In our next Divine Health post, we shall be considering how a bit of dirt in our food is desirable. For today, we look at how to eat the food that you chose, perhaps based on our last post. I am sure you didn’t know there were so many aspects to eating your food. You thought it was just a matter of deciding what you want to eat, cooking it, and consuming it. Why so much ado about so little, you may wonder. And you would be right, except that the bible has a lot to say about eating. And not only to promote a good and long life but to honor God.
Take the passage in Luke 14.1-3 for instance. Now it happened, as He went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath, that they watched Him closely. And behold, there was a certain man before Him who had dropsy. Jesus, answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” On the surface, you would think it is talking about healing or the Sabbath-day laws and you would be right. But it also speaks of how to eat.
On that Sabbath day, Jesus went into a man’s house to eat, but notice what he ate. He ate bread. We find this to be the usual practice of our Lord Jesus Christ. Even when the Pharisees wanted to criticize him about food, they failed, faulting his disciples instead. They said to Jesus, “John’s followers often fast for a certain time and pray, just as the Pharisees do. But your followers eat and drink all the time.” And the reason they could not accuse Jesus is that ate very lightly, he ate sparingly.
Intermittent Fasting Is All About How You Eat
Therefore, don’t let it surprise you that the latest fad of intermittent fasting comes from the bible. A commentary on our initial passage in Luke 14.1-3 puts it this way. “On sabbath days we must do as Moses and Jethro did, eat bread before God. We who have entered into God’s rest through Jesus Christ can take every day as our Sabbath rest. And, as is said of the earliest Christians, on the Lord’s Day, we must eat and drink. How? As those that must pray again before we go to rest, so that we may not be unfit for that.
What that is telling us is that we should eat lightly, not until we are stuffed like a turkey. Because the only thing the body wants to do after a heavy meal is sleep. You know that if you try to pray after a heavy meal, it will prove impossible. It is a scientific fact since all that food would have attracted all your blood into your stomach to aid digestion. With very little blood left in your brain, sleep automatically follows.
So, for the Christian, living and eating like Jesus is critical. You never know when you might be called upon to pray for someone. Quite often, that someone may be a member of your family and you may regret it if something bad happens to them because you were too full to pray. The people who live like that don’t even want to let others know, like a fine gentleman I know. He lives what is known as a fasted life and God is using him mightily in His kingdom. That is how to eat to the glory of God and for your health. To your health.
Maranatha!
