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Past Thought for the week messages Power to Succeed
Past Thought for the week messages Power to Succeed | Power to Succeed |
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This morning we had a visit from the Electricity Board, needing to change our meter. The electrician informed us that he would need to cut the power for just 20 minutes, for which I could see no problem at all. I had been busy working at my computer, which I obviously had to close down (the battery is near useless!) So what to do? I glanced up at the pile of ironing on a chair and was about to get the iron out when I realised that to do that job I needed electricity. Undeterred I decided to make a couple of phone calls but, alas, that too worked from an electricity-powered unit. ‘Perhaps I’ll make a cup of coffee,’ I thought, and then smiled as I mentally crossed that off my list of possibilities as well. ‘How on earth did our ancestors manage?’ I mused. And that got me thinking….. Some of you reading this will have been aware that in recent days Fit For Life Forever has drawn attention form the secular press. There was an article in the Daily Mail last week (‘Good Lord! Now it’s the Jesus diet’) and any day now there should be a follow-up article in The Times. BBC Radio Derby will also be interviewing me in the New Year. One question all secular sources ask me is, ‘Do you have to be a Christian in order to do the course?’ I point out that an openness to spiritual things is a decided advantage but that the principles of listening to our bodies’ hunger and satisfaction signals are advocated by both Christian and secular promoters of healthy eating. I also point out that diagnostically anyone could use the material to help them discover what their own root issues are regarding a disordered relationship with food and eating. But is that enough? It is one thing to discover what sort of things are eating you – maybe unresolved pain or low self-esteem or stress – but then, what can you do about it? Diets and slimming clubs don’t really address such matters but one thing is sure, we all seem to need a power outside of ourselves if we are to succeed. In my own experience it was when I came to realise that I couldn’t achieve the weight loss on my own and turned my appetite and my whole relationship with food over to God, that I finally began to make some headway. It was the power of the Holy Spirit that made the difference! The Holy Spirit isn’t an ‘it’ some kind of mystical force akin to that encountered in Star Wars and similar Hollywood movies. Neither is He a merely subjective reality on par with other New Age deities or an unidentified Higher Power. No, He is the Third person of the Trinity; the very presence of God impacting our lives for good when we yield ourselves totally to His control. One day I finally reached an end of my own efforts to permanently lose weight and recognised my need for God to show me a higher way. I recognised that my body was a temple of the Holy Spirit, that I belonged to Him and that if I submitted myself to His control, humbly acknowledging the futility of trying to do this on my own then He would empower me to succeed where everything else had failed. Just as today I recognised my dependence on electricity power to run my life efficiently, so too I constantly need to recognise my dependency on God to empower my life: to keep me from falling into temptation; to help me live above the stresses and strains of daily life; to enable me to move on from the pain of past experiences and to eat in harmony with my body’s needs. ‘Without Him I can do nothing.’ (John 15:5) I think the record shows that very few people manage to lose weight permanently through dieting. But what is impossible to men is possible to God! Why not take a look now at the statistical results of a recent survey and the testimonies of many others (found on the testimony page of the website) and see for yourself. And then, taste and see that the Lord is good!! He truly is the Rewarder of all those who diligently seek Him. |
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