by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 22, 2008 | Blog
I find The Lord’s Table can be wonderfully compatible with Thin Within. That is why I have dedicated so much of this blog to sharing about it.
This lesson builds on previous lessons that have been shared.
Repentance brings with it a “godly sorrow” and this godly sorrow is crucial to victory over sin. (TLT p. 41)
2 Corinthians 7:8-13 is the focus passage for this lesson.
We need to pray for sorrow in our hearts as we repent from over-eating. (TLT, p. 41)
The author explains that the teaching that overeating is sin is difficult to swallow and most diets, programs and “experts” will minimize this or avoid or deny it all together. They will often, instead, indicate that changing the food is the answer or exercising more.
But the fact is, the thought that overeating is a sin is TRUTH.
Freedom comes through embracing truth and truth often times wounds us. (TLT, p. 42)
Right now, the truth is hard for me…and that is, my having turned my back on diet soda all together has shown me just how connected I am to sweet-tasting foods. As I have stopped drinking diet soda at all, my lust for sweet foods has escalated as has my indulgence in them. Isaiah 57:14-15 challenges me to remove the obstacles that may keep me from a straight path. I am praying now, asking the Lord to show me if I need a season of giving up any sweet foods (sugar is in everything, so I can’t claim that I would ever be led to stop eating “sugar” as that means peanut butter, barbeque sauce and other unlikely sources for sugar).
Regardless, I know it is time for some sort of boundary.
True repentance:
It is turning completely away from sin, doing an about face, and then pursuing God with a reckless abandon. And it is also sorrowing over sin to such an extent that the heart begins to hate the sin and turns from it. This is repentance, and if either of these elements are missing the freedom from sin will not be lasting. If one merely feels sorrow over the sin but does not turn from it then he is not free. Or if one merely turns from the sin but does not develop a heart-sorrow over it he is not free either. Both must be present in the life. (TLT, p. 43)
I would highlight that in a way there is a third element…he mentions it as part of the first, but to me 1.) turning away from sin 2.) turning to God 3.) hating the sin that I have turned away from.
For me, it isn’t just sinful eating I want to be free from. I can do that and have…for over 2 years now. I want to be free from sinful thinking about food. That is why I returned to The Lord’s Table workbook and picked up the Freedom from Emotional Eating workbook. I want to change the way I think about food or about eating…or about NOT eating!!!
Summary: True repentance is characterized by true change. There is an earnestness to be done with sin, a longing for holiness, a zeal for living differently, for praising and worshiping God, a humility of heart. Worldly sorrow doesn’t cut it…being sorry for the consequences just isn’t repentance.
by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 21, 2008 | Blog
If you are like me and had some time in Weigh Down Workshop (WD or WDW), then you may feel this little bit of chafing when you think of the word “repentance.”
Without going into the details about why, you know it if you are like me in this respect.
I want to ask God (again) to help me to recapture HIS meaning for this word, this concept. HE is the one who created it. No matter how it is misused or abused by HUMANS, it is HIS fullest intention that I experience the blessings of repentance and know that it is His kindness that leads me to repentance.
That aside, I will continue to share about the lessons in The Lord’s Table (the workbook). Today’s lesson is so powerful and encouraging…it is hard to pull tidbits out without telling the entire thing! You will have to trust me on this one! This lesson is one of those that could make the workbook worth getting all by itself! 🙂 It is *that* good.
This is what I wrote this morning in my journal…
Right now today I know I have only turned part of the way. (In reference to Day 11 speaking of turning FROM sin and turning TO God being the two parts to repentance.) I end up turning away (or DO I?) from the sin. But in my stubbornness and pride I don’t turn TO God.
This lesson was based on a comparison between two verses:
Ecclesiastes 6:7 All a man’s labor is for his mouth and yet the appetite is not satisfied.
and
Joel 2:26 You will have plenty to eat and be satisfied and praise the name of the LORD your God who has dealt wondrously with you; then my people will never be put to shame.
The question is, how can we go from the Ecclesaistes 6:7 experience to the Joel 2:26 experience?
In the past, I would spend SO much time, energy, thought on food. I would plan for it, yearn for it, go get it, sit down and eat it…manipulate who it would be done with and what we would be doing. Saturday nights were the BIG night for all our favorite shows…Star Trek, Hercules, Xena and the nachos, popcorn, soda, ice cream sundaes…it went on and on. It was a food fest…(This was a LONG time ago!) All my efforts were like Ecclesiastes says…and yet the deep heart hunger that motivated this so much could never be satisfied by food. It wasn’t possible. That old shoving of the square peg (food) into the round hole (God-shaped hole in my heart), once again.
So, how can I experience what Joel 2:26 speaks of…that eating “plenty” and being “satisfied” and PRAISE the LORD.
It is Repentance…yes, once again.
