Deuteronomy 14 continues Moses’ instructions to Israel about living as God’s holy people. God tells them they are a people specially chosen by Him. Their identity was supposed to affect how they lived, including how they mourned and how they separated themselves from pagan practices. We must remember when we are reading the Old Testament that all of the nations surrounding Israel were Pagan and did not recognize the God of Israel as the true God. Jesus makes it possible for us to become children of God. The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. John 1:10-18 says, “He was in the world, and the world was created through him, and yet the world did not recognize him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born, not of natural descent, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John the Baptist testified concerning him and exclaimed, “This was the one of whom I said, ‘The one coming after me ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.’ ”) Indeed, we have all received grace upon grace from his fullness, for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side — he has revealed him.” Through Jesus, our identity is no longer primarily based on our background, accomplishments, job, money, or the world’s opinion of us. We belong to God. As believers of God our holiness should come from who we are in Christ. Not from trying to follow rules.
A large portion of Deuteronomy 14 explains which animals Israel could and could not eat. God put these laws in place because it helped distinguish Israel from surrounding nations and reminded them that they were a people set apart for God. For example, God said they could eat animals that had divided hooves and chewed the cud and they could eat certain fish with fins and scales. Other animals were considered unclean. The dietary laws were part of the covenant God made specifically with Israel. They served a purpose in teaching holiness and separation from the other pagan nations surrounding them. However, Jesus taught us that true defilement comes from the human heart. In Mark 7:15, Jesus says, “Nothing that goes into a person from outside can defile him but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” The deeper issue was never food. The deeper issue was sin in the heart. The New Testament makes it clear that after Jesus died on the cross and rose again, we as believers are not required to follow Israel’s Old Testament dietary restrictions. Peter’s vision in Acts 10 demonstrated that the gospel was no longer limited to Israel and that the separation between Jews and Gentiles was being removed through Christ. Jesus brings a greater kind of cleansing. The food laws could separate Israel externally, but Jesus cleanses people internally.
The clean and unclean laws constantly reminded Israel of the difference between holiness and impurity. The problem was that human beings could not make themselves spiritually clean simply by following external rules. Jesus came to do what the Law could not do, and that was cleanse people from sin. Jesus repeatedly touched people considered unclean, such as lepers. Instead of Jesus becoming unclean, Jesus made them clean. This is a picture of what Jesus does for us spiritually. Sin makes us unclean before God, but when we come to Jesus in faith, He cleanses us. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus took our sin and gave us as believers His righteousness. There is nothing special about us other than we were created in the image of God and were made for the sole purpose to have relationship with him. It is easy for us to gain prominence, wealth, and clout in our lives and start to think of ourselves as important. One of the most important things to remember in our lives is that the only thing that makes us righteous is the blood of Jesus Christ that saved us from eternal separation from God. It is easy to get caught up in work, relationships, or our own personal goals and forget why we are here in the first place. We were placed on this earth by God for God. We were created to worship him. We also get caught up in thinking that worship is done only in a church house on Sunday’s which is the farthest thing from the truth. Our work, our relationships, and our goals that we pursue are a form of worship. What we do with our money that God has blessed us with is a form of worship When we give our lives to Christ we are saying that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. This means that he is the Lord of everything that we do and have. One of the most important questions we must ask ourselves daily is, “is Jesus the Lord of some of what we have or everything that we have. We get caught up in thinking that we know what is best when it comes to handling our money, our careers, or the direction our family needs to take. Have we truly made God the Lord of our lives? Have we truly put our faith in the one that created us, was willing to die for us, and defeated death, hell, and the grave for us? This is the question that we should as ourselves today and everyday. Love y’all! Have a great day!
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