Wednesday, January 7, 2009

idolatry

God sets us free; we are promised that in the word. Why is the battle with food so difficult? Perhaps because we have to eat every day, and so anytime our flesh is acting up, we have to battle. Will we ever overcome it, or will this be a continuous battle? I do not know.
Eating is not a sin; gluttony is a sin.

Beth Moore helps me understand my battle in her book Breaking Free

"To travel forward on the road to freedom we must move the obstacle of idolatry. We begin by recognizing the obstacle as idol worship, but we may find removing it difficult. The first two obstacles to freedom (unbelief and pride) can be removed effectively by a matter of choice: we can choose to believe God, and we can choose to humble ourselves before God. I am not minimizing the difficulty, but I am suggesting the obstacles can be removed by volition. Some of the idols in our lives (things or people we have put in God's place) can take much longer to remove. Some of them have been in those places for years, and only the power of God can make them budge. We must begin to remove idols by choosing to recognize their existence and admitting their inability to keep us satisfied."

So if I can let God's power work through me, I can overcome this obstacle of eating for satisfaction that should only come from my relationship with God. Paul said when we are weak then we can be made strong because God's power can work in us. Even he said the well-known phrase "Oh, wretched man that I am. Who can deliver me. . .?" The battle is raging, but I am not giving up, and I believe by faith that Christ is working in me, and that I will not listen to the flesh nor walk carnally.

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