Seeing me the way God sees me

Acts chapter 10:1-48 describes a vision that God shows Peter concerning the Gentiles. He sees the animals that were "unclean" to eat and God says "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat (13)." After Peter protests he says, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean (15)." Later Peter relates this vision to the gentiles by clarifying "But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection (28)."

Apparently, it was wrong for Jews and Gentiles to speak, meet, or have any sort of association in this time period, an attitude that is assumed to have transferred to the early church. But God is faithful and reveals to Peter that he has opened up salvation to all of the world. Pastor Guy used this story to relate to us that often times there is a different sort of condemnation due to impurity that is prevalent among the church currently. The feeling that one's self is impure or unclean due to habitual sins or the "severity" of the sin. He raised this important question. If its not okay to call someone else "impure" or "unclean" or "unholy" why is it okay to call ourselves those things?

Sin is given way too much credit in my life because I let it become a much bigger deal than it is. I beat myself up repeatedly for the same wrong things I've done in my life or my inadequacy of overcoming my struggles. But when we do this, we look at Jesus who was mocked, tortured and killed for us and it means that that wasn't enough. But it really was enough. When he says it was enough it really was, when he says "It is finished!" it really is, and when he says "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean" seriously don't call yourself impure because God has made you clean through Jesus.

After service, he told us to tell our neighbor, "Did you know that I'm awesome?" and "Did you know that I'm Holy?" (because of Jesus). and I couldn't say these phrases without feeling like a liar. Because honestly, at this point in my life, I don't really believe them. And I feel like that's the wrong attitude, because then I'm letting the enemy guilt me into forfeiting my identity. I need to start seeing myself the way God sees me so that I can be free. Sins are bad and God hates sin, but his grace is SO much bigger. Its SO much greater. So we need to have a greater goal than to just stop sinning. Instead of being so focused on the sin, we need to fix our gaze on the savior.