Eating to glorify God

Loving creativity has me on the Internet often looking for amazing ideas that others post in art, decor, quilts, and photography. With those searches, food menus and ideas for dieting also pop up. Many of them forbid certain foods saying they are not healthy. While this is true of what could be called ‘man-made junk’ it is not true of what is often called ‘real food’ because what might come from my garden is even held suspect by some ‘experts’ in the industry.

I never connected these no-no’s in food with false teachers until this morning when I read this:

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. (1 Timothy 4:1–5)

Actually, I have wondered about fish on Friday, and now wonder about no meat at all, or no dairy, or no whatever, and who gives that advice and where did those ideas come from. Allergies may be a factor, but doing some research is always a good idea.

For instance, the OT tells of Daniel being captured by Israel’s enemies and his refusal to eat the rich food and wine as the Babylonian king ate. His captors decided to test him with only vegetables and water for ten days. After that time, he was “better in appearance and fatter in flesh” than those who ate the king’s food. Some use this as reason to be vegetarians, however it seems more about the quality of the food than its type. A walk through a grocery store picking up only what would be available back then for Daniel would mean skipping canned, frozen and processed food, and eating fresh only.

Is that even possible? Here in the north, many fresh items are trucked from the south or not available. However, locally grown greenhouse veggies are becoming more available. I want to eat real food and also appreciate this promise from Jesus:

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:31–33)

The key to eating right has a spiritual component. Besides wanting to eat right, Jesus wants me to first seek how to live a righteous life. Then He will make sure that good food, created by Him, will always be available — and I will have enough clothing to wear. It is about making Him the priority of life and not worrying about the basics.

I know people who refuse to eat any vegetables. One calls them ‘rabbit food.’ Another will not eat anything that is ‘mushy’ but fills up on salty and sugary snacks. Obesity, diabetes, and other food-related problems are on the increase. While some think this stems from ignorance about food, or other reasons, who would point a finger at a failure to seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness combined with the impetus to run our own lives? Or even connect this problem with a propensity to believe everything we hear that fits our ‘I wants’ — even diet plans that forbid much of the food we didn’t like anyway? Or didn’t want to prepare or cook? One commercial even tells me to take a pill instead of eating broccoli!

PRAY: Jesus, I can crave cookies and chips and all sorts of stuff that are not good for me. You care about my health and I am well aware that I need Your Spirit to enable me to pay attention to, and obey, what You say about all things, even food. So, whether I eat or drink, or whatever I do, may I do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31) You created me and You know what is best for me!

What do we really need?

In last night’s group Bible study, the prayer requests brought sadness to our hearts. One friend just recovered from a fall with many broken bones only to be told her cancer had returned — and that her husband has stage four cancer. Three families have lost a wife, mom, sister, or parent. Relatives are in hospital with serious ailments. New immigrants struggle to find jobs and are needy. One couple is facing several challenges in serving Christ. Three young people in our church struggle with autism.

I felt odd to be the only one in our group with no physical problems. Not only that, the speaker in a video we watched said, “God brings trials into our lives for a purpose and when that purpose is accomplished, He removes the trial.” Most of the praying involved requests to remove the trials.

One topic of discussion involved reasons why people do not want to hear the gospel. We agreed that the main human goal is to be comfortable, and yet was that not our focus in praying for those whose lives are filled with trials? I face some, yet God keeps blessing me with verses like this:

I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. (Jeremiah 32:40)

He has shown me that my trials are to teach me that He is God and I am not. If I cannot see what He is doing in the trial, He at least gives me a mysterious ability to accept it as His will and trust Him to use it for my good:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. (Romans 8:28–29)

My friends around the table verbally agree, yet what they really want is the trial to  go away and for all those on our list of needy people to be happy and comfortable. For me, being happy and comfortable in the trials made me feel almost like survivor’s guilt. At the same time, I wanted everyone to deeply trust the Lord to the point that their trial was a source of peace rather than something to get rid of.

Many times Jesus did things for the troubled. He made water into wine when the wine ran out at a wedding. He raised to life the son of a grieving mother. He forgive the sin of an accused woman. He healed infirmities and gave sight to the blind… all this to show that He was doing the will of God. That is, God is not a meanie, yet for Him my holiness is more important than my comfort. He did make it a priority:

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:31–33)

As His child, I’m to want what He wants. The Scriptures make it clear that being like Jesus is His goal for me and since I’m not like Jesus in so many ways, I’m to be willing to accept whatever He uses to accomplish that goal.

So why then did Jesus heal and help the needy like He did then, and yet now uses suffering for that purpose rather than remove it? Jesus did say that “the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.” (John 5:36) In that time, He healed to show He was sent by God. Now, He uses the trials to build faith and to give us opportunity to show others that He makes it possible for His followers to be transformed by hardship.

