We can become so locked in our traditions and personal preferences that when God speaks through unfamiliar visions, dreams, or words we can prematurely reject them out of hand before receiving the revelation those events bring.
In Acts 10, Peter falls into a trance where “He saw the sky open, and something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners. In the sheet were all sorts of animals, reptiles, and birds. Then a voice said to him, ‘Get up Peter; kill and eat’” (vs. 11-12). Peter, a devout Jew, objected because he was taught the creatures on the sheet were unclean. Then the voice said, “Do not call something unclean, if God has made it clean” (vs. 15). The vision was repeated three times because the message of the vision was more challenging to believe than the miraculous event itself.
The vision prepared Peter to be willing to go to the house of a Gentile named Cornelius. Jews were forbidden to enter the home of a Gentile considering them to be unclean. This chain of events began with Cornelius himself having an angelic visitation that God would use to bring Peter to his home.
There was no chapter and verse for such an event in Peter’s life. He was being asked to believe something he had been taught would contaminate the purity of his faith. God needs to stretch our entrenched faith just before a major event takes place. The supernatural means and methods God uses to get our attention and to stretch our faith will be used by Him to overshadow whatever opposition stands against our obedience in the future.
Today, there is an abundance of people proclaiming they have word from God, or a dream or vision that we are invited to believe has come from the Lord. Some of these are 180 degrees in opposition to each other and may even violate our religious customs. The problem is that positioned in all this variety are true words, dreams, and visions that are from God. Like Peter, we may not have a proof text or a personal history that helps us determine who is telling us the truth, or if what we are told to believe is just vain human imagination.
The Lord will always confirm His word if we stop and inquire of Him what we are to believe. He will be faithful to confirm what He spoke through whatever vehicle of transmission He uses like a word, a dream, a vision, or a prophetic utterance. That confirmation could be dramatic like it was for Cornelius having an encounter with an angel or Peter having his vision. It could be a simple whisper of confirmation in our spirit, a place of discernment the old timers called our “knower” where what is being questioned is confirmed as true and from the Lord.
This is the same kind of knowing the Jewish leaders of the Church experienced when Peter explained what happened to him and how the Spirit fell on those assembled. When the supernatural events were explained and confirmed as from God something beautiful happened, “When the others heard this, they stopped objecting and began praising God” (Acts 11:18).
In due time, the Lord will always confirm His word, especially in a sea of divergent opinions about what is right and true. Those whose hearts remain soft and pliable in God’s hands, and inquire of Him at every step, will be the ones He will use to help fellow believers navigate through times of significant transition within the Church like it was when the Gentiles were first invited into the family of faith.
This word is one of many confirmations I’ve received over an ‘against the Christian flow/faith stretching’ word I received from the Lord. Your faithfulness to share is so important!! Thank you, Garris! Blessings!