Coffee

Coffee that we drink is made from the seed of a "coffee cherry," which we call the coffee bean. The bean is picked, dried, ground up and mixed with water to make a bitter black beverage that has the effect of keeping one from sleeping.

Coffee is said by many to have originated in Africa, Ethiopia in fact. Interestingly, besides being known for the cultivation of the coffee bean, Ethiopia is known for it's beautiful rock-hewn churches. It's also said to be one of the first countries to officially convert to Christianity, which it did in the fourth century A.D. In Ethiopia today, coffee is still a principal crop but coffee rows well in many tropical like places around the world, and is enjoyed by people all around the globe.

Coffee has a reputation for being the first thing a person drinks in the morning. It is said to help them wake up to the world. It is a bitter, black, traditionally “adult” drink that is enjoyed because it stimulates the senses. It's delicious with a little cream and sugar to help the bitterness go down, and many people find the early morning stimulation of a cup of the liquid a necessity for living in a busy, fast-paced, high tech world.

Unfortunately, coffee, strong and black sometimes replaces water in the diet, and water, clear, pure and simple as it is, is something people need for true vitality and health. Coffee ingestion is estimated to be about a third of water and health fanatics will tell you, coffee can increase your risk of cancer, that it robs a person of what they really need in order to survive.

There are hundreds of chemicals in roasted coffees, more than half (19/28) of which are known carcinogens to rodents, but we humans still are happy to awaken, greet the day and drink in our cup of the bitter black liquid. With all it's possible problems, coffee does have it's merits. For one thing it brings people together in conversation.

Over a cup of coffee, people can discuss many things, read the paper, you know, hear the latest and the greatest news. And thanks to cream and sugar and some slick advertising people will pay a pretty penny for a cup. Not only that there is now quite an enjoyable flavor selection, making coffee much more than beverage for adults, kids like too. Chocolate covered, dry roasted, espresso, latte, mocha or breve, coffee is nearly and essential, ingredient for today’s life and culture. All one has to do is brew it up and one draws a crowd.

It reminds me of how in our world today, strange spiritual brew is being brewed, poured out, and served up by the cupful to humanity. Much like the coffee beverage, this spiritual offering is replacing the pure truth of God and His word. Like coffee, it's dressed with sugary sweet political promises. It wets religious whistles too, but with adulterated water. To the world it’s a concoction that is seemingly the perfect blend of politics and religion, economics and life, one that will get us all through another day in the life of this world, but to the mature Christian, it’s simply a replacement for truth. It's error served with a milk and honey to mask the true bitterness of the cup. It's error because its spiritually infused with the dark denial that God came in the flesh to save man from sin. It's a mysteriously peculiar, poisonous brew of dark spiritually and it is served up but the potful at locations all around the globe.

As we wake up to drink our coffee in the morning, it's a good reminder that something besides the morning brew is brewing. And it's time to wake up. It's time to open our eyes and see that our redemption draweth nigh. James 5:8.

It's time to renounce the evil deeds of darkness and it's time, as it says in Psalm 38:4, to “Taste, and see that the Lord is truly good.”