The purpose for this blog is to help strengthen the Church and glorify God, and specifically to help people who struggle with unhealthy food behaviors trade their relationship with food with the incomparably more satisfying relationship with God as well as invite unbelievers into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
What does the Bible say about God’s relationship to the believer? It is a relationship of unfathomable love by God towards His children:
https://newlifeforhealth.blogspot.com/2022/01/relationship-with-god-who-loves-you.html
The Bible says that God is our Heavenly Father. However, not everyone is a “child of God”, a thought many people like to comfort themselves with. This is what God’s Word has to say about who is a child of God:
“The true light that
gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was
made through him, the world did not recognize him. He
came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his
name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural
descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”
John
1:9-13 (NIV)
A child of God must believe
and receive Jesus Christ whom God sent to be Savior from sin.
“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into
Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is
neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one
in Christ Jesus. And if you are
Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Galatians
3:26-29 (NKJV)
We are children of God
through faith in Jesus Christ.
“For those who are led by the Spirit of God are
the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in
fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to
sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit
himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are
heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that
we may also share in his glory.”
Romans 8:14-17
(NIV)
Those who are led by
the Spirit of God are children of God.
If you have believed and received
Jesus Christ as Savior, God is your Father.
For the reader who uses food to cope with pain: If
you are a parent, do you care if your
child is in pain? God cares about the pain of His
children. When you think of all the love
you have for your children, and all the sacrifices you made for them, does it
hurt if they don’t want relationship with you?
God wants relationship with you.
Does it hurt if your children get themselves enslaved instead of living
their life to the full after all you did to afford them that? Remember what it cost God for you to have
relationship with Him, to be able to heal from pain, and to live an abundant
life of freedom from slavery to sin.
Do you know that your
Heavenly Father cares about your pain?
For the reader who may have
a difficult time knowing God as “Father” (for whatever reason--abusive or
absent earthly father, etc.), consider knowing the Father through Jesus:
“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the
truth and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me. If you really know
me, you will know my Father as well.
From now on, you do know him and have seen him.’
“Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the
Father and that will be enough for us.’
“Jesus answered: ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have
been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen
me has seen the Father. How can you say,
“Show us the Father”? Don’t you believe
that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my
own authority. Rather, it is the Father,
living in me, who is doing his work. Believe
me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least
believe on the evidence of the works themselves.’”
John
14:6-11 (NIV)
“‘All things have been committed to me
by my Father. No one knows the Son
except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom
the Son chooses to reveal him.’”
Matthew
11:27 (NIV)
In fact, Jesus prays
to the Father that we would know His love:
“‘I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who
will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You,
Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the
world may believe that You sent Me. And
the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We
are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world
may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
"'Father, I desire that they also whom
You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You
have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known
You; and these have known that You sent Me.
And
I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with
which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.’”
John
17:20-26 (NKJV)
And having become adopted children of God through faith in Christ we are no longer a slave,
but God’s child:
“But when the set time had fully come,
God sent
his Son, born of a
woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption
to sonship. Because you are
his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls
out, ‘Abba, Father.’ So you are no
longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.”
Galatians
4:4-7 (NIV)
Our Heavenly Father
sent His Son to redeem us, doing for His children what they could never do for
themselves.
“For God so loved
the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall
not perish but have eternal life.”
John
3:16 (NIV)
A Father Who sacrificially
loves His children and wants to be with them forever. Our Heavenly Father wants relationship with
us, not just for now but for eternity.
For the reader who uses food
to medicate pain: If you want to heal from pain, if you
are ready to heal (that’s the real
question, like when Jesus asked the man at the pool of Bethesda who had been an
invalid for 38 years, “Do you want to get
well?” John 5:6 NKJV)—turn to God instead of to food. Food has no ability to heal emotional pain,
it can only comfort, very
temporarily. You may have come to depend
on the comfort food can give, no matter how small, because you don’t know that
God wants relationship with you and He wants to Heal you. But He does.
God knows how to help us because He created us. He knows us better than we know
ourselves.
So consider replacing
a relationship with food with a relationship with God. A relationship with food is so incredibly
meager and inadequate in comparison to the relationship our Heavenly Father
offers. While we may be feeding our pain
with food we are starving ourselves. I
have heard it said that sin is stupid.
As I look back on my 15-year relationship with food I can see how
incredibly stupid it was indeed. It
robbed me of time, energy, money, health and life, and the only thing I gained from
it was more weight.
“See what great love the Father has lavished
on us, that we should be called children of God!”
1 John 3:1a (NIV)
For more encouragement you can check out the N.E.W. LIFE e-book which includes further support, the N.E.W. LIFE Eating Plan and additional nutrition information.
Your Christian dietitian and friend in Christ,
Diane
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