Introduction
Does your morning cup of Joe glorify God? This is a question I’ve asked myself many times—especially on days when I drank too much, became anxious, or crashed hard an hour later.
As Christians, our lives belong to the Lord not ourselves, so it’s important that we live intentionally and pursue holiness in every area—including our daily habits.
This means we shouldn’t just go through life without considering what God thinks about the things we do, even something as common as having a cup of coffee.
In this post, we’ll explore the potential challenges we face with Caffeine, what the Bible says about your caffeine consumption, and how to practically navigate it in a way that honors God.
Challenges You May Face with Caffeine
Physical Impact:
Caffeine can have an extreme impact on your physical health if you aren’t careful. Things such as inadequate sleep and anxiety can be prevalent with an unhealthy caffeine consumption. Caffeine blocks your adenosine receptors and in doing so it can cause your sleep cycles to be thrown off and lead you to have less quality sleep.
The challenge here is that the less quality sleep you get the more you feel you need caffeine and it can become a vicious cycle. You become dependent on the substance and it’s the only thing that can keep you going.
This can be very challenging because rather than being dependent on God everyday you become dependent on this substance everyday. When you need something other than God to get through the day that thing becomes an idol in your life.
Spiritual Implications:
That brings me to my next point of the spiritual side of caffeine consumption. When we become dependent on anything else besides God, our spiritual health let alone our physical health starts to diminish.
When caffeine goes from being a tool to something we can’t go without it’s become too much and we need to reevaluate how we should use the substance if at all. How much better to get rid of caffeine than to have any kind of feeling of separation from God.
We have to know and understand that God is our rest and our strength and energy. When we place our hope in Him every day to provide us with these things we will flourish. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to cut out caffeine completely, it just means you need to use it with moderation.
What Does The Bible Say?
The Bible is the Word of God. Logos is a Greek word that means word, speech, utterance, or message. In John we are told that Jesus is the Logos—the living Word of God.
So to know what the Lord has said or is saying we must go to the Holy Scriptures–the Bible. And for the current Words of God we must be in relationship with Jesus through His Spirit. For now we will look into the written Words of God and sense what He has to say about caffeine.
While the Bible does not directly mention caffeine, it does address how we should approach substances and shape our character. By exploring biblical principles of self-control and moderation, we can know how to honor God in this area of our lives.
Proverbs 25:16
“If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, lest you have your fill of it and vomit it.”
This Proverb emphasizes the importance of moderation while also giving the consequences of a lack thereof. Applying this proverb to our caffeine consumption can be like, “when you have caffeine you have only enough for you, lest you drink too much and have extreme anxiety.”
What I like about this proverb is that it doesn’t say you are condemned if you eat too much honey, it just tells you that it’s a vile consequence. It’s an exhortation from our loving Father not to over indulge not because he wants to keep us from pleasure, but He wants to keep us from the danger of lack of self control.
Proverbs 25:28
“A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.”
Our next verse is also found in proverbs. This proverb shows us the vulnerability of a lack of self-control. When we can’t control ourselves and our urges, we become vulnerable to the enemy coming in and plundering and pillaging. We must have healthy boundaries for ourselves or else we will be ravaged and left without any walls or restraints.
If you can’t have boundaries with caffeine where else might you be over indulging? Are you also being overtaken by other desires? Do you have boundaries with food? Or with sugar? With video games?
Philippians 4:5
“Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand.”
The Apostle Paul is exhorting us here to be reasonable, self controlled, moderate, and wise in everything we do. When our lives are full of reasonableness everyone will see and glorify God. Whether in this life or in the judgment, man will see our reasonableness and glorify Him.
We must constantly know and understand that our lives are not our own when we are in Christ. We are His completely and He is our Lord. This is the most amazing reality! He is the best Lord you could ever have!
This means that when we drink coffee we must be doing it with His best interest in mind and not our own. Are we representing Him well when we overindulge in this substance or any for that matter? Let’s do all things to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 6:12
“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.”
Paul is not saying here that everything is lawful for us. He is saying that this is what many were trying to say to make an excuse for their sinful ways. They wanted to say that because they were in Christ and Christ came to give us freedom that everything had become okay for them to do.
In this chapter of 1st Corinthians Paul tells us that our bodies as well as our souls are Christs. Therefore to honor God we must present our bodies to Him as holy and acceptable and pure. And this is not a hard task as some may say because Christ’s Spirit helps you all the way.
