1 Timothy 4:4-5 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.
I am glad that I don’t need to eat a very restrictive diet. I can eat almost anything. I have even eaten scorpions and have the photo to prove it! But food restrictions have been part of religious ritual purity for millennia.
There were those in the past, and even some in the present, who believe that Jesus-followers must adhere to specific dietary restrictions in order to live a holy life. They might want us to live by the dietary laws outlined in the Old Testament. There goes my lobster dinner!
But Paul blows the windows out of the arguments of those who want to restrict the diet for those who follow Jesus. He says that those restrictions spring from hearts that have been seared through rejection of the fullness of Jesus and the Gospel message. They are stuck in the past, unable or unwilling to embrace the grace and mercy of the Gospel.
Now the dietary restricts Paul writes about are those that are connected to religious practice. Many of us do restrict our diets for health reasons. Paul is not addressing those restrictions. Instead, he wants to open the doors to the freedom we have in Jesus. Diets don’t make us closer to God. And diets don’t increase the distance either. They are irrelevant!
Paul tells us that all foods, the “everything” in this verse, are good. They can profit the body and soul. Whatever food there is, it carries no special meaning or significance in our spiritual walk. It is just food. So eating it or not eating it does nothing to our process in the faith.
Now I have eaten a few things in my life for which I was not thankful. I had a Reuben sandwich on Thanksgiving Eve. Food poisoning was the result. It ruined Thanksgiving meal, a meal I look forward to all year! It was stolen from me by that Reuben sandwich.
If you hear some disappointment in my voice, you have heard correctly. Disappointed I was. But my time in my bed did not change my relationship with the LORD. It was just food.
For the Christian, food is changed from ordinary to sacred by God’s word and prayer. It needs to be changed, for all of life is sacred to the Christian. Everything we touch becomes sacred, or at least we are to view it as sacred. All of life becomes sacred, the dwelling place of God. Nothing is outside of His touch, including the food we eat and the people we marry.
Have you noticed that many of us pray before we eat a meal. Could it be that we are fulfilling this Scripture when we do this? Could we be consecrating our food and our time together, proclaiming it sacred?
So next time you pray before a meal, recognize that all of life is sacred and a gift from the LORD. We only get to pass through this life one time, and what we do now determines our place in eternity. Our relationship with Jesus sets us in right standing with the LORD, and out of that new standing we live our lives in what that honor Him. That is something for which to be thankful!
The Arnold Journey 