Food Is Not the Enemy: Discover Freedom from Food Fixation

Asheritah Ciuciu: First of all, let me just say I think y’all are such a brave bunch to come to this session, because this is not the book I wanted to write. Who wants to publicly confess to the whole wide world that food is an issue? It wasn’t me.

And yet, God has a way sometimes of not letting go. He will chase us down with His love until we surrender to Him, and that is the very best place to be.

I just want to say thank you so much for being brave, for coming here today. I hope that in the time that we have together you will find hope for those food challenges in your life. I hope that we will take some time to look at some of the lies that we believe about food, starting with food being the enemy, and see that God’s truth has the power to set us free.

When you know the truth and you walk in the truth, the truth will set you free.

I remember when I was a little girl, I was probably about five years old, I don’t know how many times I did this. I’m not sure how many times I was able to pull it off. My parents tell me that when I was a little girl, I would get a little fussy with dinner and say that I can’t eat any more, because I’m all full.

Then dessert would come around, and guess who suddenly found room for dessert. When my dad pressed me on this, apparently (I have no recollection of this), but apparently I would respond that there’s a special section of my stomach that’s just for dessert, and that’s why I still had room for dessert.

Wouldn’t you believe it, my own six-year-old tried this with me last week. I said, “You didn’t eat all of your dinner.”

She said, “Mom, I’m full.”

I said, “That’s too bad.”

Then ice cream came along, and she said, “I have room now.”

“Child, I wasn’t born yesterday. I know how this works.”

Yeah, she had her ice cream.

Over the years I’ve had a complicated relationship with food, and since you’re here, I imagine that you probably have as well.

When we look at the statistics, it’s truly sobering. Nearly three quarters of Americans are overweight or obese. About 6 percent of Americans are underweight, which is also a health challenge. Ninety-one percent of college age women are on a diet.

I don’t know about you, but I look back at my college pictures when I thought I was overweight . . . I see lots of nods. Ninety-one percent of our college age students are on a diet.

A June 2011 study revealed that between 20 to 57 percent of Americans have an eating behavior that is characteristic of a new eating disorder that’s called orthorexia. Orthorexia is defined as an obsessive preoccupation with healthy eating. It consumes all of your mental energy. It consumes all of your life, just thinking about “how can I make the next meal a healthy meal?”

Honestly, it doesn’t matter if you’re overweight, if underweight, if you’re on a diet or if you’re off a diet, it doesn’t matter if you’re eating healthy or you are finding comfort in that pint of ice cream—we all struggle with food.

I would say one of the first lies that the enemy tries to use to ensnare us is that we are the only one. I must be the only one who is struggling with this food fixation.

I want you to look around this room, because these are your sisters in battle. We are all in this together. But more than that, we are all under the rulership and the headship of Jesus Christ, our Lord and King. And because Heaven rules, and because Jesus reigns, Jesus can set us free. Do you believe that? (We have a quiet bunch here today.)

Scientists are affirming that our food issues are not just physical; they are also emotional. They’re mental. Because we are created in God’s image, they’re spiritual, as well. We can try to solve this food fixation with a diet, and anyone who’s been on a diet will tell you it doesn’t work. Not long term.

You can try to fix that food fixation with positive thinking. And that, by itself, is not going to work.

You can try to identify the emotional triggers, and that might be helpful, but on their own, it’s not going to work.

You see, there’s also a spiritual component to our battle with food fixation. Until we address that God created us body, mind, spirit, until we tackle this food fixation from each angle together, until we bring it under the dominion of Jesus Christ, we will not experience the freedom that He’s come to give us.

You see, many of us have been hurt by food fixation. How ironic that the enemy of our souls, the one who Jesus says has come to steal, kill, and destroy, started in the Garden of Eden with lies and with food.

Have you ever thought of that? It was food that was the vehicle for the very first sin.

Let’s just get clear up front: food is not the enemy. Food is a good gift from a good Father, meant to turn our hearts to Him in worship.