Joel 2:12-13 says: “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “Return to Me with all your heart, adn with fasting, weeping and mourning; and rend your heart and not your garments. Now return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness and relenting of evil…”
This is compared to another verse which I included yesterday:
Acts 3:19-20 Therefore, repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you.
When I repent and return:
1. My sins are wiped away
2. I experience refreshment!
3. I experience HIS presence.
4. I experience the closeness of Jesus Himself.
Repentance brings spiritual refreshment and heart satisfaction in Christ. (TLT, p. 38)
But my repentance must be to leave sin AND to turn TO God. I turn my back on sin, perhaps, but because I don’t feast on the Lord, don’t pray, journal, read, praise Him…SOMETHING–the emptiness remains and the food (or diet soda) continues to call out and it is more of a battle than it needs to be. God never intended these things to torment me! When I am in that place it is all about self-effort…the old “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality…and not at all about the power and sufficiency of God!…and definitely NOT refreshment!
If I am not experiencing refreshment, then maybe what I have done is NOT true repentance! OOoooh! Powerful truth!
From Joel 2:21-27 there are so many more blessings listed that come from repentance as well.
* rejoicing
* gladness
* praising God–He has done great things!
* lack of fear
* fruitfulness
* abundance
* redeeming of the years the locusts have eaten
* plenty to eat
* satisfaction
* no shame
* His presence experienced!
Again, if I am not experiencing these things, maybe I haven’t truly repented, but just done the “half turn.”
On page 39, Mike Cleveland explains that Christians like to call overeating a weakness, but not a sin. Then he explains why overeating is a sin. He uses scripture and it is compelling. I simply must quote him for what I feel is one of the best quotes in the entire program:
You see, if we fail to call overeating sin, then we miss out on the blessings of repentance. Why not rather call overeating by the biblical term of “gluttony” so that we can see the need to repent? And as we repent we will experience such sweet refreshment from the Lord, such satisfaction from the Lord, such enjoyment in the Lord, that we will wonder why we weren’t ever told this truth before. (TLT p. 40)
Summary: If I don’t experience refreshment and joy, then perhaps what I have done is not true biblical repentance. Maybe I have turned away from sin, but have I truly turned TO the Lord? Am I letting HIM be my satisfaction? Or am I longingly looking back at the sin that I have resisted… There is no joy or repentance in that.
by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 20, 2008 | Blog
1 Thessalonians 1:4-10 found here.
vs. 9 says: …you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God…
Often we grit out teeth and try to turn away from our habits of over eating by sheer will power and determination. Even those of us who are believers in the Lord Jesus, who know we have the Spirit of God living within, may try a “Christianized” version of this “by the bootstraps” exertion…
But do we *hate* our sin? Do we even look at it as sin?
Notice in the verse above that the Thessalonians hadn’t just turned FROM idolatry. They turned TO God to serve him. This is vital. The author of TLT mentions that apart from turning TO God, our turn is only 90 degrees. It isn’t the entire 180 degree turn needed to see lasting change all the way through to our heart.
True repentance is not only turning from sin, it is turning to God and loving and serving Him. (p. 35, TLT)
I could identify very much (even TODAY) with Mike Cleveland when he shared on page 35, “…I finally discovered that my repentance was not genuine, but rather was simply ‘feeling badly’ about my failure, rather than a complete turn away from it and turning to God.”
I can so relate to this TODAY. Since making a break from diet soda of any kind, I have found what I suspected to be true, IS. My continued attachment to diet soda was intricately connected to the stronghold of food…the sweetness of diet soda has often been used by me to “reward” me, to “celebrate,” and all the very same things that I have used food for in the past. After making it through a very stressful drive through the canyon with my son who is learning to drive, my first thought was “I must have a soda!” To reward myself and to decompress the stress! It was brought home so clearly that I haven’t really dealt with the deeper heart issue of repentance and turning TO God if I yet depend on diet soda. Yes, physically, outwardly, my body remains it’s “God-given size.” But my heart hasn’t yet given up the TASTE. I still want my taste buds to have the RIGHT (eek!) to enjoy the flavor of sweet…and the texture of the bubbles…
Now that I have cut myself away from that, I find myself drawing back to food lustfully. See, the soda masked that the problem in my heart was still there! I had “fixed the food” instead of allowing God to really fix my heart connection to the taste of sweet.
So the past three days especially, I have found myself willing to totally violate my own boundaries with night time eating of cookies…and I think somewhere in my mind I have had this thought, “I gave up soda, Lord, like you asked…you have asked me for years to hand it to you…so I should get SOMETHING in return for that!” Ugh…such arrogance and pride.
Clearly, a heart problem.
