Wide path or narrow path to losing weight

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. — Matthew 7:13–14

I could not help but smile when I read this verse. The majority of Americans choose the wide and broad gate on the road to their health choices. I know that most of us have a goal to lose a few pounds. The problem is that we want to choose the easy way to lose weight. The way that does not involve any sufferings or pain.

But the small gate will lead to abundant life. Let our prayer be to embrace the narrow way...in every area of our life. 

Is food controlling you?

““I am allowed to do anything,” you say. My answer to this is that not all things are good. Even if it is true that “I am allowed to do anything,” I will not let anything control me like a slave.”
1 Corinthians 6:12 ERV

Ouch! Is food controlling your body like a slave? I suspect it is if you are like most Americans. This was predicted in the Bible as a sign of the end times.

“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—”
2 Timothy 3:1-4 NIV

I don't want to be a lover of myself and allow food to make me happy.
if if you haven't already set a few goals, take time this weekend and tie your health goals together with your spritual goals.

Diet Tips

“The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.”
1 Corinthians 10:13 NLT

What a great promise to us when we try lose weight or begin an exercise program. When we attempt to eat healthy because we are strong or disciplined, it only lasts for a period of time. Then temptation strikes and we eat a trigger food and fall back into old old ways.

But if we rely on the Lord and hold his hand throughout the day, he will show us a way to escape the temptation. The secret is to rely on him and trust his promise to show us a way to escape. God is faithful. He wants us to live in victory. He cares what we eat. He gave us our bodies in the first place!

Praying for each of you to walk close to him today and experience his grace and mercy.

Success in Losing Weight

“So, my brothers and sisters, we must not be ruled by our sinful selves. We must not live the way our sinful selves want. If you use your lives to do what your sinful selves want, you will die spiritually. But if you use the Spirit’s help to stop doing the wrong things you do with your body, you will have true life.”
Romans 8:12-13 ERV

I don't know about you, but yesterday I compared every bit of food to "red stew." Read previous post. When I was tempted to make an unhealthy food choice, I compared it to giving up my birthright. I had to decide if giving up my birthright was worth that delicious snack(and we had a lot of delicious snacks at our faculty meeting yesterday). None seemed more important than keeping my eyes on being at a healthy weight.

I love what it says in Romans. "If you use the Spirit's help to stop doing the wrong things you do, you will have true life." I really want true life! I don't want to settle for an overweight, out of shape, sit on the couch and watch tv every night life.

At age 60, my family can tell you that I have lost and gained weight so many times. However, for the past three years I have kept off the weight and exercised! What is making the difference? I am seeing that the answers are in God's word and not a diet plan. A diet plan can come after reading God's word. But my success can't come from a human plan. The success can't be a once and for all magic formula. It will be from a consistent searching and seeking of the Lord.

I want wide open spacious!

“Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!”
2 Corinthians 6:11-13 MSG

This is what I feel like when I am walking in obedience...living expansively and openly. When we let everything be about us and always want to be "comfortable" and eat what WE want because we feel IIke it, we feel small and fenced in. Because when we eat a bowlful of chips or bag of cookies or three slices of pizza, we will have put ourselves in the small, cramped space.

A spacious life comes when we are willing to deny ourselves certain things for our own good. There is no wrong food. We all realize that. But for our own good, there are healthier choices. Taking the healthy choice is a means to enter a wide-open, spacious life. For me, today doesn't need to include 3 spoonfuls of peanut butter:).

Power comes from the Lord

““Joseph is like a wild donkey, like a young donkey by a spring, like colts grazing in a pasture. People attacked him and made life hard for him. Men with arrows became his enemies. But he won the fight with his mighty bow and his skillful arms. He gets power from the Mighty One of Jacob, from the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel,”
Genesis 49:22-24 ERV

i am mesmerized by the book of Genesis. I start every year off by reading through the Bible. I am always a little sad when I reach the end of Joseph's life in chapter 50.

We can learn a lot from Joseph's life. It says, "people attacked him and made life hard for him." His life was REALLY hard. Reread Genesis if you need a reminder. But he "gets his power from the Mighty One." It's okay if we whine a little and say that life is hard. Job spent 40 chapters whining about his life and he gets a book in the Bible wriiten about his life:):):).

But don't miss the key...Joseph drew his strength from the Lord, from the Shepherd, from the Rock. We would do well to follow that example in our lives today.

Lose some stuff before you lose weight

Steven Furtick: "There’s always a tradeoff. Before God can bring his promises to pass in your life, he has to strip away all the stuff that keeps you from trusting him wholeheartedly. And that stuff is on the inside. God’s invisible work in you prepares you for his visible works through you."

What does God need to strip away on the inside of my life? I worry a lot about the outside appearance. But the outside won't change until I allow God to work on the inside. The enemy wants us to only focus appearance, doesn't he? If I want to lose some weight, there is some inside stuff that I need to lose first.