Several years ago I experimented with something called the Paleo diet. The idea is that you eat the way cavepeople supposedly ate before agriculture was developed, focusing on meat and plants while avoiding carbs as much as possible.

This diet (and others like it) is endorsed by a number of celebrities, bloggers, and social media influencers who have found success losing weight or improving their athletic performance. But when I tried the diet, I mainly felt crabby and sluggish. What worked for others didn’t really work for me, and I quickly abandoned it. It was an interesting experiment, but I found that it wasn’t the right fit for my lifestyle.

Sometimes we are tempted to treat Jesus’ voice like just another voice in the world giving advice about options for our diet, finances, or productivity. But in this passage in John 7, we are reminded that Jesus actually speaks for God because his teaching is from God.

Jesus’ instructions are not something we can pick and choose from. Every instruction he gave is in line with the way you and I were created to live. If we want to experience life as it was meant to be lived, we will find it by listening to Jesus and doing what he asks us to do.