Fear of Gluttony: Why Defining Gluttony as Overeating Misses the Point

Title: Fear of Gluttony: Why Defining Gluttony as Overeating Misses the Point

Podcast Date: November 18, 2025

Listen Here: 

Description

What is gluttony really? If you’ve ever worried about overeating, obsessing about food, or wondered whether enjoying that extra slice of cake is a spiritual failure, this episode is for you. Best-selling author and host Heather Creekmore dives deep into the true heart behind gluttony—exploring why our modern definitions miss the mark and how diet culture and church culture have distorted our understanding.

Heather reframes gluttony, drawing on biblical insight, church history, and thought-provoking examples from C.S. Lewis and Tim Keller. She challenges the idea that gluttony is simply about having seconds or what’s on your plate and asks powerful questions about cravings, control, and where we derive our satisfaction.

Plus, Heather explores how misplaced fears about food can keep us stuck and why true freedom comes from surrender—not self-denial. Whether food has become a source of stress or you’re striving for perfect control, this conversation will open your eyes to new ways of understanding your desires and finding satisfaction.

Ready to rethink gluttony and experience food freedom? Listen now for practical encouragement, spiritual wisdom, and a fresh take you won’t want to miss!

Episodes Mentioned:

• What Does the Bible Actually Say About Gluttony? (Heather references this episode where she goes through the whole Bible on this topic)
  
  
• Craving Jesus vs. Craving Food (with Erin Todd)
  
  
• More on body image: The 40 Day Body Image Workbook
  
  
• Tim Keller's sermon on Gluttony: The Case of Achan

For links and more resources, visit improvebodyimage.com or find Heather’s books on Amazon!

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript is AI-generated and has not been edited for accuracy or clarity.

Heather Creekmore [00:00:02]:

Life Audio about all the different places in scripture where it talks about being satisfied. And God often uses the illustration of being satisfied with food as an illustration for being satisfied in him. It's not a bad thing to be satisfied, even to be satisfied with food. But we have to know that only God can satisfy our deepest desires. Hey, friends, Heather Creekmore here. Thanks for listening to the Compare to podcast today. This is the podcast for you. If you've ever struggled with food or body or believing what you say you believe, or trusting God so much that you don't stress out over what you're gonna wear to church Sunday morning.

Heather Creekmore [00:00:47]:

Oh, friend, I've been there. I've done it all. And so today we are tackling an interesting topic, gluttony. I've talked about it on the show before. It's always controversial, but today we're gonna just approach it from a slightly different angle. We're gonna talk about the fear of gluttony. Because most of the time when I have conversations with women around what it would look like to be free with food. And by free with food, I mean to stop obsessing over food, to stop thinking about what you're gonna eat or how much you ate or what you should eat or how many macros it had to stop making that the constant conversation in your head.

Heather Creekmore [00:01:24]:

That's what I mean by food freedom. And their biggest fear is that if they don't obsess, if they don't stress, if they're not always thinking about it, then they're going to be gluttonous. Because, oh, friends, we have defined gluttony like, in a really whacked out way, thanks to diet culture. And honestly, I love the church so much, but the church has not gotten this right all the time. So today we are going to dig into what is gluttony really and why are we so scared of it and should we be? What is the real heart of the issue behind biblical gluttony? That's where we're going today. I'm so glad you're here for it. Hey, friends, did you know I write books? In fact, I have four of them. Aging Gratefully is my 30 day devotional on aging.

Heather Creekmore [00:02:13]:

The 40 day body image workbook is where you should start if you have body image issues and you're like, ready to get free. Because it's not really just a workbook that you just fill in the blanks. No, no, no. It reads like a regular book, but it's going to ask you questions throughout that are going to make you think. So it goes beyond what a regular book can do to make you think about where your body image issues came from and what's keeping them stuck there. Finally, I want to draw your attention to my book, the Comparison Free Life. Friend, if you are still stuck comparing yourself to other people, this is the book for you. It's got a gorgeous new cover, it's pretty and it would make a great gift for a friend.

