Is Your Food Sin?

https://www.pcog.org/articles/2724/is-your-food-sin

Spiritual truth about your physical diet, delivered by the end-time Elijah

What is sin? Murder, adultery and stealing come to mind. But is it possible that you can sin bywhat you eat? Could your food be breaking God’s law?

In and of itself, eating poorly is a physical sin. But it can easily bleed over into spiritual sin.

Mr. Armstrong often talked about the principleof sin. God’s love is always outflowing. Obedience to God’s law means putting God first and loving your neighbor as yourself. Sin is incoming. Sin prioritizes the self—pleasing the self.

In a Nov. 7, 1981, sermon, Mr. Armstrong used the example of smoking. How do you know if smoking tobacco is sin, since the Bible does not say, “Thou shalt not smoke”? “I was smoking a little,” Mr. Armstrong said of his early years of conversion. “But I asked myself ‘Why do I smoke?’ I wanted to know the attitude and the purpose. Did I do it to please God? Answer: No. Did I do it because other men in Satan’s world do it? Answer: Yes. To please the five senses? Answer: Yes.” To recognize sin, we must look at the principle!

“Does it express love to God?” he continued. “No. Does it express love to neighbor? No. To some, it was offensive. Did I do it for my health? No. I knew that it was harmful to whatever extent. I didn’t know it would have anything to do with lung cancer. I don’t think anybody did at that time. But I knew the purpose of the lungs, and breathing air in and out; and I knew that it would be harmful to the purpose of eliminating toxins and poisons through the lungs. I knew it was harmful to whatever extent. It was a worldly habit.”

This is exactly the godly reasoning we need to apply to what we eat.

Do you eat what you do to please God? Does it express love to God? Does it make you more effective in doing God’s Work? Does it make you a better tool for God? Does it express love to your neighbor? Does it give you the energy you need in order to love and to serve others? Does it build your health? We all need to bring that godly perspective into our choices that determine the quality and the quantity of our food intake. Those questions are about the principle of spiritual sin!

God gave us physical bodies that need to be sustained. We must take care of ourselves to be good stewards with this tool for doing the Father’s will. Every day we need to feed ourselves, clean ourselves, dress ourselves and care for our physical needs. Yet we are very susceptible to vanity. The very act of making ourselves presentable to do God’s will and Work can turn into self-aggrandizement and vanity. The work of fueling ourselves can easily become gluttony. God gave us an appetite—we need that—but that appetite can easily become lust. Hunger can turn into greed. Those aren’t just physical sins: They violate God’s spiritual law!