By Butch Paugh
October 29, 2023
My, oh my, who doesn’t like a well stocked buffet with all the different varieties of delicious foods? You get to choose what you like and you can skip over anything you don’t like! Wow! What a deal! All you can eat of your favorite foods! Unfortunately, that’s how most Christians treat The Holy Word of God! They thing they can pick and choose only what “tastes” good and what pleases them. Especially the sugar filled or coated items. Kind of like the candy coated “sermonettes” they enjoy in the “church” with “pastors” of the same caliber as Joel Osteen or Jesse Duplantis. The “Christian” buffet draws huge “hungry” crowds to get their fill of their chosen goodies!
Let’s all admit the fact that we enjoy a buffet. If it doesn’t taste good to us, we can just pass it by. Honestly, haven’t we all done the same thing with God’s Word? We love His “delicacies” — such as His love, grace, mercy, promises of blessings and eternal life. And we should absolutely love those “delicious” dainties! But in order to be “healthy” and “well” physically and spiritually, we have to eat a well balanced diet to feed both the body and the soul! Both will grow weak, sickly and die without the proper nutrition. But the consequence for “spiritual” malnutrition is far more serious than that of the physical. The physical results of not eating a well balanced diet will be a sickly life and an early death. But the results of an unbalanced diet of The Word of God can result in an eternal soul damned and a whole society becoming sickly and dying!
There are signs of only “eating” what we like that we can easily see in both the physical and spiritual spheres. In the physical we can see obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and a myriad of other diseases manifested. We can see the “symptoms” of a poor diet on the spiritual side as well like moral decay, lawlessness, chaos, hate, violence and more.
Let’s take a look at some of the “foods” in God’s Word that we chose not to partake of because we didn’t like them and see if we can discern some diseases it has caused in our lives and society. Let’s start with some “simple” foods/verses that we have neglected, ignored and intentionally passed over because we didn’t like the “taste” of them. Deuteronomy 22:5 says simply that male and female should not wear the same apparel! It is an abomination to Him! Here in America, this started in a big way n the 1960’s with “unisex” clothing. Certainly we can see the results/symptoms of not eating/digesting this “healthy” morsel.
In the same line of thought, take a look at I Corinthians 11:14-15. And as verse 16 clearly states, the early church never had a custom of men having long hair. Surely we all can see that all of the sexual perversion in America today started with compromising and ignoring this “simple” instruction in God’s law! And of course this “meaty” morsel is a tough one to chew and digest. It’s found in Matthew 19:9. Christ Himself speaking in “simple” terms should be easily understood! But it tastes bad! So most pass it over! And because it has been passed over in God’s Buffet, the world and the church is full of adulterers and most that have broken the seventh Commandment and don’t even know it. The whole of society and much of the church “body” is greatly weakened and sick because of it.
It seems we have lost our “taste” for the wholesome healthy “food” of God’s Word! Perhaps on reflection we can see how ignoring and passing over Jeremiah 17:5 has brought forth America’s “welfare” state and enslaved our entire nation to “new gods” that now house us, clothe us, feed us and take care of us fulfilling other warnings in “God’s buffet” that we choose to bypass. Like Exodus 20:1-3, 8: 13-14, Deuteronomy 6:1-9, I Timothy 5:8, Luke 22:36, Acts 15:20, I Thessalonians 4:3 (fornication/pre-marital sex), 5:22, James 1:27, Psalm 141:4 and Proverbs 23:1-3 just to name a few.
Of course there are many that will cry that many of those are “old” style “foods” that have been done away with! They are no longer needed to maintain good health in this modern world. Even though we were clearly told that every morsel on the buffet (Word of God) is all to be consumed today to maintain a healthy life in Christ!
It is far too late to rebuild and return the body of America to good health. But, praise God, as individual members of the body of Christ, we still can improve our “diet” and allow both our physical and spiritual bodies a chance to grow stronger for the glory of our Heavenly Father.
© 2023 Butch Paugh – All Rights Reserved
E-Mail Butch Paugh: ctdm@hotmail.com
