I just got a call from a dear friend. He is a pastor. He needs to lose some weight. He read that I need to lose some weight. He challenged me to a weight-loss race. He has to lose 30 pounds. I need to lose 40 pounds. Here’s the deal: the first one to his goal is the winner (the big loser). The prize is this a hard-bound edition of Lectures to My Students by Charles Spurgeon published by Banner of Truth.

I have a copy but mine is an old …

Satan wants to destroy believers. He hates everything about us. He wants to make us defeated and ineffective. If he can’t have us in hell he will try to introduce elements of hell into our lives here on earth. He will torment us and try to separate us from fellowship with our Father. I know this because the word clearly teaches it, but I also know it because it has been my personal experience. Even now the evil one is trying to destroy me, defeat me, damage my testimony, and …

It is interesting to me that of the sins which brought judgment on Sodom gluttony is listed; “Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food and abundance of idleness” – Ezekiel 16:49.
Three things occur to me when I read this:

Last night Hope said; “Dad, even if you were fat I would still love you and I would still hug you and snuggle with you.
When Kyle was a little boy he rode a school bus for one school year. In the morning I always brewed a pot of coffee and I would walk him out to the road where we would wait for the School Bus. I always hated seeing the little guy in his neat school clothes and mother-attended hair climb up the steps into the big yellow …

One day my son Kyle came into my office and asked if he thought if he should take a break from his study and go to the park. It was a beautiful fall afternoon and the park was calling his name. Now this is not as simple a decision as it might sound. You never know what a park or picnic might hold. Both my father and I met our wives as at church picnics so you want to think twice before you stay home with …

I’ve been thinking about New Year’s Resolutions. I suppose weight management might be the number one New Year’s Resolution. I was reading the Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards. He was probably one of the greatest theologians and preachers ever in America. He wrote his resolutions in his youth and tried to follow them all his life. They are very lofty and deeply spiritual as was the man. Two of his list of life-long resolutions included moderation in eating and drinking. Here they are:

If you are interested in weight management you should consider the historic Christian discipline of fasting for reasons different than you probably think. Fasting should not be seen as a weight-loss method. Fasting is focusing our attention and affection on God. Fasting is delighting in God over food.

When we face a foe so formidable that our life is threatened it is appropriate to cry out in desperation to God. Psalm 50:15 says “Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you and you will glorify me.” When I cried out to God in June of 2000 God gave me a level of self-control I have never known. Within six months I had lost 105 pounds. I am still experiencing that self-control today. Before I cried out I had to understand …

People who battle with gluttony often write or tell me that they are tired of the struggle.

One of the truths that is setting me free from gluttony is seeing my gluttony as a form of idolatry. It helped me admit that if I had to eat to excess then I did not consider God to be enough for my soul. It was a breakthrough in my thinking to realize that I was looking to food for what only God could give. John Piper’s good book on fasting, “Hunger for God”, was a helpful resource on this.