Not Worth the Calories

I lost a bunch of weight last year and slowly, over the last 4 or 5 months, I’ve gained a little back. I've been trying to re-lose it. I've been going to an aerobics class 2-3 times a week now on top of getting on my elliptical trainer each... well most mornings. I also have a favorite phrase right now when it comes to food that I'm trying to talk myself out of eating.

For certain foods, I just have to keep telling myself, “It’s not worth the calories.”

The bad part is that, unfortunately, there are some things that definitely ARE worth the calories.
For instance, a co-worker celebrated his 40th birthday last week. We took him out to lunch and we surprised him with a cake, which the whole office shared. While my lunch was definitely not worth the calories (IMO Olive Garden rarely is), the cake... oh the cake...

As I was sending out the email to everyone about joining us for cake, I recognized that almost everyone I know in the office was on a diet of one kind or another. So, I made sure that they realized that this cake was totally going to be worth the calories since this was not just your ordinary grocery store cake. I had ordered it from a local bakery called Hot Chocolates.

It wasn’t as pretty as something from Charm City Cakes (Ace of Cakes), but boy howdy… it was goooo-oood.

It was this same day that I read Psalm 29 in my quiet time earlier that morning. In verses 1 -2 the idea of God’s holiness and worthiness of our worship just hit me upside the head.

“Ascribe to the Lord, O mighty ones, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.”

I began to think back to what the Lord had revealed to me about His holiness just a month or so ago and began to link that to how completely and perfectly worthy He is of my worship.

And then it hit me as I was typing my email to our office-mates about the cake that our false gods and idols are SO not worth the calories, so to speak.

Not worth it at all.

Ever.

Not even those good things that God gives us that we have managed to distort and turn into objects of our worship… they’re not worth it.

Including the church.

Some of our Christian brothers and sisters in the Episcopal church here in the U.S. are going through a difficult time right now. However, the Bishop of Springfield was quoted last week as saying, “We are all idolaters. I discovered in 2003 that I had been putting TEC [The Episcopal Church] in front of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I committed myself not to do that any more. In 2006 I realized I was still working on that process. I am doing a lot better.” He then ended the interview with this statement, “The challenge is this. I am to give up everything for Christ.”

Are you willing to give up those most precious things to you for Christ? Am I?

That’s a hard one isn’t it? Especially when we feel that it is something that God himself has given us. But it is easy to take a gift from God and let it become the object of our worship rather than worshipping the Giver of the gift.

Abraham may have let Isaac, a gift from the Almighty God, become a false god. But, he was willing to give Isaac up, and had faith that God was perfectly in control and that He keeps His promises.

Can the same be said for us?

Will we realize that all those other false gods are just not worth it? Not worth the calories and extra weight and baggage they bring with them?


I'm starting to get it. But just like with food, I've got to keep reminding myself.