Is It Permissible?

Good Friday morning! This morning I wondered very briefly if it was permissible to have cheesecake for breakfast. I found that under very carefully controlled conditions, you must have cheesecake available and it must be morning, that it is indeed possible if not permissible to have cheesecake for breakfast. However, is it good to do something like that every day? I can tell you that unless you want your weight out where you can see it all the time, you probably should not eat cheesecake for very many breakfasts. Any food that sweet and rich should be kept to a minimum. For many of us, the curse on this world dictates that we cannot eat whatever we want all the time. The thing is permissible; that is, there is no biblical law against it, but other consequences dictate some limits to the action.

We often live our lives wondering if this thing or that is permissible. Instead of living by grace, we look for an exhaustive set of rules. You and I shalt not steal. The grace of Jesus made payment for our thefts, but grace does not set aside that law. We know that God's law makes it not permissible to steal and that seems cut, dried, and easy. Hmm, let's take a look at that tax return, shall we? Oh, maybe you are as clean as the driven snow this year, but what about that debatable deduction you took last year? We may not even realize that we have stolen. That does not make it any more permissible under the Law. However, many things that we can do have no direct command in the Bible.

Paul addressed this with meat offered to idols. That is not something we commonly deal with in this day. I'm almost positive the butcher down at Safeway did not offer the ground beef I purchased to some Mesopotamian deity before wrapping it and putting it out for sale. His employers and the USDA would probably rather that he didn't do such a thing either. We have other actions to weigh in the balance of our conscience, such as eating cheesecake for breakfast. Hey, cheesecake has eggs in it (I think), that is a breakfast food. We look to our conscience, made discerning by the Holy Spirit, to be our guide. And my guide says that the most likely objection to eating cheesecake for breakfast will be that I didn't first offer it to you. I can live with that objection. There are also three pieces left. If your objection becomes too much for you to handle, just stop on by.

Bucky