FOOD CAN BE CONNECTED WITH FAITH IN GOD

There were “unclean” animals listed in Leviticus eleven: the clean eaten, the unclean to avoid. But in the New Testament God told The Apostle Peter,

“What God has cleansed, that call not thou common.” In Acts 10:15 Peter was sent by God to the Gentiles. Now they were “clean”: it is a spiritual and physical lesson.

But is our culture of “fast food” today the new “unclean food”? Food that is good for you, eat that! The modern, processed, bleached, bioengineered food is a risk to our health.

Bread, when it is bleached, degermed, chemicals added, and the bran used elsewhere is not only not health building, it is harmful. Like fast food available everywhere, it is easy, quick, cheap, habit forming, addictive. Today, important nutritional value from the whole grain (the bran, endosperm, and germ) are often taken out; chemicals are added, and the food value is gone.

Nearing my eighty-second birthday, the importance of eating wisely is more interesting than ever…below are excerpts exposing why wheat flour is bleached… with the link below.

 “Bleaching wheat flour is a common process that involves the use of chemicals such as chlorine dioxide or benzoyl peroxide to whiten the flour.”

·      One of the main risks associated with bleached wheat flour is an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. 

·      Another potential risk associated with bleached wheat flour is an increased risk of heart disease. 

·      The Shocking Truth: Why Is Wheat Flour Bleached? Find Out Now! - Flavor Insider

The additive “Natural Flavor” on food products does not come clean with its claim. This Link describes the deceptiveness of Natural Flavor on food labels:

Natural Flavors: What are they and are they safe to eat? (foodrevolution.org)

“At the end of the day, many Natural Flavors are highly processed and contain a host of chemical additives. In fact, there could be as many as 100 chemicals in a single natural flavor.”

Modern fad diets confuse and frustrate us. When they are a fad, they work against our power to think for ourselves, do our own research, find dependable resources: study their value. A better Way is right in front of you in the Bible. From the Old Testament and through the New Testament are mentions of many foods.

What’s even more intense about the mention of food in Scripture is that there are deeper lessons for us: the literal food is there stated on the page (on many pages) and the figurative teaching will touch you when you know a powerful lesson is right before you. "And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." John 6:35.

THE CHALLENGE OF A LIFETIME

Food, but not too much. The challenge of a lifetime!

When Jesus said, “I am the bread of life…” that is a literal truth going spiritual. There is physical health and life, there is spiritual health and life: and that is eternal. Bread, not the bleached, devitalized, degermed, white bread. The bread Jesus stands for is made from a powerful whole grain. In wheat there are three parts: the bran, endosperm, and germ. This is a picture of Jesus, “The Bread of Life.”

Health has been a lifelong interest, and the Bible is profound inspiration on this subject. What has been a surprise as I study it is that food is physical and spiritual. One teaches about the other; it is useful and powerful in our lives and future if we believe it? There is a lifetime of benefit if we do.

The Bible has profoundly influenced my life from the first day I was born. Every day, my father and mother and their family of ten read the Bible aloud together. All eight children learned to read this way. It influenced me, even before I realized and directed my life. By my twenties, my health pursuits became an adventure primarily because of Scripture. About this same time, I traveled with my brother, Arnold, to Texas where he and his new wife, Esther lived. I could type well and got a job at Transicold Trucking Company in Dallas, Texas. There all the ways of the big city came up.

Instead of going rogue, I decided to follow the Bible already planted in my head and heart. My spirit, soul and body needed to be fed. I felt pointless and after six months drove home (in the new little Volkswagen my brother cosigned for). I look back now and wonder at God’s protection and leading, even when I was directionless.

“Don’t go home,” my friend advised, “nobody will come to your doorstep.” As it turned out, Eric Julin proposed on my parent’s doorstep. And our marriage started me thinking about not only feeding myself but my new husband. He amazingly approved of the budding “health nut” experimenting on him.

IF ONLY SHE HAD KNOWN

 All of us can get valuable information wrong. For years, my understanding of clean and unclean food came from the Old Testament. Then our fourteen-year-old granddaughter helped me see something. Her love of exotic food from her family’s traditions surprised me until…I happened to see that I was wrong. Sure, pork was forbidden to the children of Israel in the Old Testament Law and so was octopus…which our granddaughter, Lilly loves. Then I saw what I had missed one evening in I Timothy 4:

 

“Now the Spirit speaks expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils. Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron. Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats (food), which God has created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.”

 

I was wrong.

