For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction; their god is their stomach; their glory is in their shame. They are focused on earthly things, but our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.    Philippians 3:18-20 HCSB

I’ve heard people speak of the seven deadly sins. I believe I even watched a movie by that title. I had to look them up on Wikipedia to understand what that was all about. Apparently in the Catholic religion there are sins known as Cardinal sins. These sins listed as pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth or laziness.

These are all things we as human beings naturally tend to do, but this refers to being excessive to the point of abuse. For example, we all have a natural desire to eat. We must eat to survive, but gluttony abuses this desire to eat. When we overindulge it becomes sinful.

As Baptists we do not subscribe to the seven deadly sins, we believe sin is sin and one is as deadly as the other. The Bible tells us in Hebrews 10:26 if we deliberately sin after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries.

If you read this list of sins, however, you can see that pretty much any sin we commit could originate from one of these listed.

For some reason, we use this joyous season as a time to overindulge. Today many are no doubt suffering hangovers from food as well as alcohol. Others got up before daybreak to spend money they don’t have buying things they don’t need or things for others who don’t need them either.

We get wrapped up in material things, things that are of this world. I am as guilty as anyone else of overeating. As my pastor says if I have one finger pointed at you, I have four fingers pointed back at me.  And I must admit, I really didn’t want to even approach this subject today, but it’s been on my heart how I tend to overindulge in many areas of my life.

I’m not referring to only food, there are many things we do to the excess. Some of these things we should avoid all together. If we are not careful the holiday season can become miserable for us because of things like food, alcohol, and overspending.

I encourage you as we go through this holiday season to be cautious about being excessive. We are told in 1 Corinthians 10:31 that whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do to do all to the glory of God. Whatever you do stop a minute and think about why you are doing it. Ask yourself will this bring glory to God? Will this please God? Will this help others to see Christ in me?

We are told in Romans 13:14 to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. Galatians 5:16 tells us to walk in the Spirit so we won’t gratify the desires of the flesh. My friend the things of this world are passing away. I truly believe Jesus is coming back for us soon. None of us know when that will be. It could be within minutes or within many years. We must be ready.

We must put away our fleshly desires that cause us to sin. Overindulgence says we don’t trust in God to provide all we need. This is why our Scripture passage says it causes us to walk as enemies of the cross. We don’t ever want to do that.

Be careful not to be excessive as we go through this holiday season unless it is doing things that glorify God. We can’t ever do too much of that.

Have a great day!