Bible Texts about
Diet, Gluttony and Appetite

I don't want you to beat yourself up with these texts, and neither does God. I want you to RECOGNIZE that there is a problem in overeating, and then realize that GOD WANTS TO HELP YOU OVERCOME IT. He is not asking you to do it yourself in order to be "acceptable" to Him. He loved you even before you were born, He loves you now, He says He will save us FROM OUR SINS, not IN our sins. He does not condemn you, He forgives you, but He does say "...go and sin no more unless something worse would come on you." I put these texts LAST because I want you to know what FAITH is and how FAITH will be the key to helping you overcome bad choices in your life, and not just in eating, but in all other aspects of your life that you know are not going well. God will not FORCE this on you, but He stands waiting with the whole power of heaven to help you overcome appetite if only you will ask and BELIEVE.

It is not going to be easy, because many of us have a lifetime of bad choices behind us. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 9:26-27 Paul writes "So fight I, not as one who beateth the air." What DOES he fight? What DOES he beat? Read: "but I keep under MY BODY, and BRING IT INTO SUBJECTION: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be cast away."

The battle that the Christian fights is HIS BODY, the flesh, with all it's affections, all it's lust, all it's appetite. The body is now to be KEPT UNDER SUBJECTION, but done by THE NEW POWER, OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD. It is now delivered from the condemnation of the law and delivered instead from the flesh and the law of sin.

Read the even more expressive translation of the Greek word for "keep under," in 1 Corinthians 9:27: "I KEEP UNDER my body." It means, literally, "to strike under the eyes, hit and beat the face black and blue." Accordingly, Conybeare and Howson translate this passage to read: "I fight not as the pugilist who strikes out against the air; but I bruise my body and force it into bondage."

Romans 7 = MAN subject to the power of flesh, but longing for deliverance

1 Corinthians 9 = THE FLESH subject to the man through the new power of the Spirit of God.

Romans 7 = THE FLESH IS RULING, but the man is under

1 Corinthians 9 = THE MAN IS RULING, and the flesh is under

Under WHAT? Under the conversion of the man who is put into possession of the power of God and is now under the dominion of the Spirit of God, thus being made ruler over the flesh. Through the Spirit he crucifies the flesh, the appetite, and is "fighting the good fight of faith." That's the key--BELIEVING what God will do for us.

Now don't whine if you don't always overcome! That what we have AN ADVOCATE for. Jesus knows how hard these things are, because He was here, tempted as we are. He points us to the same power to overcome that He did--doing the will of the Father, and not His own will. It is a CHOICE that we must make every time we are confronted with a temptation. The more you know of Jesus, the more you study about Him (rather than sitting there studying cookbooks), the easier it is to say "My choice is JESUS." We are not saved by being delivered from the temptation, but by receiving THE POWER TO CONQUER, and RULE OVER the tendencies to overeat (and other sins as well). The character we are to develop is the character of Christ--and Christ was a conquerors, and that is to be OUR CHARACTER AS WELL. As Christ "condemned sin in the flesh" so we too are to do. Christ did it, and He thus brought to all mankind that divine faith which brings the divine power to man to deliver him from teh power of the flesh and the law of sin, just where we are, and to give us assured CONQUORING of temptation, just as it is.

Mighty powerful stuff, this FAITH is.

God is not going to take away the temptation of food. We are not saved from the temptation, but we are saved from the forces that make us GIVE IN to temptation. It is up to us to believe that, and then just WALK AWAY.

Proverbs 23:2
And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite.

Deuteronomy 8:3
And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.

Nehemiah 9:15
And gavest them bread from heaven for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and promisedst them that they should go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn * to give them.

Psalm 34:10
The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing.

Matthew 5:6
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Luke 6:21
Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled.

John 6:35
And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

Romans 12:20
Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.

Proverbs 23:21
For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty...

Jeremiah 52:31-34 "The First Diet"

Phillippians 3:19
Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.