Thursday, August 13, 2009

Am I a Glutton? Part 3

From today's lesson (Day 12) of The Lord's Table:

Overeating is a sin for the following reasons:

  • Whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, we are to do to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). God is not glorified when we evidence a lack of self control in our eating habits.
  • My body is the temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:17, 6:19). The temple of God is not to be destroyed or defiled. Overeating or other sinful eating habits defiles the temple and if continued in can lead to its early destruction.
  • Sinning leads to slavery (John 8:34). Overeating, like any sin, becomes addictive and can be extremely hard to overcome.
  • Jesus told us to take up our cross daily (Luke 9:23) and Paul told us to crucify the desires of the flesh (Romans 8:13, Colossians 3:5). To overeat is to gratify the cravings of the flesh, rather than to crucify them. This is sin. This is not to say that it's a sin to eat when hungry. The sin of gluttony is the habit of overeating. Food is not evil, and eating is not a sin.
  • There are many passages of Scripture which speak of the sin of gluttony; the Bible instructs us to avoid the path of the glutton (Proverbs 23:20-21) and to "put a knife to our throat" if we are given to gluttony (Proverbs 23:2). (The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines gluttony as "excess eating.")


I'm still not 100% sure I would classify my problem of eating as sin, but then again I can see that it's not pleasing to the Lord. Why? Because I comfort myself by eating rather than by running to Him. I use food to calm myself down rather than taking refuge in the shadow of His wings. And finally, when people see me, there's no hiding that I'm larger than average, and thus I am sending a clear signal that I have no self-control, no discipline, and in today's society, that is automatically NOT bringing God any glory. In fact, I don't know what the opposite of "glorifying God through our lives" would be, but when people see us and we're too heavy, our lives have the opposite effect. Rather than glorify God, we are, in effect, telling others that He is not enough so we have to placate ourselves with sin.

Wow, maybe it *is* sin after all.

And maybe I really am a glutton.

I will have to pray about that.

2 comments:

kevix said...

Is there not a difference between what you do and who you are?
"I am a glutton", sounds like you have the full intention to overeat and do not care about the result.
But your writing says that you are not enjoying thinking about your eating. A glutton would not agonize over her eating.

SavedAspie said...

thanks, Kevix, for the comment. That's an interesting point.