The box reads " fortified with six essential vitamins and minerals". Really. Wow.
Steve's sarcastic translation...." All food value has been removed and replaced with things that will make your taste buds tingle. The final product has been laced with embalming components to keep anything from rotting. Oh yeah... And we slopped a little vitamin mineral compounds we know absolutely nothing whatsoever over the top, so it's good, cuz we care about your health!"
In reality, a person may be nutritionally ahead to dump the cereal and eat the box. Yet somehow, the clever marketing keeps us buying wildly overpriced, nutritionally deficient boxes of chocolate-flavored, dextrose-coated sugar bombs and consuming them. They are fortified, of course, with ESSENTIAL vitamins.
I don't care that much how you eat or what. The thing that troubles me is the state of mind that allows us to continue on pathways that are not smart for all practical purposes. We do it not because we do not know better but because we like it. We have become victims of our appetites, bound by chains of our own making.
Which frighteningly reminds me of contemporary Christianity. We took the real (grain) gospel and crushed it...dissecting carefully, we picked thru it and extracted the "good" stuff. Yum!! No more of anything negative or anything I don't like!! Scrumptious, we all agreed. After all, aren't all the promises of God " yea and amen?" And didn't Jesus die for ME? So anything in the gospel that doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy can't be God. It must be some religious spirit or something... You can't force nutrition on me! Besides that, I have my ticket to heaven, so who cares what I do?
Then, of course, deep inside, we know something is wrong. We begin various stages of malnutrition... Potbellied Christians (paunch but not fed), skinny arms (unable to lift), bulging eyes (looking for anything that might satisfy), and general dullness of mind. So, we begin to add ESSENTIAL vitamins and minerals... More, louder, worship...babblings... Dancing... Tooting horns...seminars...hoopla...character training... Rules...separatism... Freedom... Ministry styles... Healings... Serpents... Laughter... Experiences galore. We affirm that these are the essentials, the very vitamins and minerals of LIFE. Funny, tho... The malnutrition seems to get worse. Not much left to do but continue on and encourage one another in our delirious, mind-numbed state. Buy another box.
Of course, there is an alternative...(are you ready for this?? Please unwrap the pet snake from around your neck and place it back in the cage. What I am about to say tends to rile up snakes and make them biting mad.)
We could go BACK. We could repent of our cell phone, snooty space-age pride and go back... Back to the gospel of Jesus Christ... Back to a concept of the gospel centered on a Holy God instead of a sinful man... Back to the thought processes and concepts that held men's souls while their bodies burned at stake... Back to where the world feared and hated the very LIFE lived in front of them....... Back to a genuine change of heart-not, mind, heart and a filling with a Spirit that insists on Holy... Back to a power that could not be stopped, even by death. We could go back to where we dissected the gospel and repent. Well, we could.
But... That would require a bit of humility. That seems to be one of the non-essential minerals we passed over as unnecessary. And work. That would not be funzies... Can't have that. Deep, heart-wrenching repentance... Coming from a real fear of God, provoking a serious, careful clearing of lives. All vitamins we passed over as useless. And, it requires a seeking an accurate knowledge of a genuine Christ... Thru the experience of a truly horrible cross. Wrap your arms around it...
Or grab another box. Preferably with NEW vitamins...