October 2004

Dear folks – fat and skinny!

I need to lose a ton of weight! Maybe not a ton, but a whole lot of lbs. I’m fat, and I don’t like it. I can’t blame my genes (my parents didn’t have an ounce of fat between them.) I can’t blame fast-food or junk-food commercials. I can’t blame the grocery stores, and I can’t blame the restaurants. I have only myself to blame. I choose to eat the wrong kinds of food – and I choose to eat too much. It’s totally a matter of poor self-control.

Self-control is a “fruit” of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23); that is, an evidence that the Holy Spirit lives and reigns in a person’s life. In other words, when the Spirit indwells us, He gives us the power to control self. I don’t have to ruin my health by eating foods that harm my body. I can say “No” to a second helping. By definition, “self-control involves disciplining ourselves, helping ourselves to be the kind of people who walk with God and others the way we should. We stand guard at the gateways, or doorways, of our personhood. To some things we grant entrance; to other things we deny entrance. We send away harmful influences that would invade and conquer us. Likewise, we guard that which we let out of the gateways of our lives – what we say or do, where we go, and what we project to others.”

Failing to exercise self-control is a sin for which I have repented. October 1, 2004 is the “first day of the rest of my life,” when my eating habits change. And since it’s always good to be accountable to someone when dealing with the issue of self-control, I will be accountable to you. You see, it’s not only a matter of losing weight. It’s a matter of applying and appropriating the fruit of the Spirit into my life; namely, self-control.

Is there an area of your life in which you need to demonstrate self-control? Then do it! Don’t just think about doing it sometime; do it now! Do it in the power of the Lord!

A reader of Forward in Christ magazine recently wrote a letter to the editor in which he made a point that I don’t believe is emphasized often enough. He referenced a question that was asked in Bible class: “Why do we keep the Commandments?”

He wrote: “My answer since confirmation was, ‘To give thanks to God for saving us from sin and damnation.’ Absolutely! But my pastor told me more that day: ‘Because we can.’”

He continued: “Christ won salvation from sin and hell, and the gospel also proclaims what that means: freedom. Through baptism, “our old self was crucified with Christ so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin” (Romans 6:6,7). This doesn’t mean a sinless life, but it does mean new life in Christ and the power ‘to say No to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live instead self-controlled, upright, and godly lives’ (Titus 2:12)”

Having just finished writing a series of devotions on that text (Romans 6) for the Meditations booklet, I say a hearty Amen! to this man’s letter and his pastor’s comments.

Why do we live as though we are powerless to change? We are already changed! We just need to believe it – and appropriate it into the various aspects of our lives.

For me, it means greatly reducing the size of my waist – to the glory of God!

Pastor Carl R. Henkel