Of the making of diets, there is no end. New diets are constantly appearing, and almost all of them create some ripple. They are guaranteed to give us victory in our perpetual battle of the bulge.
One of the new diets is the Garlic Diet. It doesn’t actually make you lose weight, but it makes people stand farther away from you so that you look smaller. Then, there is the Italian Pasta Diet. On this diet, you hafta walk pasta de pie, you hafta walk pasta de candy, pasta de ice cream, etc.
Another diet is the Running in Place Diet. You don’t run in place on a treadmill; you run in place of eating. Then, there is the Religious Diet. On this diet, you never eat while you are in church. Another very popular diet is called the World’s Easiest Diet. On this diet you can eat as much as you want to eat as often as you want to eat. You don’t lose any weight on this diet, but it is real easy to stay on.
I heard of one man who was on the Alternate Day Diet. He explained that on this diet you eat all that you want to eat on one day, and then you don’t eat anything the next day. A friend asked him, “How do you feel?” He said, “Every other day I feel great.”
Sometimes it seems to me that we are on the Alternate Day Diet with our faith. One day we are committed and involved, and then we take the next day off. One day we’re high, and the next day we’re low. One day we have the faith to move mountains, and the next day our faith is almost non-existent.
One of the crying needs in our Christian life is for greater consistency and steadiness. The great old social reformer Walter Rauschenbusch said, “A tank of gasoline can blow a car sky-high in a single explosion, or it can push it to the top of a hill in a perpetual succession of little explosions.” Some have an occasional explosion of religion in their lives, but what is lacking is the daily succession of little explosions that help them make genuine progress in their faith.
Vance Havner bemoaned the tendency of some to make big beginnings, but then to fizzle out along the way. He said, “Some converts go up like a rocket and come down like a rock. They start with a fever, and they end with a chill.” The Bible has accounts of some like Judas and Demas who made great beginnings but did not stay with their commitments to Christ.
Jesus once invited persons to take up their cross daily and follow Him. We need a new diet of daily Christianity.
One man bemoaned the ineffectiveness of his diet. He said, “I’ve been on a diet three weeks and all that I’ve lost is two pounds and the will to live.” Sounds like he may have been on the Alternate Day Diet. In weight loss as well as in faith, such a diet is highly ineffective. We need to make fresh commitments to Christ to take up our crosses daily and follow Him!
