Gluttony seems to be a sin that is not often talked about, if ever. In fact, I can only remember hearing about it being preached once, and it was during a spoken word. I cannot remember a single youth group, Bible study, or church sermon where someone spoke of gluttony. I suppose, living in this day and age, so many of us can easily fall into gluttony that we do not even know what it is. Most people assume gluttony is eating pounds of food every day and weighing over three hundred pounds. This is not the only form of gluttony.
The easiest way to know gluttony is to ask yourself this: are you eating until you are fool, or until you are satisfied? Will you go back for a second plate of food because of how good it tastes, even though you know you could not eat the whole plate? Are you grabbing snacks in between meals because you want something that tastes good and not just food for energy? What is your motive behind eating? That is gluttony. Not large amounts, but large motives.
Yes, we must eat healthy and right. This is a command from God! "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple." (1 Corinthians 3:16-17) Your body is a temple, so yes you are called to treat it well. That mean do not eat fast food all day. There is no way around this, and if you are making excuses to destroy God's temple, remember that He will destroy you as well. Gluttony seems to be a sin so easy to brush over and ignore, but it is serious. A sin that you do not look at is a sin that has every opportunity to trap you. We are called to eat right, even eating with self-control on healthy foods as well.
Eating with self-control has always been a good sign that many people today are missing. Ecclesiastes 10:17 says, "Happy are you, O land, that your king is the son of the nobility, and your princes feast at the proper time, for strength, and not for drunkenness!" If you cannot control your own appetite you are under the control of your flesh. "Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on Earthly things." (Philippians 3:19) If you fall prey to this vice, you must come out of it. It is a sin like any other.
Once again, gluttony is not about how much you eat specifically or how often you eat, but why you eat. Are you eating to keep the body that God has given you healthy? Are you eating out of depression or loneliness? Are you eating just to eat more than the other person? Are you eating until you are satisfied or until you are full? Even eating in proper portion and eating just to enjoy the taste of food as opposed to eating to be healthy and energized can go wrong. We must watch what we eat and why we eat it. Let us take care of the body of Christ; because if we can't even take care of ourselves, how can we expect Christ to take care of His church?
-D
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