not the right way up in the first place? In Peter's eyes the experience was turning his world upside down but in God's eyes Peter's world was not the right way around. Maybe God has orchestrated certain things to happen that you might be here to learn something?

Upon entering the house of Cornelius he is already struggling.

Just because Peter did not raise an objection does not mean to say he did not have one. Keep your mouth shut with God.

Peter is forced to ask people he is not comfortable with why he is needed. God supernaturally put him in the Gentile house but it was the Gentiles who would tell him why. Peter never had to ask before so this humbled him.

It had always been true but Peter was just realizing it for himself. After three years of seeing Christ do it he could now see it. After preaching it on Pentecost it dawned on him what 'all peoples' meant. Can you imagine the six Jewish friends who had been with him always saying 'amen' to his preaching now they were expected to say 'amen' to the Gentiles?

The breakthrough was not supernaturally understood but natural realization and acceptance. Realizing and acceptance must come together. You can realize it but not accept it. The captain of the Titanic did this. The breakthrough was not the blanket, angel or three escorts. Churches can be build on the blanket and forget the punch line of realization and acceptance. Are you asking God to grow you or are you looking for a blanket comforter? Can you settle into a church family for at least ten years learning and growing there? Revelation is God showing you something you do not know. Peter had this experience when Christ said 'who do men say that I am?' The initiative comes from God. But years later Peter had a realization of what Christ was not - a Jewish man building an exclusive Jewish church. Realization is waking up to what you already know but you never had the guts to do anything about. What you are yet to realize has always been true. When you realize something it is rarely forgotten because it had a journey attached to it. In that moment in the house of Cornelius the centurion, Samaritan woman, Gentile woman, leper, children, tax collectors, Nicodemus the Pharisee, woman with the alabaster jar, the prostitutes and many more would have been like a penny dropping into his life.

I want my children to realize what is right and what it wrong. They don't need a revelation about that. Kids only have to put their hand in the fire once to realize it is not the best thing to do. Once you realize something it is in the bank!

Promised Land To Promised Life - 3

Realization operates through your life by experience. Revelation requires no prior experience. Peter had a revelation who Christ was but did not realize who he was. Have you said, 'I wish I knew back then what I know now?' Realization is the servant of experience. If you postpone or cancel the experience you stay ignorant. Experience is the vehicle that gets you closer to God. Cornelius was the vehicle for Peter. He was uncomfortable as a Jew to go into a Gentile house. But the experience of the house bought Peter close to God.

Any serious student of scripture will know that hermeneutics are about the law of first mention. When something is mentioned in scripture it needs a closer study that is repetitive mention through scripture. Around the first mention will be concepts that travel with that truth throughout scripture. These surrounding things are the points to study. Genesis is the seed book of the Bible. It is full of first mentions.

They were always naked but they did not realize it until after they sinned. The experience of disobedience caused them to realize something. Any realization will wait for experience for it to be a living reality to you. Many will pray over an experience without living it. David went through the valley of the shadow of death and did not bypass it. From that experience the reality is a man after God's own heart.

This is a church that claims to be something by hype, bravado, positive speaking, innovation and self-improvement. But they had no experience of what they spoke about. They had no credibility because they claimed something that was always true but not for them. Pride in the Christian is claiming to know a lot of things you have had no experience in. You may have been associated with it, educated in it, memorized Bible verses but in your eyes there is no depth of personal experience in those things. God gives you a chance by asking you to buy the experience from him.

It costs nothing to say 'I am rich' but it will cost a lot of experience to be rich. People sing 'let the weak say I am strong and the poor I am rich' but have no courage to face the experience of becoming that.

Let the journey shape you. Refined gold has no impurity in it. To be refined you have to go through that experience that separates the stuff you think you know from what you do know. This church had false gold. The believer can have a false faith that God wants to test but you have no guts for it. As much as you sing and proclaim you are actually blind, poor and pitiful. The only way to change that is to buy the gold of experience from God. Fear, intimidation, insecurity, hopelessness, failure and worry are all part of the journey and belong to you. But for each one there is the gold experience that counters it. Faith, hope, courage and success. Our experience is implicit to our lives. Have you met someone and said to yourself, 'there has been a great deal happening in this persons life, I can here it in their voice and see it in their eyes.' They were not off the shelf but tailor made. Behind that life is an experience bought and paid for. If God showed you that this year there were three major experiences for you that would bring a realization into your life would you embrace them? This time next year you can say with Peter 'now I realize!'

People want to be understood. Christ understood the woman bound for 18 years and the woman who was about to be stoned. He accepted them.

Acceptance meets you up front when you come into a realization. The lesson for Peter to learn by experience was accepting the Gentiles. People are not included in the Gospel because they are acceptable but because they are accepted in Christ. We are all not acceptable but have been accepted in Christ. What makes you accepted is not what you do or do not do but what Christ has done. You can do things for people that make you acceptable or give your life to Christ and come just as you are. Acceptance is never about your ability but God's ability to love you through Christ.

Peter never questioned whether Gentiles could be saved but he now realized that circumcision or any Jewish feast bought people close to God but just as they were they were accepted. The angel visited Cornelius who was unacceptable and showed Peter a blanket of unacceptable food to eat.

The Holy Spirit had not yet fallen on everyone in the house of Cornelius.

Peter speaks the forensic Word of God that all are accepted who ask for forgiveness.

As soon as Peter began to get beyond Jews and Jerusalem to an all-inclusive Gospel message the Holy Spirit fell on them.

Peter was slammed for being with unacceptable people and his critics missed the point of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

This was not a revelation to Peter but a realization.

Peter found himself between a rock and a hard place. The Holy Spirit pushed him out the way with his six Jewish friends and went to work in the Gentile house of Cornelius. The bigger picture was not Peter's emotional state but the wider picture of full acceptance. Never look for the acceptable but who God has accepted which means everyone.

How rude of God that he would not check his plans with the church leadership. Antioch was Gentile land. What Barnabas saw was not rules and regulations but grace. The genie was out the lamp and refusing to go back in. People will see others get saved but wait a long time before they accept them.

God will not cover your embarrassment. Paul is recalling the Antioch episode. Peter had gone to Antioch at some point but he was still a hypocrite. People will become victims of hypocrisy without being aware of it. Barnabas the man of grace fell in with Peter. I am aware of the permission you give me to lead and will respect that knowing that if I get off the rails others will see it as being a godly thing to do.

Paul saw that Peter was not acting in line with the Gospel. The issue was not Jew or Gentile, Peter or Paul but the line of the Gospel that all are unacceptable but has been accepted. Paul said to Peter 'in front of them all' that it was not right. All this conflict was after the house of Cornelius so Peter should have known better. God will not let it go until you get it. People that God puts in your life have a way of making you say 'I've heard all this before.' Peter was more comfortable to be with the Gentiles than before but he was not there yet. Paul and Peter were two strong personalities going at it. These are strong men in conflict over something that is bigger than them both. Paul knew that he was the most unacceptable person to the church but he also knew God has accepted him. Paul was saying to Peter 'you have a face for the Jews and a face for the Gentile but I have one face.' God was still helping Peter but this time on a public level. Peter and Paul never did flow in a great relationship and Peter never thanked Paul for helping him. The circle of offence should always be the circle of correction. If you get it wrong publicly you should correct it publicly.

These teachings are part of a series Promise Land to Promise Life. Other teaching in this series can be found by clicking the links below

• Promise Land to Promise Life Introduction

• Discovery.God Series