Yeshua Never Said EVERYTHING We Eat Is Clean

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Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Bible Study

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ceremonial washing, clean, cleansing, dietary laws, foods, heart, Kashrut, kosher, meats, mind, natural health, physical health, purging, ritual purity, sound spiritual health, Spirit, spiritual defilement, spiritual purification, spiritual purity, stinking thinking, unclean

And He said to them, “Are you then also lacking understanding? Don’t you grasp that whatever goes into the man cannot make him unholy? For it does not enter into the heart but into the stomach, and then goes out into the sewer, cleansing all foods.”

And He continued, “It is what comes out of the man that makes the man unholy. For from within, out of the heart of men, come evil intentions, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustfulness, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within and make the man unholy.” – Mark 7:18-23, TLV

Just because in some English translations of Mark 7:19 there is the parenthetical statement “(In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean),” that doesn’t mean that Yeshua actually said it. If Yeshua said everything we eat is clean, then He would have been contradicting YeHoVaH, His Father, who in Leviticus 11 specifically names certain animals, fowls, seafood, and every creature that creeps on the earth as unclean to eat for dietary purposes.

YeHoVaH’s dietary laws that pertain to the forbidden Unclean Meats are still in effect because the listed unclean meats affect our natural/physical health. However, neither YeHoVaH’s law concerning Unclean Meats nor any of the biblical kosher Food laws (i.e., Kashrut, which refers to the body of Jewish law that deals with the foods Hebrews can and cannot eat and how those foods must be prepared and eaten) has anything to do with YeHoVaH’s Children’s spiritual purification, and this divine truth is the point Yeshua makes in Mark 7:18-23.

Once again, Yeshua does not say EVERYTHING we eat is clean. More important, neither meat nor food laws are what was being questioned in Mark 7:1-23. The topic of discussion is ritual purity – the ritual purity that is based on the religious traditions of the oral law.

What Yeshua says concerns ritual purity. He declares that ritual purity (i.e., ceremonial washing) does not affect what goes into the body (does not affect what we eat). Yeshua makes it clear that NOTHING we eat, whether with clean hands or dirty hands, can make us holy or unholy because what we eat goes into our mouths, down our throats and esophagi, and then into our stomachs. While in our stomachs, the foods we ate are mixed and ground until the proteins, starches, and fats become amino acids, simple sugars, fatty acids, and glycerol.

Next, our liquidy or pasty broken-down foods enter our small intestines where the breaking-down process continues until our bodies are able to absorb the nutrients from our broken-down foods – absorb the nutrients that our bodies need. Our stomachs and small intestines’ digestive processes are our cleansing/purging processes because the wastes from our eaten foods are separated from our needed nutrients. The waste parts of our broken-down foods are what our bodies can’t use and, thus, don’t need. That is why the waste parts leave our bodies as feces.

Everybody’s individual digestive process, then, is why whatever enters each person from outside of him or her cannot defile him or her because everybody’s digestive process has no effect on each person’s heart/spirit or mind. Put differently, the point Yeshua makes is that ceremonial washing is not necessary for spiritual purity or sound spiritual health because unwashed hands do not defile anybody’s “heart”/spirit or mind. It each person’s stinking thinking that spiritually defiles his or her own “heart”/spirit or mind.

The bottom line is that since spiritual purification involves the heart/spirit, ceremonial washings are ineffective and unnecessary in preventing spiritual defilement. Shalom . . . .

Fearing End-Times Signs vs. Fearing the State of Your Spirit, Soul, and Body

10 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Spiritual

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Body, Bride of Christ, cooperative, empowered, end-times signs, faithful, form of godliness, glorified bodies, God lovers, Holy Spirit-Filled, in denial, justified, obedient, powerless, preoccupied, rapture, raptured, reborn, resting on laurels, reverence, saintly overcomers, salvation, Sanctification Process, sanctified, saved, soul, Spirit, submissive, victorious, work out your salvation

So then, my dear ones, just as you have always obeyed [my instructions with enthusiasm], not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation [that is, cultivate it, bring it to full effect, actively pursue spiritual maturity] with awe-inspired fear and trembling [using serious caution and critical self-evaluation to avoid anything that might offend God or discredit the name of Christ]. ~ Philippians 2:12, AMP

