The Wellness Revelation 40-Day Journey Sample

Be Free

BONDAGE AND SLAVERY

Have you ever considered how easily we fall into the trap of working for food?

We spend our time and energy thinking about food, preparing, consuming, and counting calories. An obsession with something other than God leads to idolatry – which traps us in bondage and slavery.

Any good thing can be misused, like food, pain medication, wine, or money. The enemy of our souls is placing bets that we will take something good and use it for selfish gain or pleasure. When we misuse something, it gives birth to sin.

The sin that starts out as “a little here, a little there” eventually grows into something that masters us – even as it seems to promise some payoff or reward. This is bondage. Bondage is involuntary servitude or, as it is commonly known, addiction.

What starts as a necessary behavior (eating to survive) becomes more about the food and less about us – or God. And the payoff is no longer about sustaining life through energy provision. Eating becomes about the flash high that feel-good food provides. The high is followed by the low. The need to assuage the low with the high creates bondage.

Remember, it is never about the food. Food is not the enemy. It is something deeper. Our relationship with food is broken because something deep within us is broken. God wants to heal us in those deep places!

Jesus came to rescue us. He can and will set us free! He wants to soften our hearts and make us sensitive to all things that cause pain and injustice in our own lives and others. He wants to show us how to take the pain, turn it on its head, and use it for good. He wants to make us more like Him, fit to be vessels of love.

Reflect:

Read Exodus 2:23-25 and 3:7-10. What were God’s reasons for rescuing the Israelites from their slavery? How might these passages apply to your current circumstances with health, weight, or food?