S3. E3. Cheating
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[00:00:00]
If you are referring to a meal or a day as you cheating on yourself, that is harmful to not only your body, but it is also harmful to you spiritually because it is weakening that covenant that we have with God. It produces shame rather than better stewardship.
Welcome to Your Daily Bread podcast. I'm your host, Abbie Stasior, a registered dietician and certified intuitive eating counselor. My prayer is that these bite-sized episodes will help you heal your relationship with food, improve body image, and ultimately help you grow closer to God. Now, I can't personally heal you,
but I'm gonna be directing you to the one that can, and that is Jesus.
Also disclaimer, I'm not a pastor, but a sister in Christ that's offering you some food for thought that you can take into your quiet time with the Lord as your daily bread. Let's dig in.
Hello. Hello. Welcome back to your Daily Bread podcast. Today we are gonna be talking about cheat [00:01:00] days and cheat meal, anything that falls under the category of cheat language. I frequently, hear people say this, and if I don't know the person, the Lord has to tame my tongue to not say anything.
, But for clients, y'all know, I call you guys out in sessions because , we need to really be intentional about our language. We know that the power of life and death lies in our tongue. Our language matters. And when we think about cheating, when we think about adultery, infidelity, this is something that Jesus really does take seriously.
And this is what I wanna talk about today, how cheat language, saying cheat days, cheat meals is spiritually harmful. So Father God, thank you so much for this day. Lord, thank you for this word. Thank you for illuminating this and opening my eyes to see this. Thank you for depositing this divine wisdom and revelation to give to your people Lord.
And thank you for giving me sheep to feed and I am just, so humbled and honored. To be a vessel for you and an [00:02:00] instrument for you through this podcast. Lord, I pray that this episode, , is convicting. But there is no condemnation. Lord, I pray that this doesn't lead to condemnation, but just a, a healthy amount, a holy amount of self-examination, , and that there is a holy weight behind this, behind our language because it truly does matter, Lord.
So I just pray that you soften people's hearts and allow them to be able to receive the truths in this episode. Lord your truth. And I pray that everything that is said in this episode is what you want to say through me and not what I want to say. Lord, have your way. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen. So we're gonna be diving into Matthew five. Last week we were in Matthew four. Now we're in Matthew five verses 27 to 28. In Jesus says, have you heard the commandment that says you must not commit adultery? But I say anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has [00:03:00] already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Y'all. That is the word of the Lord. But this is here. Jesus is staying on business right now. Alright? Y'all know the commandment. But let me add onto it to say that even if you look at a woman with lust, you have already committed adultery with her in your heart.
Jesus takes cheating very seriously. Cheating is un faithfulness. It's secrecy. It's betrayal. And scripture does not talk about cheating casually, Jesus takes this extremely seriously and we know that. Anything that Jesus said, it just had weight. He only had a finite amount of time on Earth.
He only had a finite amount of, of words. And this is what he chose to take seriously and prioritize. He cares about the sanctity of covenant of commitment. And here he's talking about marriage. But we also have to [00:04:00] realize that we are ourselves in covenant with God. Our bodies are included in our covenant with God.
We see that in Matthew 26, verses 26 to 28 at the last Supper. Jesus says that this is my body which confirms the covenant with God and his people. And now God dwells within us because of Jesus' sacrifice, the shedding of his blood, his crucifixion, and the resurrection. We are now in covenant. With God and our bodies are not separated from that.
So when we use language like I'm having a cheat meal, I'm having a cheat day. It's not something to be flippant about. It's not something to be casual about. And I think we almost say it jokingly, haha, today's my cheat day. We have to realize, whoa. This is carrying more spiritual weight than we realize.
And I don't mean to oversize everything. I mean, this is a Christian podcast, so you're gonna get the spiritual component of things but I was just [00:05:00] really meditating on this and I'm like, Lord, why does the word cheat meal or cheat day, why does this irk me in my spirit so much?
Like I was really unsettled and I have been for years, and we know that in the, , intuitive eating community, and when you're healing a relationship with food, we know that cheat language is just not helpful. It's not conducive to a good relationship with food. It's not conducive to good rhythms because when people are having that cheat meal or that cheat day, it's a free for all with nutrition
it's basically a planned binge at that point, which is not honoring to the body. And then typically there's a lot of guilt and shame that's associated with that after. And then people swing the other way and now start restricting. And you're just in this cycle of restricting and binging and restricting and binging, and there's so much guilt and shame associated with that.