God had given Adam and Eve all the garden, all the fruits, all the vegetables, everything that was delicious and delectable (I don’t know if kale was there yet), but food was a good gift, and it was given by the good Father, and it was meant to be received with worship and gratitude and to turn their hearts toward Him, because He is the Provider.

Food is a good gift. We have an enemy, and that enemy is not food. That enemy is out to steal and to kill and to destroy. How does he do this?

I think of those of us who have severe health issues because of past choices. Let me say that again. I think of those of us who have severe health issues and chronic illness because of food choices that we’ve made in the past.

I think of those of you in this room who, in the past six months, have had an appointment with your doctor, and he’s told you that you need to lose weight if you want to live to see your grandchildren.

I think of those of us who are on medications to stabilize issues with our health that have been caused by our food choices.

The enemy comes to steal and kill and destroy.

I think of strained relationships that are due to our lack of self-control. Not only do we lack self-control in our eating, but that bleeds over into our parenting, into our friendships, into our marriage. It might look different, but at its root, it’s still a lack of self-control.

The enemy has come to steal and kill and destroy.

He does this by causing us to doubt God’s goodness. When we’ve tried diet after diet, when we have committed ourselves to New Year’s resolution after New Year’s resolution, and year after year we’ve failed, we think that God doesn’t care anymore.

We doubt God’s goodness because the enemy has come to steal and kill and destroy.

And for some people in the church today, he will use a plethora of different sins. It might be greed. It might be lust. It might be pornography. It might be gossip, but I’ll tell you what, for a large group of the church today, Satan steals and kills and destroys through food fixation. Just because we like our Sunday potlucks doesn’t mean this isn’t an issue for us.

But I have good news for you today, because the verse doesn’t stop there. Jesus says that the enemy has come to steal and kill and destroy, but, do you know how that verse ends? “But I have come that you might have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10, paraphrased).

Have life, and have it to the full.

Do you know what that word full means in its original context? I’m not going to go all Greek and Hebrew on you here, but this one’s actually pretty interesting because it comes from the root word that is used for gluttony.

Imagine going to your favorite aunt’s house for Thanksgiving. Imagine the spread out before you. There is an abundance of good food. You’ve dieted all of last week just so you could come and have whatever you want for Thanksgiving dinner. You are looking forward to that meal. You are going to indulge in that meal. Your taste buds are going to sing the “Hallelujah Chorus” because of that meal.

There is an abundance of food and you are going to enjoy it. That is the picture that Jesus wants us to have. He has come to give us life and give life to the full.

We do not serve a God of scarcity. We do not serve a God of diets. We do not serve a God who would have us measure and count every macro and calorie.

Listen to me. We are body, mind, and spirit, right? So there might be a component of things that we need to do physically to get our bodies in a healthy place, but if you’re going to do that out of a place of deprivation, that is the enemy lying to your heart.

He has come to steal and kill and destroy. Jesus has come that we might have life abundantly, excessively, generously. Life to the full.

What does this look like? On the one hand we have Satan’s preferred method of doing battle on our souls, and that is through lies. Jesus says that he is the father of all lies, and when we believe lies, we are following him.

In the Garden of Eden, Satan used a lie to cause Eve to doubt God’s goodness, to doubt His generosity. Is God really holding out on me? Or does He have a spirit of generosity and abundance toward me?

We’re not going to go into all of these lies. We are going to look at three of them later in our session today, but just a few of them that I want you to be thinking about. If you have your handout, feel free to jot down the ones that stand out to you that you relate to.

I kind of want to do a show of hands. You’re brave for being here already, so I’m going to ask you to take one more brave step. I’m going to read a few lies when it comes to food, and if you feel like that relates to you, I want you to raise your hand.

The first one is: I deserve that brownie, or popcorn, or whatever your favorite thing is. I had a rough day. I deserve it.

Now hold it up. I want you to look around. Do you see how many of us struggle with this? The enemy would isolate you and tell you you are the only one. He would pile guilt and shame and condemnation on you. How dare you believe that?! But you’re not the only one.

How about: It’s just a bag of chips. It's no big deal. It’s not like I’m doing drugs or anything. Again, feel free to insert your favorite food. Might not be chips.

