From Trough to Table and Back
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Eating is one of my gifts. I like to eat – I like food – I like to taste different foods prepared in different ways. El Cerro Azul, our local community’s gift from Mexico, and The India Grill and Garden, India’s gift to Midlothian, are a couple of my favorite hangouts. Occasionally John, Carolyn and I even travel to upstate New York to dine at the Culinary Institute of America (you don’t eat at the CIA, you dine) where master chefs train chefs in food preparation and service and where the food is good beyond all reason. |
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Having told you that,
I’d like to mention that I have just finished reading Jude 6 – the statement
about the angels of God who now lie in utter darkness in chains, waiting for
judgment. Wait!
Don’t hang up! There is a connection.
Think about it. Here is a
group of heavenly ministers who live in the very presence of God – who know
Him and the wonders of His power, grace, and love.
They live where harmony and peace reign, where they are absolutely free
to enjoy their lives. Isn’t that a
wonderful thought? No worries, no
tight schedule to meet, meaningful work to do, life in the light of God.
Sounds good to me. Sounds
like a real feast of meaning and joy, served by the Master Chef of creation.
In the midst of that
great feast, a bunch of angels get up from the table and go eat slops in the hog
trough. Is that amazing?
Does that make sense? Now,
there are a lot of people that believe that those poor angels had no choice.
Leaving the table and eating slops was the plan the Master Chef had for
their lives, they say. Or, maybe
they say that evil exists in the world and some choose evil and others choose
good (slops vs. the Feast).
So, I get to the
point. What I’m thinking is that
there are feasts and there are slops in the world and that the Master Chef gives
us the liberty to choose which we will eat.
A couple of thousand years ago, so many folks (just about everybody) were
eating slops that the Master Chef chose to intervene.
He sent His Son to point the way back to the feast table – to invite
folks to come on in. Folks had
gotten used to slops – even addicted to slops – and couldn’t leave the
trough. The gate out of the hog
house seemed to be locked (lots of folks still see it that way) and the slops
were a sure thing. Who knows what
would happen if a body decided to leave the hog house for the feast?
Truth is, the hog
house gate was locked. This is a
peculiar point – one that is hard to understand.
The only way the gate between the hog trough and the feasting table could
be opened was by the obedience of the Son – even His obedience to the point of
death. Hogs don’t understand that,
but some of us have ventured out because the gate was opened by the Chef’s
Son’s death and the menu at the feast table really seemed good compared to the
slops. So, we eat there right much
and enjoy it.
But there is another
peculiarity about it. When we came
to the Feast, we regained our ability to choose our eating place.
We didn’t really have a choice when we were locked in the hog house.
At the feast we can choose any time to go back to slops.
It’s weird, but sometimes we do make that choice.
Oink.
By Pres Nowlin