Change is often difficult and the most difficult part is taking the first step to change. I have been really thinking about and wondering why it is that change is so difficult. I know in my heart that I desire to be able to love people the way the Bible instructs for me to do.
I know that if I don’t stop thinking toxic negative thoughts about myself and allowing that negativity to overflow into how I treat others, that I am more susceptible to a stroke and a heart attack. I know that if I do not stretch everyday, I am going to have a stiff neck and shoulders and I am setting the preliminary groundwork for someday being diagnosed with osteoporosis or arthritis. I know that if I do not lift weights and strength train my muscles; I will have flabby atrophied muscles and someday be diagnosed with a degenerative disease.
I know that if I eat hydrogenated processed fast food, I will have an arm length of diseases from dry skin, headaches and allergies to high blood pressure, obesity and early death.
Most importantly I know that if I do not spend time praying, studying, listening to God’s decrees but instead try to depend on my own emotions for everyday wisdom, I will be very sick spiritually.
What makes me decide one day that I have had enough of the unrighteous living and decide to live righteously…doing the right things to become whole physically, mentally and spiritually?
What does it take? What will it take for me to change?
One of the questions on the homework was about correction.
Proverbs 3:11 My daughter, do not despise the chastening (correction, discipline, punishment) of the Lord, nor detest (hate) His correction; For whom the Lord loves He corrects, just as a father the daughter in whom he delights.
Think this through with me. When I first started thinking about whether or not the Lord had corrected me, I boastfully thought, “I haven’t done anything wrong”. I am the teacher! Just kidding, but started realizing that the Lord is disciplining me all the time.
Here are some possible examples.
- If I have tenseness in my neck, shooting pain up my arms, legs and back, I know it is the Lord’s way of disciplining me for not taking the time to stretch. This correction is necessary so that I will take action or more physical problems will occur.
- If I do not drink enough water and thoroughly hydrate my body, I believe the Lord corrects me by giving me a headache or dry skin or wrinkles as a means of telling me that if I don’t take action and drink sufficient amounts of water, more physical problems are going to occur.
I know that if I say unkind words to someone; lash out at someone because they hurt my feelings…I believe God corrects me by having someone lash out at me. Or whatever I do wrong, it is inevitable that the exact same thing will turn around and happen to me. It is God’s loving correction!
If I repeatedly eat food that satisfy nothing but my fleshly appetite instead of eating food that is alive and created by God to nourish and sustain my body, God will discipline me with obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, arthritis, …many, many things.
I know that if I do not pray, God disciplines me with my life being out of balance. If I do not study the word of God, I revert back to Joanie’s ways, if I do not read the word of God, I fill my mind with what the world has to offer and God disciplines me by my life going down into the pit of depression.
God gives me a choice. I can pay attention to His correction and immediately stop doing whatever it is that is causing the imbalance in my life or I can continue making excuses, medicating myself with the world’s methods, and never ever getting better.
I am choosing to change. I am choosing God’s way.
Will you take a moment to silence your mind, shut it off! Enter the outer courts of the temple as you visualize your body as the temple of the living God.
I want to pray our theme verse (1 Thess 5:23, 24) over you. Please reach out and grab the hand of someone beside you.
Close your eyes and put all the distractions of the world (everything that lies outside the temple) aside as we pray. This will take you into the presence of God.
Remember your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, a living sanctuary, pure and holy, therefore we are to honor God with our body. We are learning to treat our bodies with honor and respect because we are not our own, we were bought with a price. Each day we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God. We are the sacrifice. How often are we to die to our sinful self? Daily. 1 Cor 15:31
Sing along with the song, “Sanctuary”, as we enter the outer courts of His Temple, our body.
Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true, with thanksgiving I’ll be a living, sanctuary for you.
Repeat after me:
Our Father of peace, it is me your servant. I bow before you with tears of gratitude for choosing me among the multitudes to be sanctified, to be set apart, for one reason and that is to fulfill your purpose. Now I honor you by setting my whole spirit, my whole soul and my whole body aside for You only and my desire is that each part of me will be blameless, without any willful sin in my life. I forgive myself and I forgive those who have harmed me in the past. I believe you are faithful, and you will carry me through the frightening thought of breaking free from this prison cell that I have remained in for so long. I believe Jesus set me free, now I choose to live as a free woman. I give the control over to you, my Creator, my redeemer, my King.