How about this one: But if I don’t eat that extra piece now, who knows when I’ll have another chance?!

Do you recognize the scarcity?

How about—this one trips me up all the time: This tastes so good. How can it be bad? You are my sisters. There’s not so many of you, but we’re foodies.

How about: I worked out hard today, so I can eat whatever I want.

There’s a whole bunch of other lies, but as you’ve been raising your hands, I hope one thing that you see is that Satan lacks creativity. He’s reusing the same scripts over and over and over again.

You’re not the only one who’s dealing with these lies. You’re not the only one who’s falling into these patterns. I want you to know that you are not alone, not just because of the other women in this room, but because of Jesus Christ.

If you belong to Jesus, He has placed His Spirit in your life, and He can be your guide, and your counselor, and the voice of truth. When you know the truth, and when you walk in the truth, the truth will set you free. Can I get an “Amen”?

There’s hope because Heaven rules, because Jesus reigns, because Jesus let go of the glory of heaven and came to earth and took on human flesh. Do you know that Scripture says that He was tempted in every way, yet without sin?

Every struggle that you have ever faced, Jesus knows. Because He knows, He is our great High Priest, and He intercedes for us before the Father. Any time we cry out to Him, He is faithful and just and merciful and compassionate, and we can approach the throne of grace with boldness knowing that we will find mercy and help in time of need. You are not alone.

When you know the truth, and when you walk in the truth, the truth will set you free.

Go with me to another garden. We looked at the garden of Eden and Satan, and how he’s the father of lies. When we look at John chapter 14, the night before Jesus was betrayed, He looked at His disciples, and He said, “I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life.”

When He said, “I have come that you might have life and have it to the full, have it abundantly,” you know what He was talking about? He was talking about Himself. He is the life.

When we know the truth and walk in the truth, that truth will set us free. You know why? Because Jesus is the truth. When we know Jesus, and when we walk with Jesus, Jesus will set us free, because He is the only one who entered into death to break the chains and to set prisoners free.

A few years ago, I was especially discouraged after gaining about fifty pounds with my firstborn, with that pregnancy. That was the first time I looked at my college pictures and said, “Oh to be her again!”

It felt like no matter how hard I tried, I just could not shake free of this food fixation. I remember sitting with someone from my local church, an older woman who had become like a mentor to me. I was telling her about this.

I said, “I feel like I should have this figured out now. I’ve been dieting for two years.” I was a professional dieter at that point. “And I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know where else to turn.”

If I’ve ever felt a Bible verse apply to my life, in that season of my life, it was Paul’s word, “I know what to do, and yet, the bad thing I don’t want to do, that’s what I keep on doing! Woe is me!” (Rom. 7, paraphrased). 

Why won’t God do something about this? Notice the doubt creeping in my heart—the same doubt that Satan used: “Is God holding out on you? Is God really good? Does He really care? Does He really hear? Does He really see?”

Sitting in that coffee shop, my friend looked across the table at me, and she said, “Asheritah, you don’t have to struggle with this for the rest of your life. You see, Jesus can set you free.”

Ladies, I know we’ve been talking about this for the last twenty minutes, but for me, that was a lightbulb moment, because I’d never thought in my life that Jesus cared about what I eat. I didn’t think He cared about what the scales said.

I grew up as a missionary kid. I knew He cared about lost souls. I knew He cared about redeeming marriages and bringing prodigals home, but does He really care that my jeans are kind of tight?

Scripture tells us that the Good Shepherd goes out, and He seeks the lost. Our God is the God who can break strongholds. Because Jesus defeated sin and death at the cross, we have hope, and Jesus can set us free.

It would be my preference that that freedom would come in one big swoop. I would love to encounter that kind of a miracle in my life that we read about in the gospel stories where Jesus just touched them and miraculously healed them. But that has not been my experience.

My experience over the past six years since writing this book and sharing my story is that Jesus is involving me in the victory day by day. As I know the truth and walk in the truth, He is faithful and kind to set me free one day at a time, one meal at a time, one bite at a time.

