Spit Out The Bones

I do not know about you, but as one who has eaten just about everything under the sun (Though my friends will tell you I am not the sweet potato fan.) running into bones is often the least of your worries. But working through foods, eating the meat and spitting out bones is challenging to say the least. I remember one time a meal was prepared for us. The Indian family had taken their last chicken and chopped it up from stem to stern. Everything. You name it, it was in there. (One of my friends crunched down on what he thought was bone, but felt like glass. Welcome to cooked eyeballs.) Harder yet is the fact I come from an “eat it all” (Or no dessert!) generation. Honor does say I will eat sweet potatoes.Early on in my life as a believer, I would hear when listening to a sermon, “eat the meat, spit out the bones”. What that meant was “You are here. Get what you can.” Needless to say it required a level of discernment and such. (I get it “meat has bones”. But you can die from bad meat!) But over time I found that sometimes was problematic for me. Add to the fact I “believed” at the time “if the doors were open, be there”. I found myself “always” looking for bones. I found myself “unable to enjoy my food”.

But after a while I came to realize that I was getting a lot of mixed messages. In my case, it caused me to dig deeper. I became tired of going places and being confronted with “meals” that had a lot of “bones”. I do understand the concept of being places and getting what you can while you are there. But honestly, I don’t want to have to check everything I eat. I don’t require daily messages or the need to listen to everyone and everything. (Truth be told, I am still processing a message from September!) Why should I go to eat somewhere just to say I can or did and then spend days going through the “throw out the bones” process?

I like the ability to sit there and process moment to moment with people and know that if I am “questioning” dialog is a phone call away. While many are looking for the “latest and greatest”, I am still processing the New Testament messages that spanned approximately 50 years. Think about that. 27 books over 45 years in the New Testament. That is not a message a week, a day or a minute, but like one every two years. They p-r-o-c-e-s-s-e-d it.

I am pretty much done sitting down to bony meals. There is a meal of heaven that carries revelation, wisdom and understanding. No mixed messages of “grace plus law”. No mixtures. James 1:17 said “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.” If you are still walking through trying to carry the 10 commandments or the laws of Leviticus or trying to walk out Deuteronomy 28, I want you to consider what “not being under the law” really means. Jesus said His “yoke was easy and His burden light.”

Messages that are confusing you often times are steeped in mixture of covenants. Jeremiah 31:31-34 foretold of this day. When a new one would be given and an old one left behind.

I am not saying shut down discernment and stop thinking. BUT, I will say there are some pretty good places to “eat” that you won’t feel like you got to check everything out. Here is one example. Condemnation is a “bone” that is not from the Lord. Romans 8:1 says “there is therefore no condemnation…”

Today drill down into the truth of the Lord. Stop eating meals that cause you to choke. Begin to eat the goodness of the Lord. Take time to digest the “foods” you have been given. Stop gathering up all you can and begin to chew on the goodness of the Lord. “Taste and see…”