Heart Healthy - Pt 2

Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. (Hebrews 13:9-16 ESV).

Today we are back in the Hebrews reading to look at how we can have a “strengthened heart” (v. 9). The strength of heart to be the kind of person described in our reading is not the power to put on a show. It is not “to clean the outside of the cup and leave the inside weak and dirty.” Jesus had plenty to say about that when he spoke of the Pharisees (cf. Matthew 23). Real strength of heart is a power that is real enough on the inside that it shapes the outside naturally. So, our first principle, which the writer lists, is that we are to be strengthened by grace, not by foods. He tells us in a word where to turn for strength of heart and where not to turn (v. 9). Turn to grace and do not turn to foods. "Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, through which those who were so occupied were not benefited." Evidently in that church there were some strange teachings circulating about the power of foods. It's good that we don't know the details, although it does cause us to ponder our own situation. There are many religious and secular food routines today. Religious food routines like fasting and sacramentalism and vegetarianism and various kinds of abstinence are a part of today’s common wisdom. There are also the secular routines of food supplements and vitamins and antioxidants and organic diets, and fat-free, sugar-free, caffeine-free, chemical-free foods. And, sometimes, not all the time, these things become obsessive. They take on a life-consuming importance. Slowly and subtly the promises they make for our well-being become the promises we hope in and the promises we live by. While these things are, by and large, harmless and often good for your physical body, they are not the primary source of “strengthening the heart.” We should beware of "alien teachings" that elevate diet and nutrition and food to a place where they are the real strength-givers and health-givers and hope-givers in your life. Instead learn to have your heart strengthened by grace, day after day, morning noon and night. That requires a shift in focus from what we can do to what God has done.