But understand this, that in the last days dangerous times [of great stress and trouble] will come [difficult days that will be hard to bear].For people will be lovers of self [narcissistic, self-focused], lovers of money [impelled by greed], boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane, [and they will be] unloving [devoid of natural human affection, calloused and inhumane], irreconcilable, malicious gossips, devoid of self-control [intemperate, immoral], brutal, haters of good,traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of [sensual] pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of [outward] godliness (religion), although they have denied its power [for their conduct nullifies their claim of faith]. Avoid such people and keep far away from them. ~ 2 Timothy 3:1-5, AMP

Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.Many will say to Me on that day [when I judge them], ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, and driven out demons in Your name, and done many miracles in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them publicly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me [you are banished from My presence], you who act wickedly [disregarding My commands].’ ~ Matthew 7:21-23, AMP

Too many professed believers in Christ are resting on their laurels—are living like they are satisfied with their past achievement (salvation), so much so that they refuse to consider additional effort from them is necessary. They have assumed that their salvation automatically made them the Bride of Christ—made them saintly Overcomers. As a result, they either overlooked the Scripture that commands them to work out their own salvation, or they read and studied said Scripture but concluded it does not pertain to them.

Maybe when we who claim to be believers in Christ finally get it right—finally understand that Christ isn’t coming back for any “church,” but rather He is coming back for His genuine Bride—we’ll begin to cooperate with His Holy Spirit and allow Him to transform us into Christ’s victorious Bride—into the saintly OVERCOMERS who have been faithfully and obediently defeating their flesh, defeating this world’s corrupt systems, and defeating the lying devil. Only then will we start using, and keep using, what time we have left on this planet to prepare for Christ’s coming instead of wasting our time being preoccupied with end-times signs.

There are numerous videos in which believers list all the things that are happening in this world that correspond with prophetic end-time signs. The truth is that the signs in those videos are pure HYPE (fear used to excite us and motivate us into being ready for Christ’s return—used as nothing more than some preachers’ forms of emotional blackmail). Because the people who are unnerved by the presented signs will more than likely spend too much time studying and interpreting the Scriptures that have end-time signs in them, they will overlook the Scriptures that tell them how to get right with God. As a result, they will end up doing all the wrong things they THINK are the right things that will get their spirit, soul, and body SANCTIFIED, but the things they will be doing only will obtain them “forms of godliness.”

There is a big difference between fearing the end-time signs and then taking action, and fearing the state of our soul, spirit, and body to the degree that we start choosing to do what we should have been doing to get the proper results God always wanted us to obtain. This truth is why those of us who know the signs of the end times and can recognize the ones that are happening right before our eyes already will have determined that we don’t want Christ to come back and say to us—I know you not; depart from me you workers of lawlessness (you folks who act wickedly by disregarding My Commands; see Matthew 7:21-23). Instead of staying busy seeking more and more information about end-times signs that only temporarily frighten us into wanting to live holy and righteous lives, we will stay busy preparing for Christ’s return. That is to say, we will focus on the main thing, which is happily surrendering our whole soul, spirit, and body to Christ so that His Spirit can make us Christlike.

When we are thinking, speaking, and doing the things Christ thought, spoke, and did, we will be living Christlike. The more Christlike we become the more we will know that we are His true Bride—His Overcomers—the saints He is coming back to rapture before the Tribulation Period begins. Selah . . . Shalom . . . . .

BTW: Just because we are saved believers our salvation doesn’t mean we are living like reborn, saved, justified, filled with the Holy Spirit, and being sanctified in spirit, soul and body (becoming fully Christlike) believers who will be glorified in our bodies when we are raptured. We must work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, which means we must continually work to bring our sanctification to fruition by faithfully choosing to cooperate with the Holy Spirit’s Sanctification Process, AND we must revere Father God by continually showing Him that we love Him too much to offend Him by disobeying His Commands (see Philippians 2:12). Selah . . . Shalom . . . . .

Cutting & Healing

03 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Devotional

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active, attitudes, cutting, desires, discerning, diseased, dividing line, evil, exposes sin, feelings, healing, innermost parts, living, malign, perfect, piercing, purify, sanctify, sharper, soul, Spirit, spiritually mature, thoughts, two-edged sword, ungodly, unhealthy, Word of God

VERSE:

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12

COUPLET:

Cutting soul and spirit’s dividing line
Bares for healing diseased thoughts once benign.

