Bedrock and the Living Stones

I decided to try something different in my blog post today.  If you would like to listen to it instead of read it, there is an attachment for you to use.

I am pondering the scripture in Matthew 16 where Peter and Jesus are talking, and Jesus asked the disciples, "who do you say that I am." Peter says, "You are the Christ, the son of the living God." Then Jesus tells him that this statement is the foundation He will build His church upon. Jesus responded, “Simon son of Jonah, you are blessed because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the forces of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven...
I looked at this scripture on Bible Gateway in the  Holman version , it can be noted that below the scripture shows some interesting definitions for Peter and for Rock.  Peter is a rock, but the rock is noted as Bedrock.

Reflect on the fact that Christ is the ROCK, the cornerstone. He is the stone the builders rejected, but He ended up being the perfect fit for the temple.  And we are His living stones, and He is using us to build his church.

I was thinking:  The cornerstone didn't require any carving or chipping away in order to fit.  But the rest of the stones had to be chipped away in order to fit into the building.  Isn't that just like us?  Christ is the only one that is perfect.  He came perfectly packaged. but for the rest of us, through the course of our lives, we have to be chipped away in order to fit into the building that Christ is building.

Food for thought.

Footnotes:  In ancient times the cornerstone was the stone at the corner of two walls that united them. It was the visible corner of the foundation of the building and the starting point of all future building above the foundation. It was the most costly stone because of its beauty and strength. It was also the largest, most solid and carefully constructed stone.

Verses about the cornerstone

What does it mean that Jesus Christ is the cornerstone?

See historical explanation in the 4th paragraph.

Learning the Art of Caring for the Temple

 

When a toddler is learning to walk, a good mom never spanks the child for falling. For every fall is teaching the toddler balance and building strength.   Just remember that this life isn't about getting things perfect. It is a marathon of learning and relying on God.   It is all about a relationship with Him through His Spirit by what His Son did on the cross   

Brothers and Sisters who are dearly loved by God, you have a divine purpose. 

Each of us need to care for the temple as an act of worship to our king. Not to worship our body or have others worship it, but as an act of worship.  Just as if Jesus were coming to your house for a visit, you would care for it because "COMPNY is COMIN'"  (hopefully you can read that with a southern accent -- misspelled on purpose)

We are more than conquerors.  We are children dearly loved by our Father and He has chosen us for a divine purpose.  We are called to bring Him much glory in this world.  The greatest privilege is to live a life that so reflects His image that we are practically transparent (see through) so that the world sees Jesus.  Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.  So let’s take care of the housekeeping and do it not for self but unto the Lord. 

When reaching for food out of habit or just because it is time, stop and think.  Grab you a glass or bottle of water.  Drink it all!  Now are you still hungry?  If so, eat a reasonable amount.  

Stay as close to the original food as possible.  The more processed a food is, the less it will truly satisfy the nutritional needs your body has.  When we look out at 3^rd world nations, we see malnutrition.  But if we truly understood what that means, we would see it here in this country as well.  When we strip the nutritional value from a food to extend its shelf life, we have eliminated its purpose for eating it.  Americans are overweight but malnourished.  The reason many overeat is that the body communicates to the brain what it needs through cravings.  But if those cravings are misread then we eat the wrong foods.  Our body may crave magnesium.  (most women crave this in the form of chocolate)  You can appease this by supplements or eating foods high in magnesium.  Even chocolate is not the problem.  But if I eat something else instead that has a long shelf life and that is manufactured until the magnesium is not even hardly a trace in the item I choose to eat; then I have consumed a high calorie item without meeting my nutritional need.  This means the craving for the magnesium was never met, the deficiency is still there and I will continue consuming or desiring to consume until the deficit is met.   Simple as that.  

Most isles in the center of the grocery store is all processed foods.  If you will start purchasing MOST of your groceries in the perimeter of the store, you will start to find that you will wean yourself off the bulk of your processed foods.  Does that mean you can never have another bowl of Mac N Cheese?  No,  It means that processed foods need to be reduced, and whole foods need to become more of a mainstream of your diet.   The main reason Americans over eat in my opinion is that they are starving themselves of nutrition, and the body is trying to preserve itself by sending signals to EAT!   But if we keep making choices that are of no value to the body, what’s a body to do?  The body is going to keep sending the signal of "I’M HUNGRY!!!!"

