Today happens to be my 54th birthday.  I've always liked birthdays.  They've usually given me a "legitimate" reason to overeat. If you're a regular reader, you know we're focusing on the "deadly" sin of gluttony this week.  I purposefully started the post this way to raise the question of whether there's ever a "legitimate" time to overeat.  What do you think?  Is there?  When we celebrate at the banquet table of the Lamb in heaven will we eat in moderation, or will we stuff ourselves?  You may remember Jesus once made these comments:  ¹⁶“To what can I compare this generation? It is like children playing a game in the public square. They complain to their friends, ¹⁷‘We played wedding songs, and you didn’t dance, so we played funeral songs, and you didn’t mourn.’   ¹⁸For John didn’t spend his time eating and drinking, and you say, ‘He’s possessed by a demon.’   ¹⁹The Son of Man, on the other hand, feasts and drinks, and you say, ‘He’s a glutton and a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and other sinners!’ But wisdom is shown to be right by its results.”

So, WAS Jesus a glutton and a drunkard?  Of course not!  Did He EVER overeat?  Not to the point of SIN, because Jesus never sinned.  Here's an interesting question, "How much do we have to eat before it becomes gluttony, which IS a sin?"  Maybe that's the wrong question.   The right question may be, "When does our focus on food overtake our focus on God?  Maybe gluttony isn't so much about the quantity of food we consume, but about the attitude with which we consume it!   For example, if Nancy makes me an amazing birthday dinner (which she always does!) and I enjoy it as a blessing from God and from Nancy, and I consume more calories than necessary for survival, that may not be gluttony.  On another occasion I may scarf down an order of McDonald's fries as if they were the source of my sustenance and that would be gluttony¸ even though I consumed a greater number of calories in the first scenario than the second.  In the end ALL sin is a matter of the heart according to Jesus, since it is out of the abundance of our hearts that the mouth speaks.

I'm not trying to weasel my way into eating more for my birthday dinner than I should.  I'm simply helping us see that God provides us with all kinds of good blessings in life, and the devil seeks to distort them so we'll use them for sin.  The key is to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and then everything else will be added to us. 

Let's pray:  Heavenly Father, thank You for ALL the blessings of life You give us.  Help us always to keep You first in our lives, and to enjoy every other blessing in its appropriate place in our lives.  This we ask in Jesus' name.  Amen.