Crumbs

Read: Exodus 1-3, Matthew 15:21-39

You’ve been invited to a feast. The table groans under the weight of the fare. All of your favourite foods are set before you prepared just the way you like it. The aroma wafts its way to your nostrils. Your mouth waters.

At the head of the table, your host gestures for the meal to commence. The person across from you, the one to your right, and the one to your left all dig in. You watch jealously as they consume the extravagant meal. All too soon, the food has been devoured. Your stomach still growls as the plates are cleared. Yours doesn’t even have a spot of gravy marring the shine. The other guests get up and leave the table. You remain seated. Before you is a single crumb. You don’t even know where it came from. You lick your finger and grasp the single morsel bringing it to your parched lips. You close your eyes and savour the small taste you were fortunate enough to have.

By now, I hope you’re thinking how stupid you would be to savour the crumb when you’d been offered the feast.

Jesus came to offer us the feast. We have an invitation to the table. We are honoured guests. But we often act like the dogs waiting beneath the table for the scraps to fall.

In Matthew 15, a Canaanite woman approached Jesus. Her daughter was tormented by a demon and she had heard of Jesus’ ability to heal. Jesus at first refuses saying that he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel (verse 24).

He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”

Matthew 15:26 (NIV)

Even after being insulted, the woman persists.

Jesus commends her for her great faith and her daughter was healed at that moment (verse 28). The crumbs Jesus offered her were enough to accomplish all she had asked.

We, having been accepted into the family of God through the blood sacrifice of Jesus, have an open invitation to the table. We are not the dogs, we are the children. If the crumbs are enough for a miracle, what are we settling for that we are content to merely exist? It is long past time that we, the Church, take our seat at the banquet and accept all that has been waiting for us. Healing is for us. Freedom is for us. Prosperity is for us. Provision is for us. Miracles are for us!

Stop settling for crumbs when you can have the whole feast.

Carried away

As we humans grow from infancy to adulthood, there is little we can do to stop or alter the process. We get carried away on this journey called maturity. As we age, our bodies mature. All we have to do is ensure that we do what we can to sustain ourselves—proper food, activity, rest, and those things change as we age.

We cannot prevent our bodies from maturing, but why do we stop our spirits from going through the same process?

So let us stop going over the basics of Christianity again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start all over again with the importance of turning away from evil deeds and placing our faith in God.

Hebrews 6:1 (NLT)

The term go on here is not so much a call to action, but a call to let go.

…the thought [would not be] primarily of personal effort, but of personal surrender to an active influence. The power is working; we have only to yield ourselves to it.

The International Bible Commentary

No one wants to see a 40-year-old man still acting like the high school football jock. It’s embarrassing. So why is it okay when it comes to our Christianity? Why do we allow ourselves to remain in spiritual infancy when we’ve been called to maturity? By continually going over the basics of Christianity, we essentially anchor ourselves to spiritual infancy. We become malnourished because, while we should be growing, we’re only feeding ourselves the bare necessities required to keep us alive.

Solid food is for those who are mature, who have trained themselves to recognize the difference between right and wrong and then do what is right.

Hebrews 5:14 (NLT)

Like giving solid food to a baby for the first time, the experience may not be the easiest, but it must be done if that baby is going to grow into an adult. Little by little, new foods are introduced that help a child grow and mature. Our faith works exactly the same. We’re not expected to go from milk to steak, but we do need to go through the difficult process of introducing new truths from the Word of God if we ever expect ourselves to grow.

We don’t have to make ourselves grow and mature, we just need to be sure we’re doing what we can to properly sustain ourselves through the process.

So, go ahead, let yourself get carried away. Just don’t forget to back your lunch.

Daily Bible reading: Jeremiah 51-52, Hebrews 6

Eat what you want

It’s not what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from your heart.

Mark 7:15 (NLT)

Eat what you want. Food won’t affect your spirit (unless you’re a cannibal…). One must give the Pharisees A for effort, but it was misplaced. At every turn, they tried to prove Jesus wrong. All they wanted was one instance where they could point their fingers and tell the world that he was wrong. But in every instance, Jesus had the perfect response.

While the Jews were very much stuck on the rules and regulations regarding what was and what was not acceptable to eat, Jesus came right out and said that it didn’t matter! What goes in (and out) of our stomachs has no bearing on eternity. It’s what goes in and out of our hearts that makes the difference.

It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder,  adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.

Mark 7:20-23 (NLT)

Before we ever take part in any sinful action, it begins in our heart—our soul. If we allow it to dwell in us, it will come out eventually. This is why we are told to let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

Don’t get caught up in the laws of the flesh, but rather be sure to guard the door of your spirit.

Daily Bible reading: Numbers 21-23, Mark 7:14-8:10

Digest

Did you know that Jesus talked about the digestive system? It’s one of those topics many may say, “Oh, Jesus would never talk about that.” He did.

“Don’t you understand?” Jesus asked him. “Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes out of the body.”

Matthew 15:16-17 (NLT)

Yup, Jesus even referred to poop. Who knows, maybe that’s how he even said it to his disciples.

In this case, the disciples were wondering what Jesus meant when he told the Pharisees that you aren’t defiled by what you eat (there were strict Jewish laws regarding food and the eating thereof).

“But evil words come from an evil heart and defile the person who says them. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all other sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands could never defile you and make you unacceptable to God!”

Matthew 15:18-20 (NLT)

How you choose to eat your lunch has no effect on your salvation. But what you allow out of your mouth when it comes to speech can have eternal repercussions.

Those who love to talk will experience the consequences, for the tongue can kill or nourish life.

Proverbs 18:21 (NLT)

The moral of the story is to worry less about what goes in to your mouth and how it gets there and more about what comes out of your mouth. Whatever goes in your mouth will come out of your body. But what comes out of your mouth is a sign of what is rooted in your heart.

Daily Bible reading: Genesis 4-50, Matthew 15:1-20