The Taste Buds Of Sin

NOV 21 - NOV 27 2010  — THE TASTE BUDS OF SIN — ISSUE 181

This week we'll be gathering around tables, more-than-likely ones filled with family and friends, eating out of an over-abundance of food, sharing stories, and hopefully giving thanks for the massive quantities of blessings found in our lives when we just take a moment to get a bit of perspective. But since food tends to be the reason for the season until next week when that red and green monster known as Christmas devours every ounce of our sanity, I thought we could discuss those ever important taste buds. (Without which our Thanksgivings would be about as much fun as peeling potatoes while listening to a nine hour lecture on different forms of sediment found in common lakes and streams. — No thanks.)

"The reason we eat so much food that is clogging rather than cleansing is that we're prisoners. Prisoners! That's right. We're prisoners of our taste buds. We will do anything for our taste buds. If there is a food that can't outrun us, and is not nailed down, and it will fit into our mouths, and it tastes good, we'll eat it! We don't think twice about it. The only requirement we have about food is 'How does it taste?' But what about the rest of the body? When you look at the tiny area of the body that your taste buds occupy, and then you look at the rest of your body (which is what has to deal with the foods that pass over your taste buds) you have to wonder why people place so much attention on one small part of the body and ignore such a large part." — Harvey and Marilyn Diamond

That's just one of many nuggets of gold from their book, Fit For Life. And though it's a great springboard into a new look at your eating habits, I'd like to draw a very easy, but scarily real, parallel from it to our spiritual lives.

JAMES 1:14-15

We've all spent time paying for food we shouldn't have eaten, and likewise, how often we find ourselves living through the turmoil created by our sin. Taste buds tell us, "This is sooooo good, are you feeling this?" In the moment it seems so right. Fast forward a couple hours and as we're feeling the effects of what we ate we wonder, "What did I just do to myself?" Temptation is the same. It tells us how great it will be, how amazing, how satisfying, how fulfilling. And unfortunately clarity often comes only when it's too late.

Sin, which stems from those moments of temptation and unrestrained action, is such a small part of our total thought process. Think about all the things you think about during a day. (Kind of a weird statement, but follow me here for a second) If you broke it down thought by thought, how much of it would actually be temptations? I'm sure they wouldn't even come close to how much time you focus on activities at hand, things yet to do that day, things to do at a later point in time, analyzing conversations you're in, entertainment you've just experienced, etc., etc., etc. But much like our taste buds dictate most of what we eat, our temptations (to do good or wrong) often decide what we do, regardless of how few of them we have when compared to our total thought process.

So what then, shall we continue to allow such a small enemy win out? Shall we allow temptations, the taste buds of sin, to continue to control, direct, influence, and dictate what we do with our lives? Or will we finally wake up and look at the big picture, learning from our mistakes, the ones we see others make around us, and those that have come before us, and decide those fleeting moments aren't worth the often long-term ramifications? Will we finally learn to control them, putting them in their rightful place and only using our taste buds for lives worthy of our calling?

We've all had food that both tasted amazing and was still nutritious. The reason we tend to still load up on the not-so-good things is because they're quick, easy, and accessible; that's our sinful nature to a tee. The deepest satisfactions you'll ever known can only come from accomplishment, which is never handed to you and always requires work. It's time for us to stop taking the easy way out in our lives, and work for what God's shown us to be the better way, the ways that leave no regrets, no second thoughts, no hesitation, and no doubts.

Take every thought captive for Christ (2 Cor 10:5), and remember that we will never be tempted beyond what we can handle (1 Cor 10:13).  With these lessons in place, we'll be well on our way to a spiritually fit lifestyle where we listen to our entire body, and not just the part that screams the loudest.

Brett "Just because taste buds are small and I'm small, that doesn't mean I'm a bad influence" Hibbler