I believe in the Holy Spirit’s power within me to change me from the inside out.
"So if the Son makes me free, I will be free indeed. No turning back. (John 8:36)
Give God the praise!
Through Jesus we pray, Amen
Change! This is what we are committed to do.
I want to teach you more about the outer and inner courts of the temple before we begin Chapter 3 of Proverbs.
We have learned that the temple that Solomon built, used to be the dwelling place of God’s Spirit, but now our bodies are the dwelling place of God. Solomon’s Temple is a model or a blueprint of a believer who has the Holy Spirit in them.
The Jews believed that the temple was the place where God dwelt, where he revealed His character to them. As Christians our whole purpose for being alive is to reveal the character of Christ to the unbeliever.
You hear this saying all the time: It is not about me…and indeed it is not. It is about revealing the character of Christ to the unbeliever. How do we do this? We do it by becoming whole spiritually, mentally and physically.
It is important to know why we compare our bodies to the temple that Solomon built verses the other temples. Solomon’s temple was the only one in which God’s Spirit dwelt permanently until it was destroyed by the Babylonians. With all the other temples, God’s spirit would leave the temple whenever the Israelites were disobedient.
How does that parallel to us? God’s Spirit dwells permanently in us until we die. That is why it is crucial to comprehend the magnitude of this honor and responsibility of taking care of our body.
We are God’s temple. When we became a born again believer, God came to permanently reside within us. We are not our own. Therefore, we are decreed to honor God with our body.
Read 1 Kings 5, 6 and see if you can come up with more parallels.
Spiritual Healing
Proverbs Chapter 3
Turn to 2 Corinthians 6:16 (The Everyday Bible)
This verse describes what it is we are striving for as we learn from life’s instructional book of Proverbs
Listen as I read:
We do not want anyone to find fault with our work (lives), so nothing we do will be a problem for anyone. 4But in every way we show we are servants of God; in accepting many hard things, in troubles, in difficulties, and in great problems. 5We are beaten and thrown into prison. We meet those who become upset with us and start riots. We work hard, and sometimes we get no sleep or food. 6We show we are servants of God by our pure lives, our understanding, patience, and kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by true love, by speaking the truth, and by God’s power. We use our right living to defend ourselves against everything. 8 Some people honor us, but others blame us. Some people say evil things about us, but others say good things. Some people say we are liars, but we speak the truth. 9We are not known, but we are well known. We seem to be dying, but we continue to live. We are punished, but we are not killed. 10 We have much sadness, but we are always rejoicing. We are poor, but we are making many people rich in faith. We have nothing, but really we have everything!
Spiritually we heal by putting God’s decrees into action in our life. And that is what we are doing with the book of Proverbs. Reading our instruction manual and putting it into action. The key is: putting it into action.
Before we discuss the homework, let’s answer a few questions.
What are some of the practical benefits of wisdom? Vs 2
1. Lack of anxiety, 2. peace to the soul, 3. and vigorous physical health!
2. vs 6 Direct means: to smooth, straight, right….direct your paths…how? By removing obstacles that are in the way. Obstacles along “the way”!!!! What are some of the obstacles (darkness) that are in your way from becoming the woman God created you to be.
3. 3:1-12 lists commands in the odd-numbered verses and the blessings that come from obedience in the even-numbered verses.
What are the commands? Trust God; lean not to our own understanding; and acknowledge His leadership. If we follow those commands, he will then direct us. Funny how we continue to be the actress and the director of our own show (life) and expect blessings.
What are the blessings? Longevity; exemplary reputation; God’s guidance; physical well-being; prosperity; discipline.
I had to ask myself? Am I following His commands? Am I reaper the blessings He wants to give me if I were obedient?
Mental Healing
Do Not look back. We are pressing
How are we doing mentally? Who ticked me off today? Did I blame someone or something on the way I acted today? Did I become angry at someone because they didn’t meet my expectations? I am sensitive to the words of other. Am I clinging to something I did in the past and will not forgive myself for it? Am I making mountains out of molehills because I refuse to be wrong or because I just want it my way? Am I looking for everything right or am I looking for everything wrong? Am I discontent with my current situation? Do I wish I could erase what happened yesterday or something I did or said today?
