Health for life

Hello my friends,

It has been a long time since I posted anything here. I am not really sure exactly why... I just lost the desire to go on talking about food and eating. It may have had something to do with my reaction to Kevin Giannis "Great Health Debate" where I listened for seven days in a row to two hours per day of two people per day offering their personal and professional points of view concerning the question of "What should people eat to be healthy?" That was not the "official" question -- that is my interpretation.

One thing I noticed when it was all done was that I was exhausted from listening. It really kind of wore me out. That is not to say that I did not enjoy it. Have you ever done something that was really very interesting but when you were done you just did not want to do anything at all that reminded you of it ever again? That is what it has been like for me. I am even dragging a little to begin to write here today, but I got a response from my friend, Brenda to my post about "mindless" eating and Id like to respond to it.

Here is what she said:



As you can see, Brenda and I are both Christians and that is an extremely important part of both of our lives. Brenda is one of the two ladies who began praying for me to be saved and because of that, she is very dear to my heart. Her faith in Jesus and her encouragement to me have touched me many times.

I have very recently had a very amazing spiritual experience. It is very difficult to put into words because I already know that the feelings and experience I want to share lose something in the translation from experience to description. Ive been trying to explain it to myself as practice and I keep coming up short.  I am not even sure what lead up to it. I can usually tell a pretty good story, but this time it is different. I will plunge in and see where it ends up.

I cannot pinpoint the time, but I think it may have been Sunday afternoon, that the Lord let me have the experience that I shall describe as of not worrying about improving myself. He showed me that I am not here to make me a better person. Life is about the relationship with the Father. Real life runs on a different time and has a different spirit.  For a clear and wonderful few hours I knew what it felt like to not have to strive to make myself better or more acceptable or thinner or more nicely dressed or a better woman or smarter or anything. When that was gone, life was clearly about the relationship with God. I was loved. I simply accepted the life that He provides. It is not about striving with myself. It is about resting in God. I have never felt freedom like that before. It is an entirely different "space." Like none that I have ever noticed before.

Even as it appeared around me I knew it was different immediately. At first I even wondered if I had had a stroke, but I checked and everything was working properly. It was like I had walked into a different dimension -- like going from inside to outside. Inside the air can get stuffy but you dont notice it as stuffy. Youve become accustomed to stuffy and nothing seems wrong with it. But when you open the door on a sunny spring day the air is different. It is fresh. And clean. And pure. It smells good and is very easy to breathe. God was so near. He was the space I walked into and I knew it. I could feel it. I knew He was so close that whatever I said or thought or did, He heard me and He knew me. I did not ever want to leave that space -- and so I prayed that God would keep me there forever. Clearly it was not something that I could accomplish on my own.

Before that happened, last Thursday and Friday I read the book of First John and the Lord gave me a new understanding of what it said -- it in a way that had never been so clear and plain to me before. I also had a conversation with a friend at another friends bridal shower on Saturday night that gave me a glimpse of "life." Sunday night I listened to a young man preach at church that we are never going to be "the perfect person." We are not "improving" and we never will.  There were also a couple of songs at church Sunday night that really touched me -- one with the words that pointed out to me that the blood that saves me is still on the mantle above the door (like the passover in Egypt) -- it will never go away  and I dont have to worry about it. And the words "Jesus, my savior forever" from the song "Victory in Jesus" really spoke to my heart. He is my savior forever. He is still my savior, now. He was my savior before I was born, and will still be my savior after I die. I know that my Redeemer lives!

I listed all these things as a way to try to describe what might have "lead up to" my experience of the relationship with God -- but I dont really know that they "lead up to it." I just know they happened before hand. Id like to share with you what I read in the Bible.

I have read First John before, and even done a study on it where I walked through the verses and wrote down verse by verse what I saw. It has always been a favorite of mine because I think of it as the book of "love." But this time what stood out to me first were a couple of passages that had always been hard for me to understand. This time, the Lord opened them up to my understanding and I clearly knew what John was talking about. Gone were the old interpretations left over from my days in the Mormon church -- they just got in the way and had nothing to do with what was really said in Gods word.

Here they are and what I was shown about them:

1 John 4:1 ¶  Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

From my youth in the Mormon Church I thought this was talking about "ghosts." Like dead people showing up to talk to you (like from the Joseph Smith story). Just goes to show you what can happen when scripture is taken out of context. Even when I had done the study I mentioned previously, my concept of what was being spoken of was only slightly removed from that original erroneous thinking. This time, though, it became perfectly clear that John was not talking about ghostly visitors in the night -- but the people you meet at church. He was talking about the spirit within a man or woman. He is saying that we should fellowship with like minded people -- true believers -- and that we are not to simply to be taken in by people who know the right words but have the wrong spirit about them because they do not know God. We are to test the spirits.

Another verse that got cleared up for me:

1 John 5:6 ¶  This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.

I could never figure out what this verse was saying. I had no idea what "water and blood" and Jesus "coming by them" meant. I had looked in commentaries. I had investigated the origins of the words and it just never really made any sense to me.