 

Our son, Zach introduced a topic at the dinner table. He, his wife Roxy and children, Eric, my husband, and I were finishing dinner together, “What do you think about women preachers?” He looked right at me, knowing I would have an opinion on one of my favorite subjects: the respect and happiness of women taken from the Bible. “I don’t like them.” Was my immediate reaction, obviously not carefully thought-out. What happened next was a surprise. Roxy, our daughter in law spoke up with passion…that women are emotional, quarrel, argue on theological topics about women in the Bible.

 

For years I studied this question that is a hotly debated subject in our culture. Is the Bible dismissive of women? Does God demean the female gender? He, in fact, created them in His own image, Genesis 1:27 “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Why is there so much debate?

 

There is fear, I believe. It is a deep misunderstanding of the gifts and calling of “male and female” …made in God’s image.

 

Strengths of women are emotional sensitivity, a good trait. Creativity. Wisdom is one more powerful gift to women (consider the wisdom in the Book of Proverbs), “Wisdom cries without; she utters her voice in the streets…” Proverbs 1:20.

 

When we know that we are valuable, precious, important to God and to men, we can summon confidence and focus. Begin with your female biology, your beautiful self! Yes, your body and female point of view and personality! The layer of fat which adds beauty, softness to your features. Go to the way you care. You love. You automatically do…feel responsible for!

 

Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, "If you continue in my word then you are my disciples indeed: and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:31,32. 

 

If only Eve had known. We know now! Eve, the first woman created at the hand of God was deceived. She believed a lie, and she did not recognize this Deceiver, Satan himself.

 

Eve with Adam had firsthand access to God; "And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…;" Genesis 3 relates that sad day early on!

 

If the first woman had known the awful trap by the enemy of God and rejected the lie, what would have happened? We cannot know. What we can know is that God is Truth. “I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life…,” said Jesus. He told Adam and Eve ahead of time and the command God had given was clear in Chapter 2. "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die." Genesis 2:16,17.

 

The liar, “You shall not surely die…” paraphrasing Satan, God knows that you will be like gods knowing good and evil…God lied to you.

 

Eve was deceived. "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat." Genesis 3:6. Adam was not deceived: he defied God. I Timothy 2:14.

 

My simple deduction: we can look to God in the Bible for His powerful message in the creation of our bodies, in nature, in our sense of fairness and right and wrong, of good and evil. We can know the truth and be free.

WASTING AWAY by Eric

This Blog is from my husband, Eric's Blog  http://www.congaeric.com/

Proverbs 5:3 and following: "For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword."

Her mouth "drips honey" , her mouth "is smoother than oil". This is how the wisdom of the world sounds: it is sweet and smooth. It is difficult to overcome because it sounds like it is good (honey) and it sounds so logical and solid (smoother than oil). But if we read further on we find it is death.

The wisdom of the world is movable (verse 6) meaning it has no standard upon which it is based, so it is free to drift in any convenient direction. When you shine the light of scripture and logic upon it to show that it is incorrect, it moves aside avoiding discovery. The wisdom of the world will cause you to give honor to others who are unworthy (verse 9). Your sense of worth and dedication will be merge with those who directly oppose what is written in God’s word, like the evolutionist, and not with God's people or family.

Your years may be spent with the cruel and your time will have vanished among the godless and not with gods people or family. Careerists, strangers, and materialists may eat up your laborers. At the end of your life your flesh and body may have been spent for humanist education, for feminists and homosexuals, for possessions many of which have long since decayed, or for your career, which did not further God's Kingdom .

When you choose your occupation over your family, when you seek your toys like your automobile over God's will or improvement of your character, when you select your fulfillment over your proper relationship to others -- then you will, at the end, find honor gone to others, years to the cruel, strangers filled with your strength, laborers in the house of others and your flesh and body consumed. You will no longer be able to correct what you have done.

But keeping in God's word is like staying with your wife and receiving refreshment by her. You should bring water out of your own cistern and well -- use God's instructions and not the instruction of the world.

Posted by PapaJ at 12/13/2023 01:55:00 PM  

FOOD BY FAITH IN 2024

The Creator’s design for us is for our wellbeing. It is what the Bible is about. And he created within the natural world natural nutrition. "Wherefore do you spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfies not? hearken diligently to me, and eat that which is good (best), and let your soul delight itself in fatness." Isaiah 55:2. Fatness is abundance.

 When His people would not choose well, they hurt themselves. "He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied you." (Psalm 81:16). "O Israel, you have destroyed yourself; but in Me is your help." (Hosea 13:9) "He makes peace in your borders and fills you with the finest of the wheat." (Psalm 147:14)

His people went astray, and he invited them back to Him using their health and beauty as an incentive: "And you were adorned with gold and silver; and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered work. You ate fine flour and honey and oil; and you were exceedingly beautiful." Ezekiel 16:13.

