Notice that there is nothing inherently wrong with alcohol, tobacco, food, credit cards, or sexual desires. What is wrong is with our heart. Tearing up the credit card is not going to keep our heart from materialism. Making the food have less fat is not going to make our heart less greedy for food. Locking people up in a detoxification center to bring them down off alcohol or substance abuse is not going to fix their heart.

We fell in love with the food by giving it our heart, soul, mind, and strength, which is included in this one behavior called obedience. We obeyed it. Food called us from the bed in the morning, and we used our strength to prepare it. We also used our strength to force more of it down into the body than the body called for. We gave it our mind all day long by looking through recipe books and discussing the latest diets with our friends, asking, “What do you get to eat on your diet?” We gave our soul to foods that were on the menu, and we gave our hearts to the 10 o’clock binge.

What we have to do now is clear: give heart, soul, mind, and strength to God. Every time we obey God with regard to food or with anything He is putting on our heart to work on, we will fall more in love with Him. Partly, this is because “He rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Hebrews 11:6 We are to earnestly, with a true heart, seek Him—not His wealth or His power—but Him. And part of the reason we fall in love through obedience, or keeping His commands, is that He answers the prayers of those who obey Him. John 14:14 says, “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”

“Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.” John 14:21

Read more in Weigh Down Works!