PRAYER:

Father God, please let Your Word continue to cut out everything that You’ve revealed is ungodly in us, and please let Your Word, with the help of Your Holy Spirit, continue to edify, mature, and sanctify our bodies, our souls, and spirits. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

~ this blog entry is from my manuscript Daily Manna: Bible Verse, Couplet & Prayer for Each Day of the Year

Body, Soul, and Spirit: The Tripartite Being

23 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Spiritual

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Body, character, disposition, diversity, glorification, godly attributes, holiness, nature, oneness, perfection, sanctification, soul, Spirit, Trinity, Tripartite Being, Triune God, unity

The Tripartite Being

Now may God himself, the God of peace, make you pure, belonging only to him. May your whole self—spirit, soul, and body—be kept safe and without fault when our Lord Jesus Christ comes. ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:23, NCV

Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image and likeness. And let them rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the tame animals, over all the earth, and over all the small crawling animals on the earth.’ So God created human beings in his image. In the image of God he created them. He created them male and female. ~ Genesis 1:26-27, NCV

Whether we are men or women, boys or girls, each one of us is a three-in-one person. In other words, we reflect the tripartite nature of our Creator God, who is the quintessential Trinity.

Concerning our tripartite nature, each one of us has a BODY (external, physical layer responsive to humans’ touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing); a SOUL (inner, non-physical layer responsive to humans’ thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, affections, desires, emotions, memory, intellect, imagination, will, conscience), and a SPIRIT (innermost, non-physical layer, before the Fall and after regeneration, responsive to God’s Grace, Word, Faith, Love, Prayer, Forgiveness, Discipline, Correction, Repentance, Hope, Holy Spirit, Illumination, Sanctification, Glorification). Without a doubt, each one of us has a physical part, which is our BODY, and two non-physical parts: our SOUL and our SPIRIT.

Now, contrary to some popular opinions, the biblical Scriptures do differentiate between mankind’s living SOUL and mankind’s central SPIRIT. According to biblical Scriptures, mankind became a living SOUL after God breathed the breath of life (His Holy Spirit) into Adam, the first man (cf. Genesis 2:7). However, after Adam’s Fall, every human being’s non-physical central SPIRIT is spiritually dead, yet because of God’s Holiness, Love and Grace, He establishes a way to interact with mankind’s non-physical central SPIRIT, especially when God wants to influence, regenerate, redeem, justify, inspire, correct, discipline, teach, sanctify, and/or glorify a human being (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23; Hebrews 4:12).

Then too, based on the Babylonian Talmud, rabbinical tradition teaches that God created souls AND spirits. Rabbinical tradition also teaches that the “unborn” souls and spirits, that is, those souls and spirits that are waiting for God to unite them for the first time with their earthly bodies, live in the seventh heaven (Araboth). Lastly, rabbinical tradition teaches that the righteous souls and spirits that have been separated from their bodies also live in the seventh heaven (cf. Babylonian Talmud Chagigah 12b).

Now because too many people believe that mankind is only a physical being, and because too many people believe in the more popular bipartite view of body and spirit (a view in which the soul and spirit are understood to be the same thing), mankind, as a whole, only will be able to understand fully the triune God (see Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14), after each one of us better understands this Divine Truth: We are triune beings who, according to biblical Scripture, have been created in God’s Three In One image (cf. Genesis 1:26, NCV). More important, in order for us to understand fully the Christian doctrine of immortality, meaning the endless/eternal conscious existence of the human SOUL (see Romans 2:7; 1 Corinthians 15:51-54; 2 Timothy 1:10), we first must understand fully mankind’s tripartite nature.

Just as Almighty God Himself is a Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), each one of us also is a Trinity (Body, Soul, and Spirit). Of mankind’s three distinctive parts, God has the strongest affinity for mankind’s unregenerate SPIRIT. Every human being is born with a sin nature; mankind is born in bondage to sin and, thus, every unsaved person is out of fellowship with God. Because, mankind’s old sin nature is worldly, the BODY, SOUL and SPIRIT are habitually selfish, greedy, and proud. The apostle John agrees, because he writes:

These are the ways of the world: wanting to please our sinful selves, wanting the sinful things we see, and being too proud of what we have. None of these come from the Father, but all of them come from the world. (1 John 2:16, NCV)

In other words, because mankind’s unregenerate SPIRIT is spiritually dead to God’s Divine Truths, the gates to every lost SOUL’s affections, desires, and faculties (intellect, wisdom, common sense, conscience, etc.) are not turned toward God. Consequently, everything that can tempt a human being’s lost SOUL and influence what he or she thinks, does, and/or says will enter into a lost SOUL through the BODY’s five unchecked “gateways”: eyes, ears, mouth, nose, and fingers and hands.

