Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Principle or Preference?

Principle or preference: which of these two words best describes how you make moral decisions? This was the question posed on Charles Stanley's teaching, The Key to Wise Decisions. Sunday. (http://www.intouch.org/resources/this-weeks-sermon-outline)
It really hit at the heart of my journey with food.
19What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. 1 cor. 6:19-20
So principle or preference?
Am I going to eat what my body needs for fuel or am going with my preferences? Do my preferences line up with the Word says?
Food is not evil. Not even cookies. Overindulgence is the sin. Gluttony is sin.
Paul says in his letter to the Philippians: 19For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, 20According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death.
21For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
Paul was talking about actual death. For me it has to be death to preferences. Then "in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body."
Can you imagine being in a deep, meaningful relationship with someone but you cannot even see their face because of things piled between you two?
Now I ask myself why are all of these things piled between me and my Heavenly Father when I say I want a deep, meaningful relationship with Him? Who do I really love?
Addictions do not love back. They simply take your life away.
Principle or Preference?
Life or Death?

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