If a loaf of bread says “Whole grain, Multi grain” it may also include bleached, white degermed flour for a longer shelf life. If the manufacturer has leeway to mark things deceptively, we should know. This Link clarifies the differences: https://www.naturespath.com/en-us/blog/difference-whole-grain-whole-wheat/.

Food eaten as naturally as possible enhances health: fruit, vegetables, nuts, natural olive oil, grassfed beef, milk, cheese, and honey. Exodus 3:17. Protein is there also, eaten at the feasts from sacrifices described in the Old Testament.

Food and Faith in our Creator. Could this be a key toward better health? My thinking process turned to logic: our Creator has given us food grown from the earth, whole grains, fruit, and herbs. Food mined (salt) from deep in the earth, protein from grazing animals, fish from the sea and lakes.

Now, as Eric, my husband and I read the Old and New Testaments every day, we notice food used as illustrations. It is literal and figurative: Jesus is “the bread of life.” Since the beginning, for thousands of years food grown, protein raised naturally, fish in lakes and oceans was provided from creation.

"He made him ride on the high places of the earth, so that he might eat the increase of the fields. And He made him suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock, butter from cows, and milk from sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the sons of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat. And you drank the blood of the grape." Deuteronomy 32:13,14.  God and the Prophet Jeremiah interacting: “That I may perform the oath which I have sworn unto your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. Then answered I, and said, so be it, O LORD.” Jeremiah 11:5.

The Bible includes important food as a way of teaching spiritual truth "And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall everyone eat that is left in the land." Isaiah 7:22. Look for “milk and honey” in Scripture.

This is not spiritual teaching alone. It is a profound message from God to those who accept the literal and figurative message to us.

Take seriously the food the Bible continues to mention. This morphs into a deep understanding of our loving Creator’s care. "And Jesus answered him, saying, ‘It is written, ‘That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’’" Luke 4:4. Literally and figuratively.

 

EATING BY FAITH

Take these specific words of Jesus literally and figuratively. “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” The Bible is profoundly true on many levels. If we realize that food is mentioned throughout Scripture, recommended, commented on, given as the essence of God’s blessings to us, (“I have brought you into a land flowing with milk and honey,” Exodus 3:8) what does “eating by faith” mean?

Jesus said, “It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” To obey Scripture then is living by the Word. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” John 1:1-3. This is God, the Word, who created you, created the world, created the magnificent body you live in, and designed and created your spirit, soul, and body. All of you needs the Word. Not bread alone, not food alone, but you need every word of God.

When I decided to accept the challenge of our son, Zach, “Mom, write about health;” I knew major study would be involved, but the depth of change in both my views on food and profound excitement about food in the Bible has given me new purpose. If living by every word of God is about food, life, and eternity, as I now think it is, then eating by faith is an important pursuit. For myself, it is a new ambition: glorify God by living “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

After fasting forty days, Jesus was hungry. The enemy told Him to do something he could do but Jesus would not yield to the temptation.

In our current culture, food has become somewhat of a temptation because so much of it looks like food, tastes like food and is so easy to reach. With bleached, degermed flour, bleached sugar, corn syrup, chemicals, additives, “Natural Flavor” and devitalized, processed, bioengineered “food” we are regularly tempted to neglect the knowledge and wisdom to eat as we should.

Fast food is the new “unclean food.”  

 

The Temptation of Jesus

Mat 4:1  Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. 

Mat 4:2  And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered. 

Mat 4:3  And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. 

Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. 

YOUR LIFE and BREATH CAME FROM GOD THROUGH ADAM

As you breathe without a thought, most of the time, it is noteworthy to realize that that breath, came to you from the beginning. God breathed into Adam the breath of life and man became a living soul. Genesis 2:7. From father and mother came life and breath with all the amazing abilities you have. Your body performs for you without your having to help. Well, you do help when you take diligent care of your body. Your body though does more for you than even the latest discoveries know.

No man has ever created life. What is life? What is consciousness? What is imagination and creativity? It is transcendent. These resources are given you at birth because you are created in the image of God … you, personally speak volumes about God. “For he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6. Your life, you, the person is precious to God. It must be! “I will praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works and that my soul knows right well.” Psalm 139:14.

It is excitement in the highest degree when we begin to contemplate who God is, who I am, and how to grow in this knowledge and curiosity, if you will.

The Bible is more exciting than any work of a man. It is deep and broad. It is profound and simple. It is true and right. It is The Light and shows the way to eternal life after life on earth ends. “That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” John 1:9

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 

“For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation”. Rom 10:9,10.