Rise Up Peter, Kill and Eat

Acts 10: 9… “Peter went up to the roof of the house to pray, about the sixth hour (noon). But he became very hungry and wanted something to eat; and while the meal was being prepared a trance came over him, And he saw the sky opened and something like a great sheet lowered by the four corners, descending to the earth. It contained all kinds of quadrupeds (four-footed) and wild beasts and creeping things of the earth and birds of the air, And there came a voice to him saying, Rise up, Peter, kill and eat. But Peter said, No, by no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common and unhallowed or (ceremonially) unclean. And the voice came to him again a second time, What God has cleansed and pronounced clean, do not you defile and profane by regarding and calling common and unhallowed or unclean. This occurred three times, then immediately the sheet was taken up to heaven.”

Peter went up to the roof of the house to pray. This is when you rise up in consciousness into the Christ mind.
Matt. 24: 17 “Let him who is on the housetop not come down and go into the house to take anything.”
When you come down from the “housetop”, so to speak, you are coming back down into your natural mind or reasoning and that is where all the “stuff” is. That is where all the doubts and fears and unbelief lives.

Peter went up on the roof of the house the sixth hour. If I am not mistaken that is 12 noon, just when the Sun is the highest and brightest. And six is the number of man, so this was an experience in God for Peter to come to the end of his natural mind and to experience the mind of God; the Christ mind.

He saw the heavens opened. Peter’s mind was opened to see as God sees.

He was shown a sheet full of beasts, creeping things and birds of the air that, to Peter’s old mind meant what was unclean and unacceptable to eat according to the law of the OT.

Because we know the ending of this story, we know that these beasts represented people because God was going to send Peter to minister to Cornelius, a gentile who was a Roman, and to a house full of his friends and relatives who would be waiting. (these scriptures can, of course, be taken in the house or within and seen from that level too)

Lets look at a few more scriptures about the beasts:
Gen. 1:26 “Let us make Man in our image after our likeness, and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the beasts, and over everything that creeps upon the earth.”
Gen. 7: 13 –16 All of the beasts clean and unclean, and of the birds and fowls, and every thing that creeps on the ground. They went in two and two with Noah into the ark. And the Lord shut him in.”

Let me add a few words here about Noah to show how all these beasts are pictures of humanity still living in their carnality or if taken within, areas of our mind that are unenlightened. When God gave Noah a word to build an ark and Noah fulfilled and obeyed that word, that ark became a visible representation or manifestation of the Word of God.

When all the beasts and Noah and his family entered that ark, they were in effect entering into the WORD. It says in 1 Peter 3: 18-20 that eight were saved by the water and word. So the Ark is the Word and the flood was the water or spirit. These eight and all of the rest of God’s creation represented by the beasts were a picture of the full and complete redemption of all. Not all had to be in the ark literally, for God to show this, but just a representation of all of creation in whatever state it was in –hence, clean and unclean beasts were taken into the ark.

Eight is a number of new beginnings so Noah and his family and all of the beasts were going to step out in God’s appointed time to start life in a new world or a new dimension of life. This is a picture of complete deliverance for all.

Okay, back to Peter. “Rise up, Peter, kill and eat.” To fulfill this word requires a rising up or an ascension in consciousness. But don’t miss the injunction to “kill” first. As I pondered on this word to Peter, I asked spirit what “kill” meant if this was a picture of people that Peter was being shown and what in the world would it mean if we were to kill them first before we could eat them. Spirit gave me the word from 2 Cor. 5:14 “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead.” Paul said in another place about presenting all men perfect in Christ. So, we have to see all men dead in Christ and resurrected in him and that is how we “kill” them in the sense of this word being shown to Peter.

After the flesh has been inactivated through the atoning work of Christ, then and only then, can you “eat” of it. As an illustration: if you eat an apple, you don’t become an apple, the apple becomes you through transmutation. All the elements in the apple, the vitamins and minerals are changed into a form by digestion that the body can assimilate, all the way into the cells of your body. What was once in the plant kingdom has been raised into the animal kingdom by transmutation. In the same way, when you take creation unto yourself, you don’t become what they are, they become what you are in Christ. Remember what is put into fire, becomes fire.

“Don’t call common or unclean what I have cleansed”, God told him. Whosever sins you remit are remitted and whosever sins you retain are retained. And anything you retain in another, I might add, you are retaining in yourself, because you are the one holding on to it.

We are to know no man after the flesh. But the hardest thing is to not know yourself after the flesh. We are to retain no one, not even ourselves after an earthly carnal knowing, because we are denying the Lord when we do so, for He that is joined to the Lord is One Spirit.

But you ask, “Isn’t that going to give all kinds of liberty to the flesh to manifest?” Until you can know and see yourself as God created you and that you are hidden with Christ in God and center yourself in that knowing, you will be believing the lies and condemnation of the carnal mind. It is in actuality, the act of denying the Lord, when we deny what we are in Christ and believe the old man. This centering yourself in Christ does not produce more of the works of the flesh, it in fact, does the exact opposite. You so fall in love with Love that your desire is toward Him.

This sheet was let down three times and shown to Peter. Three is the number of resurrection. I see this as a picture of: once for the spirit, once for the soul, and once for the body, showing complete resurrection and deliverance for us and all mankind.

We each as parts of humanity carry creation in us written in all of our genes. We stand for untold thousands that have come before us and even for all possible future generations for that matter as well. Each of us represent the “tribes of humanity” just as the High Priest took all of Israel behind the veil into the Holy of Holies on the day of atonement because of the 12 stones on his ephod that represented each of the tribes, we have the privilege of taking all our tribes behind the veil of our flesh and presenting them perfect in Christ Jesus.

So the next time the spirit calls you to “Rise up, kill and eat” let us not be afraid to eat what God has cleansed. It is our privilege and joy to be Saviors upon Mt. Zion, the high place of God.