 

Regarding exercise, cardio at least 3/4 days per week for at least 20-30 minutes.  My preference is to do intervals of high intensity for 1/2 the time you recover.  (meaning jog for 1 minute, sprint 30 seconds, jog 1 minute continue)  Add weights to your week several times per week.  Park farther away from the entrance to make yourself walk farther, if you are in good health.  Take stairs when possible.  If you are sitting for long periods of time, get up and take a walk break.  Be a body in motion.   look for ways to be a BODY IN MOTION.  

Stay off the diet drinks.  They can have a reverse effect on your body and actually make you gain or make it harder to lose weight.  The artificial sweetener in them is known to cause migraines.  (among other possible negative side effects) 

Drink water throughout the day! 

Find an activity you enjoy.  Get you a hoola-hoop.  Jump rope.  Get a  small mini trampoline and just bounce on it.  Find something you love to do and get started doing it.

May God inspire you to endure as you take care of His temple, your body.  For I know, brothers and sisters who are loved by God, God has chosen you.  I also know that He will equip you and I pray that you will not grow weary in this endeavor.  Be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Have a great week!!!!!!!

Be blessed today. Remember GOD has chosen YOU. 

Simplicity of the Gospel

Gospel Simplified!?!?

According to the scripture, I am in right standing with God because I believe Him and accept what He says.  He is the creator, He made the rules, and He knows how His creation operates.  So if I believe Him, then I will obey Him by following His commands.  When I  follow His commands, I will be purified.  As I obey, I grow up, I mature in my spirit, and I love other believers; so that by that love, the world will know that I follow Christ.  As the body, we are joined together to become a place for the Lord to dwell in His Holy Temple.  This is true individually also.  We are able to go to war against the enemy of our soul.  We can even take our own thoughts captive and make those thoughts line up with what Christ says in the word.  We dress ourselves up in Christ with the full armor for our battle against the evil in this world, and we put on our shoes of peace so we can GO into the world that sees who we belong to by our love for each other, and draw them out of darkness(world) into the light(love/peace).  We then teach and immerse them in all that God is.  We teach them the commands and encourage them to obey them.  Then as they grow up in their faith, they will GO and draw others out of darkness to light and so on and so on….

See all the scriptures referenced below.

Belief >> Righteousness:  God decided to accept Abraham's belief as his righteousness. (Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Gen 15:6; Gal 3:6)

Belief >>  Salvation:  God decided even though we don't deserve it, to save us because we believe.  (We are saved by grace through faith. Eph 2:8)

• How can I let the word dwell in me?  By reading it. By obeying it, and obeying it is doing what it says. (Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. Col 3:16a; Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.  Do what it says. Jas 1:22 If you Love me, you will obey me.  Jn 14:15)

Obedience >> Purification: We are able to be purified when we obey the truth/word.  Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere...

When we obey the truth we will love one another.  ... Love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart...   We get rid of all the things that can hinder our purification.  Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.   And we are to grow up in our salvation.  Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.  1Peter 1:22-23; 2:1-2

The world will be able to see we belong to Christ by our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.  Jn 13:35

Christ is like the mortar that holds all the living stones together in a bond of unity.  In him, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.  And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.  Eph 2:21-22

Remember that the weapons are spiritual.  We are able to conquer our thoughts that pretend to be bigger than God by making our thoughts line up with the what Christ says.  We need to make our thoughts obey Christ.  For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.  On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.  We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.  2 Cor 10:3-5

Scripture tells us to put on love, put on Christ and put on armor of God etc. If we just deal with getting rid of our sinful behavior, yet do not take the time to put on all we are commanded, we will stand naked before our enemy and be very vulnerable. Therefore put on the full armor of God... with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.  In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.  Eph 6:13-17

As our feet are fitted and ready, we go to the world with our good news not just on our lips, but also demonstrated in our actions.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you... Matt 28:19-20

Step to Fitness and Overall Wellbeing

There are ways to measure your food intake & activity level.  You can journal it, what you do, how long you do it & how much you eat.  You can do it the old fashioned way by writing it on a piece of paper.  For the more tech savvy among you, you can log it all in on My Fitness Pal or a variety of other apps.  This is the one that I use and I have found it to be easy and great for accountability with friends.  It also interacts with other apps.