Heather Creekmore [00:02:51]:

Or maybe it's something you want to arrange to read with a friend. I think you' enjoy it. It's called the Comparison Free Life. All these books are available on Amazon or on my website. Improve body image.com now let's get to today's show. Okay friend, I might have to have you take a nice big deep breath in. Exhale out. Cuz today we're talking about gluttony and that makes some of you really, really, really nervous.

Heather Creekmore [00:03:24]:

But my main point for you today, friend, is that gluttony is about so much more than just eating too much. In fact, that's a very narrow and I would say almost inaccurate definition of what gluttony is according to the Bible. But I've gotten the opportunity to work with and talk to coach so many of you, and I know your fear. Your fear is I had the piece of cake. I told myself I wasn't gonna have a piece of cake. That's gluttony. Or I went back for seconds even though I wasn't like super hungry. That's gluttony.

Heather Creekmore [00:04:01]:

Or I was kind of full after that big dinner out, but they had this really special dessert at this restaurant and I ate it anyway, every little bit of it, even though I wasn't hungry. And that's gluttony. Friend. Oh friend. The fear of gluttony is something that has been pervasive in diet culture and church culture. So many Christian women feel like if we enjoy the food or if we eat too much food, then somehow God is mad at us. But here's the truth. Let me it's not really about the food.

Heather Creekmore [00:04:40]:

It's not really about quantitatively how much you ate, whether or not you went like a centimeter past full on the hungry to full scale. It's not about the quality of the food you ate, how you chose the cookie when the apple was right there. And that was a gluttonous desire. No, no, no. That is not what gluttony is at all. Gluttony is really about our cravings. And now hear me, I'm not talking about food cravings. I'm talking about our heart posture, what it is we really want and what we think will satisfy our cravings.

Heather Creekmore [00:05:22]:

So today, we're gonna look at what the Bible actually says. You guys know that I love pastor and theologian Tim Keller, and he's always quoting other great Christian thinkers like C.S. lewis. And Tim Keller just did a podcast episode. Well, I mean, he didn't just do it. It's a recycle on his podcast on gluttony. And so that might be super helpful for you to go listen to, but we're going to include history and some thoughts from these guys to have a better understanding of why this concept of gluttony has gotten so messed up over the centuries. And in the end, today, I hope you'll see, like, God doesn't want you to be afraid of food.

Heather Creekmore [00:06:02]:

God doesn't want you to be afraid of eating one additional cookie past what you were actually hungry for. God doesn't want you to spend all day in your head obsessing over every morsel and every calorie so that you will not be a glutton. That's not it at all. In fact, here's what I think. God's inviting you to. He's inviting you to trust him. Trust him with how you eat, but also trust him to fill those very hungry places in your soul. So let's dig in.

Heather Creekmore [00:06:37]:

So Pastor Tim Keller said it this way. Gluttony is taking something good and cramming it in until you're sick of it. And that's powerful because it shifts the focus. It shifts the focus of gluttony being about food and takes it to the focus of gluttony being about the craving. You're craving something good because, okay, friend, food is good. God designed your body to live on food. Food is not the enemy. Food is a good gift from the Lord.

Heather Creekmore [00:07:10]:

But gluttony is about craving something good, like food. Or it could be something else. In fact, a lot of times it is something else. Craving it in a disordered way. Wanting a good gift from God to give you something that only God himself can give you. Do you hear the distinction there? It's wanting the gift more than the giver of the gift. And so I mentioned Keller preached a sermon probably years, decades ago, even called gluttony. It's the case of Achan.

Heather Creekmore [00:07:47]:

Now, I just want to point out to you, my friends, that have been fighting for gluttony, fighting to make gluttony all about food, my friends, that send me emails about this. Even Tim Keller uses the story of Achan and Joshua 7 as his biblical reference point for gluttony. Now, if you're familiar with the story, Achan, Achan was the one who and Joshua, when they were going in to take over some of the land that God had promised them, God was like, don't you touch a thing. Don't you take a thing. Like, take nothing, touch nothing. But Achan saw something beautiful. He saw the gold and the silver in Jericho, the stuff that God said, leave it alone. Achan wanted it, he took it and he hid it.