We must put our backs to the sin and walk away from it. And we must face Christ and walk towards Him. No half-hearted turning will free us from the power of sin; no partial turning will enable us to escape the temptation to overeat. (p. 35 TLT)
In my case, my partial turning was evident by my insistence on retaining a grip on diet soda. Yes, I have had times where I let go of caffeine and cut back on the soda consumption, but NEVER completely let it go…ALL of it.
This time, I have turned my back on the soda…but I didn’t turn TO God, to let HIM be my sufficiency and strength. TO love and serve the one TRUE GOD. So my repentance was partial and not really repentance at all.
One of the testimonies in TLT on page 36, was shared by “Nancy” who said: The evil is not in the eating [or the drinking]…my food [or drink] consumed my every thought. I arranged my day around it. Instead of calling to God in prayer, I stood at the cupboard or refrigerator seeking not God but food [or soda]. That is the sin. Food [and soda] was my god. That is what is wicked, as I had another idol.
Oh, how clearly I see this now. It isn’t about the food or the drink. It never is. Certainly we have to eat and drink to live. But it is about my HEART.
Read Isaiah 55:6-7 here.
There are four elements of repentance that can be drawn from this passage. I won’t list them here, but can you see them?
The author of TLT summarizes: It is not as if we’re merely turning away from sin only to be left empty and with no excitement or fulfillment in life. You see, as we turn from overeating and turn to God there is a blessed life of satisfaction and joy to be found in Jesus Christ. In reality, we are leaving the lesser and termporary pleasures for the greater and eternal ones. Yes, we are giving up the pleasures of sin, but we are gaining the pleasures of Christ and Psalm 16:11 describes the pleasures of Christ as eternal. (p. 37 TLT)
Romans 2:4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?
Repentance, as it says in this lesson of TLT, is a by-product of God’s grace. His grace! Or like Beth Moore said at last week’s Breaking Free taping, we tend to think of repentance as our punishment…but it is a gift! Our right in Christ! He paid with his blood that we might experience God’s kindness leading us toward repentance.
Summary in Short:
True repentance is turning from sin in deed and thought and turning TO God’s ways. I know that I need not just to repent of my deeds, but of my lustful thoughts of food (or soda) as well. I can’t leave it there, either. I must turn TO God…to His Word, to prayer, to serving Him, to chasing hard after Him to love Him more. I know that it is His kindness that leads me to this place. He *grants* repentance in my heart as a gift.
by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 19, 2008 | Blog
Hebrews 4:15 says:
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.
Catch this…Jesus sympathizes with our weakness.
He isn’t looking you (or me) over with a disapproving glare because we find ourselves tempted to eat…again…even when we aren’t hungry.
He sympathizes with our weakness.
Oh, how I needed to hear that today!
Strong’s says this word “sympathizes” means:
1) to be affected with the same feeling as another, to sympathise with
2) to feel for, have compassion on
The word for “weakness” means:
1) want of strength, weakness, infirmity
1a) of the body
1a1) its native weakness and frailty
1a2) feebleness of health or sickness
1b) of the soul
1b1) want of strength and capacity requisite
1b1a) to understand a thing
1b1b) to do things great and glorious
1b1c) to restrain corrupt desires
1b1d) to bear trials and troubles
I am encouraged. Thank you, Lord, for that word of encouragement.
by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 19, 2008 | Blog
Overeating, in its essential allurement, promises to quench our thirst. In other words, it promises satisfaction. And honestly, it does satisfy–but only for a time. Pretty soon we discover we are “thirsty” again, and as the years go by we find that we are reallly never genuinely satisfied. Right? That is because sin never purely satisfies! It depletes us, not fulfills us. (page 31, The Lord’s Table)
This lesson in TLT, continued the thoughts from Day Nine. Truthfully, this “allurement” is an excellent place to “truth journal” as I mentioned in yesterday’s entry. If I believe that there will be joy in eating outside of godly boundaries, the truth is, that “joy” is fleeting, not complete and abiding which is the nature of the joy that Jesus promises.
As I did this lesson, I was reminded of living in the past…when I would “give myself over” to my gluttony…literally, abandoning myself to it. It resulted in a wall between the Lord and myself (self-imposed, as he was always eager and willing to have me return to him). And I could never get enough food to satisfy. It was as if I was attempting to drink salt water to satisfy a thirst. It got so much worse. The emptiness increased.
…the habitual sin of overeating…can soon become a life-dominating sin. Eating food is good and right, and can be a worshipful experience when done for the glory of God. It is not eating food that is the problem, it is overeating. (Page 34, The Lord’s Table)
Summary of Day 10: The Living Water — Jesus — satisfies. All attempts to fill the emptiness in other ways actually results in greater emptiness. It’s like treating thirst with salt water. God has created me with a need for Him. As I turn to Him to fill that hole, I WILL be satisfied. If I insist on filling that hole with something else–like food–the hole will only get larger and the emptiness deeper. I will choose Him today.
by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 18, 2008 | Blog
I plan on returning to summaries of The Lord’s Table soon, but today, I could tell I needed to deal with some things. I turned to “Freedom from Emotional Eating,” by Barb Raveling, instead of working on The Lord’s Table.