I am not where I was ten years ago, and I’m not where I’ll be ten years from now. Praise God, He is not finished with me yet.

We know that God is faithful, and He who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. When you know the truth and walk in the truth, the truth will set you free. And that truth is Jesus.

Seventy-eight times in the gospel, seventy-eight times, Jesus says, “I tell you the truth.” And that is because He is truth personified. Jesus cannot lie because He defines reality.

Satan has no originality. He can only take God’s truth and twist it and pervert it and make it something it’s not in an attempt to ensnare us in addiction, to make us feel hopeless, to make us doubt God’s goodness. But when we come to Jesus, when we study the truth, when we cling to His promises, we know the truth, we walk in the truth, and that truth will set us free.

Are you ready for that? Alright, we’re not quite ready yet. If you have some place else to be, this is a good time to get up and go. I will not hold it against you.

What I’d love us to do is to get super practical right now. What does that look like? What does it look like to know the truth and walk in the truth so that Jesus might set us free?

Grab your worksheet if you haven’t already. We’re going to be diving into a few lies and truths and how we can walk it out.

A turning point for me came as I read 2 Cor. 10:5. Paul is talking about spiritual warfare, and he says this. Listen carefully. “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (NIV). 

“We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” You see, the battle begins in our minds.

Paul explains that we knock down any thought pattern that exalts itself above the truth of God, because lies and half truths have no place in the mind of a child of God. The only way that we will learn to recognize lies from truth is by studying the truth.

When you know the truth and walk in the truth, the truth will set you free.

We have a choice. We all deal with triggers in our lives. One trigger for me is walking into my mom’s kitchen. I’m thirty-four years old, and I still feel like I’m five, because I start opening the cupboards, and I look in the fridge. “Okay, Mom, what did you make?” My mom is a fantastic cook.

When I walk into my mom’s kitchen, I give myself, mentally, permission to just eat whatever I want, because it brings back memories from my childhood.

For you, your trigger might be the end of a long stressful day, and you find yourself mindlessly looking through the cupboards or grabbing the ice cream from the freezer.

The trigger might be that you hit that 3 p.m. slump and you’re bored at work, and you just need a little bit of excitement in your life, and that Snickers bar is going to do it.

The trigger might be that you finally put the kids to bed, and it has been a long day, and they fought non-stop, and you just want to reward yourself for making it through the day, and they’re all still alive.

Your trigger might be that you had a hard week, a hard month, a hard life, and every time that you remember that one hurt from your past, it drives you to the pantry for comfort.

Remember, food is not the enemy. Food is a good gift from a good Father, meant to turn our hearts to Him in worship. But when we run to food for comfort and satisfaction, when we turn to food to resolve the emotional trauma that’s happening, when we try to stuff the void in our hearts with food, it is no longer a good gift; it has become an idol.

That’s a hard word, but I’ve seen it in my own life. When I am more likely to take my problems to the pantry than I am to hit my knees in prayer, it means food has become an idol. And that idol needs to be dethroned, and those lies need to be taken captive and made obedient to Jesus Christ.

Picture this with me: we have two options to choose from. When there’s a trigger in our lives, (and I want you to picture what is your trigger), what is that one thing that makes you feel like the next step is you’re out of control with food?

That trigger, we can then believe lies that drive us to food, that will give us temporary satisfaction. I mean, it’s no lie, Oreos create a dopamine loop in your brain. In fact, some scientists have compared it to the euphoric feeling of doing drugs. Oreos can make you feel happy for all of three minutes.

And then the guilt settles in, and the shame settles in, and you start a vicious cycle where you go back to food to resolve those feelings of guilt and shame and condemnation. Then you feel good for a little bit, and then you crash again, and then you go back to food. And that is how an addiction is formed.

Food is not the enemy, but when it becomes our idol, it will ensnare us in addiction.

But that is not our destiny. We have a choice. When we face that same trigger, we can, instead, believe in God’s promises.

Instead of believing lies that take us to food, we can believe God’s promises that take us into God’s own presence. We can bring that emotional hurt, we can bring the stress, we can bring the boredom, we can bring whatever it is that would have driven us to food, we bring it to Jesus, and He alone can actually resolve that thing in our hearts.