Heather Creekmore [00:08:38]:

And so understand, the sin of gluttony for Achan wasn't about being hungry and eating too many cookies. The sin wasn't hunger. The sin was distrust. Right? God gave him a specific direction. And Achan was like, yeah, but this stuff is good. And if I have this good stuff, I'll have wealth, I'll have treasure. Likely he thought it would make himself secure. Maybe he thought it would satisfy him.

Heather Creekmore [00:09:13]:

And even though God had said no in order for Achan to decide to go against God. Right. And I think Keller says it was a capital offense to do this, right? Like, he knew he was going to die for doing it. To go against God shows us that Achan didn't trust God. Achan thought, God doesn't want what's best for me. I know what's best for me. This would be good for me. This would be what's best for me.

Heather Creekmore [00:09:42]:

And friend, that's the heart of gluttony in a nutshell. Gluttony isn't about eating too much. It's about wanting something too much. Now let's look at the history of gluttony. I talk about this in my book, the 40 Day Body Image Workbook, and I've talked about it in a podcast before. But just in case you haven't listened to those, historically, Christians have never defined gluttony as just overeating. So that's kind of a modern thing. But you need to understand that it was a monk who first outlined what we now call the seven deadly sins.

Heather Creekmore [00:10:17]:

And he actually, I think he called them the eight evil thoughts. And gluttony was pretty close to the top of the list. And his name was Vagarius. And he had some interesting ideas. Like he thought if you ate too much, then that probably made you more prone to lust. You were going to commit sexual sin if you ate too much. He also had a lot to say about a sin of boredom, right? So I Just I want you to have context like this isn't in Scripture, like the book of James, here's the seven deadly sins. So this was just something that early monks and that eventually Pope Gregory the Great and Thomas Aquinas started to refine and they took it from scripture, but it definitely has a big dose of man's opinion in it.

Heather Creekmore [00:11:03]:

And they tried to define these seven deadly sins, these things that Christians commonly get caught up in and could trip them up, make them stumble, make them kind of fall away from what God has for them. And so gluttony is on that list. But again, I apologize if I'm saying this 127 times. You have to understand that gluttony is not on that list because God is super concerned that you don't eat past full and that's the worst thing you could do in disservice to him. No, again, it's about the heart issue as exhibited in your cravings for anything that you want or desire. Now I think what makes this confusing is that you will have times when you really want and really desire food. For example, if you go all day long without eating very much, oh my teacher friends, you have this huge struggle, right? Because you are too busy all day long to eat, to graze. Maybe you get a 30 minute lunch, but goodness, the amount of energy you're spending all day long, it's hard to keep up with that nutrient wise.

Heather Creekmore [00:12:20]:

And so you might get home from work or really you could be any, any profession, you get home from work and you are hungry. You are inordinately hungry. You are craving this and that. And you probably don't grab a salad or worse, grab each of the vegetable components of a salad and proceed to wash things and cut things and make yourself a nice big salad. No, you're grabbing what, whatever is accessible. You are craving food. You are hungry for food. You need food, friend.

Heather Creekmore [00:12:51]:

That's called physiological hunger. That's not gluttony. Your body was designed to live on the nutrients that come from food. And so if you get home after a long day of under eating all day long and you feel like you need to eat all the things, not gluttony, that's your body saying, hey, we're undernourished here, we haven't had enough here, you're gonna have to make up for that, and you're gonna have to make up for that fast. Please, please, please do not mistake what happens to you at the end of the day. If you've chronically undereaten all day as gluttony. That's not what it's about. Now that we hopefully have that clear, let's go back to old Pope Gregory and Thomas Aquinas.

Heather Creekmore [00:13:36]:

Okay, so we're in the Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages, there were five types of gluttony that were discussed. We only talk about one type, overeating. But here's five types that they talked about. Eating too soon, eating too expensively, eating too eagerly, eating too much, and eating too daintily. But I get very nervous talking about all these different types in the diet culture we live in. Because the diet culture we live in has defined a certain number of calories as the right number that all women should eat. And it's different.