Why were these questions so easy for me to write? It is because I wrote down how I think. I know my thoughts/mind are not pleasing and acceptable to God and I need to know what that looks like.
I need to change my thoughts. They are toxic to my physical body as well as my spirit.
In fact, when it comes to discussing this portion of my body/temple, I feel like a complete hypocrite. It is easy for me not to eat hydrogenated food or candy bars or Big Macs so I can’t understand why it is so hard for someone to stop destroying their temple with food.
But it sure is not easy for me to admit that I am a mess mentally. That is why one cannot be whole spiritually, mentally and physically unless all three of those areas are healed.
Help!
There is a whole lot of toxic thinking that goes on in my mind and I want to be healed. The reason I call it toxic is because it is not pure. It is harmful not only to my physical condition (toxic thoughts do cause physical diseases) but I am also harming other people.
Not to mention that I am not showing Jesus to a lost world.
It is so freeing to know that God’s mercies are new every morning because people’s aren’t. My mercies toward myself aren’t. Praise God that his are.
Psalm 94:19 And when I was burdened with worries, you comforted me and made me feel secure.
Ps 118:5 When I was really hurting, I prayed to the LORD. He answered my prayer, and took my worries away.
This is an amazing verse:
Luke 9:62 But Jesus told him, "Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.
What is that verse saying? When we began this class we began plowing/clearing your path (the Way) of all the debris (roughness), rocks (hardness), and roots (past) and Jesus is saying to us…don’t look back. If you live in the past you are not “fit” for the Kingdom of God.
Oh this is so good! How much effort have I put into plowing my field spiritually, mentally and physically since this class began? Did I plow the first week and stop because I grew weary of plowing? Jesus said, you are not fit for the Kingdom of Heaven and He’s right!
How does one get fit? We have to plow daily. We cannot let the heat of the day stop us from continuing to plow.
For me the heat has been on for me mentally this week and I know that I need to work extremely hard on my mental fitness. “FIT” I chose to go back and react to the heat with the same lousy emotional reactions that I always do.
I am hearing and listening and reading and studying the Word and desiring to be a mentally healthy godly woman, but Jesus said:
Lu 6:42 Or how can you say to your sister, 'Sister, let me remove the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother's eye.
Like I said, it is very easy for me not to eat harmful food. I have studied and studied and studied about what harmful food does to your body and I have put that into action. That is easy!
But God corrected me while I was preparing for this lesson by allowing someone in very close to me do something that totally ticked me off and through me into a unfit mental condition that was stupid.
Reread Luke 9:62. But Jesus told him, "Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.
Every day I live a twenty-four hour day. Every day my path is twenty-four hours long. During that day I can choose to plow my field (life’s journey) and dig up those weeds that are taking over my path (life) by the root system or I can continue to pick the weeds/rocks/debris only from the surface…a temporary fix…making me look pretty for a little while from the surface (outer courts of my temple)…a day or two but not permanent change. I want those ugly, long, deep, nasty weeds out of my life.
I had a person write the following statement about me.
tell her that God is about to do a shifting in her life...he is going down to the depths of her soul and uprooting roots of baggage from the past that have kept her captive in unhealthy emotions...he is shifting her to a new place with him when it is done. you cant put new wine in old wine skins.
I would like to say, “Yep, she is right. I am sick and tired of being a mess mentally and I am ready for Him to go into the trenches of my soul and uproot all those weeds. But are those just words?
Look at Proverbs 3:12
For whom the Lord loves He corrects, just as a father and son in whom he delights.
Is this about me telling you I am not all-together! Partly. Is this about me telling you that I need God’s help in changing just as much as you do! Absolutely.
We are here for each other.
Kim Hill’s song turned into a prayer: I’m ready to stop running, let myself be caught. Stop pretending let myself be known. I’m ready to stop hiding let myself be found, held safe and sound, in Your loving arms.
So hold me close in Your arms of mercy. Look inside, show me what You see. Touch my life, and I will stop my searching, And find that place in You, that waits for me.
