Prayer: Father, may I have an open heart and open mind to hear You today. Amen.
Reading: Leviticus 11 key: 44-45
44 “For I am Adonai your God. Therefore, sanctify yourselves, and be holy, for I am holy. You are not to defile yourselves with any kind of creeping thing that moves on the earth. 45 For I am Adonai who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. Therefore, you shall be holy, for I am holy.
Attention: I remember a time when my mother was reading a book titled, One Man’s Food is…Someone Else’s Poison. My brother had just had some tests run on allergies which included food. I was not aware that our systems are, including blood types, are so vastly different.
Why would God prescribe a dietary way that was pleasing to Him? Boundaries were given to mankind for his benefit. We can believe that which goes into the mind can influence us for good or evil. Why is it so difficult to believe that what goes into he body can be nutritional or poisonous?
Do we not know that the body for believers/followers of Yeshua, is His temple, His dwelling place? If we believe that, it might just change our participation in potlucks. Having been a participant in a certain denomination which thrived on potlucks, it is interesting to reflect back on the eating habits of certain groups. There are other groups which hold to strict dietary guidelines found in our passage today. We are in the age of grace. However, would we also benefit from watching what we eat and consume.
Are we eating things which have more control over us than we like to admit. My wife recently ate a certain candy which has a shell around a nut. She admitted that she had eaten few too many and determined, that was the end of that. No more would that product be in the house. She even gave away the balance of what we had. Now she comments on how when she passes this item in the grocery store, it calls out to her. I have experienced the same phenomenon. I used to be a carboholic. I loved chips of every sort and potatoes fixed in any manner.
Perhaps you find that you have a similar response to your favorite coffee stand. Does your car automatically steer itself into the drive-up window? Maybe you have another indulgence but same difficulty. Why do we do this to ourselves?
So, I return to our body as His temple. If we believe that, why do we not want to provide the best temple for Him? Paul gives the community of Corinth the answer in chapter 6:12-20. The bottom line, “everything is permitted for me—but I will not be controlled by anything.” May we know that “your body is a temple of the Ruach ha-Kodesh who is in you.”
If we have made Adonai our Master, our Lord, our body is not our own. Our body belongs to Him. May we as Paul says, “glorify God in your body.” If we believe this, it will make a difference what we put into our bodies.
Action: My diet from this day forward will be influenced by knowing my body is God’s.
Yield: I give over my ownership of my body.
Engage: I will glorify Him in what I eat and do not eat.
Relationship: I am in Yeshua and He dwells in me.
Prayer: Father, may I glorify You with my body. In what I eat and do not eat, be glorified. Amen.
Memory Verse: 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
19 Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Ruach ha-Kodesh who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body.
Music Video: Keith & Kristyn Getty—I Am Not My Own https://youtu.be/X44veYUFSkg
Remember, “Abide in Yeshua, today!”