When tracking your activity, you can log your workouts but also I am motivated to talk today about keeping track of your steps.  You can do this with an inexpensive Pedometer or treat yourself to something a little more high tech like Fitbit.
Marc and I celebrated our 19th anniversary with one of the Fitbits each.  These are simply wrist bands that you wear and it keeps up with your steps, your activity level, even your quality of sleep.  The great thing about it is it relates my calories burned into Myfitnesspal app.
Regardless how you track the information, the rule of thumb is this, calories in versus calories out.  You consume calories as potential energy to use. It would be great if the ole saying applied here "if you don't use it, you lose it".  However, that is not the case.  Regarding calories, if you don't use it -- you store it for later!
My suggestion is the following:
Whether you want to just stay healthy or if your goal is to lose some of that "Stored for later" calories, try to get in 10,000 steps per day.
If you want to use up those "stored for later" calories, set your goal weight.  If you are within 10-20 pounds of that goal, take the goal number and add a zero to the end.  Let that be your estimated number of calories for the day.  
Based on calories burned vs. calories consumed, try to create a 500 calorie deficit each day which will equate to you losing 1 pound per week. Double that and you double the loss, but no more than 2 pounds per week. OK, this means, burn more calories than you take in.  (ex. if I weigh 150 and my goal is 130 then I would either consume 1300 calories per day if I just want to lose weight by controlling my calories.  If I want to effect it by activity, I would want to increase my activity to use more calories than I consume.  Meaning I can eat more than mentioned above, but I would still need to create that same deficit.)  for more information Calories Burned at Rest: How many Calories do I Burn doing Nothing








And for those Christians that read my blog, remember that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit.  Just as the priest took care of the temple, we too are to take care of the dwelling place of the Spirit of God.

Is Weight Loss a Spiritual Act of Worship?

I am a personal trainer and fitness instructor by trade.  I know if you have been walking with God for long, you ponder your purpose in your career.  You may as I do, wonder how to do what you do unto the Lord.  I believe we are called to take care of our bodies.  We are to "tend to" the temple of the Holy Spirit.  If our body is the place where the God of the universe has chosen to place His Spirit by the death of His Son, I believe we are to take care of the temple just as the priest of the Old Testament were charged with the care and keeping of the ACTUAL building.

We do not need to worship our bodies, nor be spending countless hours measuring, weighing and counting calories.  Instead we need to have a change in perspective.  We need to change the way we look at food.  We have to make a LIFESTYLE change NOT go on another diet.  Diets work temporarily!  The reason they do not work long term is that when you loose the weight, we return to the way we ate before.  But that is the thing that got us into the shape we were in before.  So not only do we gain our pounds back, but they typically bring friends and we gain even more.

We also need to put exercise into our lives.  This is not for the purpose of weight loss but for overall wellness.  We need to be a BODY IN MOTION!!!  If we can get at least 15 minutes per day of cardio where we get our heart rates up, that is a great starting place.  Increase the 15 minutes to more over time. We need to exercise for our heart, for our joints, for our muscles and for overall wellness.  We need to do it so we can be stronger and able to accomplish more with the time we have been given, and so the Lord's instrument is working at its optimum level for His sake.  Work OUT Guideline for Cardio from my blog  This is not saying that if you have a disability or health issues that God cannot use you.  I am just saying we need to take care of what we have.  God can use anyone who is available and surrendered to Him.

We also need to spend time to nourish our spirit.  We need a quiet time where we meet with Jesus.  We need to read The Word, pray and sit quietly in fellowship with Him by His Spirit.  I believe that in our emptiness we long to be satisfied by Him, and when we are not spending the intentional time with Him, we get famished.  Out of our starvation for God, we begin to fill it with anything else we can find.  Some may fill it with food, another with alcohol and even another may exercise to excess or work too much.  There are many ways to try to fill up our emptiness.  But it never really satisfies us, and we are left with the consequences of the excess (like over weight, alcoholism, repetitive use injuries, or estranged relationships.)

So as you read this today and you say yep that struck a nerve, then maybe today you can take one step to make a change today.  I do not recommend doing all three at one time, but I do suggest you take one today.

Have a blessed day and serve the Lord today by taking care of His precious dwelling place which is YOU!

