Eating As Act of Worship

Making an Idol of Your Stomach

3/13/2016

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“[M]any live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things.” Philippians 3:18b-19

Most overweight people don’t realize they are committing the sin of gluttony, and those who do recognize their entanglement with the sin fail to understand that they have made a god of their stomachs. Gluttons commit the sin of idolatry in two ways, and sometimes individuals do both without realizing it. The first method occurs when individuals look to food to provide a need only God can fulfill instead of turning to God. The second method takes place when individuals obey their bodies’ cravings without restraint instead of obeying God’s commands regarding eating and maintaining the temple of the Holy Spirit they are responsible for, meaning their own bodies.

However, the purpose of food is to provide sustenance and nutrition to our bodies. The problem is that we have increasingly come to require and expect food to do more than it is able or intended to do. For instance, you should not run to food if you feel angry, depressed, lonely, disappointed, stressed, or hurt. Whatever hole is left in your heart by life will never be filled by a tub of ice cream, a pizza, burgers with fries, or any other earthly thing you could eat. In other words, food was never meant to be your comforter, the source of your joy and happiness, a crutch to make life bearable, or a shield against pain and disappointment. That’s the Lord’s job, and only He is uniquely qualified to do it.

1.            God the Comforter

“And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter that He may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him, but ye know Him, for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” John 14:16-18

“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.” John 16:7

2.            God the Source of Joy

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Galatians 5:22-23

“The joy of the Lord is your strength.” Nehemiah 8:10

3.            God the Crutch to Endure Life

“Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.“ Matthew 11:28-30

4.            God the Shield Against Pain and Disappointment

“Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food; Though the flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls – Yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” Habakkuk 3:17-18

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, your stomach is the equivalent of a bottomless pit. It will continue to require more and more as it probably already has been with each passing year. It only takes in what your body craves, and it never gives you what you truly desire. That’s because it cannot. It’s a false god that neither sees, hears, nor speaks, yet you run to it with peach cobbler and ice cream as your offering in times of trouble. The so-called comfort food only earns you a temporary reprieve from your cares. You recognize too late that your crutch is crippling you, and you are increasingly growing more disgusted with your eating habits instead of happily indulging in your desire for your favorite foods. Furthermore, instead of shielding you from your pain and disappointment, you realize your stomach and its cravings are slowly becoming or have already become a source of pain and disappointment in your life.

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What is Lust?

3/6/2016

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"For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever." 1 John 2:16

Lust is an intense desire, yearning, or longing for something. Accordingly, an individual can lust after another person or after a thing, but how exactly does the world entice us to lust after someone or something? The bible says we are enticed through our flesh, our eyes, and our pride. Specifically, your body lusts after food when you excessively crave certain foods and beverages.

“Each one is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin. And sin, when it is finished, brings forth death." James 1:14-15

The Lust of the Eyes and Flesh:

In order to demonstrate the body’s response to the mere mention of and sight of food, consider that hearing a radio advertisement describing your favorite foods and beverages can cause you to salivate and yearn for what’s being described although you may have just eaten a full meal. Your eyes can cause you to lust after food and beverages when you see a commercial or billboard advertisement for your favorite fast food restaurant. Moreover, both your eyes and your nose can cause you to lust after food simultaneously when you see something that brings to mind an image of cuisine you crave, and then you smell what you long for at the same time. For instance, when you smell the aroma of a Big Mac as you pass the golden arches of a McDonald’s restaurant on the interstate, you may be hard pressed to pass up one of the next 5 McDonald’s restaurants you see on the way home without buying one if, like me, you are susceptible to the sin of gluttony.

Did you notice what happened? It should remind you of the “cycle of cravings” you go through each time you’ve surrendered to eating something that is not on your latest dietary program. As the Books of James and 1 John point out, first you are confronted by something you lust for via one of your gates, that is, your eyes, ears, nose, mouth, or skin, and you become enticed or tempted (James 1:14-15 and 1 John 2:16). In other words, this is the beginning of the cycle where you see, smell, hear about, taste something that reminds you of, or touch something that has a texture similar to a food or beverage that you enjoy or crave. This produces a longing or desire, a temptation if you will, for that food within you.

Second, you begin to dwell on the object of your desire or lust so obsessively that the Book of James compares your thought processes to pregnancy. In other words, your craving or lust for the burger, once triggered, commenced a series of thoughts within your mind that began much like the life-cycle of a human being. We start out one cell at a time, namely, when a seed from our mother is fertilized by our father. Those two come together to make a completely new cell which takes on a life of its on, dividing and multiplying until it matures into a child that can exist independently outside of its mother’s womb.

Spiritually speaking, sin has a similar cycle. It just usually works a whole lot faster. The seed of lust comes from within you as the Book of James teaches us, but it is fertilized by the enemy, Satan. Just as a mother’s body naturally provides all the nutrients her unborn child needs so long as she feeds her body during the pregnancy, so any human being will feed the sin growing within him or her by merely continuing to think about it. Accordingly, the enemy works diligently to make sure that you nourish the sinful thought by keeping your mind focused on it to the point of obsession. In the end, you’ve got to have it! As a mother in the natural pushes to give birth to the mature child, you too, act to make your sinful thoughts a reality. In other words, your mind commands your body to eat.

The Lust of the Pride of Life:

Pride is tricky because it often works as a subtle internal dialogue which is being carried on, presumably, with oneself. For instance, “Pride” says, “I’m not like everyone else. I’m not lazy. I can break my bad habits whenever I want. All I have to do is put my mind to it. Just not today. I’ll do it tomorrow. Today we still have cheesecake left that should not go to waste.” When tomorrow is dawning, “Pride” convinces you not to start tomorrow “because the holidays are right around the corner. I’ll just wait until the beginning of the year. I should enjoy myself now before the new year starts. I should eat as much as I want of whatever I want. Who knows when I’ll have the chance to eat like this again.” No matter how many times you’ve traveled that road before, the sin of pride can talk you into almost anything if you let it.

“The Lord resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6)." In fact, Proverbs 6:16-19 teaches that pride is one of the “7 deadly sins” that God considers an abomination. In Proverbs 6:18, the Lord says that pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. That’s exactly what has been happening to a growing number of people all over the world who are entangled with the sin of gluttony and suffering from the effects of obesity. Pride has led then to the destruction of the temple of the Holy Spirit, and they are not only sick, but many are also dying. However, God promises to give grace to those who humble themselves before Him. Draw near to God by rejecting the lies of the evil spirit of pride, repenting from your entanglement with the sin of gluttony, and humbly obeying God’s word in regard to dieting, exercising, and caring for your body, the temple of the Holy Spirit.

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Ann Wooten Taylor

Ann is an attorney who has been licensed to practice law in the State of Arkansas since 2004, practicing in the areas of child abuse and neglect, special education, and unemployment insurance law. Mrs. Taylor is also the C.E.O. of Eating as an Act of Worship Ministries and a Christian author. Her first non-fiction, Christian book entitled, "Eating as an Act of Worship Workbook" was published and released by Life to Legacy Publishing in 2015. Her second book, the "Eating as an Act of Worship Teacher's Edition" was published and released in December 2016.

Making an Idol of Your Stomach

What is Lust?

Ann Wooten Taylor

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