What a perfect day for this lesson! We have SO much to be Thank-FULL for! Praise you, Lord!

This lesson dovetails beautifully with Barb Raveling’s Freedom from Emotional Eating.

The key is TRUTH. If we can just embrace TRUTH instead of lies, our healing is at HAND! 🙂

If we do NOT know the truth, we will NOT be set free. So…how does one know the truth?

The primary passage for this lesson is John 8:31-36. See what this passage speaks to you about truth…prayerfully read it and ask God to show you! 🙂

I come away with the fact that I must not just KNOW the bible. Oh, for years I have taken pride in how grounded I am in God’s Word. :-/ (Bleah…). The key is what do I DO with Jesus’ teachings. (Including the ones about greed!) Knowledge of the truth is a key to freedom (vs. 32 in John 8). So how do I know the truth? Verse 31 of John 8 says…by obeying Jesus. Not just reading the bible. Not just studying it. Not just teaching it. Not just memorizing it. Not just showing off that I am so well-versed in the bible. (Again…yuck!)

But DOING it!!!!!

If you are like me and have some negative associations with the word obedience from prior programs that warped the truth, then well…truthfully…we have to get past it. God came up with the idea of obedience long before someone chose to manipulate others by using this word inappropriately. Let us go beyond the error of others and respond to what GOD says in His Word to us!

So knowing the truth doesn’t JUST come by knowing the bible, but by obeying what Jesus tells us to do. He is the living Word and the bible is the written Word so we know what is there is what He wants us to do. Let us obey it.

This came home to me powerfully a couple of nights ago. At the end of my meal, I included a graham cracker with cream cheese frosting on it. When I finished, I was at a comfortable 5. I cleaned up and headed back to the bedroom to shower. Only, minutes later, I found myself in the kitchen again, grabbing the graham crackers and pulling the frosting out of the fridge. Huh? Having just posted to the blog about temptation, I knew precisely that this was a temptation of the first degree. What would I DO with it? Would I be a slave to sin? (I wasn’t hungry…) Or would I obey what I knew to be true—obey Jesus’ teachings and do what I knew was right and put the food away?

I actually decided to do what was right! I obeyed what Jesus said rather than obeying the frosting, or obeying my taste buds…it is obeying Jesus in those moments that sets me free. It is obeying his teaching. Had I eaten that second cracker and frosting, I would have been believing a lie…that somehow eating it would be better than obeying the Lord.

If we are slaves to sin we are deceived. We believe a lie. The lie may be that overeating will satisfy us, or will relieve the stress (when we all know the stress will be back later, and to give in only makes it easier to give in the next time) or that giving in to lust for food will make us happier. (TLT, p. 57)

Another lie I have believed in the past is “It’s only one cracker more than I need. That’s not so bad. It isn’t like its the whole can of frosting and a package of graham crackers…This is so much better than in the past…I am not so bad…”

LIES!

It is NOT about the food! The sooner we realize that, the sooner we will experience true freedom! 🙂 HONEST! I know this is true!

It is NOT about the food.

It IS about embracing Jesus…HIS way. Rejecting self-indulgence in favor of indulging more in what HE offers…endless enjoyment of his river of delights. He has given me *pleasant* boundaries. I can enjoy whatever I desire within the 0 to 5 (hunger and satisfaction) parameters! I can delight in the tastes and textures of any food (unless the Lord leads me to abstain from a certain food which he does on occasion). It IS about my heart being softened and responsive to HIS leading and guidance. It IS about giving in to the LORD rather than to the flesh or the Enemy.

The cracker isn’t the point.

What the “calories” to do my body isn’t the point!

It is what is going on in my heart when I choose to do my own thing. Do I really want to go there?

John 14:6 says Jesus is THE way, THE truth, THE life.

As I know HIM and obey HIM and what He says in His Word, I AM SET FREE. This is why he came! This is why he suffered and died! This is why he exploded up out of the grave! He is victorious over death! That same power is available to me to rise above the pull of any food! To resist the independence that the Enemy wants me to exert!

I choose, this day to speak truth, to embrace truth, to forsake lies. I choose to refuse to live in ANY form of deception. I will NOT overeat today and justify it as “Well, it is Thanksgiving!” The best way I can celebrate all God has done and is doing is to honor him with my eating and drinking today, to glorify God with His temple…my body. His Spirit resides in me! Today, I will be sure that this temple is NOT defiled with more than I need to sustain my life. I will eat what He apportions to me with joy and a thankful heart.

He came to release us from captivity to our sins and to bring freedom from bondage and slavery. His freedom is real. He breaks the power of sin and releases us from the prison of sin. (TLT, p. 59)

Take heart that freedom from being dominated by the flesh is indeed possible. Freedom from satisfying every craving that comes along is possible. Freedom from over-eating is possible. (TLT, p. 59)

If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed (John 8:36).

Today, let’s live as the free children of God we are!