Joshua 24 and the Seven Letters in Revelation

Posted on August 9, 2018 by Don Merritt

Joshua 24:1-27 gives us a re-statement of the Mosaic Covenant between God and His people as they take possession of the Promised Land at long last. As I mentioned yesterday, its structure is very similar to that of the seven letters in Revelation 2-3. As we look at Joshua, I’ll give you equivalent passage from the letter to Ephesus for comparison. Let’s take a look now:

First, there is a preamble in which the king is identified:

Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: (Josh. 24:2a)

Revelation parallel:

These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. (Rev. 2:1b)

Second, there is a historical prologue that reviews what the relationship between God and Israel has been up to this point, including all that God has done for His people.

Joshua 2b-13

Revelation parallel:

I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.

… But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. (Rev. 2:2-4, 6)

Third, Joshua sets out a stipulation for the people to follow if they wanted their special relationship with God to continue:

“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. (Josh. 24:14)

Revelation parallel:

Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. (2:5a)

It would be helpful to remember that Jesus had rebuked them for having lost their first love in 2:4.

Fourth: Joshua warned the people of the curse that would befall then if they should fail to keep the stipulation:

If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you (Josh. 24:20)

Revelation parallel:

If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. (Rev. 2:5n)

The Joshua passage does not contain a blessing for keeping the stipulation, thus the only promise given here is the negative one. The blessings of keeping the Old Covenant are spelled out in Deut. 27-28, as Moses goes through this same sort of covenant re-statement in a longer format.

Revelation does contain a blessing for Ephesus in 2:7b:

To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

Fifth, Joshua names the people themselves as the witnesses to the covenant:

Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord.”

“Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied. (Josh. 24:22)

Revelation parallel:

Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. (Rev. 2:7b)

With this matrix in mind, we’ll begin our review of the seven letter when we get back together nest time, see you then.

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What we have Heard from the Beginning

Posted on August 9, 2018 by Don Merritt

For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

1 John 3:11-15

Well, we have heard this message from the beginning, that we should love one another.  A quick look through Christian blogs will reveal that everybody writes about it at one time or another… or every day.  Why does it take so long to sink in for so many?

John takes us right to the story of Cain and Abel, an interesting choice.  He tells us that Cain murdered his brother because Cain was following the evil one, that his actions were evil and Abel’s actions were righteous; murder was the result. Now to be fair to Cain, I’ve never heard this mentioned as a motive for murder on a detective show before.  The usual motives for murder are hatred, greed, fear of exposure, jealousy… wait!  Maybe that’s the one: jealousy!  He was jealous because Abel was righteous and Cain was evil, and that led to hatred, which led to murder.  I wonder if Perry Mason or DCI Barnaby would see it that way….

It would seem that John is suggesting that evil will oppress the righteous. Then he takes another interesting step, adding linkage that we should pay close attention to, because it takes the old story from Genesis and brings it starkly to life: Do not be surprised if the world hates you.

I never cease to be amazed when Christians act all horrified and indignant that certain elements in society oppose us at every turn.  What is surprising about that?  Certain elements in society murdered God’s prophets and opposed the Lord Himself to the point of death, not to mention the early church, and evil regimes all through the ages.  There is nothing new in any of this.  No, it is not a sign that the end is near, it is a sign that we are in the last age, just as John said his readers were…

We must love one another, because we have passed from death into life.  We must love one another because God first loved us and He also loves our brother, and we love our brother because we love God: This, too is nothing new.  How will the world know that we are in Christ? Because we love one another.  Will the world hate that?  Yes, but many will also want it and be attracted to it, because once you separate individuals from the society in which they live, they want what we have in Christ.  Therefore, loving one another spreads the Gospel and accomplishes God’s purpose.

