This is fascinating.
What was one of the primary issues in Matt 15/Mark 7? It was that the people were holding their traditions, thoughts, ideas above God's commandments. Jesus was attacking them and calling them 'hypocrites' for doing that. "these people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me... and in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrine the commandments of MEN. For laying aside the commandments of GOD...all too well you REJECT the commandment of GOD that you may keep YOUR tradition."
Were these people obedient? Yes, but not to God, they were obedient to their own traditions, thoughts and ideas. Jesus said that even though they honor Him with their lips, their hearts were far from Him. Why? Because they believed that their way, their traditions were superior to God's commandments. When we do that, Jesus is saying that even though our lips say one thing, our heart is actually saying something else. Does that sound at all familiar?
The very heart issue that Jesus was referring to was that they put more emphases on their traditions than on being obedient to the commandments of God. And yet, some are pulling one verse out of this example, for our learning, and using it to try and uphold that it's okay to be disobedient to what God commands, and it's okay to do what we think is best and eat whatever we want??? Are we not doing the exact same thing that the Pharisees did when we do that? Are we not telling God, our way is better than your commandments on this one Lord? When we say that it's okay to be disobedient to God's commandments, we are saying that our ways are superior to His. Would Jesus call us hypocrites for doing the exact same thing today? He called the Pharisees hypocrites for doing that so would He say that do us today for doing the same thing? Are we upholding what we want to eat, above what God told us would be good and bad for us to eat?
Is God going to strike you dead on the spot if you eat pork? No. And it boggles my mind that people use this is a catalyst for what is acceptable to God today. You know the God who is the same yesterday, today and forever. However, even though He may not strike you dead on the spot, He's going to certainly allow you to reap the consequences for consuming something that He called an abomination.
Think of it like this. The AIDS virus, would never have been an issue for mankind had mankind just been obedient to God's dietary laws. Think about that, if man was obedient to God's command there would never have been an AIDS virus introduced to humans!!! But no, man thought they knew best, drank the blood of the monkey and then mankind had to live with the consequences of doing so, and the AIDS virus probably ended up having some sort of an impact on every family across the world. So is God mean? Or is God loving for this? Well He was so loving that He gave us instruction on how to refrain from having diseases like AIDS, but we ignored His loving instruction and therefore we suffered the consequences of our sown actions.
It's been mentioned that - America has a serious problem with heart attacks and heart disease. I think the stats are around - one dies every 7 seconds in America from heart disease and another 191,000 die every year of digestive diseases. What is one of the biggest contributing factors? Eating FAT. Of all the animals, which one has the most fat? Pig.
God may not strike you dead on the spot for eating pork, but just look at the stats of countries that consume the most pork and you might just notice that they reap the consequences of those sown actions.
Did you know that shrimp can be placed in disease riddled waters and they will filter it clean? Guess where those diseases end up? Guess what happens when you eat shrimp? 191,000 people in America alone die of digestive diseases. I can assure you that these diseases are not from eating the animals God said were clean. Is your eating traditions above God's commandments?
But here is the surprising thing for me anyways. Why would anyone want to disobey God? If you love Him, keep His commandments. It's pretty straight forward. It will forever boggle my mind that Christians will directly disobey God so that they are not seen as trying to earn their salvation or because they don't want to be legalistic. That just doesn't make any sense to me. "He who says they love me but does not do the things that I say..."
The bible is simple. God created all things, including you and I. He knows what will make us happy, sad, healthy and sick. He loves us SO MUCH that He gave us an instruction manual on how to live our lives. He told us what will make us joyful and happy, peaceful even. But He also told us what would make us miserable, sad and angry. He loves us so much that He told us what would make us healthy and what would make us sick. Did He do that because He hates human beings? No way, He loves us so much, and the very foundation for His instruction is all based on LOVE. He loves us so much that He gave us an instruction manual on how to live a full, healthy and happy life.
Then He gave us literally hundreds of examples of people who were obedient to what He instructed and what transpired from that, and He also gave us hundreds of examples of people who did their own thing, believing their way was better, and disobeyed God's instruction manual and what they reaped from their sown actions. And that stats are as follows:
Everyone who was obedient to God - good things happened, "God's will" was carried forward, awesome abundant blessing.
Everyone who was disobedient to God - not so good things happened, life was miserable, cursing instead of blessings.
Despite having the most precious DIY instruction manual ever created, and hundreds of examples to back it up, today man still thinks that their way is better than being obedient to God. It's been the issue ever since the garden, it was the issue during the time that Jesus walked on the earth, and it's the same issue today.
Seriously, how difficult is it to just pick up the chicken, turkey, roast beef instead of the ham? 191,000 Americans die every year from digestive diseases. Do you honestly think that God is not allowing people to reap what they sow? Does God know best or do we know best?
I'm not judging any of you, I'm just shocked that someone can say that they love God, and yet turn right around and do something He called an abomination. If mankind lived according to God's instruction manual what problems would we have today? Think about that. ZERO!!! God's ways always have been and always will be perfect. Why would any of us want to go against His ways???
I love all you alls.
