the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Daily Devotionals
Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life
Our society has gone low carb crazy. With the influx of Adkins and South Beach diet enthusiastists, people are weighing in on the benefits of lowering the intake of carbohydrates. I can stand in testimony that as long as you stay on the diet you will lose weight and be able to manage it. But if you go off the diet the weight will come back. No diet works without a life change which supports staying on the diet.
In early 1998 I was nearing three hundred pounds in weight. I went on a low carb, high protein diet and lost eighty pounds. Half of that evidently missed me for it has come back and is currently spending some time with me approximately forty inches from the floor when I am standing. I was not willing to make my "diet" my way of eating for the rest of my life. I didn't make the life change.
That is why we have so many spiritually out of shape people in the world. They all want to lose the weight of sin through the blood of Christ but are unwilling to do what needs to be done to keep it off. They make the good start. "Therefore, laying aside all malice, all guile, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious." 1 Peter 2:1-3
But they forget that there comes a time to "put away childish things." 1 Corinthians 13:11 The bottle feeding days must come to an end. Spiritual formulas are good for the beginning. "I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with meat; for until now you were not able to receive it." 1 Corinthians 3:1, 2
Time to grow in Christ and make the life change. "Meat belongs to those who are mature, that is, those who by reason of practice have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." Hebrews 5:14 Ah, yes. A diet high in spiritual protein without the butterfat of milk. Time to trim the fat, do some spiritual exercise and hit the protein of the Word. Time to be like Jesus.
'Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life' Copyright 2010 © Tom Kelley. 'Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life' articles may be reproduced in whole under the following provisions: 1) A proper credit must be given to the author at the end of each story, along with their complete bio and a link to https://www.studylight.org/ 2) 'Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life' content may not be arranged or "mirrored" as a competitive online service.