Oh, sorry, I’ve gotten a little ahead of the text.  That’s coming…

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Photo of the Week: August 8, 2018

Posted on August 8, 2018 by Don Merritt

The Jefferson Memorial, Washington, DC

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Joshua 24 and the Seven Letters in Revelation

Posted on August 8, 2018 by Don Merritt

Joshua 24:1-27 gives us a re-statement of the Mosaic Covenant between God and His people as they take possession of the Promised Land at long last. As I mentioned yesterday, its structure is very similar to that of the seven letters in Revelation 2-3. As we look at Joshua, I’ll give you equivalent passage from the letter to Ephesus for comparison. Let’s take a look now:

First, there is a preamble in which the king is identified:

Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: (Josh. 24:2a)

Revelation parallel:

These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. (Rev. 2:1b)

Second, there is a historical prologue that reviews what the relationship between God and Israel has been up to this point, including all that God has done for His people.

Joshua 2b-13

Revelation parallel:

I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.

… But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. (Rev. 2:2-4, 6)

Third, Joshua sets out a stipulation for the people to follow if they wanted their special relationship with God to continue:

“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. (Josh. 24:14)

Revelation parallel:

Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. (2:5a)

It would be helpful to remember that Jesus had rebuked them for having lost their first love in 2:4.

Fourth: Joshua warned the people of the curse that would befall then if they should fail to keep the stipulation:

If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you (Josh. 24:20)

Revelation parallel:

If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. (Rev. 2:5n)

The Joshua passage does not contain a blessing for keeping the stipulation, thus the only promise given here is the negative one. The blessings of keeping the Old Covenant are spelled out in Deut. 27-28, as Moses goes through this same sort of covenant re-statement in a longer format.

Revelation does contain a blessing for Ephesus in 2:7b:

To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

Fifth, Joshua names the people themselves as the witnesses to the covenant:

Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord.”

“Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied. (Josh. 24:22)

Revelation parallel:

Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

(Rev. 2:7b)

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Doing What is Right

Posted on August 8, 2018 by Don Merritt

Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.

1 John 3:7-10

This is an interesting passage with which to begin any day: Don’t let anyone lead you astray. There are many who would do so, and they may try by appealing to our pride or vanity, they might appeal to greed or lust, they might even appeal to our intellect with attractive arguments or curious reasoning, but have you ever asked yourself why they would bother?

John gives the reason in this passage: They are sinful, of the devil and doing the devil’s work, because the devil has been in rebellion against God since the beginning and is looking for allies… or at least to separate us from Christ. It is really important that we get this point.  It is the work of the devil to separate us from Christ, because in Christ we are part of His work, and His work is to destroy the works of the devil.  Actually, this is so simple we might miss it− In Christ, we are a threat, so there will be opposition.

Within this context, John speaks of doing what is right as opposed to doing what is sinful, and in this context doing what is right means following Jesus Christ, and doing what is sinful means not following Christ and trying to lead His followers astray.  So far, this is very straight forward, and then John throws us a curve at the end, a curve that leads us to the next section. Doing right means that we love one another, doing wrong means that we don’t.

Wait! I thought you just said that doing right was following Jesus, and doing wrong was not following Jesus!  Where did all of this love stuff come from?

Simple answer: If we do not love one another as He loved us, then we can’t possibly be following Jesus Christ, because loving one another is where He is leading.

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The Seven Letters: An Introduction

Posted on August 7, 2018 by Don Merritt

Recently we’ve discussed here issues relating to worship, church, Kingdom and our relationships with God, and I thought it might be interesting for us to move into another completely different way of approaching these same concepts; the letters to the seven churches from Revelation 2 and 3.

As is the case with most of Revelation, there are plenty of views about how we should understand this section (Revelation 2-3 ). In order for us to figure this all out, we need to remind ourselves of the setting: Jesus in the midst of the His church; the scene has not changed from 1:20, thus the dictation of the seven letters is a continuation of this vision. Jesus, having assured John that he has nothing to fear, is still speaking from the vision. There He is in all of His glory, with the seven messengers (angels) and the seven golden lampstands that are the seven churches of Asia. Remember the importance of “seven”− these represent all of the messengers of God and all of the Body of Christ.

