“There, in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the LORD your God has blessed you.”
~ Deuteronomy 12:7
Hi James and Ellen,
Do you like to eat meat? Your grandmaa likes to eat prime rib when she goes to a restaurant. God’s specially chosen guys and gals liked to eat meat. God’s specially chosen guys and gals could eat as much meat as they wanted to eat; they just could not eat the meat of a cow’s firstborn calf or a ewe’s firstborn lamb or a nanny goat’s firstborn kid. God’s specially chosen guys and gals could eat deer and gazelle meat. When your grandmaa and grandpaa were administrating the rural resident leadership training center program in Concepción, Ñuflo de Chávez – in Bolivia and because your grandpaa had a pickup, local guys would sometimes ask your grandpaa if he would drive to one of the ranches that were located outside Concepción to either carry to Concepción in his pickup a live cow that would be tied up – where it would be killed and butchered, or to carry in his pickup to Concepción the meat of a cow that would be killed and butchered while your grandpaa was waiting. Your grandpaa would tell the guy who had asked him to carry in his pickup back to Concepción a live cow or the meat of a butchered cow that he would do it if he would give him the cow’s head. Your grandpaa would also tell the guy who had asked him to carry in his pickup back to Concepción a live cow or the meat of a butchered cow that he wanted to have first dibs on being able to buy ten kilos of lomito or lomo – which are the best cuts of meat, and half of the cow’s liver. The wife of one of the Centro de Capacitación students would use an ax to chop up the cow’s head for a stew called petasca. Even the cow’s eyeballs and lips went into the stew. When the cow’s lips were ready to eat and if the wife of one of the Centro de Capacitación students was pregnant, she would get the lips to eat. Cow lips supposedly are good for a pregnant gal to eat. The brains of the cow would not be put into the stew. Your grandpaa would sometimes be given some of a cow’s brains to eat. Your grandpaa also likes to eat the tongue, heart, kidneys, udder from a cow. Your grandmaa and grandpaa spent thirteen weeks in Concepción when they jumped started the rural resident leadership training program there. After implementing the rural resident leadership training program in Concepción, your grandmaa and grandpaa went to the United States for a yearlong furlough. When your grandmaa and grandpaa got back to Bolivia after spending a year in the United States, they returned to Concepción where they administrated the rural resident leadership training center program for the next three years. Because of a lack of space to live at the rural resident training center for the initial eight Centro de Capacitación guys and the families of the guys who were married, the two single guys – Bonifacio García and Samuel Tosube, stayed in the kitchen of the manse that was on the property of the rural resident leadership training center. Your grandmaa and grandpaa also stayed in the manse that was on the property of the rural resident leadership training center. The first time that your grandpaa got some cow’s liver, Bonifacio showed your grandmaa how to fix the liver so that it was really tasty. When your grandpaa buys liver now, your grandpaa will fix the liver like Bonifacio did – which is to cut the liver up into small pieces, fry the liver, add some onions and then when the liver is almost ready to eat, scramble a couple of eggs in with the liver.
About once a year when your grandpaa was a kid, your grandpaa’s dad would butcher a steer. Your grandpaa’s dad would hang the steer’s carcass overnight. Your grandpaa would help his dad by cutting the fat off the meat and cutting up the meat into small chunks – which your grandpaa’s ma would put in jars to can. Your grandpaa’s ma would fry for a meal some of the freshly butchered steer meat. Your grandpaa really looked forward to when his dad would butcher another steer. Just as long as God’s specially chosen guys and gals did everything that God expected them to do through the religious laws or regulations that He passed on to them through Moses, God was just fine with His specially chosen guys and gals eating clean versus unclean animals. Deuteronomy 12 summarizes some of the other expectations that God had for His specially chosen guys and gals. God expected His specially chosen guys and gals to destroy every one of the altars that were being used by the people groups of guys and gals who were living in Canaan’s land area – which was the land area that God was going to give them to always to have to live in as their very own land. God also expected His specially chosen guys and gals to smash all the sacred stones, burn all the Asherah poles and cut down all the manmade idol gods that had been handmade from wood, clay, stone and metal that would be found in Canaan’s land area. God also expected His specially chosen guys and gals to make sacrificial offerings to Him. God expected His specially chosen guys and gals to always worship Him in the ways that He prescribed. God also warned His specially chosen guys and gals to not to take on the religious norms of other people group’s guys and gals – which included doing all kinds of detestable things including the burning of their kids alive as sacrifices on altars to manmade idol gods that were handmade from wood, clay, stone and metal.
God rewards blessings to guys, gals and kids who do what He – as God the Spirit, has prompted them to do. Verse 7 states “There, in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the LORD your God has blessed you.” God’s reward blessings are not what a Christ-follower guy, gal or kid is to pursue; God rewards a blessing when a Christ-follower guy, gal or kid obeys what He – as God the Spirit, has prompted him or her to do. God has given your grandmaa and grandpaa baskets of reward blessings through all the experiences that He – as God the Spirit, has had them have for His glory.
Deuteronomy 12 (575)