sticking to a healthy spiritual diet

Genesis 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Isn’t it the worst when you’re on a diet and someone around is enjoying a food you really love but aren’t supposed to eat? You look at the person’s food and can almost taste the flavors in your mouth. Every fiber of your being desires to walk over and ask for a bite. Just a little bite. Just to try it. Just a taste.

This is what I’ll bet happened to Adam and Eve when they first ate the fruit in the garden and sinned against God. It is a process like this that trips people up all the time. Sin looks good. We want to try it. We don’t want the whole full blown sin because we know that sin is bad for us (or we think we may be able to avoid angering God and losing his blessing and approval). So we just take a bite and think we’ll be ok.

The problem is that just like taking a bite of pizza leads to another and another, each time we take a bite of something sinful it increases our propensity to do it again. Each sin makes the next one easier. When we compromise our diet of holiness and righteousness we set ourselves up to lose everything we have worked so hard for.

As followers of Jesus Christ we must be work hard in our struggle against sin. However, because of the resurrection of Jesus we do not have to fight temptation alone. Jesus promises us that he has sent his Spirit to live inside and empower those who love Him. Mature Christ-followers train themselves to call and rely on the Spirit when they are itching to take a bite of some sinful delight. Live in the Spirit today and he will strengthen you.