In dictating these letters, Jesus is addressing seven actual church congregations about their actual status at that time, thus we see “what is now.” By extension, because of the number 7, when we put them all together, we have the status of the whole Body of Christ, both then and now. For this reason, I am a little bit tempted to present this here as one combined document; I have resisted that temptation for sake of being faithful to John’s “now”.

These letters are quite fascinating in their structure, for they don’t exactly follow the typical letter structure of the time. Instead they follow a different structure which in my view has highly significant implications for the context of Revelation 4-22: The structure they follow is a covenant structure. In doing so, there is a direct and fascinating parallel between these letters and Joshua 24:1-27 in which the Mosaic covenant between God and Israel is restated along the lines of a suzerainty treaty between a superior and an inferior, or between a king and his subjects. In such a discussion there are five elements: a preamble, an historical prologue, stipulation, witnesses, and blessings/curses. As you will see, these elements are present in the seven letters. So that you can see the parallel from Joshua, I’ll give you some information on that passage next time.

The larger contextual significance of the letters is that they tend to set the stage for the rest of Revelation. For instance, if you want more information about “To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life” (2:7) you can find it in 22:2,14. If you want to find out what is meant by “The one who is victorious will not be hurt at all by the second death” (2:11)  then go to 20:14. The “new name” in 2:17 keeps popping up: 3:12; 14:1; 22:4 cf. 19:12-13, 16. Authority over the nations from 2:26 is discussed in 12:5; 20:4. The morning star of 2:28 is also found in 22:16… and we could go on, but as you can see, things come up in the promises of the letters, and are fulfilled later in the text.

Let’s take a step back for just a moment. The first five books of the Old Testament, the Torah, are the books of the Law. They tell the story of the covenant people of God from the beginning of creation right up to the point when God would shortly deliver the Promised Land to them. How does the Torah end? The easy answer is that it ends with Deuteronomy… but what is Deuteronomy? It is that great sermon of Moses, in which Moses re-states their Covenant with God. The story of Joshua is the story of Israel taking the Promised Land and becoming established there. How does it end? It ends in chapter 24 with Joshua re-stating their covenant with God. All of the Old Testament leads us to the New, which begins with the story of Jesus Christ and continues through the apostolic period of the first century. How does the New Testament end? Well, it ends with Revelation of course.

So here we are in our study with John, the last of the Apostles very near the end of his life, and Jesus in a vision, tells him, “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later” (1:19). Jesus covers the “now” in these letters which are all in the form of a re-statement of the New Covenant between God and His people at the end of the apostolic period. Then, it is followed by what we can all expect the future to bring… and that is how God ends His revelation of Himself to His people until He returns in the culmination of all the ages.

It’s really quite something when you think about it!

Next time we’ll take a look at the parallel from Joshua; see you then!

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Children of God

Posted on August 7, 2018 by Don Merritt

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

1 John 3:1-3

It’s really an amazing thing to read this text and give it a chance to sink in; this is a text to read slowly, prayerfully…

While we were dead in our sinful rebellion against God, He loved us so much, even in spite of our mindset against Him, that He went to extraordinary lengths to redeem us to Himself, and once reborn, we are now His children.  There are moments when we may not feel like it, but when God looks upon us, He sees His own children… what more is there to say?

None of us really can appreciate exactly what that entails.  It’s like being asked what heaven is like…  I’ve been asked this many times, but I must admit that I don’t really know.  People repeat certain Biblical passages about heaven, and act as though they know all, but they are kidding themselves, for they are quoting non-literal passages that give indications of certain aspects of heaven, but not details, and do you know how I can say this so boldly?  It’s easy; human language does not, nor could it ever, contain the vocabulary to describe fully, accurately and completely those things which no man has ever seen and reported directly – we have no reverences to comprehend.  The same is true for being children of God.  Much remains “hidden” for there is simply no vocabulary to convey the full meaning.  When we see Jesus Christ face-to-face, we will see all. What a glorious hope! It is only natural and proper for us to respond to this by setting aside the old life, the old ways, and to be pure as He is pure to the best of our ability, and according to His leading.

Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

1 John 3:4-6

John highlights the point made above about purity in these verses.  For us to disregard everything He has done for us, to reject His love and His grace and remain in the old ways is simply inconceivable. That isn’t to say that we will never struggle or make mistakes; it isn’t to say that we are suddenly perfect.  He came to take sin away, after all, not to catch us messing up.  John is once again pointing out the contrast between the follower of Jesus Christ and the one who rejects Jesus Christ.  He doesn’t appear to be referring in any way to a follower who had a bad day.

Before I conclude this, dear reader, what is it that really jumps out at you here?

For me, the thing that jumps out is that not only is God’s love for us amazing, boundless and tremendous, but that it holds implications that go far beyond anything that we can even begin to comprehend in our current mortal state, and that our hope for eternal life is not only assured, but far more amazing than anyone has ever understood it to be.

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TLP Inspiration: August 6, 2018

Posted on August 6, 2018 by Don Merritt

The Dog Days of Summer

Good Monday from the Heartland.

There are several names for this time of year like “the lazy hazy days of summer” and the “dog days” of summer.  I can understand the lazy and the hazy, but I’ve never quite followed the dog days; what do dogs have to do with it?

My best guess is that it’s another way of saying the lazy thing, but I’m not sure.

Whatever you like to call it, it’s August, and in the Northern Hemisphere it’s summer, and this year has been fairly hot around where I live.

August has its own feel, don’t you think?  It really does feel a little lazy; it’s a great time for a long lazy cookout on a Sunday afternoon; there just isn’t much “Hustle and bustle” to the season… you can almost just relax.

There are times for just about everything in life; even the Bible says so:

There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under heaven:

Ecclesiastes 3:1; full context 3:1-8

This is the beginning of a huge sentence that goes on for 8 whole verses, and it pretty much tells us that everything has its own time.  So, maybe God made August for us to slow down just a bit, to spend time with loved ones, to do a little gardening and sit outside in the evening and listen to the symphony of the cicadas.  Maybe God thought that we run ourselves ragged too much, maybe He thought that we need to get re-focused on what things are really important.  Maybe He thought August would be a good time to start paying attention to the pennant races…  (OK, I just added that one)

The season will change soon, the kids will go back to school and the boss will come back from vacation; isn’t this a great time to “smell the roses” as they like to say?

 

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Sunday Sermon Notes: August 5, 2018

Posted on August 5, 2018 by Don Merritt

Title: The Kingdom is Like…

Text: Mark 4:21-34

Two Short Parables

Mark 4:21-25

Parallel Text: Luke 8:16-18

This brief section contains two more short parables, the Parable of the Lampstands and the Warning for Hearers. First, let’s talk about lamps…

Lamps and lampstands are used several times in the New Testament as references to the Truth. Certainly, the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ was something that had been hidden since the Garden of Eden, which is probably why Paul referred to it as a mystery. The time was soon to come when everything would be made known, and Jesus’ Apostles were the ones who would make it known fully, beginning at Pentecost.  Clearly, His message is that there will be no secrets when the time comes.

The second short parable is slightly more difficult to catch the meaning of. We should see right off that when Jesus says that “whoever has will be given more…” in verse 25, Jesus isn’t talking about material possessions.

“Consider carefully what you hear,” he continued. “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”

Mark 24-25

The “measure” mentioned in verse 24 is the care you use in considering what you hear. So, “Consider carefully” what you hear means that we should listen very carefully and really consider it; great care in consideration of what we hear will yield great benefits to our understanding of the truths that we will shine for the world to see about His gospel. If we take little or no care in this, the truth will do us no good at all, and that could have tragic results.

Thus, we can see that whoever has (truth) will be given more (truth).

Have you ever listened to a sermon that was really great, and had the guy in front of you, who spent the whole time fidgeting and looking at his watch, then comment how much he got out of the message?

How about those times when you were busy fidgeting and looking at your watch? Were those the times you left feeling as though you really got something wonderful from the message?