He alone can bring satisfaction to our souls. He alone can bring the peace that we crave. He alone can give us wisdom. He alone can truly satisfy.

When you experience that in His presence, it starts to create a new pathway in your brain, so that the next time you face that trigger, you then have that choice again. Am I going to believe the lie that leads me to food, that leads to that addiction, or am I once again going to believe in God’s promises and in His truth that leads me into God’s presence that forms and shapes me into the image of Jesus Christ?

It is in this process that the Spirit works His fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience (not found in a bag of Doritos), kindness, goodness, faithfulness. Those are all worked out here.

Self-control. Did you know that’s the fruit of the Spirit? You can’t try harder to be more self-controlled. I have tried. It doesn’t work. But when we do what Paul said, we demolish strongholds, when we take captive every thought, when we are here in this trigger moment, and we start going this direction, and we pause, and we take that thought, and we hold it up to the light of Scripture, and we say, “Is this really true?” . . .

You can pause before you get to the food. “Is this really true?” And if it’s not, you backtrack your way over here, because when you know the truth, and you walk in the truth, the truth will set you free, because Jesus is the truth, and He alone brings freedom.

Let’s look at some of these lies in the time that we have left. I’m going to go with the most popular ones.

The first one, and what I want you to do is write down on your handout or in your notes, write down the one that you most resonate with. This is going to be your challenge as you go home this weekend.

I want you to know that truth and walk in that truth, because Jesus will set you free.

The first thought that we have is, I deserve a treat. I’ve had a hard day. I can’t believe everything that I had to put up with today. I really need that treat. I mean, after all that happened, I might actually deserve two!”

So here we are, we’re in the trigger, and we have this thought. Let’s hold it up to Scripture. Is it true? Is it true that you deserve a treat?

It might be true that you had a hard day. It might be true that you put up with a lot. It might be true that as you leaned into God all day long, His Spirit sustained you so that you didn’t yell at your kids, and you didn’t snap at your husband. It’s possible that you held it all in, but is it true that the treat is what you deserve? That that is what’s going to bring you comfort and satisfaction and rest and joy?

When we look at what God’s Word says, again remember, food is not the enemy. That brownie is not the enemy. That ice cream is not the enemy, but it will also not resolve the emotional issue going on in your heart.

Psalm 90:14 says, “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.” 

That is the truth, that God alone can satisfy. So you had a hard day? Take it to Jesus, because He will satisfy you, and He will fill you with joy.

Scripture also says in Matthew 4:4, Jesus says, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Food alone won’t really bring you that comfort and satisfaction, but the bread of life will, because God’s Word never returns to Him void. It will accomplish the work that it goes out to do.

I deserve a treat? It might provide temporary satisfaction, but it won’t give you what your soul really hungers for. Only God can give you that.

How do we walk this out, because we know truth when we walk in the truth.

There needs to be a walking out. If you’ve had this trigger, and then you had this thought, and you hold it up to Scripture, you recognize, That’s not really true. I know the truth. How am I going to walk it out? Because when you know the truth and walk in the truth, the truth will set you free.

Some practical ideas: write scripts for yourself. I do this. I’ll write it on Post-It notes. I have Post-It notes in my pantry, I have Post-It notes on my fridge, I have Post It notes in the freezer in the laundry room where we keep the ice cream. Write truth to yourself.

You might write, “This treat doesn’t bring lasting happiness. What I really want, more than a treat, is peace, freedom, joy, and that’s found only in Jesus. So get yourself to Jesus, girl!

Or maybe you look for other ways to celebrate milestones. Maybe you did have a hard day and you did accomplish a lot. Maybe there are other ways to celebrate that do not lead to that vicious cycle that leads to addiction.

Maybe you take a few moments to journal and praise Jesus for the work that He’s done, or maybe you journal out those hard things that you’re dealing with. Listen, I know that journaling is more work than grabbing that snack—I know! But it’s only when we walk out the truth that Jesus will set us free.