Heather Creekmore [00:14:10]:

Defined a certain type of food as the kind that all people should eat. Right. And it's all of these food rules that come from diet culture. None of them are actually in the Bible. All these food rules we've twisted with these concepts. Again, concepts not from the Bible. There's not a list in the Bible of eating too soon, eating too expensively, eating that's not in scripture. But we've combined modern day diet culture with medieval gluttony, typing, and we've created this like Christian diet, food ruled thing that makes everything so much more difficult than it truly should be.

Heather Creekmore [00:14:46]:

In the screwtape letters, C.S. lewis gives a very interesting example when he talks about gluttony. He talks about a woman who always insists on having her tea prepared just so, and she only wants a little bit and she's enslaved to getting it just right. Exactly right. And C.S. lewis, even 100 years ago when he wrote this, calls this the gluttony of delicacy. Again, this is gluttony that's not at all about overeating, eating past fool. This is gluttony that's about over controlling.

Heather Creekmore [00:15:26]:

So while we stress and worry about eating one macro too many or 100 calories too many, what if that is in and of itself is gluttony? Because we are obsessing and controlling our food so tightly. Hmm, that changes the paradigm a bit, doesn't it? So gluttony can look like the gluttony that we've all heard about, gluttony of excess, right? Which is really about consuming more than we need. But again, it's not about an amount of calories. Really. The heart behind the gluttony of excess is greed. It's I want it, I want it all, all for me, me, me, me, me, me. And Then there's gluttony of delicacy or sensuality, right? It's obsessing over the taste or the quality or the presentation or the experience of our food. But again, please notice the word obsessing.

Heather Creekmore [00:16:25]:

There's nothing wrong with desiring a nice meal or wanting to choose something that tastes nice or as high quality or enjoying a fancy restaurant. Those are not sins. The sin is in the obsession. The sin is in the inordinate desire in desiring it more. Remember, because it's a good gift. Desiring this good gift more than you desire the good giver. And then the final kind of gluttony is this gluttony of immoderation or haste. And again, friend, do not confuse that with getting home from work and eating to fill a calorie deficit.

Heather Creekmore [00:17:08]:

In fact, I think a better way to think about the gluttony of a moderation or the gluttony of haste would be to think about always wanting quick satisfaction. Which takes me immediately to the concept of crash diets, right? I want to change things quickly and now. So I'm going to just drink this liquid diet for two weeks and we all know what happens a month later, six months later, right? Like, it didn't last, but we wanted it so, so badly. We had to have those results. We had to have the satisfaction of dropping those pounds that we were ruled by it. We didn't care what was going to happen long term. We just needed it. Now there's urgency involved and there's impulsiveness involved.

Heather Creekmore [00:17:59]:

Friend, this probably happens to you when you're scrolling Instagram and you click on those ads and maybe you click all the way through and you buy the thing, right? Because it's like, oh, if I just get this new supplement, oh, if I just get this new exercise gadget, if I get this thing or this thing and this thing and it's normally not, or this thing, it's and this thing and this thing and this thing, then maybe I'll fix it. Then maybe I'll fix it. And we're looking for the quick fix. Hmm. That is gluttony, too. Interesting, right? Kevin DeYoung has written an amazing article on the Gospel Coalition. It's called but what About Gluttony? And he's really talking about some other sins and how a lot of times, like, Christians always come back to, you know, but what about gluttony? As a comparison between gluttony and other sins, namely sexual sins. But Kevin talks about how gluttony is ultimately about self indulgence and self centeredness.

Heather Creekmore [00:18:54]:

It's not really about like wasting food. It's about wasting our worship. What are we really worshiping? And food might just be a metaphor for the other appetites in our lives. They're not all bad appetites. So there's a lot of good things that we desire and they're good gifts from God, so it's okay to enjoy them. But again, when we want them more than we want the giver, when our appetites are out of control and we have to have more than we need so much more, or we have to have it exactly right our way, or we have to have it now, right now, quickly, in haste, that's when we may be being gluttonous. And whenever we try to satisfy our appetites apart from God, we end up enslaved to those appetites. Again, let me be clear here.

