Recently I was hanging out with a number of good friends and fellow warriors in this great battle.  The topic came up concerning those who 'were dead in their transgressions and sin ... gratifying the desires of [their] sinful natures' from the second chapter of Ephesians.  We began asking just what that looked like, how we saw that lived out in those around us.  Immediately the discussion turned to alcohol, to those who spend their Friday nights drinking away the pain and wake up Saturday morning no different than the night before.  We reminded ourselves of all of the ill effects of excessive drinking, about the social costs, about the shallowness of it all.  Some of our group were teetotalers and some enjoy an occasional drink, but all of us were pretty smug in our recognition of those 'transgressions and sins'.

But then the thought hit me.  What about cheesecake?  With heart disease being the number one killer in America, and obesity hitting epidemic numbers, what about cheesecake?  Surely cheesecake has cost far more in health care dollars, has left many more orphans and widows, has perhaps even produced more self hatred and condemnation than whiskey ever will.  So what about cheesecake?


It's interesting that Jesus was accused of being both a drunkard and a glutton (Matthew 11:19).  Obviously he enjoyed both, and yet he was never 'dead in [his] transgressions and sin'.  I mean, here is a man who for his first supernatural act turns water into wine after the guests had already had more than enough to drink, and who is at this time planning for a great banquet for us all at the end of time. 

OK, now before you start posting comments, let me just say that I am not suggesting that Jesus was a drunkard or a glutton or that he approved of either.  He is in fact the eternal God who has repeatedly warned of both, but I wonder if the issue is really not the use, but rather the mis-use of the things of this earth.  I wonder if the real issue is when the whiskey or the cheesecake or the bridge club becomes a substitute comforter for us rather than the one who died to set us free from slavery to the things of this world.

And if that is true, maybe I would do well to remember my own love for whiskey and cheese cake; and allow my heart rather to break for those who have chosen any lover to take the place of the only one who can love completely.