consequences

Some dieting rules for cheaters:

1. If no one sees you eat it, it has no calories.

2. If you drink a diet soda with a candy bar, the calories in the candy bar are canceled out by the diet soda.

3. When you eat with someone else, calories don't count if you don't eat more than they do.

4. Movie related foods (Milk Duds, buttered popcorn, Junior Mints, Snickers, Gummi Bears, etc.) are much lower in calories simply because they are a part of the entertainment experience and not part of one's personal fuel. 

5. Things licked off knives and spoons have no calories if you are in the process of preparing something. Examples are peanut butter on a knife when making a sandwich and ice cream on a spoon when making a sundae.

6. Cookie pieces contain no calories because the process of breakage causes calorie leakage.

7. Foods that have the same color have the same number of calories, e.g., spinach and pistachio ice cream; mushrooms and white chocolate. 

Note: Chocolate is a universal color and may be substituted for any other food color.

8. Foods that are frozen have no calories because calories are units of heat. Examples are ice cream, frozen pies and popsicles.

9. If you eat the food off someone else's plate, it doesn't count.

10. If you eat standing up the calories all go to your feet and get walked off.

Wouldn't it be great if we could change all the rules about calories and their effect on our bodies?! Unfortunately, whatever we eat has consequences. In a similar manner, there are times we wish that we could change all the rules about sin and its effect on our spiritual lives. But, how we live has consequences, both in this life and eternally.

"Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life." (Galatians 6:7-8)

Father, please help me to realize the effect that my choices have on the future. Though I am often tempted to do so, may I not be persuaded to pursue what is pleasurable for the moment at the risk of giving up something of far greater value in the future. In Jesus' name, amen.