My Thoughts

New Years Resolution

Christmas is now over and 2014 is almost here. Many of us are making New Years Resolution. Dieting, going to school, getting in shape, and others things. This dieting business is hard to do. Even the Pink Panther knows this.

Just over a year ago I made an interesting discovery. For quite awhile my blood pressure has been a little high. Not high enough to take medicine, just high enough for the doctor to say “watch it”. So we have been watching our salt intake. I love to eat crab and shrimp and other types of shellfish, but partly because of the cost of such stuff and other reasons I haven’t had any for a long time. I struggle to get the blood pressure down. Nothing worked.

Then for some reason, (I’m not sure why) we hadn’t had any pork for about a month. When I went into the doctor’s office for a checkup; I found my blood pressure down. Not just down, but right in the middle of normal! Later my wife went in for her checkup and her numbers were close to normal also. Why?

I found the answers to be in these verses:

Leviticus 11:2-4
“Of all the land animals, these are the ones you may use for food. 3 You may eat any animal that has completely split hooves and chews the cud.

Leviticus 11:9-10
“Of all the marine animals, these are ones you may use for food. You may eat anything from the water if it has both fins and scales, whether taken from salt water or from streams.

In other words kosher foods. (There are more verses on the subject. I just didn’t list them.) So we will try to eat only kosher foods, more or less. What I mean is, if someone offers me some BBQ pork, well, I’m going to eat it. Because, well I really like the stuff. Another reason is to turn it down would be rude. The third reason is, Jesus said we could. That means that if we really want to, we can even eat little creatures called grubs. Yummy. (Yes I did try it once. I even had seconds.)

I believe the reason Jesus said we could eat anything is because without the food barrier, it made it easier for the early Jews to spread God’s plan of salvation through Jesus to the Gentiles. Sharing the same food makes it easier for fellowship and talk about Jesus as commanded in Mark 16:15-16.

So now a couple of thousand of years later, because of these early Jewish Believers, there are now Gentile Believers all over the world praising worshiping the same God as the Jews themselves. And this fulfills the prophesy in Isaiah 49:6 and is still being fulfilled.

Isaiah 49:6
He says, “You will do more than restore the people of Israel to me.
I will make you a light to the Gentiles,
and you will bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”

And this brings us to the next part of my New Years Resolution. I want to go through Revelation bit by bit. I’ll be making notes and may be writing about it as I go along. Please remember that I am not a theologian, nor was I trained in any Bible college. I pray that I won’t mess up. Because even though Revelation 1:3 says God will bless those who read, listen and obey the prophesy in this book; Revelation 22:18 says that if we add or take away anything; we’re in trouble. And now I’m thinking, am I crazy for doing this? Please pray that I won’t mess up, and also if I do mess up and get something wrong, please tell me.

Getting back to kosher foods; if cod is kosher, is lutefisk still kosher?