WHAT WE CONSUME

 

 

 

Dear Beachside Family and Friends,

 

In the 1957 Sci-Fi film "The Beginning of the End", harmless grasshoppers ingested radioactive vegetables grown by an enterprising, if not environmentally conscious farmer. Mutating into giant crunching, munching machines, they attacked Chicago (Why not Savannah I wonder?), and almost chewed it into submission. Responding to artificially produced mating calls from Lake Michigan, the bodacious bugs drowned themselves in the cold water, but not before  leaving a wide swath of destruction in their wake. 

 

What caused these generally annoying, yet mostly harmless creatures to become such a danger to the world? It was because of what they consumed: they had a completely toxic diet. What caused them to become denizens of destruction was what was inside them. Men also act based upon what they consume and internalize, but not the food they eat. They act upon what they hear and think. 

 

Solomon said "For as he thinks in his heart, so is he....(Proverbs 23:7b) Jesus fully comprehended Solomon's words, saying Himself "A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart." (Luke 6:45) What we hear we will think, and what we think we will say. If we continue to feast our ears upon what we cannot do, our thoughts will be overwhelmed by impossibility. When we continually listen to words of defeat, they will become our thoughts and corrupt our conversation. We will think we cannot win, say we cannot win, and live defeated lives; not because it is God's will, but because has become ours. Like the giant grasshoppers of the movie who consumed toxic food, we can allow toxic words to destroy our thinking and defeat God's plan for us before it even begins. 

 

This process is fully illustrated in in Israel's initial failure to conquer and possess the Promised Land. The majority of the advance scouting party returned with an impossibility report. They said "We can’t go up against them! They are stronger than we are!” So they spread this bad report about the land among the Israelites: “The land we traveled through and explored will devour anyone who goes to live there. All the people we saw were huge. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!”(Numbers 13:31-33)

 

With the exception of a few, all the Israelites listened to the negative report, let it consume their minds, and began to speak of themselves as grasshoppers. Not the powerful nuclear charged giants of "The Beginning of the End", but the small insignificant insects that hop from place to place to avoid being trodden underfoot. An entire generation of God's people died in the wilderness because they allowed toxic, negative words to infect their minds and conversation. For that generation, it was truly "The Beginning of the End."

 

We must decide what words we will listen to, for they fill our minds with faith or fear, health or sickness, prosperity or poverty, and success or failure. All sources of toxic, negative words must be shunned, including "friends", radio and television, mu?ic and entertainment, and especially the platform of the church. If we want to please God, we can only do so by fully embracing a life of faith. (Heb 11:6) Instead of living "The Beginning of the End", we can enjoy  Never-Ending Blessing! It's about what we hear, think, and say. Ponder that until next week!

 

 

Pastor Ramon

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