Whatever I held onto, I’m ready to let go. Burn my bridges, and dance within the flames. All of my wrong choices have lead my heart back home…to the love that swallows up my pain. I can see You’ve been there all along. You’ve reached into my recklessness and filled me with your song.
Physical Healing
Proverbs 3:11, 12 My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, Nor detest His correction; 12 For whom the Lord loves He correct, Just as a father the son in whom he delights.
This may be very different from what you are used to hearing, but think about this: Like we talked about earlier, is disease God’s correction?
Ever wonder if colon cancer could be a form of God’s correction caused by holding on to something, refusing to let go, fear of letting go?
Could uterine cancer or other female diseases be the result of the sins of our fathers or any man who sexually molested us or emotionally abused us in our lives. Could herpes be an indicator of our own sin? Before becoming a Christian, I made sinful choices that I am definitely ashamed about, and I had to accept the forgiveness of the blood of Jesus or I could have allowed Satan to mentally tell me what a despicable person I was.
Could heart attacks be the result of years of having your heart emotionally broken?
I believe there are three different ways a person “ends up with” a disease.
1. Mentally through repetitive negative thoughts that you tell yourself or negative thoughts that someone else says to you.
2. Physically through repetitive negative energy from food created through the greed of man verses live giving energy from food created specifically for our body by God.
3. spiritually – continually living for self and not for God.
Many would add genetic to this and yes I believe in genetic diseases. I also believe that ones genes have also been used as a crutch or excuse for not properly caring for your body, the temple of the Holy Spirit. This is one of those areas where we have believed we could do nothing about our health because it was genetic. High cholesterol could possibly be caused by the body’s over production of cholesterol, but let’s look at some other possibilities.
In order to understand what is causing elevated cholesterol levels, we must understand what cholesterol is and understand fats, because some fats are vital for healthy body functioning. Fat slows the release of sugar into your bloodstream, helping to sustain energy. Fat is necessary for the absorption of vitamins A, E, D, and K, and beta-carotene, and for the formation of all cell membranes.
High Cholesterol: a condition in which there is unhealthy high levels of cholesterol in the blood. It is also called dyslipidemia, hyperlipidemia, and lipid disorder.
The dangerous level for Total Cholesterol is above 240, with the HDL being below 35 and the LDL 160 and higher. Borderline is 200-239, and desirable less than 200. Triglycerides which is another fat that circulate around in your bloodstream must also be low. Your triglyceride level should be below 200.
There are tons of articles about reducing your cholesterol and how to do it.
In Scripture God gave strict orders about the kind of fat that can be eaten by his people. This mostly pertains to the hard fat around the organs of beef, lamb, sheep, goat, and pigs, (Lev 3:14-17) There are fats that are good for you and fats that are bad. The fat that God told his people to stay away from is the same fat that today’s scientists say you shouldn’t eat.
God instructed the Israelites to burn the fat that surrounded the organs like a cushion and the fat that was inside the body cavity of the animals, as a food offering to him. This fat, referred to in the passage from Leviticus, is the same fat that is used make lard. It is very hard fat and is the major animal fat that is known to cause a lot of health problems. Hard fat is very difficult to digest.
Shortening is made of vegetable oil that has hydrogen added to mimic this hard fat. Shortening or hydrogenated fat is also hard to digest and can turn to fat in or on your body, which is true for any hydrogenated fat products like margarine and many processed foods. The most common place to get this hard fat is from pigs.
What will help? In the US, 75% of all deaths are related to excessive consumption of fat, sugar, and salt.
The problem is we are eating the wrong fats, because fat is necessary for health.
Here is a list of the fats that must be eliminated from your diet:
Hydrogenated Oil – read labels carefully. Hydrogenated oil is oil with hydrogen shot into it. Why put hydrogen in the oil? Shelf life. It allows a cracker to live on the shelf indefinitely. Hydrogenated fats work like plastic in the body. They are toxic and impossible to digest. So where does that fat end up? In your veins, around your waist, on your thighs.
When it ends up in your veins, the blood cannot flow through them causing high cholesterol levels in the blood and usually high blood pressure as well. Eventually this leads to a stroke and a heart attack.
