Gaddabout highlights in a very honest post the silence of many churches today on tobacco. Sadly I believe that too many christians today have turned so-called "grace" into a licence to sin. Yes, I do believe tobacco use is sin- possibly no more serious a sin than serious overeating but a sin none the less. My need to loose weight became a spiritual issue for me earlier this year. Why do many seem to think that tobacco is not spiritual also?

I believe that such thinking shows two errors. Firstly it misunderstands grace as I explained earlier- I do not believe that the "freedom" Paul preached would have included the freedom to become addicted to consuming such quantities of any substance that it poses a threat to the health of your body. Secondly this very notion of certain areas of our lives being somehow unspiritual and not therefore under any direction from the word of God is totally alien to the bible. What I do with my body is directly of spiritual relevance to God. Perhaps it will not affect mz salvation, but even such thinking "o well I can get away with it" worries me. It concerns me that the bible is clear that the true believer will not have such an accomadating attitude to sin. Sure we sin, but we strive and yearn to be free of it not to earn our salvation but to live a life worthy of the calling we have received.

Could it even be that some who persist in smoking are in fact demonstrating outwardly that in fact they have never actually received the true liberation that grace gives- the liberation to present our bodies as a living sacrifice? Sometimes it hurts being a sacrifice, but as I can honestly say from my successful weight loss programme earlier this year, such painful sacrfices are never unassisted nor unrewarded by God.