January 18, 2011

Nov 16 - Rimes With Reason

    We are reaching Thanksgiving Week and this gives another reason to think of  food.  Maybe, if we’re careful, extra delicious meals this season won’t add to our girth.  Instead of thinking of increasing our pants size I would rather emphasize a nicer saying like: “Southern cooking makes you good looking.” I’m not discounting the beauty of the many adults I know, but either food choices or a slower way of life seems to make Southern young people more attractive.
    Thanksgiving is mentioned many times in the Bible. When walls and gates of Jerusalem were repaired under leadership of Nehemiah names were drawn to move one of every ten Jewish families to that newly fortified city.  The rest were to live in their own towns. At this occasion was the  first mention of a prayer of thanksgiving: “And Mattaniah the son of Micha, the son of Zabdi, the son of Asaph, was the principal to begin the thanksgiving in prayer  . . . ”-Nehemiah 11:17-KJV.  Songs and praises were other ways to magnify God: “I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.”-Psalms 69:30-KJV.
    This is one of the most familiar verses in the Bible:  “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.”-Psalms 100:4-KJV. This verse talks of food leftovers:  (29) “When you offer a Thanksgiving-Offering to God, do it right so it will be acceptable. (30) Eat it on the same day: don’t leave any leftovers until morning.  I am God.” - Lev. 22:29-30-MESSAGE. Fast food places aren’t some new phenomena: When God visited Abraham: “Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah.  He said, ‘Hurry, Get three cups of our best flour; knead it and make bread.”-Gen. 18-6-MESSAGE.
    There are recipes in the Bible like Ezekiel bread? One of our massage clients often brings a loaf.  It’s moist, heavy, delicious and healthy. “Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt: put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself . . . ”-Ezekiel 4:9-NIV. The Bible even mentions cooking spices: “She gave the king four and a half tons of gold and sack after sack of spices and precious stones.  There hasn’t been a cargo of spices like the shipload the queen of Sheba brought to King Solomon.”-2 Chronicles 9:9-MESSAGE.
    Some cooks go from sickbed to the kitchen: (14) “By this time they were in front of Peter’s house.  On entering, Jesus found Peter’s mother-in-law sick in bed, burning up with fever.(15) He touched her hand and the fever was gone.  No sooner was she up on her feet than she was fixing dinner for him.” Matt. 8:14-15-MESSAGE.  Jesus used cooking yeast in this Spiritual parable: “. . . ‘God’s kingdom is like yeast that a woman works into the dough for dozens of loaves of barley bread –and waits until the dough rises’.”-Matt. 13:33-MESSAGE.
    Jesus promised that food will be supplied to those who trust: “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?”- Matt. 6:31-KJV.
    These verses in the last Book of the Bible are the example to follow in our reverence and praise to Holy God:   (11) “And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, (12) Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.”- Revelation 7:11-12-KJV.

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