When all the fat free diet craze was in full force, people gained more weight because all the fat free foods contained more sugar and salt to make the cookie taste good. And people thought, since there was no fat in the cookie, they could eat 10 cookies instead of two cookies. Or a gallon of fat free ice cream instead of a cup.
But the problem is since the body still needs good fat for the reasons mentioned above, it will still crave fat. It is telling you to feed me fat. Again, trying to eat fat free is setting you up for failure.
Eat the fat that God created for your body and your body will be satisfied.
Ezekiel 39:19 At the sacrifice I am preparing for you, you will eat fat till you are glutted and drink blood till you are drunk.
The best way to cut back your cholesterol level is to cut back on your fat intake. There are other things that could be causing the cholesterol to be high, and we’ll discuss those in a minute.
It is so important to know what is in your food. If you eat out a lot, you have no control over what you are eating and this is very dangerous. If you eat Fritos scoops, you may think you are eating healthy corn, when in fact you are eating harmful fat. Because 50 – 60% of the calories in corn chips and potato chips are from fat. Over 90% of the calories in salad dressing are from fat. In fact, the main source of fat in the American woman’s diet is now salad dressing. Ice cream is over 50% fat. Bacon is more than 75% fat. Almost any piece of beef is more than 50% fat. And most bakery products are loaded with hidden fat.
But they taste good! Trust me, they are killing you.
The next thing you have to cut back on is sugar. Since your body can manufacture triglycerides from sugar, a diet high in simple carbohydrates (refined white flour, table sugar, processed refined products) also raises your cholesterol level.
What was principle #1? Eat the foods God created and not man. Once we listen to God’s decrees, we will get well. (Along with healing mentally and spiritually). I never promised it would be easy!
All alcohol is straight sugar to the bloodstream. Eliminate it.
Limit animal products, particularly egg yolks, liver, or other organ meats. One egg yolk has 213 milligrams of cholesterol if we are allowed 300 milligrams for the day; don’t even think of eating breakfast at Denny’s!
There is a lot of saturated fat in meat which is another reason God decreed that our basic diet should be from plants and not animals.
What to do?
- Trade whole milk for organic skim milk or Eden soy milk extra.
- Trade ice cream for nothing. Just don’t eat it.
- Start eating salads with flax seed oil and spices. Dressing recipes included.
- Toss vegetables with flax seed oil and Bragg’s Liquid Aminos or organic Eden Soy Sauce. Sesame seeds and Sea Salt along with other spices of your choice.
- Vinegar (to include Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing) is not always a good choice because it makes our bodies acidic. Vinegar can be poison to some, and healthful to others.
- Steam vegetables in water, not oil.
- Limit meat, instead eat cold water wild caught fish which is high in Omega 3 – 6 essential fatty acids. This includes salmon, herring, tuna and sardines. Never buy farm raised fish. It is fed hormones. Walmart has inexpensive frozen wild caught fish. Look out for other additives.
- Eat more vegetarian meals. When you do eat meat, cut all visible fat off and steam it so the fat drips off. There are so many delicious recipes available now online.
- Substitute soy products whenever meat is suggested in a recipe. Soy crumbles, tofu, tempeh, textured vegetable protein (tvp) are excellent substitutes.
- When you use fat, choose unrefined, first cold pressed, organic olive oil, canola oil which are polyunsaturated oils. Corn, sunflower and soybean oil contain mostly polyunsaturated oils, which lowers your LDL.
- Butter should be a treat, and not used all the time. Margarine if forbidden for it is harmful. It contains trans fats which raise cholesterol levels. A better choice is olive oil (a little) on the bread or potato.
- Cover your toast with almond butter or organic jelly. (Check sugar content in the jelly).
- Beans (Pinto, kidney, navy and white beans and lentils contain generous amounts of soluble fiber which lowers blood cholesterol)
- Start the day with oatmeal and oat bran which contains beta-glucan.
- It goes without saying that eating a wide range of vegetables that are God created for you will decrease your LDL level.
- Eat garlic. And lots of it.
If you wish to have copies of handouts, please contact rosieskye@hotmail.com.
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