For the abovementioned reasons, before mankind’s unregenerate SPIRIT can receive God’s spiritual Truths about an eternal life with God and about everything that would make the natural man and woman, boy and girl, an overcomer in this world (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:14; 1 John 5:4), God first has to regenerate mankind’s SPIRIT. Once the SPIRIT is born again from above (cf. John 3:6-8), this SPIRIT then is able to receive God’s spiritual Truths and is able to convince the BODY to die daily while convincing the SOUL to be spiritually renewed daily (cf. Romans 12:1-2).

More important, because a person’s regenerated SPIRIT affects the BODY’s five senses and the SOUL’s affections, desires, and faculties (intellect, wisdom, common sense, conscience, etc.), the now Holy Spirit illuminated born-again SPIRIT is able to check whatever comes through the BODY’s five gateways so that the SOUL ends up surrendering its affections, desires, and faculties to God’s affections, desires and faculties. The point here is that the Holy Spirit’s most important goal is not only to make a believer’s BODY, SOUL, and SPIRIT one (make all three parts immortal), just like the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are One (all three Persons are eternal); but also the Holy Spirit’s job is to make every imperfect (unholy) BODY, SOUL, and SPIRIT holy (perfect), like the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are HOLY (perfect)—like each of the three Persons of the Trinity is identified as being HOLY! This call to Holiness is the ONENESS reality Christ Jesus prays for in John 17:21.

For the above-stated reasons, Christ Jesus prays:

Father, I pray that they can be one. As you are in me and I am in you, I pray that they can also be one in us. Then the world will believe that you sent me. ~ John 17:21, NCV

It should be noted here that there is no way that human beings ever could be in GOD, in Christ, and in the Holy Spirit, if one of human beings’ three parts (Body, Soul, and Spirit) is not HOLY. Moreover, there can be no doubt that this threefold perfection (holiness) is what the apostle Paul means when he writes:

Thus, for Christ Jesus as well as for apostle Paul, the bottom line is: Holiness is the Oneness reality of the triune God’s nature. For sure, God’s Holiness character is fundamentally essential to His identity—essential to knowing who God really is. So because His innermost nature is Holiness, God’s Holy disposition is without a doubt the main reason why both the unity and the diversity of the triune God hold together. Put differently, Holiness is the true essence of God, for Holiness not only is the name of God but also Holiness is most characteristic of His nature. God’s Holiness, thus, defines or strengthens all of His godly attributes. For these reasons, where godly Oneness is concerned, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are indivisible (inseparable), because they are perfectly joined together, having the exact same mindset, judgment, AND holiness (character or disposition or nature).

Furthermore, it is God Himself who calls us to Holiness, for the purpose of sharing in God’s Holiness character. Not only does the Scripture confirm that God graciously invites us to “…share in God’s nature…” (2 Peter 1:4, NCV), but also, as mentioned earlier, this sharing in God’s Holiness is the ONENESS reality that Christ Jesus prays for in John 17:21. That’s why, as God’s Holy Spirit takes each one of us through God’s progressive sanctification, or the process by which we obtain God’s kind of Holiness, so that we also will have the same kind of Oneness that is in THE Trinity, we can rest assured that our wholly sanctified (fully pure and fully Holy nature) not only means our SPIRIT and SOUL are perfected but also means God has fulfilled the promised transformation that gives us our glorified BODY’s.

In other words, the work of the sanctifying Holy Spirit is to make each born again, saved, and justified believer a Kingdom of God resident who, like Christ Jesus, epitomizes the indivisible (inseparable) Oneness reality. In view of that, just as each of the three Persons of the Trinity is identified as being HOLY, eventually each of our three distinctive parts (BODY, SOUL, and SPIRIT) also will be identified as being HOLY. Consequently, each believer’s BODY, SOUL, and SPIRIT will be perfectly joined together with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and THEY ALL will have the exact same mindset, judgment, AND holiness (character or disposition or nature). AMEN!