Acts 10:11-16 (NIV)

He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air. Then a voice told him, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat." "Surely not, Lord!" Peter replied. "I have never eaten anything impure or unclean." The voice spoke to him a second time, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.

“The Vision”

From Ananias, to Saul, and now to Peter, all were men that were praying and God answered in the form of a vision. Men and women of prayer are men and women of vision. If you aren’t praying you are most likely walking blind to the vision of God. Prayer gives you eyes that see into the supernatural and leads you down the path God has chosen. Maybe that is why we don’t pray? If we pray and are given the path by which we are to take, then that means we’ll have to abandon the path we want. Make no mistake the path of prayer is the path of death to our selfish desires and ambitions.

The vision of God is spectacular before Peter and he struggles to understand its meaning. Being an apostle, preacher, teacher, or evangelist doesn’t mean you know it all. So Peter is trying to take it all in. God is sharing with Peter that everything that God has made can be reconciled in Christ. That is the power of the cross. God is in the redemption business. He is reconciling all things back to Himself.

From the Old Testament;

Isaiah 1:18 (NIV)

"Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.

To the New Testament;

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!