Heather Creekmore [00:19:49]:

I'm not talking about your physical appetite for food. In fact, some of you who maybe have struggled with binge eating disorder may feel like that problem is just gluttony. And I want to encourage you, get help, because binge eating disorder is often, not always, but often. What happens after you've been in a season or a cycle of restriction where your body hasn't had enough food, and then physiologically something snaps and you just need all the things you want, all the things all the time. And so there's something physiological going on there, maybe spiritual too, but maybe not. Address the physiology behind that eating challenge first instead of just saying, oh, it's gluttony. Oh, it's gluttony. I just need to do better.

Heather Creekmore [00:20:42]:

I just need to try harder. Oh, friend, that's not it. And I think what has happened is we've become so scared of gluttony as overeating that perhaps we've missed our actual gluttony. We've missed the ways that we have craved and desired thinness, beauty, perfection, the ways that we have been gluttonous towards those things. In the way we've dealt with food, right? In the ways we've ignored our physiological hunger, or in the ways that we've become so uber focused on food, where maybe food is what consumes every thought in your mind. It's worth just being curious about what is behind that? What do I really desire? Am I looking to food to give me something that only God can give me? And I don't mean this in the way that it's been twisted in the church, right? Because some of us are looking to food and the way we restrict food or the way we delicately handle food to give us a certain body size or type which will give us, oh, I hate to say this, but glory for ourselves. And to think about that being a type of gluttony that might blow your mind today. So Tim Keller does a really amazing job of laying out what happens when we crave.

Heather Creekmore [00:22:11]:

And I do not want you to confuse this with some other popular teaching about being made to crave. I think that could really muddy the water here. So please separate anything you learned there out from this because again, Keller's main illustration is Achan and him plundering the riches of Jericho. Okay, so here's how Keller says it happens when we have a craving. First we see the gift God gives us. Something good, right? And forget about food for a second, right? Food is a good gift, but it could be success. It could be affirmation, it could be comfort. Oh, how about this one? I hate to say it out loud, but it could be shopping or clothing or shoes.

Heather Creekmore [00:22:59]:

I realized I bought four new pairs of shoes last Saturday morning in one morning. But they were cheap. And by the fourth pair, I had earned free shipping. Ah. Does this happen to you too? This is an over consumption. I have to ask myself, do I really need those shoes? Is it because the season is changing and shoes from last year are worn out? Or is this a greed? Is this an immoderate desire to just have more and more, more? You may not be a spender like I am, but your gluttony could still be financial. You could be all about that number in the bank account and watching it grow. It could be a husband, it could be children.

Heather Creekmore [00:23:42]:

There's a good gift that God gives us, but then where we mess it up is we elevate that good thing into being a God thing. We make that thing that is good into something that is ultimate. Something that we might say, if I don't have this anymore, I can't live without. Might be beauty, right? God may have given you the blessing of great beauty, just like he gave to beauty for a purpose, right? Without that beauty, Hester would not have been able to save the Jewish people. It was a good gift from God that he gave to her for a specific purpose. But what could we do with beauty? Well, we might elevate it into something we have to have. If I lose my beauty, I will be nothing. I must have my beauty.

Heather Creekmore [00:24:28]:

I must do everything at any cost to keep my beauty, to keep my figure, to keep my face looking young, right? We elevate it into something that we cannot live without. And what happens ultimately, it starts to have a grip on us. It starts to control us. That good thing that was once a gift now becomes something that we are enslaved to. We begin to serve, becomes an idol in our lives, an idol that demands things of us and dictates what we should do, what we can do, what we can't do. And then we can chase that idol, we can serve that idol, we can spend decades trying to make that idol. And eventually we realize it doesn't satisfy me. It's not doing what it said it was going to do.

Heather Creekmore [00:25:21]:

And then we often feel shame, right? And some of that is Holy Spirit conviction, because we're not supposed to be serving the idol. But we've spent all this time and energy over this good gift of God that we've distorted, and we've really found ourselves caught in sin. And so understand, again, it's not just about it's not food. It could be anything. You could throw into that pattern, right? It could be a good gift of healthy eating. Oh, I love to eat healthy. You guys tell me that all the time. Eating healthy just makes me feel so good.

