So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

– 2 Timothy 2:22

Food is essential. We have to have nourishment if we want to operate correctly from a biochemical and physiological standpoint. But food is much more than simply an obligatory necessity. We also take pleasure in food. With all the different flavors, we develop preferences and cravings that bring a factor of satisfaction. In addition to that, meal time has a social and community aspect that all cultures partake in. We eat to celebrate, we eat when we are stressed and we eat when we need comfort. 

For restaurant chains, advertising their food is essential for their business. They take every part of the eating experience and use it for their marketing purposes. It seems like you can’t go through a commercial break without at least one of the advertisements being for food and most likely it’s cheaper and less quality fare.

As with most corporate advertising, the food you see on the commercials is never an accurate representation of what you actually get. Sure it may look good, however your past experiences always speak louder. Technology has yet created an accurate way to present a good product. You cannot smell, let alone taste the food through your screen. However, it is meant to entice your tastebuds and need for community to the point that your hunger overrides those past experiences.

But then something odd happens. There is a shift in how you process the food commercials. Instead of longing for their food and how good you think it will taste, you start thinking about how disappointing it actually is and how badly it would make you feel.

Temptation for the mature Christian works in a similar way. Temptation to sin is advertised and displayed all around us. It’s enticing because our human sin nature seeks, even craves the depravity of the perverted world. On top of that, like the commercials pitching substandard food, the temptation of sin never stacks up the actual engagement. The truth is, sin will always let you down and leave you empty, regretting those decisions.

When we seek righteousness and a Christ honoring life, we come to the realization that how good we think the sin would make us feel, we have a deeper Holy Spirit inspired understanding of how negative the results would be. 

In Paul’s second letter to Timothy, he conveys this principle of Christian maturity. So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace. Don’t fall for the false promises of this world. Be careful with what the culture is pitching you, because the outcome   will never live up to the hype. Quite the contrary. The world can only offer a weak counterfeit of those things that only God can bring into our lives. 

Like the steaming pieces of pizza we see smiling people enjoying on a commercial, we come to the reality that the food not only disappoints us, it also gives little satisfaction. Add to the detrimental effect of low quality food and hopefully a lesson has been learned. How we look at and treat sin and temptation in our life should be no different. We must never forget our last experience with sin. The reality of the emptiness, disgust and remorse should be powerful reminders that draw us back to the righteousness of the Lord.