That's not God's best for you. So when reflecting on this, the Lord brought me back to, to covenant and how seriously he takes adultery and cheating because cheating teaches division, it teaches duplicity this double mindedness. Sometimes you are being obedient and then other [00:06:00] times you're indulgent.
Other times you're holy and you're righteous. And then other times you're just falling into, kind of this like Ecclesiastes talks about this like folly and enjoyment. Sometimes you're being good, sometimes you're being bad. Sometimes you are in control and very intentional. And other times it's a free for all.
And so this kind of double mindedness, this duplicity it's so much number one, whiplash on the body to be restricting and binging, restricting and binging, but , it's very spiritually harmful as well. this cycle. Of cheating on yourself, being on again and off again.
It, it produces shame rather than better stewardship. And it keeps you in, in the cycle, the restrict binge guilt cycle. And we know that a cycle is never ending. It's the hamster on a wheel where the Lord invites you to be in a rhythm. And the difference between a cycle and a rhythm is that a cycle is just never ending and you're in this endless loop, loop, loop, whereas a rhythm, there may be [00:07:00] peaks and valleys, there may be different speeds.
It's not linear, but you're going in one direction. You're on the journey, you're progressing, so it may not be perfect. God's not expecting perfection in what you eat, but he is expecting surrender. He is expecting trust.
He is expecting. Partnership with the Holy Spirit. So you can eat in a spirit level, but he doesn't want you to eat perfectly because that's not realistic. But he wants you to partner with him and be surrendered to him. And that's the difference. And I think people that think, , they need to eat perfectly and they associate eating perfectly clean with their holiness and righteousness number.
And it's just coming from a workspace place where we know that we are saved by grace through faith, not. By works we did not earn this at all. So nothing that you do, no matter how quote unquote clean you eat, that's not going to make a difference with your righteousness. It's Jesus that makes you righteous.
It's Jesus and because of his sacrifice, the [00:08:00] shedding of his blood, that God sees you as holy and blameless and unblemished. So that just brings us back to the gospel and the whole point of this. Because of Jesus's sacrifice that we are now in covenant with God and that covenant is not exclusive of our bodies.
It's inclusive. Jesus is abide in me and I will abide in you. We are in Christ, but also Christ is in us. , It's that both and, and just the mystery, of the gospel. So I think the deeper revelations that we have about how we are in covenant with God and really the sanctity of that. You are going to take the stewardship of your body more seriously and be intentional about your language.
It's not that, you'll never overeat past the point of comfortable fullness again. It is not that you'll, you'll never binge again. And the point is not to be perfect in that. The point of this episode is really to be intentional about the language that we're using around food because it is spiritually harmful.
If you are [00:09:00] referring to a meal or a day as you cheating on yourself, that is harmful to not only your body, but it is also harmful to you spiritually because it is weakening that covenant that we have with God. So I just want people to be really intentional about the language that they're using, and when we are intentional about that and we use different language that can actually lead to healing and a strengthening, and a restoration of your union with God.
And I love that John Eldridge always talks about that in his books, , in his Christian meditation app. The one Minute Pause app, I can link it up in the show notes. It is such a good meditation app, but he always says, he walks you through a prayer of. Lord Restore my union with you. And that is the point.
I've heard it said that. And if you're watching this, you can see me do this with, with my hands. So hopefully you're watching on Spotify or YouTube now that we have video for the podcast, but this is you knowing God. This is [00:10:00] intimacy with God. This is Union with God. There's a difference.
And so we wanna be in union with God. We are intertwined. Jesus even says that you'll be one with me as I am one with the Father. So it's important that we are really serious about that covenant, and we're not using the language of cheat days or cheat meals.
I hope that you found this helpful and insightful, if you need help healing your relationship with food and want to do so with a faith-based approach, which you should, because Jesus literally says, apart from me, you can do nothing. So we need Jesus at the center of all of this. Then head to the show notes and you can book a free call with me and I can't wait to chat with you.
See y'all next week.
Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of Your Daily Bread Podcast. Now, if anything about this episode resonated with you, I wanna encourage you to send it to three sisters in Christ who may also wanna steward their bodies better.
I read every comment, every review of the show, and I love hearing your testimonies and how the Holy Spirit is meeting you through these episodes. And if you haven't left a [00:11:00] review yet, I wanna encourage you to do so 'cause it truly does help the show grow and it. Ultimately benefits the kingdom. And if you need any personalized support with your nutrition and your relationship with food or your body image, head to the show notes and you'll see all the different ways to work with me.
See you next week.