Heather Creekmore [00:25:58]:

And I'm like, I'm sure it does because there is some science there. But then I also wonder how much of it is your pride. Eating healthy makes me feel so good because I feel really good about being able to say that I eat healthy. But we can take that gift because it's a blessing if you're able to eat healthy, right? You have to have the financial means to be able to do that, the resources, right? And you can take that good gift from God and you can twist it into something that you must have where you maybe cross the line into orthorexia, where you're the person taking the cooler of food every place you go because you couldn't possibly eat what was set before you because it may not be clean enough. And then you can no longer be hospitable. You can't have people over because you probably can't serve something that they would eat. And you can't go to people's homes without your cooler of food. And so it actually drives a wedge between you and other people with whom God wants you to have a relationship because you have such strict stringent.

Heather Creekmore [00:26:57]:

I'm calling gluttony of delicacy. Food rules, right, that have become so important to you that they are the most important thing. Relationship. Not as important as being able to eat what it is. I believe I need to eat. It has Control over you. And we think that it's doing something positive for us. Maybe when we try to talk ourselves into like, well, eating healthy is so important, like, I'm preserving my life.

Heather Creekmore [00:27:24]:

But friend, you know, all the studies say that the key to longevity is good relationships. It's not actually food. Food is just like a really small sliver of the pie chart of what goes into living a long, healthy life. And so if you are eating healthy, thinking, it's the whole pie chart and missing out on healthy relationships and being able to spend time with people and really just relax, right? Because stress is a pretty big killer. We all know that, right? Oh, friend, you're missing it. So hear me. God has given us good gifts that we can appreciate, right? We can have gratitude and be thankful even in the food arena, right? Thank you, God, you've given us delicious foods to eat. Thank you, God, that you've given us financial blessings.

Heather Creekmore [00:28:15]:

Thank you, God, that you've given me children or a husband or a job that I love or opportunities to travel and serve you. Like, these can all be good gifts. But when we move from appreciating these good gifts to addiction, I must have, or I have to have this, or then, friend, we're no longer walking in freedom, we're walking in bondage. So as we close today, let's talk about how we heal the fear of gluttony. Because, like, first, I hope you've understood by now that gluttony is about so much more than just food. And it may not be about relating to food in the way you thought it was about relating to food. Right? And just hear me on this too. Again, God made your body to live on food.

Heather Creekmore [00:29:03]:

And so God doesn't want you to be afraid of food if you are afraid of food or trying not to eat. That was my strategy through my eating disorder. Trying not to eat if you're avoiding food, if you're scared of food, if you have a really unhealthy relationship with food, friend, I invite you to get some help. We have a program called the Attunement Reset, which really helps you kind of understand your relationship with food. But I would say first start with a 40 day journey or come to us for a body framework course. Like, we've got lots of resources where we can help you. I would say first, heal your relationship with your body and then heal your relationship with food. Because it's important.

Heather Creekmore [00:29:41]:

God did not design you to be afraid of food. That's not his will for you. Let's think about some ways that we can be gluttonous, that have nothing to do with food. Okay, so what about being gluttonous for approval, right? You have this inordinate desire, this desperate craving to see how many people press. Like when you post your vacation picture and you check your phone, you check your phone, you check your phone. You're always trying to see who liked it, who liked it. Like it's an inordinate desire. You have to have it.

Heather Creekmore [00:30:10]:

You need more and more and more. And if that picture doesn't get enough likes, you put another one up. Friend, that might be gluttony. Or what about being gluttonous for achievement, right? You are always volunteering for the next project at work. You're always saying yes every time they ask you to volunteer for something at church. Like, you've got to do, do, do, do, do, because, like, the better you feel, then you know you're valuable if you're doing a lot and it's never enough. You just need more, more, more, more, more. And maybe even you're taking positions, the volunteer aspect especially, that maybe God has other people assigned to do.

Heather Creekmore [00:30:49]:

But you're like, nope, mine, my job. I need to do this. This is just for me. And you're doing it because you think doing all those things make you feel valuable. But friend, like, like God wants that value to come from him and in him alone, not from all these things you're chasing. Ooh, what about being gluttonous for control, right? You're trying to manage everything so that everything seems predictable. Maybe you're trying to overly control your body and maybe even you're calling it self discipline or self control and you think it's a fruit of the spirit. But friend, if you are spending all your time obsessing over it and if it's something you need to have, have, like you need to lose that last seven pounds, and you must have it and it's not going to be okay until you achieve it.

