Growing up in the South in the ’80s and ’90s, Little Debbie cakes were as much a household staple as sweet tea and pot roast – possibly more so. Mom wouldn’t dare leave Food World or Piggly Wiggly without a couple boxes. Our pantry staples rotated like clockwork: fudge rounds, oatmeal cream pies, nutty buddies, and zebra cakes. I was addicted to Swiss rolls in college. My grandparents, meanwhile, always ate raisin cream pies. I still get the heebs remembering them gum those things down before bed without their dentures in.
Y’all remember that? Seeing your grandparents without their dentures? Haunting.
As a doctor, I can now officially say Little Debbie cakes are bad for you. They taste great, but they are horrible for your health – especially if you’re diabetic. About 10 years ago, I had a farmer come in for a routine diabetic follow-up. You wouldn’t know it by looking at him, but he was one of the unhealthiest patients I had. He wasn’t particularly overweight, and he didn’t have obvious physical ailments, but internally every organ system was “cooked” (as the kids say). He was functioning with about 25% kidney, heart and lung capacity. His blood vessels were coated in lard and tobacco.
His diabetes was continually and gloriously uncontrolled. His A1C stayed around 11.5%, which translates to an average blood sugar of 283. Normal is 70 to 99. Honestly, it was amazing he still had both feet. As I fussed at him about his diet and sedentary lifestyle, he looked at me and said something I’ve never forgotten:
“Doc, that whore Little Debbie has been hanging around the corner gas station, and she’s cheaper than ever. God help me, I just can’t help myself.”
I just can’t help myself.
That admission has stayed with me for years because, in many ways, it describes the human condition. “[F]or all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 3:23, noting later in Romans 5:12 that “death spread to all men, because all sinned.” Scripture leaves no room for the idea that mankind is basically good with a little brokenness sprinkled in. We aren’t merely flawed people who occasionally make mistakes. We are born into sinful flesh, spiritually dead apart from Christ.
Paul says of this natural condition in Ephesians 2 that we are “dead in trespasses and sins” and “without hope and without God in the world.” Dead, y’all. It doesn’t take a medical degree to know dead men don’t rescue themselves. They don’t pull themselves up by their bootstraps. They stay dead unless acted upon by an outside Force.
That is why the resurrection matters so deeply.
In the weeks following Easter, we remember that Jesus proved His authority over sin and death through His resurrection. And that gives unfathomable hope to people like us. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),” Ephesians 2:4-5 says.
We aren’t people who clean ourselves up enough for God to accept us. God Himself, through Christ, stepped into the deadly filth of our sin and breathed life into spiritually dead people.
Salvation is not self-improvement. It is resurrection.
Man’s inability to save himself becomes more obvious by the day. A casual glance at the news reminds us that humanity left to itself rebels against God in mind, heart and body. Whether it’s the drama of Goat Hill or the wickedness paraded around by the World Economic Forum, something is clearly broken. Politics, intellect, money and technology cannot fix what is fundamentally a spiritual problem. Only Christ can.
It’s Christ or chaos. There is no third option.
So the next time you feel yourself enticed by sinful desires – whether pride, lust, greed, anger, enslavement (even to Little Debbie cakes) – remember this: Sin is not something we casually manage through sheer willpower. Left to ourselves, we all eventually say the same thing that old farmer confessed: “I just can’t help myself.”
And that is precisely why grace is such good news.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast,” Ephesians 2:8-9 says. God did not merely make salvation possible and then wait for us to figure the rest out. By grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, He saves sinners.
In the shadow of the empty tomb, Christians should never forget this truth: every one of us falls short of God’s glory, and every one of us who belongs to Christ has been rescued entirely by His mercy and electing grace.
And unless you enjoy raisin cream pies, that hope is available to all who would call Christ “Lord.”
Andrew is an internal medicine physician in Scottsboro, Ala. God has blessed him with a wonderful wife and two awesome sons. He has a special interest in Reformed theology and cultural apologetics.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News.
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