Can the Season of Lent Bring an End to Fighting?

 

Food for Thought: Christians who are strong in faith

would not want vegetarians to force a diet that's
less than what's needed for wellbeing; so we shouldn't
want to force meats on those who are vegetarians,
 who feel all meat eating is immoral.

Not every Christian has Lent as part of the Easter season. Most don't acknowledge Lent, and many are not aware of Lent, at all. Lent is not a command from Jesus!

But Lent, for maybe a majority of Catholic believers, is a heartfelt tradition of feeling closer to God, denying temptation, during the 40 days leading up to Easter.

Many of the faithful who make a personal vow about what they will and will not eat or do during the Lenten season, are thinking about how Jesus didn't eat anything for 40 days in a barren desert where Satan tempted Him.

Some give up eating all meats for 40 days; some may commit to personal ideas like a diet of fish, dry bread, and bitter herbs; some may eat nothing at all for one or two days of each week; some may only eat vegetables without bread; some may do silly things like saying no chocolate or morning lattes for them during Lent; and some may commit to doing things that altogether jeopardize their health or wellbeing, eating as little as small birds and subjecting themselves to suffering.

Yet, some people agree that many of those commitments aren't really in keeping with the life God has given us. And keep in mind, no one can demand how your Lenten season should be, neither what you can or cannot eat, nor whether being more like Jesus means outright suffering.

The Savior who we find in Jesus has taught many of us differently than that. Among many of us, Jesus leads us away from or helps us rebuke suffering. We know that He suffered so that our lives wouldn't be all about suffering. He even gave us instructions not to make fasting about suffering.

He says, "When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full." (Matthew 6:16, NIV)

So personal times of fasting or abstaining should be about needing a closeness to God, not about being subjected to the ways of others, like many who were taken hostage in Gaza.

Being subjected to suffering or to the beliefs of others isn't what God means when He says the saints (the church) will judge even angels (messengers). When He says things like, "Let judgment begin at the house of God," God is not telling His people to run around destroying people's provision (nor the sense of thanks giving that feels close to Him) to make people fast and suffer and even to be unclean!

Instead, God is saying to (a) settle disputes between believers in His church, and to (b) examine the body of His church and judge/correct/rebuke transgressions that are destroying the body, even if doing so means removing a member of the body who believes sexual sin is permitted or is part of life in the body of the Holy Spirit.

God, our Heavenly creator, doesn't smile at the idea of people quarreling and destroying foods that He provides, instead of people recognizing that Heaven isn't about the food but is about repenting of all the hell many people are doing.

The Holy Spirit doesn't put fights about food above needing to end assaults against the body of His word! That can be kind of difficult to see or to discern in many translations of Heaven's words, but there is a translation that makes one helpful passage of the Bible a little more plain to see: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%206&version=NIRV.

How many times does the word of God say to put food fighting aside and focus on what matters between Heaven and hell?

He says, "Let us not ... judge one another any more ... " in matters of who eats acceptable meats and who refuses acceptable meats. He says sexual sins (inequities passed from one generation to another, one people to another, causing even children to stumble in sin) are the chief of problems, the ungodly master of problems, plaguing His people everywhere.

He says, yes, like you say, "Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food" (1 Corinthians 6:13), and, yes, He "will destroy both (food) and the (body)" after there is physical death. But He says neither the physical nor the spiritual body was created for sexual sin. "The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body."

People practicing sexual sins at any time, but especially during times set aside for greater closeness to Heaven, are those fallen away from pure faith right now.

Hebrews 13:4: "Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous."

"For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace." (Romans 8:6)

... Maybe Lent is a reasonable time to focus on the promise of His peace while eating.

The Patience of Job

I don't have any way of knowing everything the maker
of the above story illustrations has in heart about Job.
But I think the drawing of Job in a loin cloth, like
Jesus on the cross, is only one way of understanding
how Job saw himself as naked before God.

Job was an humble man. He was not like Jonah, who cursed at a people who God was determined to save. Unlike Jonah, Job was not only humble; Job was incredibly patient in affliction.

Job was not clairvoyant. He didn't know all things from God's point of view. Like the apostle Paul who came centuries after him, Job only saw his living as if looking into a dim mirror. He was surely guided in thought by the Holy Spirit, but he didn't see all things that God saw.

Job did not know it was Satan (not God!) who God had allowed to ruin life as Job knew life to be.

Job may not have remembered, or may not have known, that God had not taken part in a tornadic wind that Elijah had witnessed. But Job was obedient to understanding, in the Spirit, that God had some purpose in taking all of his adult children while they were partying in a windy storm.

When Job said, "The Lord gives, the Lord takes away," that was Job's most heartfelt, humble defense of his heart of faith. Not knowing the whole of his circumstances, Job could not say anything such as, Curse the devil.

All he could do, being in faith, is know that God had some purpose. He didn't need to know God was allowing Satan to take life and to otherwise destroy. Job didn't need to know God's hand of protection was guarding Job's soul while the devil was destroying nearly all else. Job didn't need to know it was not pleasing to God to see so much destroyed, and so much against Job's heart of faith.