Heather Creekmore [00:31:37]:

Friend, that's an inordinate desire, right? That could be gluttony, maybe your gluttonous just for general self improvement. Like, you've got your list of goals, hashtag goals, and you've got to get these things done. You got to get through your list every day. And at the end of the day, you know you were good enough. You checked off everything because you are growing and trying to be better, better, better. Friend, if you go to bed feeling more ashamed and condemned over not checking off your to do list every day than you do over, I don't know, maybe missing some of the things God had for you today. Maybe missing like what he called you to do, maybe not loving others. Well, or.

Heather Creekmore [00:32:16]:

Or any of the other things that he actually outlines for us to do every day. If you feel more guilty over not achieving your list than you do over not achieving some of his list, friend, that could be a gluttony problem. At its core, gluttony is about what we are consuming to try to quiet what aches inside of us. And so what's aching inside of you? Is it a belief that if I just have this one thing, if I just have this kind of body or more success or this kind of validation, then I'll finally be full. But here's the thing, like those things are never going to satisfy because they weren't designed to satisfy. They were only designed to point you to the only one who can satisfy. And the fear of gluttony will only fade when we realize that freedom isn't found in self denial or self control. Freedom is actually found in surrendering those cravings.

Heather Creekmore [00:33:12]:

Not surrendering to the craving and saying, well, I must have more achievement, I must have more approval. So I'm going to just give in to it. Not that, but surrendering the actual craving to God and saying, hey, God, help me. I don't know why I have to have approval. I don't know why I have to eat so clean. I don't know why I have to obsess over my body so much and let him show you what you're really afraid of. Because that's the challenge, right? We're afraid. We're afraid of not being enough.

Heather Creekmore [00:33:50]:

We're afraid that unless we have this, unless we do this, unless we look like this, we'll be rejected. And we already did an episode on that. We're afraid that we'll be found out as imperfect. And we already did an episode on that. The only cure for all of these inordinate cravings is satisfaction in Christ. And again, friend, it really disturbs me. I did an episode with my friend Aaron Todd on the probably a year ago now. It's a false dichotomy to say you have to crave Jesus, not crave food.

Heather Creekmore [00:34:25]:

I hope you go back and listen to those episodes, right? It's a false dichotomy because your body needs food and physiologically if you go without food, you are going to crave food. And there are just different ways we are wired where if you're feeling sick, you crave something that maybe reminds you of home When a time you felt better. Or maybe it's the sick food your mom always made. For me, it was peanut butter and jelly toast. If I stayed home from school, I don't know why I had peanut butter and jelly toast. And so still to this day, peanut butter and jelly toast is kind of a comfort food for me. But this craving I have for peanut butter and jelly toast is not gluttony. Right? It's physiological, but the craving.

Heather Creekmore [00:35:07]:

I have to want you to like me or to obsess over every ounce of food that I eat in the name of not being gluttonous, when the real fear beneath the fear is that my body will change and that you will reject me. Right, friend? That's a different kind of desire. I have inordinate desire to make myself acceptable to you, maybe even to God. Right? Because I think most of us that are trying not to be gluttonous, we believe we're trying not to offend God. But I want you to see it's about so much more than food. It's about your heart. Are you trying to be good enough? Are you trying to earn something that only Jesus could give you through his good gift of grace? That was a free gift and you can't add anything to it. Is that what you're trying to do? Tim Keller closes his sermon on gluttony by describing how redemption works for people who are enslaved to their cravings.

Heather Creekmore [00:36:13]:

And he talks about how the story of Achan is a warning. And really it's a mirror for us. Right. Bible. The Bible is a mirror, is what the book of James teaches us. We're all a little like Achan. We take what's devoted to God and we try to use it to fill our emptiness. We take what we crave, and these become things that we try to hide or protect or maybe even we depend on inordinately.

Heather Creekmore [00:36:39]:

And the tragedy is that the very thing that we think will bring us life, those things we think will.