This is what God showed me this time. The writer, the Apostle John, sometimes talks about things without actually mentioning the "thing." Kind of reminiscent of a parable but without the little illustrative story. The whole book starts with the word "that" -- and if you read it you find out that the "that" he is talking about is Jesus Christ.

1 John 1:1  That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
2  (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)
3  That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

The verse about the water and the blood is another one of his "third person" examples where he assumes you know precisely what he is talking about so he never fully explains himself. But if you read it in context the water and blood can only be explained as the things that Jesus did.

Water: The most simple and obvious thing in the Christian life that is related to "water" is "baptism." And what is baptism but a rite that we perform to express our faith in Jesus? It is the Christians way of making the statement for all to see that we have placed our faith in Jesus Christ -- a profession of faith. We do it in front of witnesses. So we become a Christian "by water" -- as did Jesus. He started his ministry "by water" or baptism or more accurately, by a public profession of faith in God.

Blood: The blood that Jesus "came by" was his own. He sacrificed His life that we might be reunited with the Father. The word "blood" as it is used here represents Jesus obedience -- or actions.

So to say that Jesus "came by" water and blood -- and then to restate for emphasis -- that he is not talking about water alone, but by both water and blood -- is to say that He came by his profession of faith and by the blood he shed or the work that he did on the cross (faith and works). So we come not by faith alone but by faith and actions based on our faith. Jesus was not followed simply because of what he preached -- but by what he preached and what he did. What we believe and what we do, are of balanced importance.

In that same verse it also talks about "the Spirit" with a capital "S" -- meaning Jesus own Holy Spirit. His Spirit bore the witness of Who He was -- and it is the Spirit of truth. Our spirit will bear the witness to others of who we are in exactly the same way. We can recognize like minded folks by their spirit, by their professions, and by their actions.

Once I understood that verse, the next one also began to make sense to me:

1 John 5:8  And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.
9  If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.
10 ¶  He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.

The verse that was hard for me to understand was verse 8. But this time it became clear to me that what is being said here is that here on the earth we must look at each man to confirm that he has the Spirit of God, the water or profession of faith, and the blood, the works that come from faith -- and these three must agree in one man or woman for us to know they are true believers.

Evidence that this is so comes from the very next verse that talks about "the witness of men."  We listen to what a man says and does, and observe the spirit that he has about him in order to know who the man is. But even if we accept a mans witness the witness of God (the Spirit inside ourselves) is greater.

Then he says "He that believeth on the Son of God has the witness in himself."  Every man who is a man of faith knows within himself who Jesus is and who belongs to Him.  If a man does not believe the record that has been made of Jesus life, he is then calling God a liar. The simple fact that he does not believe the word of God means that he refuses to believe the witness God gave of his own Son.

John then makes his point:

1 John 5:11  And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
12  He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

I have got to tell you that when these passages all finally fit together like a glove and I understood what they meant, by the power of the Holy Spirit, I was shouting and rejoicing in my living room!!  Amen! Praise the Lord!!

The next thing I noticed as I re-read First John was the words "we know." He is talking about the witness that we have inside ourselves. The knowledge that we have by the power of the Holy Spirit. He is encouraging us to hold fast to the teachings that we know are true. Look through the book yourself and begin to circle the words "we know" or "we have known" or "ye know" and you will be amazed how many times they show up. John wrote to encourage us, to help us to stand on what we know, and to do what we know is right.

1 John 5:13  These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
 
If we stand on what we know -- Jesus Christ -- we have eternal life. And if we want others to know Him, too, we must love -- not only in words but in deeds and in truth. Our words and our actions must co-exist in the same space or they are not truth. You cannot have faith in Jesus without obedience to him -- they manifest together. If you have obedience without faith that is useless and will get you nothing. If you have profession without obedience then you lack the witness of the Holy Spirit within you. If you believe in Jesus, the Son of God, you are given eternal life!! If you continue to believe in Jesus Christ, you continue to walk in the space of eternal life and to do the things that lead to eternal life.

1 John 3:18  My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

Nothing happens by profession alone. Our obedience to the commands of Jesus must accompany our profession of faith.There are only two commandments and they are not grievous: 1. we are to love God and worship him in spirit and in truth which is faith and obedience, and 2. to love our fellow man in deeds and in truth which is faith and sacrifice. We can do nothing without Jesus. We must abide in Him. He will abide in us, also. We live by Him and He lives in us.

I think the space that God gave me to experience was the rest that He speaks about in Hebrews:

Hebrews 4:10  For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.

Which is precisely what I experienced. When I walked into that space, I was no longer striving with my own works but began immediately to be concerned with God. Such a burden lifted off of me when I no longer worried or strove to improve myself, but simply began to live and be alive in Christ -- in the Father.

John 14:23  Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.


John 14:26  But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.


John 15:10  If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.

John 15:15  Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

John 15:16  Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

Joh 16:27  For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.

Eph 3:14  For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

Amen!!

--Marcia

Related Posts : a, for, god, of, people, remains, rest, the, there