Sunday, August 1, 2010

Gluttony

It occurred to me recently that I can't remember the last time a pastor got up in front of a church and talked about gluttony and overeating. I feel as though sometimes churches get so caught up in the deep spiritual topics that they overlook the basics such as: How do we reflect our relationship with God through what we eat? The Bible is about as equally outspoken about gluttony as it is about drunkenness, so why is it that gluttony seems to get overlooked all too often? The Bible tells us that our bodies are temples. The Holy Spirit is living inside of us. How can the Holy Spirit have room to live in there if McDonalds has taken over? We are to have self control it says, but how does eating 3 deserts reflect upon that verse? Is that self control? I'm not talking about being overweight. They are two different topics that are usually connected, however. You can be a glutton without being overweight and vice versa.
Jesus was very big on caring for widows, orphans, and the poor. I think we lose sight of this very often though because we live in a country where the poorest person here would be the richest person in 75% of the world. We don't daily see children dying from hunger or parents who watch their kids die because they are not able to provide them with food. Every time we eat we should be thinking of Jesus's words to care for the widows, orphans, and poor. If all the Christians in the United States consciously made an effort to eat smaller portions and cut back on unnecessary pleasures, God could use us to have a profound effect on those that are going without food in our own country. We need to stop being worried about who we're offending and start worrying about those who are dying from hunger. If it takes the truth to offend someone and stop them from the sin of gluttony then so be it. We are to "love one another as Christ loved us", but if a brother/sister is living in sin it wouldn't be love to allow him to continue sinning. I feel very strongly about this subject, but on the other hand I am a human as well and struggle with this sin as all of us do. If more people are aware of it, however, there are more people to keep myself accountable to.

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