About CFC
Take time to be holy
By Ben Searle
21st February 2012 | Category: Join the Journey 2012
Key Verse
“You must distinguish between the unclean and the clean, between living creatures that may be eaten and those that may not be eaten.”
Central truth
God wants us to be holy.
Main Content
You are what you eat
The passage today focused on clean and unclean foods. It forms part of a set of instructions designed by God for the Hebrews which together formed a guidebook. If the Hebrews obediently followed the guidebook they were helped to live holy and separate lives from their neighbours.
Because of Jesus, we can live holy lives without following specific rules and without the separation from our neighbours that we read about. However, thinking about what we eat has set the context for this blog and I believe that what we feed our body and spirit with is important. As I reflected on this I can’t get past the old saying ‘you are what you eat’.
We need good things to build us up and strengthen us and we need to rely on this strength to avoid what we know is bad for us. The Holy Spirit builds us up and strengthens us and if we allow God to dwell in us, this process can happen from within. It’s a privilege to allow the Holy Spirit into our lives and a challenge to fully understand and accept the impact this will have.
Find the time
Our house, like many others, gets going fairly early in the morning and making time for quiet prayer at the start of the day is not currently for me. Therefore, I need to find other times to feed my spirit and spending time in prayer remains the most important to me. I find that everything works better if I take time to hand it over to God and allow him to take control.
Like many other people I face challenges at work everyday and as I try to allow God into all of my life I’ve got into the habit of praying on my short commute to the office. I think that through this God blesses me and in turn I hope that this allows me to reflect something of Jesus to those I work with, just by being me. At home, almost every night we read a kids devotional bible with our children before bed. It’s a real blessing to us all and quite often results in the most challenging questions that Jude or I are ever asked!
A parent’s privilege is to see their children asleep. I often go and see them and as they lie totally at peace, perfect in my eyes and totally loved, I remember that is how God sees me. He sees us all just the same.
Consider:
Think about how you can get ‘5 a day’ to feed your spirit and try to establish a pattern of doing it.
How can we focus on Jesus rather than trying to live within specific rules?
We’ve read that just touching, rather than actually eating certain foods was enough to make the Hebrews unclean. Is God prompting you about anything that is affecting your relationship with him?
Ben Searle
Hi, I’m married to Jude and we’ve got 3 young children. We’ve been living in Belfast for 8 years and have been at CFC for most of that time. We enjoy life and our family, friends, church and work makes sure that we are always busy. This year though I intend to buy a motorbike and hope to find time to enjoy it.