Yes, our God does miracles, but He chooses to involve us in the victory. So when you face that trigger, decide ahead of time, what verse will you use from Scripture? What promise of God will you cling to, and how will you walk that out?

How about lie number two? We didn’t go through this one earlier, so I’m curious how many of you would identify with this. I feel kind of full, but there are only a few bites left. I can’t let it go to waste. That’s bad stewardship. I’m just going to clean up the plate so that it doesn’t get thrown into the trash.

Okay, how many of you are willing to admit that we are passing this on to the next generation? That special section of the stomach reserved for dessert, that’s not the only gimmick that we’re passing on, and yet we know the truth. We can also walk with our children in the truth. We can learn new patterns with our children. But God has to do that work in us first.

So here’s the trigger. You’re at dinner. You feel kind of full. You have a few bites left. What are you going to do? Here’s that thought that comes, “I can’t let it go to waste.”

Paul would say we demolish strongholds by taking captive every thought and making it submissive to Jesus Christ. So is it true, “I can’t let this food go to waste”?

Well, 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 says, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

Your body is not a trash can. Your body, your soul, your mind, all of you was bought with a precious price, more precious than that food that might go to waste. When you have that trigger at dinner that you’ve had enough . . . Tonight, when you go to dinner, when you have had enough, pause, and hold that thought up to truth.

I’ve had enough. My body’s not a trash can. Practically walk it out. Maybe you pack it for later. Maybe you can’t do that here, but we’ve started boxing up leftovers at lunch and dinner at home.

I have one child who, I don’t understand it, but God made her a grazer, so she just eats a little bit all day long. I’ve tried to force her to finish her food. I’ve tried to tell her, “You didn’t finish your lunch, I guess you’re going to be hungry until dinner.”

She’ll just go hungry. She’s my child who’s underweight. Until I realize that God created us differently. Her metabolism is different, so when she’s done with her lunch, instead of forcing her to clean her plate, we’re going to grab a Tupperware, we’re going to pack that lunch, and when she gets hungry around 3 p.m. again, there’s your Tupperware.

I kind of wish I’d learned this twenty-five years ago for myself. If I’m in that place where I’m really enjoying dinner, first of all, pause and praise God. “God, You are the creative one. You’re the One who created vegetables and fruits and all the delicious things. You’re the One who gives chefs creativity to combine these ingredients in incredible ways. You’re the One who created our tastebuds. It was Your idea. You could have made us solar-powered.”

He could have! And yet He chose to give us the gift of good food. So when you’ve enjoyed your dinner, receive it with thankfulness. Allow it to drive you to your Father, and say, “God, You are so good. You have provided yet another meal. I’ve had enough. Thank you, Jesus.”

Jesus talks about this, actually quite poignantly in Matthew 6. He says, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” (vv. 25–26).

I think this lie of I’ve had enough, but I don’t want it to go to waste, I think underneath that is, I don’t know if I’m going to have enough next time. It’s that scarcity mindset of, If I don’t eat it now, I don’t know when I’ll have it again.But our God is a God of abundance and generosity. God has provided for your needs for this meal, and are you not more valuable than birds? Will He not provide for your next meal?

You’re at dinner, you’re full—there’s your trigger. You have the thought: I’m going to keep eating. I don’t want it to go to waste. But you pause, and you hold it up to Scripture, and you say, No, my God is a good Father, and He provides abundantly for my needs, and my body is valuable to Him, and it’s not a trash can. So I’m going to take it on God’s promises. God, I believe that You will provide for my next meal. God, I believe that You are a generous Father and that You give good gifts to Your children. God, I’m just going to worship You right now instead of eating a few more bites. I’m just going to take thirty seconds and reflect on how good You are.

And that dinner becomes a little worship service.

You know that Jews, in their culture, don’t necessarily bless the food before they eat. They thank God for the food after they’ve eaten.

Imagine how your eating habits would change if you didn’t just pray a perfunctory blessing over your dinner, but if you were aware of God’s presence with you throughout your whole meal. If you paused when you’d had enough, and if you turned to Him in worship and said, “Blessed be Your name. You’ve provided yet another meal, and You will provide again.”