Yes…this is what I needed. What I need. Present tense.
Yesterday, I struggled a lot with urges to eat and to revert back to drinking soda. I didn’t give in to the soda drinking. (I will write about this another time, as I think diet soda has been a huge stronghold in my past…one I never totally resolved to give up, but have now…hopefully, permanently.)
I was amazed at how drawn to food and soda I felt all day.
My accountability partner asked the right questions of me and prompted me to allow God to help me work through this. My tendency was to just “blow it off” as “Ok, so I am feeling emotional.” But to be honest with you, calling it emotional eating without DEALING with it, isn’t even as good as throwing a band-aid on it. It is like seeing a wound and saying “Yup, it is bleeding” and leaving it at that.
In Barb Raveling’s workbook, “Freedom from Emotional Eating,” the reader is urged to go beyond recognizing there are emotional triggers, to actually doing something about it…to speaking TRUTH into the situation. This is done through “truth journaling.” This is a remarkably simple thing to do, I found, yet profound.
The enemy seeks to take us captive by messing with our heads…the old “You deserve to eat this…” or “You will feel better if you have that…” thing.
Truth journaling happens in a couple of ways. One is to call a lie a lie regarding this notion that food will make me feel better when I am emotional. It doesn’t. Not only does it NOT make me feel better five minutes from now (after I have inhaled it), but it makes things worse. I still have to deal with the emotions, but it is then compounded by the guilt and frustration with myself for trying to numb it with food. Truth journaling exposes this. And it does so very specifically…not generally, as I have just done in my explanation.
For instance, if I am tempted to eat a chocolate muffin when I am not hungry and it is because I just survived my son driving us through the canyon together (he just got his permit), I write down how I am feeling, “I want a chocolate muffin right now. I am not hungry. I want it because it will make me feel better. I deserve it for enduring the stressful drive through the canyon.” I then go back and number the thoughts: 1. I want a muffin. 2. I am not hungry. 3. I think the muffin will make me feel better. 4. I deserve the muffin.
Then, for each, I label if it is a truth or lie and what the corresponding truth is for that lie:
1. True. I want the muffin. 2. True. I am not hungry. 3. LIE. The muffin will NOT make me feel better and will, in fact, make me feel worse because of how I feel when I violate my boundaries of eating only when hungry. 4. LIE. I don’t “deserve” the muffin. The muffin isn’t a “reward.” Knowing that I have hung in there doing what God has called me to is a very great reward and I will praise God for my safety and delight in his joy over us!
Another approach is to deal with the emotions…this goes to the heart of it. I spent some time this morning doing this very thing and I feel better equipped to handle the day.
I am emotional with good reason. 1.) My son is driving now and living where we do, the roads are windy, narrow and everyone on the roads is insane. 🙂 2.) My horse, Breezy, gets seen tomorrow by a specialist for what may be cancer in his eye. 3.) My schedule is so jammed full of things this week that I am overwhelmed. 4.) I have a website I am developing that has taken on a life of its own for a client who I have worked out a “trade” with and now I just want it done.
I have a strong emotional response to each of these things. This morning, as I truth journalled about some of them (and I will go back and do the others), I was able to invite God to expose the lies that are at the heart of some of my emotions about them. Certainly, while worry about Breezy is understandable, it won’t help matters. In fact, Breezy senses my anxiety and it adds to his own, making it more difficult for the vet to treat him. I have anxiety about the money this will cost and, again, worry won’t help this. It is what it is.
See how this works? As I allow God to speak truth into these situations, I am better equipped to pray through them and not to yearn for food which doesn’t help matters anyhow. God is my healer and my helper. He knows all things. He knows right now about Breezy’s eye and what is causing it.
This seems so simple right now as I share it. I almost want to delete this post because I assume people might say “Duh!” But it really IS profound.
The trick is, in the moment when I feel tempted to eat or to guzzle a diet cherry pepsi, I must be willing to stop and evaluate what is TRUTH in the situation? It isn’t likely that drinking or eating something will EVER be the TRUTHful answer to what is going on.
How about you? Can you take stock and see what the truth is about why you are drawn to food? Or, at the very least, evaluate whether having this candybar or that second helping of enchiladas will *really* make you feel better, happier, whatever an hour from now? 🙂
I want to live out my freedom. As Beth Moore said last week, we can’t have our milestones until we can take captive the moment. I see Barb Raveling’s truth journaling idea as being an invaluable way of capturing the moment for the Lord and allowing my mind to be renewed with his truth…
I hope you do, too! 🙂
