Thursday, May 21, 2015

The Acceptable Sin

Have you ever seen the show Intervention? My mom and I LOVE it and watch it all the time. It is exactly what it sounds like; a camera crew follows an addict around for a few days, you see them getting black out drunk or shooting up heroin and then they are surprised with an intervention from their family and go to rehab. The addictions on the show are about 60% drugs, 35% alcohol, and 5% bulemia/anorexia. 

Not once have I seen someone on there who is morbidly obese and addicted to food.

Because most don't see that as an addiction. Most don't see this as a sin.

I was that food addict, like I have talked about before. It literally controlled me. It controlled my mood, my emotions, my schedule, everything. I ballooned to 299lbs because of it and my BMI was in in the morbidly obese category. I was killing my self with food. I was dying by my own hand.

While it may not be as grotesque to some as shooting up a vein, it is so very similar. I am putting something in my body that is killing it, I have given myself to it and lost all self-control. I belonged to something other than myself and other than the Lord. 

But we sit in our church pews and our potlucks overeating, slowly killing ourselves, overweight, and point fingers at the drunks. Because food is the "acceptable sin". Its not drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, sex.... Its just food. 

Proverbs 25:28 says, "A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls." 

2 Timothy 1:7 reads, "For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control."

Self-Control is VITAL to life. It is not only a suggestion of God, but something that He gives us the power to do. I had no self-control. Galatians says it is a fruit of the Spirit, and I didn't have it. 

1 Corinthians 6:12 is the one that really hit me, "You say, 'I am allowed to do anything'—but not everything is good for you. And even though 'I am allowed to do anything,' I must not become a slave to anything."

Food is good, its delicious, its necessary for life, but to be controlled by it, to allow it to kill us slowly and live in obesity accepting the addiction is wrong, and it is sinful. It can no longer be tolerated. 

According to Gallup, " The percentage of U.S. adults who are obese continued to trend upward in 2014, reaching 27.7%. This is up more than two percentage points since 2008 and is the highest obesity rate Gallup and Healthways have measured in seven years of tracking it. More Americans who were previously overweight have now moved into the obese category". 

I can say that I am no longer a food addict. I am learning more and more self-control and it no longer controls me. But I am sad for those who live addicted, those who judge and do not see their own faults. I hope that people stop accepting sin, any sin, even this sin.