Do you see how when you know the truth and you walk in the truth, Jesus will set you free? He will change your thought patterns. He will change your action patterns. He will change your habits.

And I believe that He can change the next generation. The women in my family have battled food addictions for generations. My mom, my aunt, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, going all the way up the line. It has been a stronghold.

That was actually the thing that brought me to my knees. It was on my first daughter’s first birthday when I found myself face first in a caterpillar cake. I was still eating, even though I wasn’t hungry. I felt like I couldn’t stop myself.

And I realized, I have a child now. God, I don’t want her to struggle with the same things I struggle with now. God, would You break the stronghold? Would You set me free? Would You set a new legacy for the women of my family, that they would be free indeed?

That is the promise of God that I am clinging to for my daughters, that we are learning together the truth. That we might know the truth and walk in the truth, so that Jesus would set the women of my family free.

Do you want that for your daughters, for your granddaughters, for your nieces, for the girls in your Sunday School class?

For too long, the enemy of our souls has come to steal and kill and destroy with food, and it is time to say, “No, Heaven rules over this area of our life as well. Jesus has come to set us free! And we will know Him, and we will walk with Him, and we will be free indeed!” because whom the Son sets free is free indeed.

Paul would look at those who follow Jesus and say, “You no longer follow the patterns of this world. You were once in darkness. You once walked that way, but no more, because you belong to Jesus, and you have” (catch this) “the mind of Christ.”

That is a promise. When you know the truth and you walk in the truth, we start to think God’s thoughts after Him. We start to walk in the freedom that only He can provide.

I had one more, and we’re running out of time, so I’ll just give it to you quickly here. That is, Just this once won’t hurt. Come on, it’s a special occasion; I’ve been doing so good. Just this once. I promise I’ll do better tomorrow.

What I want you to do in the next minute is—I want you to do this in pairs of two. Turn to your neighbor, take that thought, hold it up to Scripture, and say, “Is it true?”

So I want you to work this out, and then I’ll come back, and if it’s true, that’s fine, but I mean, I kind of showed my hand. It’s not. So what Scripture, what truth from God’s Word, what promise can you replace that lie with, and what would it look like to walk it out?

Go ahead, pair up. I’ll give you about two minutes to do that.

Alright. That was fun. I just love that this is a room alive with women who are seeking hard after Jesus, who want to know the truth and walk the truth, because “Dear God, we want You to set us free!”

Really quickly here, I want to hear—let’s just do three—I want to hear three responses, three little pairs. Who is a brave soul?

Romans 5:12. That’s a good one. It took one man and one sin for sin to enter the world. Very good. Thank you. Over here.

“My grace is sufficient for you.” That’s good. Over here. One more.

Matthew 6, that God is a generous Father who gives generous gifts. I love that.

There was one more over here. Yes.

“I am the bread of life. Anyone who hungers will come to Me and eat and never be hungry again” (John 6:35, paraphrased). 

I love those! Do you see how you can do this? You can take whatever trigger is in your life, recognize, “what is that thought?” It might not necessarily be a sin.

Just this once might not be a lie. It might be true. Maybe you have certain healthy eating boundaries or patterns that you’ve established with your doctor or nutritionist, but you’ve planned ahead for your anniversary dinner, you’re going to share a piece of chocolate cake with your husband. It’s not an emotional decision. It’s not a craving. It’s something that you’ve planned ahead to celebrate and recognize. You know, just this once won’t hurt.

That’s what’s hard about these thoughts—that we need to hold them up to the light of Scripture, and we need to allow God’s Spirit to search us and know our hearts and recognize our patterns. Because when we know the truth—say it with me—and we walk in the truth, the truth will set us free.

I want to leave you with one more passage that God has used in my life this past year. It comes from Titus 2:11–14. I don’t know how it’s possible that you can read the Bible your whole life and then stumble on a passage, and be like, “Was this here last time? I’m pretty sure I’ve never read that one before!”

This is Titus 2:11–14. Just listen to this. “For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age,while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who loved us and who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.”