Devotion from James Robison

I wanted to share a devotion I read this morning.  I was going to summarize, but as I tried to do so, I found that there was NO way I could.  it was all so good and profound.  Hope you have the time today to read and chew on this one.  I believe it goes along wonderfully with so much that I talk about in this blog.  Both in the physical realm and the spiritual realm.



Your Body, His Temple


by James Robison



"For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:

'I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be

their God, and they will be my people.'" (2 Corinthians 6:16)



Whenever Christians talk about health and wellness, we invariably quote 1 Corinthians 6:19, “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.” The implied message is, “Take care of your health, because God lives in you!”



That’s a valid message, but when we really examine the text of Paul’s letter, we discover something more foundational to the topic of health. In fact, until we truly understand and implement this particular Biblical principle, we will not be able to consistently practice the practical and beneficial advice presented in the new series, “The True You.” Once this deeper truth enters your spirit, you will be able to align your mind so that you can bring your body under control.



The context of the passage actually encompasses a discussion about marriage. Paul is drawing a parallel between the husband-wife relationship and our devotion to Jesus Christ.



“Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ?” he asks. Then he shocks his readers with a blunt question. “Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute?”



By now, Paul has the attention of his audience. Unfortunately, his question is just as relevant to today’s reader as it was back then! “Never!” he continues, “And don’t you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, ‘The two are united into one.’ But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.”



Here, Paul takes his discussion to a spiritual level. He’s talking about sexual purity, but he’s also elevating it to spiritual purity. He also echoes the prophet Jeremiah, who said to Israel, “Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you...you said, 'I will not serve you!' Indeed, on every high hill and under every spreading tree you lay down as a prostitute.”1



Again, God’s messenger uses the image of prostitution to illustrate the unfaithfulness of His people. Paul and Jeremiah are not only condemning sexual immorality, but also spiritual immorality. It is in this context that the letter to the Corinthians continues:



“Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.” Then Paul asks that question that we often associate with health and wellness. “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.”2



This is an issue much bigger than weight loss or physical training. The temple was the place where God’s presence dwelled. He didn’t call our bodies the “hotel of the Holy Spirit,” where He checks in after 3:00pm and checks out before noon the next day. He called it the temple – that holy place where God’s presence resides permanently. It’s the place where God manifests and reveals Himself to a lost and dying people. In a world where nearly everyone is under the control of other influences, the temple is the place where God is fully in control – your spirit and the indwelling Holy Spirit are united as one.



That is why it is so revolting and foul when believers fall under the control of anything else other than the Spirit of God. Like the faithful husband who flees the voice of a temptress, the faithful Christian must flee the seduction of any spirit other than God’s. We must never be under the control of any fleshly appetite, because we are a temple of the Holy Spirit! Remember, the enemy seeks to use our God-given natural appetites as a point of attack in order to lead us into bondage.



One of the most common invading forces in His temple is the simple lust for food. Imagine how different our lives could be if we hungered for God as much as we hunger for our next meal! I believe this is one reason God introduced the concept of fasting. When we deny our body to build our spirit, it changes our perspective and realigns our priorities. Remember the manna from heaven that God provided His people in the desert? It spoiled during the night. They had to rely on God every single day in order to sustain their strength and energy.



This is a recurring, foundational truth throughout the Bible. We must be one with God through daily unity with Him. There is no such thing as part-time marriage or part-time Christianity. If you’re not fully committed, you’re not really in a healthy relationship. You can’t bring prostitutes into a legitimate marriage and you can’t bring other gods into the temple.



So as you hear the wonderful truths and encouraging advice from our experts on health and wellness, you must first examine the spiritual side of “the true you” before you can successfully address the physical side. God wants us to prosper in our physical health as we prosper in our spiritual health. We can and should care for this temporary housing we call a “body,” but we must first start by giving our all to care for His eternal purposes and truth. As your concerned family and friend, we are offering you inspiration, direction and encouragement for your journey and care of your body - His temple.


This Week

Look to the new year as a new emphasis on the Holy Spirit's presense in your life. Commit yourself -- body, mind and spirit -- to being His temple.


Prayer

"Lord, I give myself wholly to You. Take charge of every part of me so that I may glorify You in every way. In Jesus name, amen."


1 Jeremiah 2:19-20, NIV

2 1 Corinthians 6:15-20, NIV