You Are What You Eat

We all have heard the truth that what we put into our body, we become. There is a big push now to alert Americans that we are ruining our bodies with all the junk and convenience food that we are consuming. Even talk about banning fat people from eating at restaurants. I suppose we would put a scale at the entrance and and an automatic trap door that opens if we try to sneak in with all our extra pounds. Hey, but I was going in to eat a salad, honest! Gym and exercise equipment sales are on the rise, though I don't know if that really means more people using the equipment. All of this is fine, we should take care of the body that God has blessed us with.

But (oh come on, you knew there was going to be a "but"), I am astounded that our mouth is the only thing people seem to want to regulate. Clearly, what people are consuming with their eyes and ears is far more detrimental than what they are eating. Now let me say, I have not always been one to condemn everything that comes out of Hollywood or Nashville or the internet. But I really am left wanting for any reasons not to anymore. I have seen people rolling their eyes when the preacher uses words like "Hellywood," and "the Devil's music." Now, however, either I am getting older or there is just not enough glimmers of light anymore in these media to see much redeeming value in them. Now, lest I be accused of cherry-picking obscure examples to taint an entire industry, I will let the artists themselves suggest their very best work; The best of the best in fact.

Case in point: At this year's Grammy awards, their darling was admitted, unrepentant heroin-cocaine addict Amy Winehouse. She was rewarded with five Grammy awards including best album and song of the year for her hit ironically entitled, "Rehab." Now music has been a large part of my life and I have been involved in it from theory to practice for many of my years. There are few styles of music (not to include the lyics) that I dislike, but I do not find anything in particular superlative about Ms. Winehouse's acclaimed song. Check it out for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlRF43-xaYc

Now even if you find the beat a bit catchy (to each his own), you must pity the woman for such sad lyrics. Mind you this is a woman that started her career and a beautiful voluptuous woman and is now so drug ravaged, that she is emaciated down to a mere skeleton. So instead of insisting the poor young woman get some much needed help, they honor her for writing lyrics such as these:

They’re tryin' to make me go to rehab
I said no, no, no
Yes I been black,
but when I come back
You wont know, know, know.

I ain't got the time,
And if my Daddy thinks i'm fine,
He’s tried to make me go to rehab,
I wont go, go, go.

The lady is in real trouble as she has even been caught on tape snorting cocaine on stage during her concerts. This is the best of their best, and the licentious culture they wish all of us to live. This is no anomaly, Ms. Winehouse was also joined on stage by 11- time Grammy winner Kanye West. His trouble began two years ago when he had sex on stage with a minor during one of his concerts. No jail time, but lots of awards. Last year, the Grammy awards lavished their top prizes upon the Dixie Chicks! Need I keep going?

Let's consider Hollywood buffet of offerings for your audio-visual pallet. This year's Oscar winners included "No Country for Old Men" about the drug trafficking culture, "Juno" about a pregnant 16 year old, "Sweeney Todd" the demon barber, and "The Golden Compass" an deliberate (according to the author) atheistic fantasy that militantly tries to subliminally indoctrinate children against the Living God and His church. Fortunately, the viewing public still has a little more taste than Hollywood as the "Golden Compass" movie has to date not even made half of its $150,000,000 production and distribution costs back.

Again, this is nothing new. Anyone remember recent past award winners such a Al Gore's science fiction movie (emphasis on fiction) about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," and "Brokeback Mountain." Gay cowboys?! Are you kidding me? Is nothing sacred? That is a stab right through America's heartland. With baseball on the fix and people trying to take away our apple pie because the nation is on a diet; what do we have left?

In all seriousness, these people know what they are doing. They are not just victims of their artistic minds, that take them far beyond us mere mortals. They are portraying for you the world in which they wish to live, in hopes of creating it. And they are successful. I even heard some Christians saying after watching "Brokeback Mountain," "They are just like us, so what they are doing must be okay." To which I say, right, they(homosexuals) are just like us. We are sinners and they are sinners. Except, we are repentant forgiven sinners, by the grace of God, and they are not. The same, yet so different in the hope of our salvation. We don't hate the people, we hate the sin, because unforgiven sin kills and kills eternally.

Friends, we live in a troubled world, full of challenges. We are not to be changed by the world, but be world-changers. Our only hope is to keep ourselves away from worldly influences. We live in the world, but are not to be of the world. Here is what the apostle Paul said in Colossians 3:1-2:

If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Be mindful of things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life has been hidden with Christ in God.

You are what you eat! Not only are you carrying that cheeseburger on your stomach and wearing those chocolate bars on your hips, but what you are consuming with your eyes and ears leads to a brain fat with worldliness. If we want God to unlock His floodgate of blessings upon us, we must not be seeking all the world's "blessings." Jesus said several times that if we seek all our rewards from this world, God has no room to reward us.

Don't get me started on the internet! But I guess it is not all bad, after all you wouldn't be reading this right now :) We don't need the government to regulate us, do we? Can't we discipline ourselves with some self-control? Don't be surprized when the world encourages things that are bad for you. Take charge of your life in Christ.

Therefore if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much rather clothe you? You of little faith! Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, With what shall we be clothed? For the nations seek after all these things. For your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow; for tomorrow shall be anxious for its own things. Sufficient to the day is the evil of it. Matthew 6:30-34