But in his humility, Job essentially felt, God gave me, and God may take away.

~

"For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. So while we are in this tent, we groan under our burdens, because we do not wish to be unclothed but clothed, so that our mortality may be swallowed up by life ... ."

2 Corinthians 5:2-4

    

Being alone in the Holy Spirit, Job seemed to know of his flesh as an earthly covering that one day would lose its inner spirit. Job essentially said, Naked I came into this world [in spirit without earthly flesh], and in spirit without earthly flesh will I return to the spiritual place of womb-like rest that we accept as Heaven.

The Search for Home

 

A very blessed pastor in Houston ends each sermon asking souls to come to faith. He asks those who've been away from knowing Jesus is our Savior to pray a prayer like this:

"Lord Jesus, I repent of my sins. Come into my heart. ... ."

He says, "If you prayed that simple prayer, we believe you got born again. Get in a good Bible-based church, and keep God first place."

And I say to myself, amen.

But what is a good Bible-based church?

For me, it's where is home. It's safe pasture for those who call it home. It's where the redeemed, the saved, know they've broken with a life of being lost or of being without Jesus in heart and without Him in knowledge.

It's where we each can give an account for the past, as well as for day to day problems, without being counted as sheep for slaughter.

It's where no one has permission to destroy us in soul, because Jesus is the shepherd who stands in the way, who serves as the "door" to the sheep fold.

It's where we are cured of sins simply through right believing.

It's where it's our "reasonable service" to sit comfortably, restfully, at the feet of the shepherds who feed us knowledge and correction in God's word, "for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up" of every body in the church (Ephesians 4:12).

It's where sinful pasts are overcome and we're known anew, where no one is perfect but we become more and more blameless, where we grow to have fewer and fewer faults. It's where we find a supportive friend or circle of of friends to speak openly with, with discretion and only at God's leading, so there is always accountability and healing.

It's where we have communion. It's where a pastor is blameless, indeed.

It's where deliverance from the world's pitfalls is a given. It's where you know someone will be there with you if ever you are troubled.

It's where there sometimes is personal fellowship and food, and peace for our souls. ... It's where God won't let us fall.

Amen.

He Didn't Say Israel Didn't Repair Shoes!

 

Why is anyone doubting God? While He did

say Israel's shoes were not worn out, He

didn't say the people weren't

making shoe repairs!

Just think:

Israel had livestock. Their painful history was written on cured animal skins. They made tents of animal skins. So what made up the soles of their shoes, most likely?

It wasn't a pleasant history.

I just thank Heaven we have life in Jesus, who's guidance is so much easier than the learning-the-hard-way in Israel's long journey.

...

More to think through:

• Jesus, living in the Spirit now, no longer hungers or thirsts. God is not hungry. Yet, He cares to feed us abundantly and has made the way through both the sacrificial love and sword of God's word.

• God gave mankind the cattle on a thousand hills. But He did not give anyone a thousand wives. (Even Solomon repented.) And He didn't give permission to molest or abuse anyone's body. In fact, the love of Jesus specifically tells the church to cleanse as with the washing of water through Heaven's word!

• I always thank Heaven for saving our souls, for valuing our souls moreso than all of creation.

And I thank God for giving us cattle on a thousand hills. ... But going to the grocery store shouldn't feel like mockery of that. There shouldn't be so much meat at any given store that it feels like a slaughter house. ... 

"Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come

with their mocking, following after their own lusts ... ." (2 Peter 3:3)

When there's a day like that, thank God for fish!

Easy Truths Some People Don't Know or Don't Apply

 

✓ As long as I'm keeping faith, times of fasting are situational (Mark 9:29), not seasonal. (Keep in mind, some fasts may be for years, and, even then, only God knows exactly what I've done.) Fasting with all your heart, calling on scripture to abstain from Sonic for a long while, is never the same as being forced not to eat foods.

✓ There is no greater hurt than knowing a child is going outside of Jesus and cursing at anyone. (Matthew 21:16)

✓ Marital intimacy, for those who are called to marry someone, has to be consensual and pure-hearted (1 Corinthians 7:5, Hebrews 13:4, for example).

✓ The church is Heaven's "bride" in Spirit, not in any way sexual (Ephesians 5:25-26). So people in church who haven't received God's leading to marry (1 Corinthians 7:8), ought to feel devoted to celibacy, enjoying Jesus, looking forward to earthly deliverance, kept safe from harm in as much as possible, as if a wife who is clean in Spirit and waiting for Heaven.

✓ There does come a time when the church must stop hating and rebelling in sin. Period, dot. (Revelation 21:26-27)

✓ God forgives tatoos. But any record of wrong written on our bodies, ought to be blotted out! Try Genesis 6:7, Psalm 139:16, Psalm 51:10-11, James 4:14, Romans 1:24, 2 Timothy 1:7, Psalm 139:13, Leviticus 19:28, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, John 3:16. (Don't you know God saved your hide?!)

...

What Bible truth do you think about when others may not know, may not want to know, or may not care? (Anonymous comments are very much welcome.)

Can Coffee be a Candidate for Grace?

