Time To Put On Something New

An old battery that’s corrupted has no power. It may be the right size and it may even fit perfectly into the right slot, but if it's dead, then it's of absolutely no use to you. Now, let's compare an old battery to your current way of thinking about food.  

Obviously, your present eating habits have met a need up to this point. They have provided you with nutrition to live, but that doesn’t mean they’re not flawed and corrupted by faulty expectations or assumptions. So yes, while your current food habits may meet a need, they’ll never really empower you to take control of your food choices past the confines of a diet.

I think all of us can agree that we share a similar problem. We typically perform the same habits over and over and over again without ever taking the time to explore the why behind our actions.

On two occasions, Jesus told people to "go and sin no more." He really saw these people and He didn't want them to go back to living the life and doing the things that had brought them to such a low point. He healed the lame man at the Pool of Bethesda. Then afterward, He saw the man again at the temple grounds and told him to stop sinning. Why would Jesus give this warning if the man was already healed? It’s quite possible that Jesus knew exactly how the man had injured himself in the first place. In fact, it’s likely that this man’s past actions had actually caused his injuries. 

He also refused to cast judgement on the woman caught in the act of adultery. Her accusers were gone and the crisis point had passed. Still, He didn’t condemn her, but He also didn’t want her to go right back to her same old patterns because He knew she’d end up right back in the same situation again, so He told her to go and sin no more.

When it comes to our habits, God’s Word provides a much more effective model. We are instructed to put off our old, ineffective habits and put on new, workable ones.  No one can expect to stop doing everything they used to do with food; to get rid of all their old habits unless they have something new to put in their place. Instead, they have to establish new workable, practical habits.

Right now, your behavior with food is at the surface level, you still have to make conscious choices to exercise awareness. Just like having a flashlight with juiced up batteries when a thunderstorm rolls in, you need action steps to develop new habits you can go to each and every time you are tempted. What’s more, these habits must be empowered by the Holy Spirit; undergirded and strengthened by God’s Word. He has the power at our disposal, but God always calls us to action; to do something. 

We always have a part to play. It’s a divine partnership between God and us. We want to be mature in our spiritual walk and we want this maturity to be reflected in our lives and actions. Just like God works in us and through us to build up our spiritual senses, He also wants to work in conjunction with us to build up our physical senses. In this case, we can develop healthy eating habits to keep us from falling when tempted by food and God will help us to stay committed to those new habits as we continue to ask for His strength and guidance. 

The devotional is taken from Find Your Weigh book and Bible Study. For more information, please visit: www.findyourweighbook.com