Has This Deadly Sin Become Socially Acceptable… Even In The Church?

We know the big ones: don’t steal, don’t murder, don’t commit adultery. We might even know that when Jesus was here on earth, He said that if a man even looks at a woman with lustful eyes, he has committed adultery in his heart (Matthew 5:28), or if a man says he hates his brother, he has committed murder (1 John 3:15). So add “lust” and “contempt” to the list of things not to do. But what about the sins we tend to overlook? What about gluttony?

Just as Death and Destruction are never satisfied, so human desire is never satisfied. – Proverbs 27:20

What even is “gluttony?”

When I think of gluttony, I think of shoving doughnut after glorious doughnut in my face until half the box is gone. In a worldly sense, gluttony an addiction to excess – of many different varieties. In a Biblical sense, gluttony is excess in the finite things of this world. We are incomplete beings, this side of heaven, and we are always on the hunt for something to fill the hole in our hearts left by a fallen world. The root of gluttony is dissatisfaction. As Jason Todd put it, “We’re not satisfied with our portion, be it on our plates, in our beds, or in our bank accounts. Because we’re not satisfied with our portion, we then seek a greater portion. But because every portion is a finite part of a finite whole, we are constantly chasing an excess that can never satisfy.”

Why is it a big deal?

Glad you asked. The biggest danger in gluttony, is that in our pursuit of lesser portions, we have lost a taste for the divine. We’ve become numb to the one thing that can actually satisfy our cravings: God Himself. It doesn’t always look like that, but then again the most effective deceptions never do. When was the last time you wanted to read just one more passage of scripture, or craved quiet time with your Heavenly Father in the middle of the day?

Is it really bad to want more?

Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him! – Psalm 34:8

Nope. God placed those desires in your heart. But as we’ve already mentioned, we live in a fallen world, and we have twisted the good desires into bad ones, and found even worse ways to fill them. God’s original design was to give us a world full of good pleasures that would point back to Him – that we would not stop at merely enjoying a sunset, or a well cooked meal, but turn our eyes towards heaven and give thanks.

And that is the first step on the path to rediscovering our first Love: give thanks. Psalm 37:4 tells us that if we take delight in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our hearts. This passage assumes that we are spending time in the Word, and in communication with God. When our hearts are aligned with His, then His desires become our own, and there we find true satisfaction. For more on how to have a conversation with God, check out these insightful articles on tips for a better prayer life, and how to discern God’s voice.