Did you catch that? It is the grace of God that teaches us to say “No.” Not scarcity. Not doubt. Not fear. Not hurt. Not lies. It is the grace of God that has appeared to us. And He teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness so that we might live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives, as we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, waiting for His glorious appearance.

And on that day, we will say, “I knew the truth. I walked in the truth. And Jesus, You have finally set me free!” We will see Him face to face, the One who has died to buy our freedom, and we will spend the rest of our lives worshiping Him.

We will look back on our life. This whole life of self-control, as long as it might last (I read this somewhere) is but the dawn of the first day of our wedding day. For all eternity, Christ will make it worth it.

I want to pray a blessing over you before we leave, but if this has been helpful for you, I encourage you to scan that QR code on the back of your worksheet. I had one. Here it is. I alluded to this before we started, that this is the seven-day truth and dare food challenge.

So if this has been helpful to you, if you want to commit over the next seven days to recognize those lies and to walk in the truth, then this challenge is for you.

Over the next seven days, I’ll be in your inbox. Well, not me personally, but, you know . . .

I have walked this road with you and before you, and I invite you to come alongside. You can scan that. You can sign up for free for that seven-day truth and dare challenge.

We’re actually giving away a Bible for all those who sign up today. Well, not for all of you. You will be entered to win a brand new Bible, a THRIVE Devotional Bible for Women, because we want to equip you to know the truth and to walk in the truth and to experience the freedom that only Jesus can offer.

When you sign up by the end of the day today, we’ll do that drawing tomorrow morning, and we will email the winner, and you can come and pick that up. That is our blessing to you. We want to equip you in that way, whether through that seven-day email series or through a brand new copy of the Bible.

Will you pray with me?

Lord Jesus, thank You that You are the Bread of Life. God, I can’t help but think that You have a sense of humor, that You are not the salad of life. You’re not the green smoothie. You are the bread of life, that which brings comfort and satisfaction, the One that we can turn to after a hard day, the One who satisfies our deepest needs, the One who is just as available on a special occasion and a holiday as You are in our ordinary days.

Jesus, You are the Bread of Life, and You invite everyone to come and to eat. Those who are hungry, “Come,” and those who are thirsty, “Come,” and those who are tired, “Come,” and those who are hopeless, “Come,” and those who are heavy burdened, “Come.”

How good You are! That though we have failed time and time again, though we have believed lies, that You do not leave us alone, that You pursue us. Good Shepherd, You go out, You leave the ninety-nine, and You seek the one.

I have been that one. Thank You, Jesus, for never giving up on us! Thank You that You offer us the mind of Christ. Thank You for Your great and precious promises, that each one is “Yes” and “Amen” in Christ Jesus.

Thank you that You have created our brains to create new pathways, new patterns of thinking, new habits. Thank You that we are never too old to experience Your freedom and Your fullness and Your satisfaction.

As long as we have breath there is hope, because You, Jesus, reign, and You rule, and You are in control, and you You are the one who sets captives free.

So we bring to You our food addiction. We bring to You our fixations. We bring to You our failures, our idols, all those places that we run to instead of You, and we ask, Jesus, would You forgive us? Would You cleanse us? Would You purify us? Would You demolish strongholds in this room today? Would You turn our hearts toward You? Would You stir in us a hunger and a thirst for You?

God, would You strengthen us to stand firm in Your truth? When the enemy comes knocking, when he comes to steal, when he comes to kill, when he comes to destroy, Jesus, would you help us to cast ourselves on You, on Your mercy and grace, that we might find help in time of need?

Jesus, You are the life. You are the truth. You are the way. God, we need You. Thank You that victory is ours in Christ Jesus. Even if it takes day by day, every day for the rest of our lives, Jesus, we are committed to walking in the truth, because You are truth, and Yours is the victory.

Until that precious day when we finally see You face to face, and You welcome us home, and you say, “Well done, my daughter. You have been faithful. Enter into the joy that I have prepared for you.”

We can’t wait for that day, Jesus! We love You. We love You. You are enough. Amen.

All Scripture taken from the NIV unless otherwise noted.