Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matthew 26:41
It feels like I can’t win this battle. Like most women I struggle with food. I want to eat it all the time, fatty, sweet, and salty and be a beautiful size 6 (not since the 5th grade!). Sigh. For the last several weeks I have not been treating my body as a temple of the Holy Spirit. I am over-feeding it!
In the whole scheme of things this wouldn’t appear to be the worst sin I could commit. I’m not binging on whole bags of candy bars or anything close. Nor have I blown the family budget at the grocery store for my personal pleasure. What I am not doing is exercising self-control which is one of the fruits of the Spirit.
Many years ago I heard some teaching on Ephesians 4:28 which says, “ Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” The teacher went on to explain that the thief is to make a conscious choice to stop taking what doesn’t belong to them. As Christians we have the power to do this with any sin. If we want to please God we are to be obedient to God’s Word and the prompting of His Spirit.
With food as with gossip or pride, we often see the sin before or as we’re committing it. Though I don’t think I have been gluttonous I certainly have known that I was already plenty nourished as I continued to eat. Like the thief I should stop.
For other Christians this may be another sin. Some of us talk too much, spend too much, drink too much, waste too much time on the computer, and some just love their own comfort or desires more than they want to please God. I would have to admit that many times the food tastes good and it is a comfort. It is just the flesh wanting to taste sweetness. We are indulging in one way or another and not exercising our self-control.
Well, we hear a lot of talk about letting our sin defeat us, as if it has some power over us or that we can practice some prayer or ritual to attain victory over it. The truth seems to me to be that if our faith has been placed in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, then we already have the victory. Christ conquered sin. He took the penalty, He paid the price (death), and so sin no longer has power over us. We can believe that we have been defeated, that we don’t have whatever it might take to do the right thing – or to stop doing the wrong thing – but this is a deception or a denial of the truth.
Rom 6:6 says, “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.” We don’t have to follow our desires – we choose to. We can also choose not to. Perhaps the words we need to use are obedience and disobedience rather than victory and defeat.
I have not been defeated by food, I have chosen to eat disobediently. So, I will be praying but also choosing to accept the victory Christ has won. With the help of the Holy Spirit, I hope to start exercising my self-control!
“…and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.” Ephesians 5:10