Well, maybe you have, but I haven’t! Nope, not when I wasn’t paying attention.

 

Parable of Seeds

He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”

Mark 4:26-29

Parallel Text: None

When I was in school, I was pretty good in science. When it was time for the test on seeds and plants and how plants grow, I could recall all the answers to the questions. I could say that the cells in the plants grow and divide, and that the DNA of the plant determines how they will grow and what parts form and all of that, but can I say that I understand how all of this happens; really understand? No.

Maybe you understand it, but I don’t, even though I could explain what I learned about it. Maybe you noticed the subtle difference between knowing about and understanding…

In this parable, Jesus is talking about the Kingdom; after all, He is on the Kingdom Tour… He’s talking up the Kingdom.  I know a lot about the Kingdom, and even though there are those who know more about it than I do, I know more than most. Yet, can I say I fully understand it? No, not at all, for there is a component within the Kingdom that I cannot begin to understand fully, even though I know about it: The life power of God.

Down through the years, I have planted a great many seeds. I’m not sure that I fully understand it, but I know that if you and I plant enough seeds, a crop will grow, and if we keep our eyes and ears open, we will see and hear evidence that tells us that a portion of the crop is ready for harvest. Hopefully, we’ll decide to get involved in that harvest and help to bring some of it in, along with unknown numbers of others all around the globe, for this is how the Kingdom works. I have harvested many in whom others planted the seeds, and many others have brought in a harvest from seeds I planted; it’s all good!

This is what Jesus is trying to teach here: Plant seeds, lots of seeds. Pay attention, and bring in the harvest when and where the time is ripe. We don’t really need to understand every detail; we just need to plant, pay attention and harvest.

 

The Mustard Seed

Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.”

With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything.

Mark 4:30-34

Parallel Text: Matthew 13:31-35

The Parable of the Mustard Seed is one of the best known of Jesus’ teachings; we cite it often as a teaching on faith, but that is not what this parable is about. The faith connection comes from Matthew 17:20, which is not a parable. Rather, the Parable of the Mustard Seed is about the Kingdom.  I doubt that Jesus was intending to give a lecture on botany here, but He clearly used frames of reference His listeners were familiar with: Mustard seeds are tiny, yet they grow into very large plants.

That is the point of the metaphor, tiny seed becomes very big plant. How does this apply to the Kingdom?

If I was an atheist, I would be asking myself how it is possible that an obscure travelling teacher from first century Galilee is still a controversial figure all over the world twenty centuries after his death. Yes, that’s right, a carpenter’s son born in a stable who grew up in flyover country became the most influential figure in history, yet he never traveled more than a hundred miles or so from his birthplace.

After his death, a ragtag bunch of misfits from the provinces, just a handful of them mind you, unleashed a revolutionary idea in the minor provincial capital of Jerusalem. They were opposed by the greatest power the world had ever seen, and Mr. Atheist, you are still opposing this teaching today. How could this have happened? It’s simply incredible!

As Jesus told us, the Kingdom is like that. A tiny seed grows into the largest of garden plants, big enough to give shelter to the birds; it just wouldn’t seem likely at all… but there it is.  It isn’t reported in the text, but I have a hunch this is what Jesus explained to His disciples. Yes, they were obscure, true, they weren’t important big shots from famous and powerful families, and they were young, very young.  Yet, in spite of all outward appearances, they made a huge mark on history, and more importantly, they made a huge difference for God’s salvation plan, in spite of all apparent circumstances.

Don’t you suppose that Jesus would tell us the same thing?

You and I are mere mustard seeds in a sense, small, not really noticed in our celebrity crazed world, yet full of life’s power and potential. Should we allow it, He can and will do a mighty work in and through us and His Kingdom will grow and flourish in spite of all the odds, in spite of the naysayers, and in spite of the guffaws of others. Why?

That’s an easy one: Because the Kingdom is like that!

