Since the devil is the ‘father of lies’ it stands to reason that he not only hates the truth (for the truth is not in him) but also hates balance.

I love this apocryphal story I once heard about how Satan was walking along the road one day with a junior cohort who happened to see a piece of paper lying in the gutter.  Picking it up, the paper was seen to contain a verse of Scripture.  The junior devil was horrified over the find but Satan was dismissive.. ‘Aren’t you concerned about men finding this?’ asked the junior devil. ‘Not at all, was Satan’s reply. ‘We’ll just make sure that they make a doctrine out of it.!’

If the devil cannot keep us from the truth he will endeavour to make sure that one of three things happen: that we only hear part of it; that we take words out of context so that the true meaning is twisted or that what we hear isn’t actually what is said or written but a close corruption of it. This happened to Jesus all the time.  From the standpoint of the Scribes and Pharisees He not only broke the Law personally, but allegedly taught people contrary to the Law and the Prophets and was going to destroy the Temple and build it again in three days! This misrepresentation of the truth cost Him His life.

So I guess I am in good company when I read on a book review posted on Amazon that Sue Prosser exists on one meal a day plus a small apple and says it’s alright to eat hydrogenated fat so long as your cholesterol levels aren’t high! If you can find those statements in my book let me know, but I promise you, you won’t! What I do say is that whilst I was discovering what amount of food my body needed I found that I only needed three good meals over two days and that other than that I just needed a small piece of fruit to see me through. I went on to say that since I didn’t want to continue eating in this way I adjusted my intake to allow me to eat three smaller meals a day. And as regards the hydrogenated fat, I actually believe this is the WORST kind of fat to use and haven’t bought any for five years (since I lost my weight) What I do say is that I enjoy the taste of butter (a saturated fat) and since my cholesterol levels are fine I can continue to use it, sparingly.  Butter is not an hydrogenated fat! In reality, since I generally only use butter on toast and go through half a loaf of bread in a fortnight, this amounts to less than half a pound a month – an average of  a quarter of an ounce or less than 60 calories a day!

Freedom does not mean license.  We do not use our freedom as an occasion for the flesh.  God forbid! Our aim is to have a Spirit-controlled appetite and this is achieved by yielding to the Holy Spirit, not by fleshly self-effort to stick to man-made rules. I do not teach that we can eat what we like and to hell with common sense! Neither do I advocate a stringent ‘rule’ of ‘thou salt not eat until thou art starving.’ The principle reason for eating is to satisfy physiological hunger, is it not? Therefore we make it a ‘principle’ (not a rule) to wait until we are physiologically hungry before we eat. 

‘All things are permissible, but not all things are helpful’ (1 Corinthians 6:12) This is a balance between freedom and responsibility.  If we can truly get this under our belts we shall not go far wrong.