Clean Eating

It’s January 3, how’s that healthy eating plan working for you?

Why do we do this? Every. Single. Year. We enter Thanksgiving with the promise that we will eat healthier this holiday season. We will not succumb to the fudge, caramel corn, or cookies whether it is cutouts, peanut butter blossoms, or powdered sugar balls.

We will not touch the coconut walnut cake with its seven-minute frosting. The almond joy pies will not be our weakness, and we will pass by the pumpkin and pecan. This year will be different.

Yet, we did it. I know I did, and I know you did, because I’ve seen all the social media updates about getting back to clean eating. We will get healthy! We will be strong! We will exercise self-control. We have cleaned out our cupboards and fridges and we are ready to go. Nothing added or artificial for us, from now on it is clean, unadulterated, whole natural foods.

We are ready for healthy eating because we know how we feel after a few weeks of added sugar, fat, salt, and processed food. It affects every aspect of our person – our attitude, our bodies, our mood, our emotions – everything seems to be depressed, sluggish, indifferent, and heavy.

This is not the way we want to feel, and we know that when we clean up our food choices, that we will feel better within days! So, let’s get at it! And, while we’re cleaning the crud out of our cabinets, perhaps we should take a long look at our inspirational intake as well.

Could it be that our spirits are lethargic, our passion for the things of God has waned, we’ve grown complacent in our doctrine, tolerant of sin, and indifferent toward others because we are feeding artificial additives into our souls? Have we forgotten how good the pure Word of God is?

How processed is your intake of Scripture? Or, put another way, how much actual Scripture are you reading each day, and how much of it is added fluff? Moreover, is that fluff making it more palatable, or changing it altogether? How would you know?

For many of us, Scripture has become little more than an ingredient in our favorite thought for the day rather than the entire meal upon which we should be feeding our souls. It’s kind of like trying to pick out the taste of carrots in a carrot cake – unless you’re looking for it, you probably won’t find it. If we aren’t familiar with Scripture, how can we find it in our inspirational readings?

Are we feeding our minds and hearts with solid truth or are we sating our emotions with little more than a casserole of popular Christian culture: Take a verse or two from the Bible, add in a couple hundred words from our favorite personality, stir in a formula for powerful living, add equal measures of atta-boys and atta-girls, and cover it all with a healthy scoop of “you’re beautiful, you’re a child of the king, you’ve got this” and bam! – Daily Devotional Dining.

Are you content with spiritual lethargy? Have you decided that is just the way it is, that you’ve just not yet mastered the level of maturity it takes to live powerfully and victoriously? Does that sound spiritually healthy to you? Maybe it’s time to spend more time alone with God in His Word. Is it time to clean up your spiritual diet? What do you need to purge? What additives and flavorings are tainting truth?

When we fail to feast on the Words of God, the Bible, we are more prone to making theological errors and we forfeit power (Matthew 22:29). Devouring helping after helping of empty words makes us vulnerable to deception (Ephesians 5:1-6), and we step away from the protection that the perfect Word of God provides (Proverbs 30:5). The Bible does not need anything added to it to it make it better or more tasty.

Yes, we know how we feel every January – we know how to read a scale, loosen a belt, and get out the larger jeans we saved ‘just in case’. We don’t like living this way, so we take the steps necessary to correct our path. No more sweets. No more booze. No more processed foods. No more casseroles. From now on, it’s low sugar, low carbs and water. Lots and lots of water.

Isn’t it time you listened to your soul as much as you do to your gut? As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. (Psalm 42:1-2).

Will you commit to study the Word of God this year, not a personality, not a theory, not a formula, not a way of living, but the Words of God. There are many Bible studies available where God’s Word is studied, no one needs to settle for less than the Words of God.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). What have you been missing? Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4). It’s a new year, isn’t it time to start eating clean and living healthy?
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