As we draw closer to the New Year and we all start making our “New Year, new you” resolutions, I want to share what God has been working out in me.
Many of our resolutions will be to lose weight. That is usually coming after a huge holiday binge fest, right? Eat all we want now because we are going to deny ourselves later. That right there is a sign of the wrong motivation. Anytime we say that we are going to change the way we eat but we are going to start on Monday and binge out til then, we are setting ourselves up for failure because we have the wrong motivation.
Maybe our motivation is a vanity reason. We want to look better. Want to be able to wear our clothes better. Want to be a smaller size. Want people to notice the weight we have lost. This is like chasing the wind. We can certainly do things that make us “look better” but if we don’t like how we look now I can tell you from experience you won’t like what you look like when you lose weight either. There will still be more weight to lose, more muscle to tone, and then having to work so hard to keep a certain “look” that you find approving. These bodies will grow older and never look the same anyway. These bodies are temporary, and we are not to strive for what is temporary, right?
2 Corinthians 4:18
“while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
Maybe our motivation is to be healthy. We want to have good health to carry us into our elder years. That seems like a good goal! And it isn’t all bad. We should want to take good care of our bodies because they are the temple of the Holy Spirit. But even our health is fleeting. This still isn’t enough to keep us on track.
So, what then? What is it that can keep us on track? First thing is knowing the truth about overeating.
Proverbs 23:19-21
19 Listen, my son, and be wise,
and set your heart on the right path:
20 Do not join those who drink too much wine
or gorge themselves on meat,
21 for drunkards and gluttons become poor,
and drowsiness clothes them in rags.
It is obvious that getting drunk is a sin. Well, seems obvious to most anyway and for obvious reasons. I dare say, not a single good decision was made while drunk. But did you know that gluttony ranked right up there with drunkards in the Bible? In church, we wouldn’t laugh at someone getting drunk at an event. No, we would intervene and try to help that person. But we laugh about over indulging in food, don’t we? This sin may be overlooked by most churches but it certainly isn’t overlooked by God.
The good news is, it wasn’t overlooked by Jesus either. He died for that sin. His blood washes it away. He sent the Spirit to abide in us to give us strength to repent that sin and have a heart change over it. That is some pretty strong motivation there, isn’t it?
I had a particularly rough day yesterday. It was really more than one thing but one particular thing was rather tough. I wanted to eat my feelings away and the enemy was saying to me “is it even really a sin anyway?” So, I went to God with that question and guess what book and chapter came to me in my email this morning? Proverbs 23. Those verses I posted earlier are what I read this morning and it is by no coincidence. That was God making it perfectly clear that yes, this is sin.
That is good news, too! Jesus has defeated sin, and since Jesus is a friend of ours and our Savior from sin then we can start walking today in victory over it.
Not on Monday. Not on January 1st. But we can choose today who we will serve; our fleshly desire for overindulgence and the idol of food or Jesus. As for me and my body, we will serve the Lord! (Joshua 24:15)
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