 

Some folk seem obsessed with how food looks, how tea doesn't look the same as pure water, and how neither does coffee.

The brown color alone puts some people on an anti-coffee bandwagon.

Let's not even talk about the caffeine in coffee putting even a little strain on the heart muscle. And let's not mention that some scientists, historically, got used to associating coffee drinking with people who consume tobacco.

Instead, let's say smokers aren't the only folk who drink coffee, and science has looked closely at non-smoking coffee consumption. And let's say business trends like Starbucks, with sales helping support production in majority black and brown countries, helped bring a lot of folk out of a coffee-is-taboo frame of mind. (Although, Starbucks costs too much.)

And let's say that although coffee isn't right for children, neither is mouthwash; yet many of us as adults do use mouthwash!

Then, after saying all of that, let's weigh coffee against the grace of God we have in Jesus.

Did Jesus pay for our coffee through His journey to the cross? Did He go to the cross with coffee in mind?

Of course, He didn't.

Jesus gave His life with our our individual souls in mind. His grace in so doing has paid for our every need, and has freed us to make choices about at least a few of our wants.

So while a gourmet coffee lifestyle isn't necessarily what His grace has given us, grace certainly does have therapeutic provisions in mind.

And while Heaven doesn't want us dependent on therapy above our faith in Him, I believe God certainly has made the way for responsible coffee drinking. (I just wish a lot of coffee packaging could be a color other than red.)

But Where Is Therapy in Coffee?

While it is kind of well known that green tea and black tea have antioxidants, which help prevent the junk in our bloodstream from damaging our cells, it is not as well known that coffee does a better job at preventing the cell damage we get from that junk -- junk that science refers to as "free radicals."

It sounds new age and flaky to say drinking something from nature helps prevent damage from "free radicals," but that is an honest to Heaven fact of this life.

And, besides that simple fact of the matter, coffee does some other cancer-fighting things for us that science is still trying to understand.

It turns out those cups of coffee on hospital trays don't only to help patients shake away sleep and get acclimated to living more fully each day. Although the coffee bean cannot aid all types of cancer recovery or prevention, it can be an aid in at least some cancer cases and, more importantly, has other health benefits.

Some compounds in coffee may help slow memory decline and have been helpful in some Alzheimer's and Parkinson's cases. One tiny study shows improvements in short-term memory in memory-impaired animals (not because of caffeine's positive effect on brain function, but because of a certain antioxidant in cacao). It's tiny studies like that that have given weight to the great many observational studies science communities have done.

And again at risk of seeming a little flaky, let's say coffee (without sugar) also apparently helps fight diabetes -- a topic for some other day, maybe some other blog.

Just thank God not for coffee, but for providing for us. ...

Can coffee (and can an asthma inhaler) be a candidate for grace? ... No, not exactly; but the coffee drinker, like the asthma patient, can be.

Aren't the Best Instructions at the End?

 

If the Bible can be counted kind of like a recipe book sometimes, the food for living the Bible gives is mostly in the New Testament.

My, my, my, do I have pet peeves about a lot of the photographs and other art illustrations that feature an open Bible.

Most of us are probably so used to seeing pictures, drawings, and other art showing the Bible opened midway, that we don't stop to think that the New Testament, where God fully makes Himself known to us, is not midway the Bible but is the last few pages, and that most of the Bible is God's record of sin and slavery and war and other turmoil with only brief glimmers of Old Testament insight into the Savior to come.

Because I, for one, know the hardships of people determined to live the Old Testament instead of loving the light of Jesus, it's a pet peeve to see art that superimposes an image of Jesus across some middle pages of the Bible, for example. And has anyone ever stopped to think how confusing it can be to someone who is trying to learn the Bible, to see things like

• a scripture saying Jesus is the "way," on a banner featuring a Bible opened midway?

• photographs of the Bible opened to middle pages, even on the cover art of books written about the New Testament?

• photographs deliberately doctored, to make the New Testament appear to begin midway the Bible?!

Who is it who is so obsessed with that Old Testament time when people were lost and many never knew the light of Jesus? Who is it who wants to point us to that time, as if that Old Testament time is Jesus?

It's downright difficult to find Christian art that shows a Bible opened to the New Testament. It's almost as if someone thinks it's a sin to acknowledge the New Testament as that part of God's witness to us that is able to stand on its own.

So when Jesus lets us know He is well able to divide, I believe by faith that the principle divide is around conflicts between Old Testament iniquity and New Testament faith.

Whenever some group or faction builds doctrine or a following around a grain of Old Testament "knowledge" that God didn't intend that way, maybe that always becomes a circumstance where we see the love of Jesus as divisive, with Him trying to bring us away from that ritualistic (even satanic!) use of the Old Testament.

The Old Testament is about learning the hard way. And there are plenty of lessons there about coping. But the New Testament is about staying on mission, learning in truth, fighting for life, and overcoming. And although there is persecution in Jesus, life in Him helps us endure, makes the way in life easier to bear, and ultimately yields freedom.

"My yoke [My word] is easy, and my burden is light," He says.

He remains the same, in our hearts, yesterday, today, forever,

says a New Testament word of comfort.