Cheating

Today, for the second day in a row, I have cheated on The Diet. I feel slightly guilty. I know what I need to eat and I know why. Of course I have my reasons, but I'm not sure they truly justify my behavior.

But it just underscores my lack of self-discipline and selfishness. My sin. In my mind, because I have made this commitment, my doing-whatever-pleases-me-right-now is sin. I knew this would be hard. No one forced me to this decision. I chose this.

And yet I choose the other. What I know in my head will make me sick. What keeps me from getting better.

It is a metaphor for sin in general. I know my sin is wrong -- any sin: gossip, pride, lying, etc. I know I shouldn't do it, and I know it disconnects me from intimacy with God.

And yet I choose the other. What I know in my head will make me sick. What keeps me from getting better.


Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.  For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh. Romans 7:24-8:3

God has given me what I need to stick to The Diet, and He has given me what I need to not sin:

seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.  Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge,  and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1: 3-8



I CAN DO THIS! FOR GOD'S GLORY, for it is not by bread alone that I live.