Three Deadly Sins Pt. 2

I’m jumping back where I left off in my last blog. You can check out Part 1 here if you missed it. For a quick recap, I shared three sins (there were more) the Lord brought to my attention during my weekend of revelation and repentance. These particular sins were highlighted to me in Ezekiel 16:49, where essentially the Lord told me like the city of Sodom, I was arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned. I unpacked a snippet of my iniquity with the last in this sequence. Today, I’ll unfold another.

Overfed. One of my son’s father’s favorite sayings is, “Being better than terrible is still bad.” The reality is that I think we look at our sin a lot like this. At least I’m not… At least I don’t… Well, I’m not doing such and such anymore. We easily justify sin in our lives because we presume it not to be so awful. But even our bad is terrible in the eyes of God. This was me and the sin of gluttony.

Gluttony was not necessarily something I wore in my outer appearance. I’m far from overweight, but my soul was weighted with the idolatry of my god. It sounds terrible when you put it in terms like that, but it’s the truthful vantage point from heaven – for so my Bible tells me so. Years ago, I heard John Piper teach on this section of Scripture. In some respect, this passage is only an analogy of sin. Piper shared a deeper meaning than its face value. Yet the description is vivid and exactly mine.

Philippians 3:19 states, “Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is their shame.” Who was Paul talking about? In the verse prior, he called the people who live like this “enemies of the cross of Christ.” Have you ever thought that your sinfulness was making you an adversary of the cross? The cross meant rather to save you from this ruin, idolatry, and disgrace? My indulgence was leading me to make the power of the cross impotent because I was refusing to rely upon its grace (Titus 2:11-14).

I had deluded myself with each stuffing of this and then with that. I remember going back for more chips one evening, and even they cried out against my sinfulness. On more than one occasion, I could recall a chip looking like a round face with a gaping triangular piece missing that was reminiscent of my mouth. Instead of heeding this conviction to stop eating and by necessity, to put it in the trash, I just kept going (like I’ve done with many other sins before, too). It was only in Yahweh's presence that I realized that I had made my stomach my god. I obeyed it, rather than Him.

I can’t remember if I went to YouTube and this video was already waiting on me, or if I had searched for it, but the first to come up was a testimony by a brother in the Lord. It was humbling and yet encouraging. I went into another time of prayer and repentance and then opened my YouTube again to find a testimony from a woman about her struggle with the same sin. Both testaments and the ones her video linked to provided me with the exhortation and knowledge I needed to fight my war of self-indulgence. I learned much about the culprit of sugar from a doctor’s video she included in her description (I followed everything except his misinformed stance on evolution – the Lord created us from dust and a rib.).

And like my son used to throw his bath toys after I’d walk in and ask him if he had been drinking the bath water again, I was ready to cut off what was causing me to sin too. I went through my fridge and cabinets and junked a bunch of “edible-like food substances” (stole this name from a book a brother was reading some years ago as he was on a health journey). Little by little, I would make more conscious choices about what I put in my body. Several of the videos stated that sugar was more addictive than alcohol and drugs, which is why when we get a hold of those sugary substances, we can’t eat just one. I realized I would have to limit my sugar intake and practice the discipline of fasting more often so that I could exercise self-control. When I sat down to eat, I would intentionally tell God that He was my God and my stomach was not. I would thank and ask Him to make my food sufficient and to help me not overeat. Each day I’m still seeking to choose and declare Him as my only Master.

For Reflection:

What is mastering you? What have you made your god in the presence of your God?