Lifestyle Changes
Café Menufor Wednesday, April 6, 2016
Today’s Special is: Remember the Manna
Carefully prepared just for you by your friend, Robin Jones
Main Ingredient:
Yet he gave a command to the skies above and opened the doors of the heavens;he rained down manna for the people to eat,he gave them the grain of heaven. Human beings ate the bread of angels; he sent them all the food they could eat.
Psalm 78:23–25 NIV
Entrée:
In the words of that great philosopher and fitness expert, Garfield the Cat, “The word ‘DIET’ is spelled ‘DIE’ with a ‘T’.
I had been dodging this “DIE-t” issue for a while because it felt like a giant wasteland that I didn’t have the stomach to cross.
It was clear that the Lord was ready to deliver me from the physical mess I had made of my body. However, the steps necessary to walk out of the self-constructed wilderness were hard.
All my hopeless inner child could come up with was “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.” (Picture me rolling around on the floor despondently saying this.) “I LOVE bread! I LOVE cheese! I LOVE sugar!”
In the midst of my fit on the floor the words “LIFESTYLE CHANGE” flashed on my mental screen.
My writhing on the floor stopped and I remembered that before God led the Israelites out slavery, he readied them for the hot, hard journey to the Promised Land by changing the way they ate (i.e., a lifestyle change).
He set a new nutritional standard for them on the first Passover. It was no longer cucumbers, melons, yeast bread and pots of meat. Instead it was bitter herbs, roasted lamb, and unleavened bread.
God watched over them that night as they were led out of the Egypt. He led them like a flock as he had promised he would 400 years before to Abraham.
God kept a 400 year old promise. He didn’t forget. The red sea parted; they escaped, rejoiced, and believed. A few days later they got thirsty and hungry; then they forgot everything.
The SAME Israelites who ecstatically sang about the annihilation of Pharaoh’s army in the red sea, said,
If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.
Exodus 16:3 NIV
God’s response, another miracle… Manna.
They wanted to return to slavery where the food was “better”. God provided the miraculous sustenance for them to continue to be FREE.
Are you resisting the Lord, longing for better food, like me and the Israelites?
The the miracle of the Manna shows us three things about God’s character:
God loves us.
He wants to bless us, not punish us.
God keeps His promises.
Take Out:
Mind: Recall and write down the many miracles God has done in your life.
Spirit: Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to remind you of areas where you may be resisting the Lord’s best.
Body: Take a prayer walk around the neighborhood and praise God for his love, his blessing, and his faithfulness.
Dessert:
Lord, thank You for the ultimate change in our life, JESUS! We see Jesus there at the first Passover… His blood… bitter herbs… unblemished lamb… yeast-free (corruption free) bread. He was your rescue plan the whole time! Thank You that by the bitter way that was the pure Lamb’s, we can be free. In Jesus’ Sweet Saving Name, Amen.
© 2016 by Robin Jones. All rights reserved.
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