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Making Choices

Posted on August 3, 2018 by Don Merritt

As a simple matter of stewardship all of us make choices on how best to take care of that with which God has blessed us. We do this with our material possessions, we do this spiritually and we also do it with the blessing of our physical bodies. Yet if we’re honest, the choice that we make most often is to choose not to choose, at least not today. As I mentioned at the beginning of this discussion, that’s what I’ve been doing when it comes to diet for a long time and I think it is safe to say that my wife has done the same thing: That stops now.

Living as we do in a Western culture, we are blessed with a great many dietary choices, certainly with abundance of supply, and that can make choosing a little more difficult. Yet when you really get down to it, there really isn’t any great problem coming to grips with what we should not be doing. Everyone, doctors, nutritionists, informed laymen, all agree that a diet based around highly processed foods is a choice that bring a series of very serious consequences, either sooner or later. Obesity, heart disease, diabetes and cancer have all been linked to such a diet  the evidence is overwhelming. With that being the case, we conclude that continuing in the typical modern Western diet is inconsistent with the Scriptural principles of Christian stewardship.

With that starting point, we further conclude that processed grains, sugars, fats and prepared foods are not in our best interests to continue with and that we need to replace these things with whole grains and vegetables, natural oils and proteins, with a bias toward foods from plants as opposed to those from animals and animal products. In short, we’re going in the direction of Forks Over Knives and away from the Keto process. For me, two things have influenced me the most:

First is the fact that my wife has been ‘prescribed’ Forks Over Knives by her Endocrinologist as a corrective measure because of her serious health issues. A couple of months back, she tried doing this with some success, but found it difficult to get started with and stay on track (she likes to cheat on a diet). At that time, she was provided with materials, including recipes which on inspection revealed very quickly that they were probably medically correct, but put together by someone who simply doesn’t know how to cook. I was given recipes in which the basic culinary techniques required were wrong, and I must confess that I declined to use them for that reason.  Since then we’ve done a lot more research and I can cook the stuff, an important step.

The other thing that has really influenced me in this direction occurred on this blog when I wrote about a recipe that I tried from The Thomas Jefferson Cook Book. In my little discussion about it I happened to mention that it works for Forks Over Knives which led to a ‘conversation’ with fellow blogger Bette Cox who told me that Forks Over Knives had essentially given Bette her life back, reversing the effects of serious health problems. Bette and I have never met in person, but over the years we’ve known each other online, I have learned one thing about her: When Bette tells you something directly, you can take it to the bank; if she says that the approach was a game-changer in her life, she is telling the truth.

Thank you, Bette.

Even with all of that said, I still have a problem with going all the way vegan, and that is the need for B-12 supplements. After all of the harangue about processed foods, taking pills, capsules or drops seems a little off. What is more “processed” than pills, capsules or drops? I don’t care that the label says “natural”, these things are not natural unless you are picking them from a pill tree.

So, I’ll be using small amounts of meat and limited dairy more in the form of a garnish than anything else; meals will no longer be centered around meat. The nice thing about a garnish is that it goes on last, so my wife can decline it if she needs to.

The process I’ve described in these posts was last week’s news. This week was the start. I can report to you that it’s easy, no problem sticking with it; not even a thought. Any time you make a change in life, even one that is intended to be permanent, the initial part can be tough. Old habits have a way of sneaking into the picture when you forget to be intentional with what you’re doing. When that happens early on, it’s easy to trip up, and I only know one way to get around that: You need to have a bit of an attitude. It’s me against “them” and “they” are going down. Obviously, “they” and “them”, sometimes “he” or “him”, are fictional strew-men, not people, but making a head game keeps me on trach for things like this. It works great to finish the job of weeding a big flower bed on a hot summer day too. However you do it, there’s nothing like a little attitude used in a positive way.

That’s my story, thank you for putting up with it. I am confident that we have a sustainable life-change that will yield excellent results and that is entirely consistent with Christian stewardship for both health and finances, since it will reduce our grocery bills in the process. I’ll give another little report at the end of October and let you know how it’s going. In the meantime, if you’ve been thinking that you should also make some changes for health’s sake, I hope this series has been helpful to you.

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