Love of Food Still Suppressed

I don’t know if my spam filters are deleting legitimate comments. It’s hard to tell, because I don’t see the same things readers do. When I want to find out what’s happening, I have to log out and make comments. The system seems to be working. If it’s killing your comments, you can email me and let me know.

I’m blogging today about my baptism experience. I went to Clearwater to have my water baptism redone correctly, and it produced clear results. The problem with receiving supernatural help from God, though, is that it doesn’t always last. We are ignorant about things like miracles, healings, and deliverance, so we aren’t good about holding onto the changes God makes in us. People get healed and then relapse. Addicts get delivered and then fall back into addiction. You have to be careful not to be too quick to assume you have a lasting result.

On the day of the baptism, before I even went to the tank, I got re-delivered from the love of food. It happened before lunch, and the baptism took place later in the afternoon. My eating habits changed. I felt as though an inner voice was rising up in me to counter the drive to obtain and consume food and drink.

As of today, it’s still working. In fact, I have something interesting to report: I seem to be in danger of eating too little.

Yesterday I had breakfast and lunch, and I figured I was pretty well set for the day. Later on, though, I started to feel like lunch had not been big enough. I felt like my blood sugar was on the low side. It seemed that I needed to eat something more. I had a nearly empty container of ice cream in the freezer, so I took it out and finished it off. After that, I was fine.

I’m very happy about it. A person who had to be reminded to eat is very blessed.

Skinny people love to call fat people undisciplined, but the truth is that nearly all of them weigh less because they don’t like food as much. We all know skinny people who are irresponsible and weak. If people like that really liked food, they would be as big as houses.

Think of all the thin celebrity drug addicts and alcoholics. Here are a few: Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse, Robert Downey, Whitney Houston, Keith Richards, Jim Carrey, Shia Laboeuf, James Taylor, and Jackson Browne. Not models of self-control. If these people had loved food, they would have been morbidly obese.

We know of drug addicts who also became obese. Think of David Crosby, Robin Williams, John Belushi, Jim Morrison, Oprah Winfrey, James Gandolfini, Chris Farley, Elvis Presley, and Artie Lange. John Belushi used to go to restaurants and order entire fried chickens, somewhat like his character in The Blues Brothers.

Many people simply don’t care that much for food. It’s a great thing. It’s completely positive. It doesn’t lead to starvation, because even though they don’t care much for food, their bodies drive them to take in what they need. It just keeps them healthier, more fit, and better-looking than the rest of us.

I love the idea of not loving food. It will bring me a lot of things I want. Who doesn’t want their clothes to fit better? Who doesn’t want to avoid having two sets of clothing: the fat clothes and the “real” clothes? Who doesn’t want to be able to go up a set of stairs without breathing hard afterward?

I’ve never been huge, but I don’t want to be fat at all.

Here’s something interesting: the Bible is very hard on lovers of pleasure. Take a look at this:

But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!

Paul criticized lovers of pleasures in the same sentence with blasphemers. Wow.

The kind of pleasure he is talking about is the selfish pleasure of the flesh, not pleasures like the good feeling you get from being in God’s presence or doing good.

Let’s check the Greek.

It comes from the same root as “hedonism,” and here is what Strong’s says about the pleasure involved: “pleasure, a pleasure, especially sensuous pleasure; a strong desire, passion.”

It’s not what you feel after a good prayer session or a miraculous healing.

These days, I find that I sometimes try not to cook as well as I can. I’ll be working on a dish, and I’ll think it’s important to get the very best ingredient or use the best method, and then I’ll correct myself. Food doesn’t have to be sublime. Good is sufficient. Why should I make food that intoxicates me? I don’t need that, and it usually takes more work. I don’t need to be my own drug pusher. The food I make is so good, I may be able to overcome my deliverance if I tempt myself too much.

All the things I’m writing apply to temptations like sex, covetousness, and provocation to anger, too. In modern America, we yield to temptation as a matter of course, but we should be toning it down. You don’t need the best sex possible. You don’t need the nicest car made. You don’t need to be around people who provoke you; it’s not really necessary to have a Twitter account.

Food isn’t the only thing I resist better now.

So far, the baptism seems to have been a big success. Our ignorance about baptism may explain why Christians are so much like other people. We divorce just as much. We look at porn. Many of us are as fat as pigs; we even follow obese preachers who are clearly controlled by their flesh. The Bible says we’re not supposed to be slaves to sin, and it wouldn’t say that if God hadn’t given us the tools to get free.

In order to stay free from an addiction, I believe you have to refrain from tempting yourself with occasional plunges into self-indulgence. I believe you also have to go easy on other people with the same problem, because if you’re self-righteous about it, God may let you fall back into your old habit.

I’m about two and a half weeks into it. I can’t tell you where I’ll be a year from now. I feel very hopeful.

The outfit that baptized me is called The Last Reformation, and I found them on Youtube. I had a habit of looking up street healers and watching their videos. Here’s something strange: I found a number of healers before I found TLR, and now I’m seeing Youtube comments that indicate that they know the TLR people. Some of them have attended TLR events, and some are just friends of TLR veterans.

I think God is knitting people together outside of churches, just as I have been predicting for years. I believe God told me it would happen.

I will never join TLR. I’ve said that before. I’m all done following men and movements. I won’t join a church, either. I know TLR will eventually fall into corruption unless Jesus comes soon, and I’m sure they’re not correct about everything. I don’t want to be part of the mess if they fall. Nonetheless, they seem to be part of a very solid quasi-denomination that has arisen without much human planning.

Once you put a name on a movement and name officials, things start to go south. I suppose it defines a target for Satan and gives him a choke point to attack. It’s normal, and it should be expected. It has never failed. I don’t want to be permanently identified with anything that is likely to fail, but TLR does very good work for the time being.

I will keep reporting on my status. If you want help with your own compulsions, consider getting yourself baptized properly.