Another important takeaway from this verse is that he says he will not be dominated by anything. We must not let our liberty in Jesus become a way for us to be dominated by sin. That’s the opposite of what Christ paid for!
Galatians 5:22-24
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
What a beautiful and packed verse! As you may have guessed though we are going to hone in on self-control. We must understand that self control is not just something we conquer up on our own ability. It’s a fruit of the Holy Spirit!
When we are in communion with Him and are full of His love the fruit of that is self control. It becomes something we don’t even have to think about because His love compels us. The latter half of the verse tells us that our flesh has been crucified with Christ, that is our sin nature has been crucified with Him. We no longer live for our passion and desires but for His!
Moderation is the key to Healthy Caffeine consumption. These verses beautifully show us the importance of it and how we can live it out. With help of Holy Spirit and intentional reliance on Him we can not only drink caffeine moderately but have self control in every area of our lives.
Practical Steps for Mindful Caffeine Consumption
Evaluate Your Habits:
The first step to having mindful and God centered caffeine consumption is evaluating your current situation. Look at your current habits with caffeine and see what your intentions are behind it. Ask yourself why you consume it. Ask God to search your heart and reveal to you if there are any wrong motives behind it.
Take a moment to pray and write down what God reveals to you. Mindfully consider what your intentions and motives are and ask God if there is anything He wants you to change.
Practice Moderation:
We talked about moderation and its biblical backing but how can you actually do it? Here are a few practical things you can do to start being moderate.
- When the urge to drink caffeine comes, take a moment and ask yourself if you want it because you need it, or because it will be beneficial.
- Don’t drink caffeine past 2pm or 10-12 hours before bed.
- Limit your intake to 400 mg or less per day. That’s 4-5 cups of coffee, 6 shots of espresso, or two energy drinks. Make sure to find out your personal limits and go from there.
- Ask someone to keep you accountable.
- Ask God. Maybe God only wants you to have one cup of coffee. Or only to drink tea. Or maybe He’s totally okay with where you’re at now. Always keep God in the process.
Some Energy Alternatives:
If you want some other alternatives for energy boosts here are a few;
- Take a nap
- Exercise; Go for a walk, ride a bike, do some pushups, go to the gym etc. Believe it or not, exercise actually gives you more energy!
- Take a cold shower. I know it sounds crazy but the science is overwhelmingly good!
- Go in the sauna
- Drink some electrolytes. You may just be dehydrated.
- Pray and worship and read the Word. When we commune with God is where we gain the truest, most real energy.
Embracing Grace and Balance
Caffeine itself as a substance is not inherently bad or good. Just like anything it has a purpose when used the way God created it to be used.
So its not about caffeine itself being sinful. It’s about the intention of your heart and your relationship with God. I say this to encourage you not to become legalistic and be super strict and hard on yourself.
The goal of this post is not to distract you with another thing to worry about, but rather to give your attention more to God. So please remember through this process that He is the prize.
To know Him more and more is the goal. Remember that we are free in Christ. But this doesn’t mean we use our freedom as an opportunity for the flesh(Gal 5:13). We are free to live righteous and holy lives before God. We are free to be in relationship with Him.
Personal testimony
“I used to rely heavily on caffeine, but God convicted me to surrender it to Him. He showed me that He doesn’t want to take anything away from me, He wants to give me something better.
He taught me the importance of trusting and obeying Him. If you want to know more about my full journey of breaking free from caffeine dependence you can find my full testimony here.
Conclusion
We must honor God in every area of our lives, and that includes the small things we do every day. He is our energy, He is our strength, our comfort, our Joy, our life, our Lord. Let us honor Him and seek diligently to be with Him and not let anything take the place of knowing Him.
Take a moment if you haven’t already and evaluate your caffeine habits. Ask God what He thinks and obey His voice without a second thought, because you know what He says is going to be the best thing for you.
Share your experiences with me. I’d love to hear what God is doing in your life and what He is telling you about caffeine! Message me with any questions or testimonies! Thank you for reading and I hope you learned something.
Check out my last post for more of an in depth look at caffeine, what it is and what you need to know.
References
- Mayo Clinic. (n.d.). Caffeine: How much is too much? Retrieved from https://www.mayoclinic.org.
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2018). Spilling the beans: How much caffeine is too much? Retrieved from https://www.fda.gov.
- Got Questions Ministries. (n.d.). What does the Bible say about moderation? Retrieved from https://www.gotquestions.org.
- English Standard Version Bible. (2001). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.