I am not sure why I haven’t posted anything in almost a month. It may be that I haven’t had anything relevant to say and I have been trying to limit the number of personal posts. After all who really wants to read about someone else’s life experiences. I know there may be some of my friends and family who do read those personal posts and I appreciate it. I am going to try and post something more often, but this year I am trying to post more relevant topics.

Now for the first post of this year. This past Sunday morning our associate Pastor, Eric, presented a message about people being made in the image of God and what that means. He used selected scripture verses to effectively describe what this means. The message definitely got me to thinking and I followed this thinking to my next logical step. Since we are made in the image of God and God is also our creator wouldn’t He know what is good for us and what is harmful? I say absolutely and this is what I would like to write about.

Whenever we begin a new year one of the things we think about are resolutions for the new year. Some of the more popular resolutions are exercising and eating right, followed by a plethora of others. I think the common theme for most of them is starting a habit or a consistent activity that is better for us. I believe God not only has given us the knowledge that He exists and the knowledge to know right from wrong. But along this same line of thinking he has given us the knowledge to understand what is good for us and what is harmful. He has definitely given us this knowledge through His commands in His perfect scripture.

An example of this is the command to not commit adultery. First of all, any sin is a sin against God and has consequences just for that. God created us, thus he knows the effects of this sin on His creation. Adultery effects us in so many ways. Some of the effects of this sin are distrust, unforgiveness, hate, spite, contentions, and so many others. We usually consider adultry a major sin and something like gluttony, which abuses the body God gave us, a minor sin. I know I have. In Proverbs 23:19-21 is written to young men and it says: “Listen my son, and be wise, and direct your heart in the way. Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine, or with gluttonous eaters of meat. For the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty, and drowsiness will clothe one with rags”.

Bascially this verse is telling young men to be wise and keep in control of what you consume in the way of food and drink. Many believers disregard the part about the abuse of the food and pick up on the part about drink. I believe we should treat both the same way. But drinking is for another post. 2Peter chapter 1 also tells us to be self-controlled and in order to be self-controlled as believers we obviously need the Holy Spirit and rely on Him to control us. Instead of being controlled by our emotions or heart. I would suffice it to say that most people who abuse their body by overeating do so out of a response to something negative in their life. They use it as a way of comforting themselves. Now if we are looking to something such as food to comfort ourselves then we are not choosing to rely on the Holy Spirit of God to do this. The negative circumstances in our life are to be expected. We live in a fallen world. But I would contend that our reaction to those circumstances is how we practice self-control. Are we controlling our consumption or are we allowing circumstances to control our consumption? 

I say all of this to go back to the fact that God knows us and the way he created us.  He knows that we live in a fallen world and because of that we might have a tendacy to allow things to control us and He commands us not to allow that to happen. He also knows that if we allow other things to control us we cannot give Him the time and devotion He requires. Not only that the abuse of food will have a negative impact on our health and could eventually shorten our lives. I believe God gave us our bodies and it is up to us to be good stewards of them. Since I am made in God’s image I should be dedicated to keeping myself free from anything that would cause that image to be tarnished. Can you guess what my resolution for this year is?