God designed salvation’s plan. He is the only one who can open eyes to see the mysteries of Christ in it, to help us realize that “we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear.” (Luke 1:74) and to also know that even thought His righteousness gives us a title to heaven; there must be a holiness to make us fit for heaven.

PRAY: Jesus, only You know why some suffer as they do, and what You want to accomplish in their lives. I don’t. I don’t always understand Your purposes for my own trials. This issue is not asking You to remove them, but to use them for Your purposes, and to totally trust You with the trials You bring into my life and the lives of others.

Treasures?

 

Early in life I collected stamps. Later, it became pictures of Elvis Presley. After that, all I wanted to collect was information. Sometimes I save to my hard drive photos of art and fine quilts, just to look at and not possess because God has been teaching me something…

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. (Matthew 6:19–20)

I’ve wondered if growing weaker in body and memory is the reason for wanting to declutter, but when I read these verses, I think that the folly of collecting stuff is basically, “I cannot take it with me.” When my father died, he left the only possessions he was using — his electric shaver and a bottle of aftershave in a small cardboard box.

I look around me: three computers and an i-pad, a smart phone, yards and yards of fabric, sewing equipment, books including a stack of cookbooks, kitchen stuff, a full pantry, a full closet, an SUV and a bike, and so on and realize if God called me home today, none of it, even the most used or most loved stuff, would go with me. Possessions are really not mine anyway. All of it is on loan and I’m to be a good steward of it.

In the OT, God’s people were given a far more valuable possession:

And the Lord said to Aaron, “You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the people of Israel. (Numbers 18:20)

What an amazing gift from God — Himself! This ensured that the Levites were content to live without any other possessions because in having nothing, they possessed all things, for God was their possession.

This remains true for God’s people now. Many NT verses speak of it, first concerning His supply of the necessities of life, but also all we need to serve and glorify Him:

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:31–33)

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, (2 Peter 1:3)

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:8)

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)

All my physical possessions are supplied by God if I make seeking Him a priority. All spiritual needs are supplied by God as I serve Him. By grace, He gave me Jesus. By grace He supplies all that I need. I can only conclude that if I have any physical possession that I do not need or use, it should belong to someone else. Not only that, I learned from my generous sister that if I give something away yet eventually need it, God will somehow give it back to me. In other words, He is my resource, no one and nothing else.

PRAY: Jesus, it is easy to see that when my hands are full of my own things, I cannot fully grasp  possession of the things that are eternal. As today’s devotional says, only empty hands can grasp a gift, receive the filling and the gifts that You give. Forgive me for any glorying I have done over my possessions, physical or otherwise. May You enable me to be a good steward and wisely deal with anything that is not for me and could be helpful for others. You indicated that when my life is emptied, I am more able to receive what You want for me. I can get too distracted by my stuff. Give me wisdom for this decluttering task.

Our Father who art in heaven . . .

 

Some are troubled with the idea of God being their Father because their physical father was absent, unkind, or even abusive to them. My dad was none of those things. He was a hard-working farmer with common sense and much humor. However, God teaches me that even though He also is a hard worker and often has a twinkle in His eye, He is different than my dad. For instance, because doctors told him I would not live long, dad was indulgent and gave me what I wanted. God is not that kind of a father.

In Bible days, the gods people worshiped were distant, unpredictable, and immoral. Jesus’ words about God being Father were revolutionary. The Jews should have understood but their sin and apostasy separated them from any sort of intimacy with God, never mind the closeness that fatherhood suggests.

The Bible reveals that calling God Father means having faith in Jesus Christ through the powerful work of God’s Spirit and being set free from the bondage of sin:

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:14–17)

This privilege is not for the ‘religious’ who are working to earn salvation, not is it for all people because of creation. While the Lord is involved in our existence, calling Him Father is about a relationship in which we have become His children.

(Jesus) was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:10–13)

His children also recognize that seeing Jesus is the same as seeing their heavenly Father. When Philip asked Jesus to show him the Father, Jesus replied, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). That is, recognizing the deity of Christ is part of what it means to know the Father.

Knowing Him this way means having eternal life, but it is also about experiencing His loving care in this life. Jesus said:

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3)

Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:31–33)

It also means being disciplined, just as a loving father trains his child . . .

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you must endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:5–11)

Dear Jesus, in conversations with others, I often speak highly of my father, yet I know that my heavenly Father is the greatest ‘Abba’ of all. I’m so thankful that You made it possible to know Him, talk to Him, be aware of His love and care. Enable me to respond as a thankful and obedient child.

READ: Psalm 89. What did God do for David that enable him to cry out, “You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation” (verse 26). How much of that applies to me also?